Procedure of the action research

My current students in speaking lessons come to me with a problem. They do not seem interested or motivated. Many students did not often take part in the speaking activities and often showed their reluctance and anxiety. The recording classroom interaction of students‟ contribution during speaking activities was then confirmed by Questionnaire 1 (Appendix 1). The questionnaire also explored the causes of students‟ speaking anxiety in class, their preferences in doing speaking activities and their suggestions to make speaking lessons more effective in terms of reducing anxious participation. Therefore, I tried to identify factors affecting the students‟ anxious participation in speaking lessons and research questions formed were What factors cause students’ anxiety in speaking lessons? What should be done to this problem?

2.4.2.2 Preliminary investigation. (From week 3 to week 5)

Speaking lessons of Unit 9,10,11 were taught in usual way which were managed with too little practice time of group work activities in lessons. This was measured by looking at the style of students‟ contributions.

2.4.2.3 Hypothesis

After reviewing the initial data, the researcher forms the hypothesis that:

Group work activities will increase the students‟ participation in speaking lessons and reducing students‟ anxiety if some suitable techniques of group work are provided.

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2.4.2.4 Intervention (From week 6 to week 8)

I called students‟ cooperation and support to group work learning method to the lessons. The first lessons were my hard time, a lot of time and energy were spent on making them move into groups, explaining the necessary skills for group work and self access, encourage learner s‟ autonomy, and promoting group interdependence, accountability and cooperation. Each lesson was an opportunity for the researcher‟s trying the theory of group work learning method, perfecting her experiences of group work design, classroom management, learning how to control and support the group work activities.

The teacher devised a number of strategies for encouraging the students to relate the content of the three speaking lessons of units 12, 13, 14 in class 10 A12 at DHHS.

(Appendix 2) These include increasing their own background and interests. The strategies were applied as following:

Firstly, students were asked to brainstorm on ideas relating to the topics.

Secondly, teacher assigned role for students. Each of the students was given a definite role in different situations. In one interview, students were talking about films (Unit 13, English textbook 10, page 134). (Appendix 3) The anxious student was required to ask questions while the other better students gave answers. As the results, the anxious student had more opportunities to speak when he/ she practiced asking each student in group at least one question. On the other hand, each dominant student had less chance to speak because he/ she only answered the questions. In that way not everyone in the group spoke more than he/she was expected to speak. Thirdly, The “4/3/2 technique” was conducted to limit the opportunity for the dominant students to talk, and on the other hand, gave more opportunity for the anxious students to practice speaking in the group work. Finally, some teaching notes were taken. As investigated, anxiety in SEC was manifested clearly through students‟ manifestation, symptoms or signs. Hence, the teacher was sensitive with these to realize whether their students were anxious or not to have immediately appropriate techniques. Because most of the students were afraid and shy of wrong pronunciation, so teacher paid more attention to improve students‟

pronunciation. Teacher did not correct students‟ mistakes as soon as they made. In

addition , through free-to-speak activities such as interview and discussion, teacher created friendly and comfortable speaking environment.

To extend how students undertook the task in group work activities and to establish the achieve of students‟ contribution after the intervention of the plan:

 Questionnaire 2 ( Appendix 2 ) was displayed to decide students‟

work during group work activities of three lessons 12, 13, 14. The way they work, the difficulties they had, the ways they overcame the difficulties, their attitude and cooperation in the group work, variation of the techniques and group organization were mentioned.

2.4.2.5 Evaluation

After several weeks, the class was recorded again. The result collected from the data about post-intervention activities was systemized with the result of the activities before intervention to evaluate the suggested solutions in the plan action.

With the result, there is much greater involvement of the students in group work activity, and the complexity of their language and student-led interactions is enhanced. The data was interpreted to what extend students could contribute in group work activities. (This section will be presented in detail in the next chapter) The evaluation would inform the teacher of how effective the group work in the speaking lesson was and the shortcomings she needed to improve in the next lessons.

2.4.2.6 Dissemination

The researcher presents the paper in form of a thesis with the researcher‟

colleagues, especially younger teachers. In which the procedure and the result of the action research were reorganized. From that colleagues will share and give feed back and feelings to the sampled lessons and the use of group work activities in speaking lessons.

2.4.2.7 Follow- up

The teacher investigates the use of group work and questioning technique to increase student‟s participation in communicative activities in large classes.

Speaking skills and its related concepts

Group work in a speaking lesson