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(1)BM03-TMSKKN Title: An investigation of high school students’ attitudes to group work and pair work.
ABSTRACT
This research aims to find out to what extent the teachers and students favour group work and pair work This paper also suggests ways to effectively use group work in order to enhance students’ positive attitudes to group work and development of orally communicative competence The research paper includes areas such as learning styles, attitudes to group work, methods of teaching, and techniques of group work organization A review of the literature related to group work areas helps the researcher to support the arguments and to write about the findings The “study” section describes samples, data collection, data analysis and a brief discussion of difficulties in conducting the research
INTRODUCTION
We use language as a means of communication in daily situations It is necessary for us to state our opinions and express our feeling English is used as an international language Many people in Vietnam need to use it as a communicative tool at work, on business and in commercial environments It is recognised by learners that the main focus of learning English as a foreign language is their communicative competence The more opportunities students are given to practise oral interaction in the classroom, the more effectively and fluently they can communicate in real-life situations
Therefrore, as a teacher of English, in order to promote oral communication in the classroom, there are a number of things I can do: effective classroom management, dynamic learning activities and productive teaching and learning approach
(2)in working alone, translating or learning vocabulary and grammar In improving the teaching and learning of English, there are many innovations to be introduced The most important of them is to use pair work and group work in the classroom whose benefits are to promote classroom interaction which can facilitate second language acquisition, to personalize the learning process and to increase the students’ responsibilities for these own learning
As an attempt to improve the teaching and learning of English, especially English for communication, I conducted this small scale research project which took two months, from 1st December , 2011 to 15th February, 2012.
CONTEXT
My school has thirty-four classes with over 1400 students each year, is one of the biggest schools in Dong Nai, an industrial and commercial province, about 50 kilometres away from Ho Chi Minh City My school is also located in a place where there are many foreign visitors each year Therefore, many people need to use English to communicate with these foreigners
In my school, each class has forty-five students who are at different levels, some with quite competent English, some whose English is not very good, while others whose English is just getting started Most of the students are just part-time ones who go to school in the morning and have to help their parents the rest of the day For these reasons, their English is still limited , especially their practice of English skills Each of the classes is also equipped with well-lit rooms, enough tables, a blackboard and a cassette player As common in other high schools in Vietnam, the students in my school have to take English as a compulsory subject and they study English three periods a week
(3)RESEARCH QUESTIONS - What are students’ attitudes to group work?
- What should the researcher to improve the use of group work?
- Can interesting , interactive and meaningful tasks and activities (e.g. information gap, role playing) maximize the effectiveness of group work?
HYPOTHESES
Students have positive attitudes to group work and will work well in groups if they are provided with interesting , meaningful and challenging tasks, clear instructions and directions and effective guidance by their teachers
LITERATURE REVIEW
(4)students work in groups, they take some of their own learning decisions They can work without the pressure of everybody listening to what they are speaking or watching what they are doing
Group work ; however, has some problems the teacher should take into account so that he or she can maximize its effectiveness Ur (1996:232) points out, “ In individual classes, group work may encourage students to be more disruptive than they would be in a whole class setting” Obviously , in groups without the teacher, students can make unneccesary noise or use their own language Brown ( 1994:177) emphasizes, “ Many students, especially adult-age students, prefer to work alone because that is the way they have operated ever since they started school” He adds that some students find group work frustrating since they only want the teacher to give them the answers to the problems
In solving the above problem of group work, Brown (1994:177) suggests that we should be sensitive to our students’ preferences and help them to see that language is for communicating with people and that the more they engage in face -to - face communication, the more their oral communicative competence will improve He also mentions that problems of group work, such as some members of a group being reluctant to share information with the others, can be solved by careful planning and management and by interactive, interesting and relevant tasks, for example practising dialogues with a partner, question and answer exercises, performing certain meaningful substitution “drills”, games, information gap tasks, interviews, problem solving and decision making activities Lynch (1996:115) says, “ when setting up group work, one of the teacher’s important decisions is who is to work with whom” In his book, Doff ( 1988: 142 ) says that clearly defined tasks, clear instructions about when to start, what to do, and when to stop as well as teacher demonstration before students work on tasks All of them can help students to know exactly what to and they, as a result, get more involved in group work
(5)In explaining the advantages of group work, Brown ( 1994:173) says that group work helps to solve the problem of classes that are too large to offer many opportunities to speak He also emphasizes that group work offers the security of smaller groups of students where each individual is not so starkly on public display, vulnerable to what the student may perceive as criticism and rejection, and group work promotes learner responsibility and autonomy
DEVELOPMENT
From the literature review, we can see that many authors like Brown, Ur, Harmer, Doff, and Lynch who have great influence in the area of group work organization and English language teaching and learning , define that appropriate and good classroom management, flexible classroom activities and interesting tasks are key factors which contribute to a success of a language programme Based on students’ backgrounds , their learning needs and my analysis, I realize that there is a need for a new appropriate approach to language teaching and learning in my school which will shift the focus of attention from teacher-directed to student-centred teaching and learning environment with the effective use of group work and pair work and the communicative approach as the key to improve students’ performance as well as their outcomes The main reason is that teacher-directed and teacher-dominated classrooms with poor tasks cannot be naturally interactive
METHODOLOGY A Subjects
(6)In addition, two teachers of English in the school: Huy and Tien were interviewed I chose these two teachers because they appeared to be active and hard-working and they agreed to help me to carry out the research These teachers had earned a bachelor degree in English language teaching and had much teaching experience I also learnt from discussions with them that they were aware of the benefits of group work for second language acquisition and they had made attempts to use it with varying degrees of success in their classes
B Instruments
In order to gather information about my students, and classroom activities, I used three instruments: the class evaluation form, the questionnaire and the interview I believe that data is more reliable if it is collected from different sources and with different methods In considering the reliability of data, Wallace ( 1998: 210) says,“ Triangulation should make our findings more reliable, and subjecting them to different people’s scrutiny within the action research team should make the findings more valid”
+ The Class Observation Form
I designed this form in order to evaluate the teachers and students’ performances, attitudes and activities in the classroom Bell ( 1997: 109) says, “ Direct observation may be more reliable than what people say in many instances It can be particularly useful to discover whether people what people say they do, or behave in the way they claim to behave" I invited one more teacher in the school to conduct this evaluation form I strongly believe that the observation results are more reliable because “reliability is enhanced by having two observers ( the second may be the researcher himself or herself) observe the same behaviour at the same time, either in the field or on a video tape” ( Slavin, 1992:93) The class evaluation form includes two parts: the first is about the teacher, the second is about the students and activities in the classroom Each part consists of some statements ( please see appendix 1) The rating scales of the statements vary as follows:
(7)2 Slightly Neutral Very
5 Completely
+ The Questionnaire
The designed questionnaire is anonymous so that the students may not conceal their real feelings when they comment on their teacher and his or her teaching The questionnaire used closed and open questions ( please see appendix 2) It covered different fields related to students, their attitudes and language learning, including learners’ purposes, expectations, learning habits, learning styles and preferred forms of classroom organization The purposes of the questionnaire instructions and the reasons for the research were clearly explained to the learners because “ if the pupils understand the reason for the research and are interested in its outcomes, a questionnaire can produce very reliable data and, at the same time, make a contribution to improving the situation”, Altrichter Posch & Somekh ( 1993: 114) + The Interview
I asked the teachers ten questions ( please see appendix 3) related to the students’ attitudes , learning styles and the teachers’ techniques of classroom organization or management All the dialogues in the interview were carefully recorded The staff included only two teachers, all the questions on the survey were open-ended When I did the research, I made questions in Vietnamese so that I could get real information from my students The duration for the interviews were reported to the teachers before the interview
Questioning , orally or in writing, often more direct access to the meaning it has for the pupil than other methods I told my students that the responses would help me to improve my teaching and their learning of English because “ the interviewee should believe that the outcomes of the interview are useful for him or her” (Altrichter, Peter Posch and Bridget Somekh 1993 ; 101 )
C Data Analysis
(8)There are twenty statements, describing the students’ learning styles and attitudes, and the teachers’ teaching methods There are two tables presented in this section One presented comments on the teaching methods, techniques and skills of group work organization, while the other presented students’ involvement in group work.
The data presented in each table show the frequency distribution of each statement The numbers shown in the frequency distribution indicated the majority ratio integrated from five rating scales
Table 1: Teacher Evaluation
Comments on the teaching approaches , group work organization
Statements
Frequency Distribution Positive Neutral Negative
Number Scale(%) Number Scale(%) Number Scale(%)
1 The teacher’s instructions are clear The tasks are clearly explained to students
3 The teacher demonstrates how to the task
4 The teacher organizes the group well 5.The techniques are appropriate for each stage of the tasks
6 The teacher shows interest in the students’ work
7 The teacher offers help when needed The teacher is flexible and uses many effective techniques
9 The teacher sometimes joins in a group 10 The teacher answers students’
questions about the tasks given
(9)12 The teacher skillfully selects group members, group leaders
13 The teacher signals for everyone’s attention
Table : Student Evaluation
Students’ Involvement in group work Statements
Frequency Distribution
Positive Neutral Negative
Number Scale(%) Number Scale(%) Number Scale(%)
14 Students are involved in group work 15 Students feel relaxed and free to learn in groups
16 Students co-operate with each other 17 Students participate in doing tasks 18 Students understand the teacher’s instructions
19 Students show interest in the lesson 20 Students use more L2 than L1 in class
Questionnaire Data Analysis.
The questionnaire consists of 36 questions related to the students attitudes, learning styles, learning preferences and the teacher’s methods of teaching There are two tables presented in this section
Table 1: Students’ learning preferences
Table 2: Students’ attitudes to group work and the teachers’ methods of teaching
(10)Table 1: Students’ Learning Preferences Statements
Frequency Distribution Positive Neutral Negative
Number Scale(%) Number Scale(%) Number Scale(%)
1 Working in pairs/groups Working in the whole group Working only by myself Working in small groups Working in one large group Talking to other students Discussing with others
8 Working with fluent speakers of English
9 Working on new exercises/tasks 10.Talking only to my teacher
11.Working with my close classmates 12.Talking to English speaking people 13.Teacher’s lecture
14 Doing exercises and being given answers by the teacher
15.Small group work 16.Role-plays
17.Whole class discussion 18.Teacher’s translation 19.Students’ translation
20.Writing what my teacher provides and explains to me
Table 2: The students’ attitudes to group work and the teacher’s methods of teaching
Statements
(11)Number Scale(%) Number Scale(%)
21 Group work is interesting 22 Group work is useless
23 Group work is time-consuming
24 Group work helps me a lot in learning English 25 Group work helps me to work with many friends
26 She/he wants us to help one another
27 She/he wants to increase classroom interaction 28 She/he wants us to make friends with one another
29 She/he does not want to teach
30 She/he has not prepared her/his lesson 31 Tasks are interesting
32 Tasks are boring 33 Tasks are useless
34 Tasks focus on grammar
35 The teacher’s instructions are clear and simple 36 Games are interesting
+ Interview Data Analysis
There are ten questions dealing with the students, teachers and their methods of teaching in the interview The data was presented in the form of qualitative analysis
+ Time-line
My research was lasted for two months from 1st December, 2011 to 15th February 2012, and I was able to get enough time and preparation to collect data from the students as well as teachers
The following time line illustrated what I did for my research report
The First Month
The first week - Wrote an outline - Draw a concept map
(12)( December, 2011) The second week - Trialed the questionnaire. The two weeks
After the second
- Observed
The second month
(JanuaryFebruary,2 012)
The first week - Redesigned Questionnaire, Interviews The second week - Conducting Questionnaire, Interviews The third week - Analyzed Data
The fourth week - Wrote up the research paper - Wrote recommendations
FINDINGS
The first survey which I administered to the above - mentioned group of students surprisingly indicates that they were very interested in improving communicative English competence 80 % of the students needed to improve their interactive English They are interested in learning by doing things Additionally, the survey shows that the students had a variety of methods to practise English outside the classroom , for example reading magazines, newspapers, looking up unfamiliar words in dictionaries, practising English with friends and classmates The students did not like the traditional methods, the most commonly used methods of teaching in High Schools in Vietnam They are grammar translation, lectures in the classroom and homework which is then corrected in class Their responses show that such traditional methods make the group of students bored and frustrated Instead, they were keen on being given effective teaching and learning methods 74 % of the students liked working in small groups to carry out communicative activities and tasks They liked to make responses to questionnaires, interviews They also enjoyed discussing with one another in groups
A Learning styles
Question 1: How would you like to study English? The questionnaire data revealed the following:
(13)- students = 10% of the students liked to work alone.
- Only 16% of the students (8 students) liked to work in the whole group. Comment : The majority of students like to work in pairs and groups.
Question 2: How often would you like to have the following teaching methods in your class ?
- 82% of the students (41 students) want their teacher to use group work in class often
- Only students (6% of the students) like to have lectures and translation in class
Comment: The majority of students not like traditional methods of teaching and learning
CLOSING REMARKS
I have described the ways to carry out small scale research on students’ attitudes to group work in my school The brief literature review emphasized the advantages and disadvantages of group work and some techniques of group work organization The three surveys, which contained students’ attitudes, learning preferences, teacher’s approaches of teaching, and classroom activities, were the main tools for collecting data from students The quantitative analysis of the questionnaire, observation form and the qualitative analysis of the interviews helped me to get reliable data from students It is the first time to conduct research, and there were some possible problems which included students’ being uncooperative funds and time limitations These problems were solved by the following ideas:
+ The reasons for the research, and purposes of data collection were clearly
explained to the administrators, teachers and students.
(14)Through the survey, I did understand much about my students I need to design relevant, appropriate tasks so that I can help my students to effectively achieve their communicative goals
RECOMMENDATION
In English teaching, we are more successful and our approaches of teaching English are more effective if we know clearly about our learners’ problems, their learning preferences and strategies Through empirical methods, we can understand our learners so that we can help them to improve their language skills I carried out this research by using the three surveys stated above I know there are other tools which are available such as discussion and keeping diaries, but I could not use all of them because of time limitations The participants involved in the research come from only one school Through the research I found out possible solutions to the problems of group work in high schools in Viet Nam One more important thing is that I improve my students’ attitudes to group work The research proves, I think, that in the Vietnamese teaching situations, interactive teaching is impossible without group work
(15)BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Altrichter, Herbert, Peter Posch and Bridget Somekh, 1993 , Teachers
Investigate Their Work: An Introduction To The Methods Of Action Research,
Routledge , London
- Altrichter, H, Posch, P & Somekh, B, 1993, Teachers Investigate Their Work, Poutledge
- Bell, Judith , 1997 , Doing Your Research Project , Open University Press , Buckingham , Philadelphia
- Brown , H Douglas , 1994 , Teaching By Principles: An Interactive Approach
To Language Pedagogy, Prentice Hall Regents, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
- Doff, Adrian, 1988, Teach English: A Training Course For Teaching, CUP , England
- Harmer, Jeremy , 1998 , An Introduction To The Practice of English Language
(16)- Lynch , Tony , 1996 , Communication in the language classroom , Oxford University Press , Oxford
- Slavin, Robert E.,1992 , Research Methods In Education, Allyn and Bacon, USA
- Ur , Penny , 1996 , A Course In Language Teaching , Cambridge University Press , Cambridge
- Wallace , Michael , 1998 , Action Research for Language Teachers , Cambridge University Press
NGƯỜI THỰC HIỆN
Nguyễn Trần Quốc Việt
Appendix 1 LONG THANH HIGH SCHOOL
Research Project
CLASS OBSERVATION FORM There are five rating scales which vary as follows.
1 Not at all Slightly Neutral Very
5 Completely
Teacher Evaluation
(17)7 The teacher offers help when needed The teacher is flexible and uses many effective techniques The teacher sometimes joins in a group 10 The teacher answers students’ questions about the tasks given 11 The teacher is cheerful and friendly 12 The teacher skillfully selects group members, group leaders 13 The teacher signals for everyone’s attention
STUDENT EVALUATION
14 Students are involved in group work 15 Students feel relaxed and free to learn in groups 16 Students co-operate with each other 17 Students participate in doing tasks 18 Students understand the teacher’s instructions 19 Students show interest in the lesson 20 Students use more L2 than L1 in class
Appendix 2 LONG THANH HIGH SCHOOL
REASEARCH PROJECT
QUESTIONNAIRE
( Learning Styles and Attitudes to Group Work )
The purpose of this survey is to find out about your learning styles and attitudes to group work Your responses will help us to improve your learning.
You not need to write your name on this form.
1 How would you like to study English?
* Please indicate your attitudes towards the following areas by circling the appropriate number.
(18)4 I quite like this I like this very much
1 Working in pairs/ groups Working in the whole group Working only by myself
4 Working in small groups
5 Working in large groups
6 Talking to other students
7 Discussing with others
8 Working with fluent speakers of English Working on new exercises/tasks 10.Talking only to my teacher 11.Working with my close classmates 12.Talking to English Speaking people 2 How often would you like to have the following teaching methods in your
class.
* Please indicate your attitudes to the following areas by circling the
appropriate number.
1 Never
2 Occasionally Sometimes Usually Always
13.Teacher’s lecture
14.Doing exercises and being given answers by the teacher
15.Small group work
16.Role-plays
17.Whole-class discussion
18.Teacher’s translation
19.Students’ translation
(19)3 What is your opinion of group work?
21 Group work is interesting Yes No
22 Group work is useless Yes No
23 Group work is time-consuming Yes No
24 Group work helps me a lot in learning English Yes No 25 Group work helps us to be more co-operative Yes No 4 Why does your teacher use group work ?
26 She/he wants us to help one another Yes No 27 She/he wants to increase classroom interaction Yes No 28 She/he wants us to make friends with one another Yes No
29 She/he does not want to teach Yes No
30 She/he has not prepared her/his Yes No
5.What you feel about your teacher ‘s tasks and instructions?
31.Tasks are interesting Yes No
32 Tasks are boring Yes No
33 Tasks are useless Yes No
34 Tasks focus on grammar Yes No
35 The teacher’s instructions are clear and simple Yes No
36 Games are interesting Yes No
(20)Appendix 3 LONG THANH HIGH SCHOOL
RESEARCH PROJECT
INTERVIEW ( Teacher Survey)
The purpose of this survey is to find out how you use group work in the classroom Your responses will help us to improve our students’ attitudes to group work and our teaching.
1/ How often you use group work in class ?
_ I sometimes use group work I know it is important, but I not have enough time to prepare tasks for my students So I just teach by lecturing.
2/ What kinds of tasks you use to teach the class ?
_ Tasks in the text book Those are some exercises related to the reading topic. 3/ Do you repeat your instructions after your students start on a task?
- Yes, sometimes I repeat, but not always My students want me to give instructions
in Vietnamese.
4/ How your students feel when you use group work?
(21)5/ What you think the learning needs of the students are ?
- In discussion with them, I know they need English for communicative purposes, they want to speak English to Australian, English, American people.
6/ Which of the following factors you consider to make your tasks interesting?
a Relevant topics: √
b Students’ interest : √
c Students’ level of English : √
d Simplicity of activities : √
e Others ( please specify)
- I also consider meaningful practice For example if the students work in groups to play roles in a dialogue, they then make another dialogue themselves My students increase their talking time and enjoy talking and exchange information about their own things They not like mechanical practice.
7/ Which of the following measures you consider when some students refuse to work in groups ?
a Advising and talking to each student : √
_ a Making clear the purposes of the activity to each student : √
b Talking to your colleagues about your students’ problem :
- I not usually talk to my colleagues about my students’ problems.
8./ To what percentage you depend on group work?
- 30% - I not have enough time to design tasks for my students.
9/ Do you demonstrate how a task should be done ?
- Yes, but not very often, because I think I not have time.
(22)- I think they are O.k But sometimes my students cannot the tasks, I have to repeat my instructions.
Thank you very much for your co-operation
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Abstract
Introduction
Context
Literature Review
Development
Methodology
Findings 12
Closing Remarks 13
Bibliography 16
Appendix 17
Appendix 18
Appendix 21