Using group work activities to enhance student’s participation in speaking classes

Journal of Science and Technology, Vol.37, 2019 USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES TRAN KIEU MY AN1, LE THỊ TUYET PHUONG2 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City; trankieumyan@gmail.com, 2tuyetphuongle0304@gmail.com Abstract: Speaking English well is considered the final goal of any language learners It becomes more and more crucial for those whose majors are English However, it is true that some students show low participation in speaking classes and were scared of speaking in the class Therefore, this study aims to find out factors affecting students’ participation and to what extent the use of group work help to motivate students’ participation in speaking lessons In this research, questionnaire and class observation were used to gather data The objects were 105 first year English-majored students at Industry University of Ho Chi Minh city Analyzing the data from the study, the researcher found that there were lots of factors affecting students’ participation such as lack of language skills, student traits, teaching methods, teacher’s personality, and classroom environment and so on More importantly, the results also show that group work activities had such positive effects on students’ participation that it could motivate them to speak in speaking classes Finally, the researcher hopes this study would be useful for both teachers and students in teaching and learning a foreign language, especially the English language Key words students, group work activities, speaking INTRODUCTION There is no denying the fact that English is spoken worldwide and can be seen as the official language in most of such areas as trade, economy, politics, education, etc In Vietnam, English is considered as a compulsory subject in the educational system because of its importance, which helps to improve the international language soon The capability of the successful communication is one of the prime purposes in teaching and learning a foreign language, particularly in the economic integration period As Davies and Pearse (1998) suggests that the major goal of all English language teaching should be to give learners the ability to communicate in English effectively and accurately It is apparent that the successful oral communication in English brings students much more opportunities to gain the study abroad scholarships or to get a well-paid job after university graduation or to work overseas, etc However, it is true that students still feel very nervous when speaking English in public They are often very passive when being asked to speak in English classes to avoid bad marks and embarrassment The reason for their shyness could be the fact that the entrance exam to the university was conducted under the written form, thus students paid too much attention to grammar and writing at high school which results in the poor speaking skills Furthermore, teachers are relatively dominant in acting as an expert to impart the knowledge while the amount of time for students to use English to interact with teachers and their peers becomes insufficient Thus, what teachers should is to create the favorable environment which can motivate students’ participation in speaking lessons The research is to find out factors affecting students’ participation with the hope that teachers as well as students can see these challenges and try to overcome them to perfect students’ speaking skill On the other hand, students’ opinions towards group work activities in speaking lessons are also explored Finally, the results will be shown after analyzing the collected data from participants so that the writer can partly prove whether using group work helps motivate students in speaking classes or not © 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES 123 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definitions of Group work Doff (1988: 137) explains group work as a process in which “the teacher divides the class into small groups to work together, usually four or five students in each group, as in pair work, all the groups work at the same time.” Likewise, Killen (2009) also defines that “group work occurs when you ask two or more students to work together.” But there must be more than two students, because only two people will be called “pair work.” Furthermore, Richards states that “group work is a necessary activity because the interactions in the group work activities produced during the process are different from which in the teacher – centered lessons both in quality and quantity When working in group, students share their goals and responsibilities, they will be more independent with all their own learning decision but not need the help of teacher or teacher’s controlling” (1983, p.189) Group work which can be defined as a goal direct activity with small groups of people who have similar socio-emotional needs and accomplishing tasks (Toseland and Rivas, 1984) Working in group, more ideas might help to solve the problem rather than one In short, group work can be seen as a form in which more than two people work together, gaining the interactions among each other To have the successful group work, there must be a cooperation from all members, working towards the common goal, besides individual task assigned 2.2 Advantages of group work activities The fact that working in groups brings a lot of benefits to students is strongly agreed by almost experts Harmer (2001) points out four effects of implementing group work in the lesson Firstly, students will have more opportunities to talk in the class Secondly, group work helps students collect different ideas and varied contributions They can listen to the other members because group building needs more than two people Thirdly, students can practice negotiation and cooperation skills Group work environment provides students with great opportunities to work as a team and practice negotiating with each other to reach an agreeable solution Chen & Wang also agree that “Cooperative learning helped to improve their social relationships, both in cooperation with group members and contribution to others” (2013, p.1262) Finally, it allows students to develop their leaner autonomy because group work is a form of working without the teacher’s control Therefore, students feel free to discuss and make their own decisions Besides Harmer, another five advantages are mentioned in Long & Porter’s study (1985) These are: Group work increases language practice opportunities (p.105); Group work can improve the quality of student talk” (p.106); Group work helps individualize instruction” (p.108); Group work can promote a positive affective climate” (p.110); Group work motivates learners” (p.111) In summary, group work helps learners, but also the teacher in teaching progress It helps teacher save a lot of time during the lesson Instead of asking each student in turn, the teacher can divide them into small groups and design activities for them to complete By doing this way does the teacher observe the whole class and give the general feedback at the end Therefore, it can’t be denied that group work brings a variety of benefits to both teachers and students 2.3 Factors affecting learner’s participation  Lack of language skills Tatar (2005) reveals that lack of language skills is one of the reasons that makes students keep silent in the class Language skills may be grammar accuracy, poor pronunciation, poor listening skills, inadequate vocabulary, etc In addition, Ahmad & Mustafa (2016) say “Vocabulary holds an important position in forming utterances The limited knowledge of vocabulary makes the learners unable to participate or continue in oral performance” (p.23-24) © 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City 124 USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES  Student traits Each student has their own characteristics Their participations in the class are partly affected by their personalities such as unconfident, fear of mistakes, nervous and anxious, being shy, etc Weaver & Qi (2005) suggest that confidence is of great importance because it affects directly the students’ participation Nunan (1999) also says “students who lack of confidence about themselves and their English necessarily suffer from communication apprehension”, so when they are not confident, they will show low participation in the class Additionally, fear of mistakes can be seen as the major problem encountered by many leaners Saying something incorrectly makes students feel ashamed in front of many other students, so they prefer not to participate to avoid mistakes  Classroom size Large classrooms tend to make students feel ashamed and have less opportunities for them to talk Auster & MacRone (1994) reveal that learners will show low participation when there are over 40 students in the class Weaver &Qi (2005) also agree that the time will be limited for discussion in the class with over 40 students Obviously, there are not so many students who are confident to express themselves in the larger classroom Therefore, teacher should design some warm up activities to let them make friends with each other or to forget the anxiety so that they raise the participation afterwards  The topic of the materials Peacock (1998) suggests that the topic of the materials is one of the factors affecting students’ participation He says that student need to be given interesting topics so that they feel excited in discussion Once students feel upset with the materials which may be too easy or difficult, they will show their distraction in the lesson The topic should be interesting enough, appropriate to students’ levels in order to motivate students to engage in Therefore, the teachers should design the materials neither too easy nor too difficult so that they feel less stressful in discussion  Teacher’s personality The teachers’ characteristics are vitally important to students’ participation Each teacher has different personalities and different ways to perform In some cases, they react oppositely to their real personality, which make students fail to engage in activities Here are some characteristics that the teacher should have, supported by Barry (1993): Being natural: the teacher should behave with students as the way they Don’t create the gap or the class distinction Being warm: teachers should be warm so that students feel less stressful to express their ideas Being pleasant: students will get closer to the teachers if they are pleasant controllers Being tolerant: teachers have tolerant attitude so that students feel free to participate in the class or don’t be ashamed when making mistakes Besides that, teacher should be enthusiastic, friendly or helpful, well-organized in order to increase student’s participation  The Teaching methods According to Elvis (2013), there are types of teaching methods The first one is teacher-centered method He says that “under this method, students simply obtain information from the teacher without building their engagement level with the subject being taught” (p.30) Therefore, “both interest and understanding of students may get lost” (p.30) Teacher in this case acts as a controller of the class, so students’ roles are overshadowed by their teachers Second is student-centered method Recently, teachers have applied this strategy to promote students’ interest and participation because students will feel free to create and obtain knowledge by themselves with the control of teachers Finally, teacher-student interactive method is also very popular The interactions between teachers and students help teachers gain the classroom effectiveness and students acquire knowledge better © 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES 125  Classroom environment Another factor that motivates students to participate in the class is the classroom environment Students cannot keep silent during the lesson when everyone around them discusses the given task Moreover, some students are affected by their peers’ traits Siti Maziha, Nik Suryani & Melor (2010) reveal that classmates’ characteristics play a major role in providing students with encouragement to engage in classroom activities A motivational effect is shown by open-minded students for the others to actively participate in the class, according to Cardanus & Martine (2004) Additionally, “a classroom is equipped with proper light, fans or air conditioning and other basic facilities make students feel comfortable and encourage them to participate in the learning activities” (p.518), added by Mohd & Noor, Maizatul (2012) 2.4 Review of previous studies There were a lot of studies investigating the effects of group work activities on students’ participation in speaking classes For instance, a study conducted by Chen & Wang (2013) at Higher College English Teaching showed that group work activities affected much on students’ participation Particularly, it helped to reduce pressure and create a less-stressful environment in which students felt free to speak English Besides, the students were more satisfied with group work activities rather than the traditional approach, the former motivating them to speak more in class Confidence, good learning performance and social relationships were what students could benefit through group work activities In addition, Salmi (2012) carried out a study at Mohamed Kheider University of Briska with the population of 387 third-year students of the English Department The result showed that cooperative group work was one of the suitable and the best techniques that should be applied in every speaking lesson to enhance students’ oral participation and language use The author also pointed out the importance of group work activities which could create a comfortable environment in which students could speak English without anxiety and shyness Moreover, students were motivated to speak without hesitation if teachers used them appropriately in the class At the end, the thesis also encouraged teachers to apply group work more in the class to improve students’ speaking skill Another research was conducted by Syamsuddin (2000) with 60 first-year students at Program Pascasarjana All the students were at the same level The author used the pre-test and post-test to investigate the effects of group work activities in the class There was a significant difference between the two tests The score of the post-test was 7.05 while the pre-test just got 4.20 The result proved that the students showed a great excitement towards group work activities which helped to improve their speaking skills Therefore, the application of group work was very successful because it affected much on students’ participation and their performance as well Finally, the author also encouraged teachers to apply group work more in speaking lessons Finally, Soraya (2010) conducted a study at Constantine University with 40 third-year students He used two questionnaires, one for students and the other for teachers, aiming to investigate the effects of group work activities towards students’ oral proficiency After doing the research, he affirmed that group work was one of the effective techniques to improve students’ language use The students were highly motivated to participate in the lessons when their teacher used group work activities He also pointed out a number of reasons for the inability to speak Finally, he encouraged teachers to apply group work appropriately to create the context in which students could interact with each other in target language Overall, this thesis was useful not only for learners but also for teachers so teachers should take into consideration the advantages of group work to use it in teaching process in order to enhance students’ speaking skills In summary, all previous researches had firmly asserted the importance of group work activities Although each explored different aspects of group work, most of authors agreed that group work activities affected much on students’ participation and their speaking skills as well They found that group work helped to reduce stress and anxiety, and to create the environment in which students felt free to speak Therefore, students felt more excited to speak when teachers used group work in speaking classes © 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City 126 USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES SCOPE AND PROCEDURE OF RESEARCH 3.1 Research methodology The study done for and reported in this paper is the combination of qualitative and quantitative research with both questionnaire and class observation applied to collect data The questionnaire concentrates mainly on closed-ended questions to get many different opinions from English majored students at Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh city There are 12 closed-ended questions and one openended question for each part aiming to find out students’ opinions about factors affecting students’ participation, about group work activities and more importantly the effects of the use of group work activities to motivate students’ participation in learning speaking The items in the questionnaire are ranked according to the satisfaction level in which = strongly agree (SA), = agree (A), = neutral (N), = disagree (D), and = strongly disagree (SD) Together with the questionnaire, the class observation is applied to see what was going on in the class, to explore the interactions between the teacher and his/her students and to recognize the effects of the group work activities The main purpose of this observation is to compare the results between the questionnaire and what the researcher had seen in the class and to examine whether or not students’ reactions are matched with their opinions This method is very useful since the researcher can sit in the class and have a direct access to all the student subjects in a real context 3.2 Procedure The data collection is supported by the 105 first year English majored students at Foreign Faculty of IUH for the questionnaire responses and speaking classes for the observation Each class will be observed 45 minutes so that the researcher could see whether or not what students performed in the class is matched with their perspectives on questionnaires 3.3 Data analysis After collecting the questionnaire responses from students, the researcher starts to analyze the data In this method, the researcher must count the number of the students choosing options according to requirements in the questionnaire These statistics then will be converted into percentages After that, the researcher uses the chart or table based on these numbers to analyze the data The final stage is to generate discussions from these findings With the observation sheet, the researcher also adds scores of all items in the sheet, then converting into percentages These figures will be the final results which are compared with the results of the questionnaires to see the effects The researcher will base on the following features to assess the lesson: - Involvement: the act of students to take part in the lesson; - Concentration: the process that students make all efforts to the lesson, without thinking of others; - Enjoyment: if the lesson gives students pleasure or not; - Persistent attention: determined to take part in and discuss the lesson despite some difficulties; - Level activity: the rank of activity, hard or easy or neutral RESULT OF RESEARCH 4.1 Students’ opinions about factors affecting their participation According to the response from the questionnaire, there were a lot of factors affecting students’ participation in speaking class The first factor was lacking of language skills The data implies that 49.5% of students agreed and nearly 26% students strongly agreed that lacking of language skills affected their participation in speaking class However, of all students, 19.1% remained neutral From those statistics, we had seen that most of students encountered lots of language skills (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation) which could low their participation in learning English generally and in speaking class specifically The second given factor was student traits It could be seen that 39.1% of students were in agreement with student traits as the factor affecting students’ participation The second highest belonged to the category “strongly agree” with 36.2% Through which, we would say that student traits would be one of © 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES 127 the decisive factors in students’ participation because each student showed their own characteristics Those who were confident would be excited to speak in class, but those who were less confident not The third factor was classroom size: 45.5% of the students agreed that their participation still depended on the classroom size, which almost doubled the percentage of the respondents choosing “disagreement”, at 23.8% As far “the topic of the materials” is concerned, the proportion of the participants shows the agreement opinion accounted for 68% of the whole group, which is about three times higher than that of the participants in the “neutral” category By contrast, 3.8% of the students disagreed and a mere 1% of them strongly disagreed that their participation would be affected by the topic of the materials Probably, if the topic was too easy, they would get bored However, if the topic was too difficult, students would have nothing to say or even not understand it In addition, almost half of the students, 46% specifically, agreed with the fifth factor, which is “teacher’s personality” and which affected their participation It could be explained that teacher’s personality could be considered as one of the influential factors towards students’ participation Especially, students who were shy and nervous really needed the teacher’s encouragement and friendliness to engage them in the lesson Together with this, “teaching method” is also taken consideration The proportion of the students agreeing that teaching method affected their participation was the highest, which was 53.3% Therefore, it is essential that the teacher should design the lesson that it was interesting enough to engage students to join in the lesson Finally, the factor about the classroom environment is discussed: 38.1% of the students agreed that classroom environment as the factor affecting their participation, while only 3.8% disagreed Generally, the environment in the classroom was a determining factor in students’ participation In some cases, students’ partners would stimulate them to speak, not the teacher as usual Hence, the teacher should create the classroom environment that would be able to motivate students to join the given tasks Factors affecting students' participation Strongly agree 80.00% 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Agree Lack of languag e skills (inadeq uate vocabul ary, gramm ar accur… Strongly agree 25.70% Agree 49.50% Neutral 19.10% Disagree 5.70% Strongly disagree 0% Neutral Student traits ( unconfi dent, fears of mistake s, anxious and nerv… 36.20% 39.10% 19% 5.70% 0% Disagree Strongly disagree The Teache Teachi Classro Classro topic of ng om r’s om the persona method environ size materia s ment lity ls 10.50% 6.70% 17.10% 23.80% 45.50% 68% 45.70% 53.30% 15.50% 20.50% 28.60% 20% 23.80% 3.80% 5.70% 2.90% 4.80% 1% 2.90% 0% 22.90% 38.10% 34.30% 3.80% 1% Figure 1: Students’ opinions about factors affecting their participation © 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City 128 USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES In summary, most of the students agreed that these above factors affect their participation in speaking classes Apparently, as illustrated in Figure 1, the number of the students showing agreement was the highest, as opposed to the other categories Of all, “the topic of the materials” was agreed the most and “teaching methods” was the second highest, followed by “lack of language skills” Next was “teacher’s personality”, then “classroom size” and “student traits” in order Finally, the item chosen the least was “classroom environment”, accounting for only 38.1% In addition, the percentage of the students showing a strong disagreement was always the lowest of the whole group Among these factors, “lack of language skills”, “student traits” and “teaching methods” were not chosen by any students 4.2 Students’ opinions about group work activities I find these group work activities interesting 50.00% 46.70% 45.00% 40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 28.60% 23.80% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 1% 0% 0.00% Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree Figure 2: Students’ opinions about the interest levels of group work activities Provided in Figure was the comparison of the students’ opinions about group work activities It could be seen that the number of students choosing options “agree” and “strongly agree” in the sector “I find these group work activities interesting” accounted for 46.7% and 28.6% respectively, which were the two highest categories Therefore, it was reasonable to infer that these group work activities were considered to be interesting by most of the students © 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES 129 Figure 3: Students’ opinions about the necessity of group work activities Figure represented the students’ opinions about the necessity of group work activities The vast majority of the students strongly agreed that group work activities were necessary (at 43.8%), followed by 42.9% of participants agreeing Meanwhile, only 1% of them strongly disagreed From data above, we concluded that almost all the students considered that group work activities were extremely necessary in speaking classes 60.00% 50.50% 50.00% 48.60% 38.10% 40.00% 31.40% 27.60% 30.00% 24.80% 20.00% 18.10% 18.10% 15.20% 9.50% 10.00% 9.50% 2.90% 0.00% 3.80% 1.90% 0% Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree These Group work activities stimulate me to speak in the class I feel free to speak through these Group work activities These Group work activities not bring me a lot of benefits Figure 4: Students’ opinions about benefits that group work activities bring to them Figure showed that in the first group, 50.5% of the students agreed that group work activities stimulated them to speak in class and almost nobody strongly disagreed Similarly, the data for the option “agree” in the second group “students feel free to speak in the class” was highest, at the rate of 48.6%, © 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City 130 USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES whereas only 1.9% disagreed Finally, 38.1% of the students disagreed that group work activities did not bring them a lot of activities and the lowest rate was the number of the students choosing “strongly agree”, at only 2.9% From those results, we deduced that group work activities brought students a lot of benefits and a huge number of them supposed that group work activities stimulated them to speak and they even felt free to speak through those activities The researcher also observed classes to compare what the students did in the questionnaires matched with their reactions in class or not These class observations were described in Table In Table 1, the scores (from to for each item) can be explained as follows: Very low: students showed very low involvement, concentration or enjoyment, etc.; they can gossip or personal things in the class; Low: students showed low involvement, concentration or enjoyment, etc.; they can gossip or personal things in the class; Average: students participate in the lesson, but not showing the involvement or concentration; High: students showed high involvement, concentration or enjoyment, etc Very high: students showed very high involvement, concentration or enjoyment, etc Data collected from the observation sheet showed that the students seemed to be interested in group work activities The percentage of each lesson was over 80% That proved they highly involved in the lesson and paid much attention to the task Moreover, they found group work activities more enjoyable (mark for three classes) even though the activity level was at the basic Therefore, it could be concluded from the results collected that the students really looked more enjoyable when working in groups They felt free to share their ideas because they were much more motivated through group work activities which brought them a lot of benefits Table 1: Classroom observation result Observed items Involvement Concentration Enjoyment Persistent attention Activity level Total Percentage Classes observation class 4 20 80% st 2nd class 5 5 23 92% 3rd class 5 21 84% 4.3 Students’ opinions about the effects of the use of group work activities to motivate students’ participation in learning speaking Table 2: Students’ opinions about the effects of the use of group work activities to motivate students’ participation in learning speaking No Statement I feel more excited and enjoyable in learning speaking when working in groups I feel less excited to participate in speaking lessons through Group work activities SA A N D SD 28.60% 52.40% 17.10% 1.90% 0% 1% 4.80% 18.10% 41.90% 34.30% © 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES Working in groups is one of the best ways to motivate me to speak in speaking classes Group work activities should be applied more in the next lessons Group work activities not affect much on students’ participation in learning speaking 131 24.80% 46.70% 23.80% 4.80% 0% 15.20% 47.60% 28.60% 5.70% 2.90% 3.80% 4.80% 21.90% 46.70% 22.90% Table could be seen as the general assessment for the effects of group work activities on students’ participation It was evident from the data that when working in groups, students felt more excited and enjoyable, particularly 52.4% of them choosing the option “agree”, while nobody strongly disagreed and less than 2% disagreed Moreover, 46.7% of them supposed group work was one of the ways to help them speak in speaking classes and group work activities were recommended applying more in the next lessons by 47.6% of students Therefore, it was not surprising when the large number of students disagreed that “group work activities not affect much on students’ participation in learning speaking” In conclusion, it could be said that group work activities greatly helped stimulate students to join in the lessons because most of them showed positive attitudes to these activities CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATIONS AND LIMITATIONS 5.1 Conclusion Firstly, after the survey, it can be concluded that most of the students consider all these factors (lack of language skills, student traits, classroom size, the topic of the materials, teacher’s personality, teaching methods, and classroom environment) affecting their participation in the speaking class Of all, the topic of the materials is considered to affect students’ participation the most, with the largest proportion of students agreeing In addition, students’ lack of the language skills such as word usage, inadequate vocabulary, grammar mistakes, poor pronunciation, poor listening skill, etc can hinder their participation in the class This finding is similar to that of Ahmad & Mustafa (2016) who suggest that: “Vocabulary holds an important position in forming utterances The limited knowledge of vocabulary makes the learners unable to participate or continue in oral performance” (p.23-24) Moreover, classroom size and teacher’s personality also play an important role in motivating students’ participation With a large classroom, students have less chances to join the discussion As we mentioned, Weaver &Qi (2005) also agree that the time will be limited for discussion in the class with over 40 students And with those who are too shy, they may feel ashamed to share their ideas Regarding teacher’s personality, teachers should be friendly and pleasant to get closer to their students so that the students will feel free to participate in the lesson Another factor supposed to affect students’ participation is student traits The results from the questionnaire show that the students also agree that their characteristics may affect their participation, hindering them from joining the discussion, more or less Some have considered themselves so shy, nervous and anxious Several students look absolutely stressful when sharing opinions in front of their peers Some are unconfident or afraid of mistakes It is true that the students feel ashamed due to the fear of receiving negative feedbacks or being criticized by other students, so they prefer not to participate in the discussion Last but not least, classroom environment is regarded as one of the influential factors to students’ participation as well The teacher should strive to provide students with the environment in which all of them have to use the target language When all group members take part in the learning task, © 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City 132 USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES it partly stimulates students’ participation Additionally, the classroom being well-equipped with facilities also helps increase students’ interests to participate in the lesson Secondly, through the questionnaire, the results point out that the students have positive attitudes towards group work activities in speaking classes Most of them confirm that group work activities are very interesting and fascinating Through group work activities, they are able to feel free to speak and stimulated to join the lessons They are also aware of the benefits that these activities bring to them as well as honestly admit the necessity of group work activities In addition, the class observation’s result has shown that they produce their favorable reactions during the process of working in groups as what they did in the questionnaire Class observations also indicate that the level of students’ involvement, concentration and enjoyment is extremely high because of the application of group work activities Thirdly, it cannot be denied that the application of group work activities helps to motivate students’ participation in speaking lessons It can be proved through the results from the questionnaire and a part of classroom observations as well First, it can be said that most of the students are more excited and enjoyable when they are put in groups to complete the task Besides, the students also report that group work activities are one of the best ways to motivate them to speak in the class partly because they need to share the responsibility with their partners to fulfil the learning task Moreover, they show their willingness and desire to work in groups with their partners in the following lessons In other words, group work activities are wished to be applied in the future Apparently, when working in groups they have time to discuss with the other group members, so their shyness or anxiety is eliminated They feel less stressful and feel free to take part in the lesson To some extent, using group work activities in teaching language is probably a modern teaching method, which is much better than the traditional approach Therefore, it can be concluded that group work activities play a major role in students’ participation as they motivates them to join in the speaking lessons In conclusion, there are several factors affecting students’ participation and making them afraid of speaking in class, including students’ lack of language skills, student traits, classroom size, the topic of the materials, teacher’s personality, teaching methods, and classroom environment However, when the teacher applies group work activities, his/her students feel more excited and enjoyable to participate in the lesson Working in groups is one of the effective ways to motivate students to speak in class and also help to reduce students’ stress and shyness Hence, students feel free to speak without the embarrassment or fear of making mistakes The researcher realizes that group work activities have a positive effect on students’ participation In other words, students are motivated to participate in class, so they perform their speaking much better in front of the class Besides, most of the students agree that they are able to benefit from these group work activities They find it more interesting and admit its necessity Students suppose that not only are they motivated to speak, but they also show their willingness during the lesson through group work activities 5.2 Recommendations Most of the activities in the textbook are pair works or working individually Therefore, the teachers are encouraged to design group work activities for each lesson so that students may have a positive participation in the lesson Besides, when the students work in groups, the teacher should set the time limit for a given task By this way, perhaps students will fully concentrate on finishing the task to avoid veering away from the point of the discussion, talking about something else outside the discussion In addition, the lesson should be prepared carefully in advance to run the class effectively The students must be clear with what they are going to If not, they will get confused which could result in the low participation in the lesson Hence, all teachers should select appropriate tasks and give clear the instructions in order to avoid wasting a lot of time If necessary, the teacher can some examples for the first time for students to follow afterwards Moreover, the activity level should come from the easy to difficult When students become more interested, the activity should be designed a bit difficultly to challenge their ability and motivate their curiosity Next, forming groups is equally important As mentioned in section of Literature Review, a lot of ways are suggested to form students into groups The teachers should be flexible in creating groups For example, she can form students on the basis of ability in today’s lesson The next lesson, she can change so that students must feel a strong sense of responsibility to complete the given task with their partners in © 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES 133 any groups By this way, students not only acquire knowledge, but they can enhance their team-work spirit Additionally, the classroom atmosphere plays an important role in motivating students’ participation The teacher creates the friendly and enjoyable environment in which students should play an active role to attract students to the lessons, which means they can assess their partners and sharing knowledge with each other Only by this way the students take part in the discussion and improve their speaking performance as well In short, these suggestions could partly help teachers at IUH design appropriate group work activities for students so that they are motivated to join the lesson Besides that, other recommendations and efforts are welcomed to bring long-term benefits for both teachers and students as well at IUH in teaching and learning a foreign language 5.3 Limitations The study has some limitations Firstly, within the scope of the study, the researcher cannot reach other English students to deal with other factors affecting their participation Secondly, in the meantime, what the researcher just observes the student cannot reflect the long-term process of teaching and learning with several significant changes The study would be more trustful if the time for conducting was longer with larger participants Furthermore, it would be better to advance analysis to understand the crosseffects of those factors as well as the factor about gender that influences the participation Therefore, more studies in this field should be done for further exploration in order to get an in- depth and full understanding to the whole problem REFERENCES [1] A Ahmad, and H Mustafa, Oral communication Problems Encountering English Major Students: Causes and Remedies, International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research, vol 4, no 2, pp 19-26, 2016 [2] Auster, C J., & MacRone, M, The classroom as a Negotiated Social Setting: An Empirical Study of the Effects of Faculty Members’ Behavior on Students’ Participation, Teaching 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The Classroom Participation Experiences of Non-native English-speaking Students, Language and Intercultural Communication, vol.5, pp 284-293, 2005 Received on February 1st, 2019 Accepted on March 25th, 2019 © 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City ... 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES Working in groups is one of the best ways to motivate me to speak... opinions about factors affecting their participation © 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City 128 USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES In. .. participation in learning speaking No Statement I feel more excited and enjoyable in learning speaking when working in groups I feel less excited to participate in speaking lessons through Group work activities