AN ACTION RESEARCH ON THE APPLICATION OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING TO TEACHING SPEAKING TO THE SECOND YEAR SUDENTS AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, GIA LAI TEACHERS' TRAINING COLLEGE

During the search, we found some articles about implementing cooperative learning structures to improve group activities in which cooperative structures can be used as a mean to improve

Part A: INTRODUCTION

I Background to the study

“Better English, more opportunities” is the answer of most university students when they are asked about their goal of learning English English can help them prepare well for future career as it can not only equip them with a useful source of personal, linguistic, social and cultural knowledge but also provide them with access to modern technology, information concerning a variety of issues in modern society Especially, our country’s recent regional and global participation has been increasing the demand for English speaking people who are expected to communicate verbally with the outside world and access modern technology For these reasons, at the tertiary level where the source of English teachers for the whole country is provided, English teaching has been granted special supports from educational authorities The most important issue in this field, which has presented various complicated problems for generations of English teachers in Vietnam is the adoption of an appropriate English teaching method which can satisfy the need of the society

With this orientation, in recent years, the teaching and learning English in Vietnam has been considerably changing With the efforts of several international projects and organizations such as VAT (Vietnam Australia Training), VSO (Voluntary Service Oversea), … and groups of teachers who attended TESL, TEFL or TESOL courses, various new approaches, methods and techniques on the teaching of English have been introduced and applied in schools, colleges and universities nationwide Generally, English teaching has shift from the traditional grammar translation approach to the communicative approach New textbooks and syllabus that are communication-oriented and learner-centered are designed and implemented, which all required teachers of English to improve their teaching skills to be successful in the classroom Every year, many teachers training courses are hold and after attending the training courses, almost all

teachers are eager and enthusiastic to try out the new methods and teaching techniques to their real classroom contexts

However, how can we incorporate the new approaches and methods (structures, techniques, activities, ect.)? How can we implement them in our real classroom contexts with our particular students? are questions of great concern The recognition of the fact that there is a missing linking between the training and the reality of the classroom practice has promoted interest in the classroom research Every school year, from primary to tertiary level, hundreds of researches on various issues relating to teaching language methodology are carried out for the purpose of professional development

II Statement of the problem

Groupwork is one of the most popular structures of learner-centered approach applied in most language classrooms Over the past few years, groupwork has especially received more and more emphasis in language classrooms and groupwork activities are used in many aspects of the second language instructions, particularly in encouraging student’s oral practice “Groupwork is any classroom activity in which students perform collaborative tasks with one or more partners It has been considered one of the major changes to the dynamics of classroom interaction wrought

by students-centered teaching Groupwork can greatly increase the amount of active speaking and listening undertaken by all the students in the language class” (Nunan and Lamb,p.142) In groups, students are not passively sitting and listening to the teachers, but joining actively in the learning process In other word, groupwork enhances the gradual shift from teacher-centered classroom to student-centered classroom The benefits of groupwork pointed out in Davies and Pearse are “variety and dynamism, enormous increase in individual practice, low stress private practice, opportunity to develop learner autonomy and interaction among peers.” However, simply putting students together in a group is no guarantee that cooperation will occur Because the lack of understanding the dynamics of group activities, it is not uncommon to hear teachers say “I have tried putting my students in groups and telling them to cooperate, but it did not work.” A frequent problem in group is some of the group members dominate the group and, for whatever reason, impede the participation on others For this reason, how to organize groupwork

successfully in the classrooms is a question of great concern for many language teachers and language researchers

The most important reason why we purse this study on groupwork derived from our own experience of being a teacher who failed to organize students to work successfully in group activities At Gialai teacher’s training college, the unique college in a mountainous town, Pleiku, the students have very little chance to use the language, so most of them are very shy to speak Moreover, the students have mixed levels of speaking competence (some of them are minority people) During speaking activities, the strong ones speak a lot, the average speak some and the weak students seem to keep silent all the time Some strategies have been carried out such as talking to them to find their problems, choosing interesting topics, monitoring frequently to help and encouraging the weak one to speak and ask the strong one help their friends by assigning the roles for them and keep asking questions to force them to speak This however can not help much They speak just a little and the keep silent again We kept on finding the ways to get all our students involved in the class speaking activities During the search, we found some articles about implementing cooperative learning structures to improve group activities in which cooperative structures can be used as a mean to improve students’ cooperation, participation and even their language proficiency What it meant to us was that the way we organize and structure groupwork affected students’ involvement in group activities

There are sound reasons to take CL into implementation First of all, CL is highly appreciated for their usefulness to students’ achievement “CL seems to provide an environment

in which students’ needs of love, belongingness, power, freedom and fun can be met in a way that is beneficial for both academic achievement and the development of the learners’ social and learning skills” (D.W Johnson el al.1990; Slavin 1987; Kagan 1989) It is undeniable that CL is the most flexible and powerful grouping strategies because in CL, learners work together to accomplish a shared goal Therefore, they are motivated to work together for mutual benefit in order to meet their own and each other’ learning Additionally, CL has a strong foundation on research Many hundreds of studies across a wide range of subjects areas and age groups have

been conducted (Cohen, 1994b; Johnson, Johnson and Stanne, 2002; Sharan, 1980; Slavin, 1995) and the overall findings of these studies suggested that, when compared to other instructional approaches, group activities structured along CL lines are associated with gains on a hot of key variables: achievement, higher thinking level, self-esteem, liking for the subject matter and for school and intergroup relations Meanwhile, with regards to the successes of CL implementing programs by thousands of teachers from many countries all over the world, I would like to carry out such a program in my department with a view to experiment a new strategy to structuring groups in teaching speaking with hope of improving my students’ oral communication skills Moreover, the application of CL, considered one of educational innovations, has not been popular

in Vietnam There have been few or no studies on CL application in teaching English generally,

or in teaching speaking particularly Also, it is worth mentioning that I have conducted a small simple scale action research on implementing jigsaw, a CL structure, in teaching speaking, which resulted in some achievement This investigation in to CL will hopefully serves as an advisable supplementation to my knowledge on CL theory and CL application to English teaching

For all the above reasons, it is strongly desirable for me to propose “ An action research on the application of cooperative learning structures to teaching speaking to the second- year students in the Department of English, Gialai Teachers’ Training College ” to be the subject on this thesis

III Scope, objectives and research questions for the study

This study is aimed to investigate how well CL can improve the participation and achievement of the second year students of the department of English at Gialai College in oral communication activities The data collection and data analysis therefore are based on the information provided by classroom observation, test scores and the journals written by the students of the department of English during the second semester from February to June 2005 The subjects of the study are the second year students of Department of English Materials involved in the CL training and implementing program which are topic- and task- based are developed during the course progression The topics are suggested by the students and selected in

open class, the tasks and activities structured along CL are designed and developed with the aims

of improving students’ participation and achievement in oral communication skills Thus, the first and foremost objective of the study is for the sake of the students Besides, the study is expected

to serve as a source of reference for teachers of English on the teaching of speaking skills, especially for those who concern CL, one of the educational innovations which has the best and largest empirical base

To be more specific, in realizing the study, the main objectives are:

To investigate the effects of CL on Students’ participation in oral communication activities

To investigate the effects of CL on the students’ achievement in speaking skills

To give some pedagogical implications and suggestions for further development

With those aims, my research questions with sub-questions are:

1 What are the effects of CL on students’ participation in the group activities?

- Are the students motivated to participate?

- Is the amount of the students’ participation increased and divided equally?

- Is the nature of the students’ participation improved?

2 What are the effects of CL on students’ achievement?

- Do the students get higher achievement in oral examinations?

- What oral communication skills do the students develop?

3 What are the students’ attitudes towards CL?

IV Methods of the study

This research is realized with regards to both qualitative and quantitative analysis

On the one hand, quantitative analysis is involved in the process of data collection and analysis, which are carried out at the Department of English, GTTC The data collected will go through analysis and yield conclusion about the subjects of the study The instruments for this process conclude two observation schedules filled by colleague observers, and records of students’ four semester final test scores

On the other hand, qualitatively analyzed, the students’ opinions of CL (the learning, attitude, and achievement) reflected through their journals have been subjectively analysed basing on the knowledge that the researcher has acquired from the abundant resources of materials on CL developed by famous scholars in the field

Thus, three main instruments for data collection are used in this study, including observation schedules, students’ speaking test scores and students’ journals 23 second -year students have undertaken the data provision process over a semester Hopefully, the study will yield beneficial results which support the learning and teaching speaking in the future

V The design of the study:

The study is divided into three parts, which are presented as follows

Part A is the introduction, which states the background to the study, the statement of the problem, the scope, objectives and research questions as well as the methods and design of the study Part B, including three chapters, reports on the main contents of the study Chapter one presents all necessary literature related to the study Then, in chapter 2, how we have carried out the study

at the Department of English, GTTC is described Sub steps in this process consist of observing the learning situation, collecting data, analyzing data and summarizing findings The last chapter deals with the summary, the findings as well as the application and suggestions for further studies

Part C is the conclusion where we summarized all the main contents of the study

Besides, there are also nine appendixes in which supplementary materials and list of references are provided

PATR B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter is concerned with some of the most important issues in theory of cooperative learning in general and in language teaching in particular The main features will be taken into consideration, namely, theoretical background of CL and CLL and theoretical background of speaking, the language skill to which CL is intended to be applied

I Experimental language learning as cooperative learning

Two models of teaching

As a result of developments in society and educational theory, the pedagogical thinking has been shifting away from the traditional behavioristic model of teaching as transmission of knowledge towards an experiential model whereby teaching is seen as transformation of existing

or partly understood knowledge, based on constructivist view of learning

Nunan (1988) assumed that in the transmission model of teaching, the teacher is the person in authority in the class whose job is to impart knowledge and skills to the learners Knowledge is seen as deniable in terms of right and wrong answers Students tend to see their role as relatively passive recipients of the knowledge, expecting the teacher to be in charge of their learning Or, Glasser (1986) gave an example of this model the traditional structure of a secondary school with a teacher in front of the room facing thirty to forty students The underlying behavioristic model involves various rewards and sanctions to ensure learning But there are limits to what we pressure the students to learn if they do not experience satisfaction in their work Sanction will cause discipline problems and underlying tensions in class in which teacher has the final word and the power to reward, punish and evaluate Students learn as individuals, and the cooperation is limited by competition for grades

The experiential model, on the other hand, would seem to offer potential for a learning atmosphere of shared partnership, a common purpose and a joint management of learning Class behavior is owned by the whole group, of which the teacher is one member As the rules of conduct are agreed upon jointly, all share the responsibility for decisions and discipline Learning

can become a discovery of understandings As there are fewer underlying tensions, energy can be channeled into more creative pursuits ( Brandes and Ginnis 1986; Salmon 1988)

The degree of self-directed (as against other-directed) learning can be clarified by examining the degree of learner involvement at the different stages of instructional process This can be done by asking the following questions (Riley 1984:127-30):

• who analyses the need?

• Who defines the objective?

• Who decide where and how often learning take place?

• Who chooses the material?

• Who chooses the work techniques?

• Who decides on levels and criteria of acceptable outcomes?

• Who monitors the learning program and process?

• Who evaluates the results of learning?

Following is the description of the two models of teaching:

Table 1: Traditional and experiential models of education: a comparison

Dimension Traditional model:

Behaviorism

Experiential model: Constructivism

Providing mainly frontal instruction; professionalism as individual autonomy

Relatively passive recipient of information; mainly individual work

Transformation of Knowledge Teacher as a learner among learners

Facilitating learning (largely in small groups); collaborative professionalism

Active participation, largely in cooperative small groups

Mainly teacher-centered learning

Mainly extrinsic

Product-oriented: achievement testing; Criterion-referencing (and norm- referencing)

Construction of personal knowledge; identification of problems

Dynamic; looser organization of subject matter, including open parts and integration

Emphasis on process: learning skills, self inquiry, social and communication skills

Emphasis on learner: directed learning

self-Mainly intrinsic

Process-oriented: reflection on process, self-assessment; criterion-referencing

(Nunan (1993): Collaborative Language Leaning and Teaching)

Generally, in experiential learning, the schools are made more effective by ensuring that learners’ basic needs for love, belongingness, power, freedom and fun are satisfied from their early classes onwards As Glasser (1986:54) points out that, there is no sense in telling learners how valuable classes are and how much they need them unless we can structure classes so that they are more satisfying to them CL seems to provide a classroom environment in which such needs can be met in a way that is beneficial for both academic achievement and the development

of the learners’ social and learning skills

It is certain that any more discussion of CL should originate from CL definitions, which will be dealt with in the next section

II What is cooperative learning?

Cooperative learning (CL) is by no means a new idea For thousands of years, humans have recognized the value of cooperation in a broad range of endeavors, including education However, the term cooperative learning seems to date back to the 1970s when a great deal of research and practical work began on discovering how best to harness peer power for the benefit of learning This work continues to this day

Over the past twenty years, different approaches to cooperative learning have been developed by different individuals Thus, CL takes many forms and definitions Following are some of the definitions by the most famous scholars:

Johnson (1989) defines: “Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning.” He describes the idea of cooperative learning in a very simple way like this: Class members are organized into small groups after receiving instructions from the teacher They then work through the assignment until all the group members successfully understand and complete it Cooperative efforts result in participants striving for mutual benefit so that all group member gain from each other’s efforts (your success benefits me and my success benefits you), recognizing that all the group members share a common fate (We all sink or swim together here), knowing that one’s performance is mutually caused by oneself and one’s colleagues (We can not do it without you), and feeling proud and jointly celebrating when one group member is recognized for achievement (We all congratulate you on your accomplishment!) because a group member’s success depends on both individual effort and the efforts of the other group members who contribute needed knowledge, skills, and resources No one group member will possess all the information, skills, or resources necessary for the highest possible quality result Dr Spencer Kargan (1992) proposes another definition on CL as “group learning activity organized so that learning is dependent on socially structured exchange of information between learners in group and in which each learner is held accountable for his or her own leaning and is motivated to increase learning of others.”

Macaulay and Gonzalez (1996) characterize CL as: “The instructional of small groups so that learners are able to work together in a manner that enhances both group and individual learning.”

Tang (1998,p.116) offers an international perspective on CL, emphasizing the practices and effects

of CL.: Cooperative learning provides a non-threatening learning context for interaction between students During CL, students are exposed to other perspectives and alternatives, the share and exchange ideas, criticize and provide feedback Peer feedback can help students increase their awareness of their learning aims, and of the strategies to employ to achieve those aims Cooperation provides “scaffolding” for mutual support and enables students to learn from each other The function is teaching function, although the major interaction is student-student, rather than teacher-student

It can be clearly seen from these definitions that the key to CL is the careful structuring of learning groups And generally, cooperative learning methods share the following five characteristics:

• Student work together on common tasks or learning activities that are best handled through group work

• Students work together in small groups containing two to five members

• Students use cooperative, pro-social behavior to accomplish their common tasks or learning activities

• Students are positively interdependent Activities are structured so that students need each other to accomplish their common tasks or learning activities

• Students are individually accountable or responsible for their work or learning

Moreover, the reason why we use cooperative learning is that cooperative learning enhances student learning by:

• providing a shared cognitive set of information between students,

• motivating students to learn the material,

• ensuring that students construct their own knowledge,

• providing formative feedback,

• developing social and group skills necessary for success outside the classroom

• promoting positive interaction between members of different cultural groups

And cooperative learning small groups provide a place where:

• learners actively participate;

• teachers become learners at times, and learners sometimes teach;

• respect is given to every member;

• projects and questions interest and challenge students;

• diversity is celebrated, and all contributions are valued;

• students learn skills for resolving conflicts when they arise;

• members draw upon their past experience and knowledge;

• goals are clearly identified and used as a guide;

• research tools such as Internet access are made available;

• students are invested in their own learning

The process depicted below shows how group goals might operate to enhance the learning outcomes of cooperative learning:

As presented, provision of group goals based on the individual learning of all group members might affect cognitive processes directly, by motivating students to engage in peer modelling, cognitive elaboration, and/or practice with one another Group goals may also lead to group cohesiveness, increasing caring and concern among group members, making them feel responsible for one another's achievement, thereby motivating students to engage in cognitive processes which enhance learning Finally, group goals may motivate students to take responsibility for one another independently of the teacher, thereby solving important classroom organization problems and providing increased opportunities for cognitively appropriate learning

activities Actually, there exists no one generally accepted version of CL Indeed, disparate theoretical perspectives on learning, including behaviourism, sociocultural theory, humanist psychology, cognitive psychology, social psychology and Piagetian developmental psychology have informed the development of different approaches to CL Thus, various principles have been put forward in the CL literature (e.g., Baloche, 1998, Jacobs, Power, & Loh, 2002, Johnson

& Johnson, 1999, Kagan, 1994 and Slavin, 1995) In the next section, eight CL principles and how they can inform teaching practice will be discussed

III Principles of cooperative learning

III.1 Heterogeneous Grouping:

This principle means that the groups in which students do CL tasks are mixed on one or more of a number of variables including sex, ethnicity, social class, religion, personality, age, language proficiency and diligence Heterogeneous grouping is believed to have a number of benefits in comparison with homogeneous grouping, such as encouraging peer tutoring, providing a variety of perspectives, helping students come to know and like others different from themselves and fostering appreciation of the value of diversity

In CL, groups often stay together for five weeks or more To achieve heterogeneous groups for speaking activities, teachers might want to look at their class and make conscious decisions about which students should work together, rather than leaving the matter to chance or

to students’ choice The latter option often results in groups with low levels of heterogeneity Furthermore, when we opt for heterogeneous groups, we may want to spend some time on ice breaking (also known as teambuilding) activities, because as Slavin (1995) notes, the combination of students that results from teacher-selected groups is likely to be one that would never have been created had it not been for our intervention

III.2 Collaborative Skills: Collaborative skills are those needed to work with others Students may lack these skills, the language involved in using the skills or the inclination to apply the skills during a reading aloud session Most books and websites on cooperative learning urge that collaborative skills be explicitly taught one at a time Which collaborative skill to teach will depend on the particular students and the particular task they are undertaking? Just a few of the

many skills important to successful collaboration are: checking that others understand, asking for and giving reasons; disagreeing politely and responding politely to disagreement and encouraging others to participate and responding to encouragement to participate Collaborative skills often overlap with thinking skills, e.g., asking for and giving reasons pushes students to think more deeply, and disagreement when handled properly encourages students to explain what they have said

III 3 Group Autonomy:

This principle encourages students to look to themselves for resources rather than relying solely on the teacher When student groups are having difficulty, it is very tempting for teachers

to intervene either in a particular group or with the entire class We may sometimes want to resist this temptation, because as Roger Johnson writes, “Teachers must trust the peer interaction to do many of the things they have felt responsible for themselves” Yes, teachers will sometimes intervene, but perhaps intervention should not always be the first option

III.4 Simultaneous Interaction (Kagan, 1994):

In classrooms in which group activities are not used, including in the typical reading aloud by teachers session, the normal interaction pattern is that of sequential interaction, in which one person at a time – usually the teacher – speaks For example, the teacher stops at some point while reading aloud, asks a question to check students’ comprehension, calls on a student to answer the question and evaluates that student’s response

In contrast, when group activities are used, one student per group is, hopefully, speaking

In a class of 40 divided into groups of four, ten students are speaking simultaneously, i.e., 40 students divided by 4 students per group = 10 students (1 per group) speaking at the same time Thus, this CL principal is called simultaneous interaction If the same class is working in groups

of two (pairs are also groups), we may have 20 students speaking simultaneously

Even when teachers use groups, it is common at the end of a group activity for each group, one at a time, to report to the class and the teacher When this takes place, we are back to sequential interaction In order to maintain the simultaneous interaction that existed during the group activity, many alternatives exist to this one-at-a-time reporting For instance, one person

from each group can go to another group These representatives explain (not just show or tell) their group’s ideas Of course, simultaneous and sequential interaction may be usefully combined

III.5 Equal Participation (Kagan, 1994):

A frequent problem in groups is that one or two group members dominate the group and, for whatever reason, impede the participation of others CL offers many ways of promoting equal participation in groups Two of these are the use of rotating roles in a group, such as facilitator, checker (who checks to see that everyone understands what the group is doing/has done), questioner, praiser, encourager and paraphraser, and the use of multiple ability tasks (Cohen, 1994; Gardner, 1999), i.e., tasks that require a range of abilities, such as drawing, singing, acting and categorizing, rather than only language abilities

III 6 Individual Accountability:

Individual accountability is, in some ways, the flip side of equal participation When we encourage equal participation in groups, we want everyone to feel they have opportunities to take part in the group When we try to encourage individual accountability in groups, we hope that no one will attempt to avoid using those opportunities Techniques for encouraging individual accountability seek to avoid the problem of groups known variously as social loafing, sleeping partners or free riding

These techniques, not surprisingly, overlap with those for encouraging equal participation They include giving each group member a designated turn to participate, keeping group size small, calling on students at random to share their group’s ideas and having a task to

be done individually after the group activity is finished

III.7 Positive Interdependence:

This principle lies at the heart of CL When positive interdependence exists among members of a group, they feel that what helps one member of the group helps the other members and that what hurts one member of the group hurts the other members It is the “All for one, one for all” feeling that leads group members to want to help each other, to see that they share a common goal

Johnson & Johnson (1999) describe nine ways to promote positive interdependence Six

of these are discussed below

a Goal positive interdependence: The group has a common goal that they work together to achieve

b Environmental positive interdependence: Group members sit close together so that they can easily see each other’s work and hear each other without using loud voices This may seem trivial, but it can be important

c Role positive interdependence: In addition to the roles mentioned above, there are also housekeeping types of roles, such as timekeeper who reminds the group of time limits and ‘sound hound’ who tells the group if they are being too loud in their deliberations

d Resource positive interdependence: Each group member has unique resources These resources can be information or equipment, such as paper or a particular color marker

e External Challenge positive interdependence: When the same group stays together over a period of time – this is recommended by most books and websites on cooperative learning partly

as a means of allowing groups to work to improve their group dynamics – students can aim to improve on past performance

f Reward positive interdependence: If groups meet a pre-set goal, they receive some kind of reward Rewards can take many forms: grades, sweets, certificates, praise, and the choice of a future activity the class does, the chance to do their team cheer or handshake or just a feeling of satisfaction If extrinsic rewards are used, Lynda Baloche (personal communication, May 14, 2001) recommends that teachers never begin an extrinsic reward program without having a plan for how to end it

III 8 Cooperation as a Value:

This principle means that rather than cooperation being only a way to learn, i.e., the how

of learning, cooperation also becomes part of the content to be learned, i.e., the what of learning This flows naturally from the most crucial CL principle, positive interdependence Cooperation

as a value involves taking the feeling of “All for one, one for all” and expanding it beyond the small classroom group to encompass the whole class, the whole school, on and on, bringing in

increasingly greater numbers of people and other beings into students’ circle of ones with whom

to cooperate

One way of expanding the scope of the positive interdependence felt by students is to read aloud books and other materials on the themes related to cooperation and global issues Global issues include such areas of education as peace education, environmental education, human rights education, multicultural education, and development education (Smallwood, 1991; TESOLers for Social Responsibility Wood, Roser, & Martinez, 2001)

We have just look at the definitions as well as principles of CL, in the next section, some common cooperative learning structures and techniques will be presented with the aim of setting the clear and helpful reference for the CL training and implementing program in the next chapter

IV Cooperative Learning Structures and Techniques

What are cooperative learning structures?

Structures are very specific cooperative learning strategies that teachers can use to organize interaction between students Most structures can be used with almost any academic content, but some structures are better than others for certain tasks Some structures regulate interaction between pairs, some are better for group work, and others involve the entire class The key is learning structures is best-suited for a particular instructional purpose Following are some of the structures developed by Dr Spencer Kagan most commonly used in language class

1 Round robin

Students in teams take turns orally responding to a question or prompt You can have questions on slips of paper in the middle of the team, or you can call the question aloud For example, you could have team members Round robin their predictions for a science experiment before you do the activity

2 Roundtable

Students in teams take turns passing a paper around and writing on it or completing another task This structure can also be used with sorting activities For example, you could have the names of various organs of the body on slips of paper, and the kids could take turns sorting them into categories according to body system

3 Rallytable

This is like Roundtable, but the kids work in pairs instead of in teams of 4 They pass a worksheet back and forth as they write answers or complete a task Very simple and very effective! If you haven't used this one, you need to do so!

4 Think-Pair-Share

Students are divided into pairs The teacher calls out a discussion topic and students THINK

of their own answer Then students PAIR to discuss their ideas Finally, the teacher calls on one student to SHARE their ideas with the class Works especially well for me in science, health, and social studies Also works well in math when explaining how to solve a problem In reading, you can use it for discussing a story or making predictions and inferences

5 Mix-Freeze-Pair

Similar to Think-Pair-Share, but students are up and moving about the class Ask students

to MIX and then FREEZE Ask a question, and have students PAIR with a partner to discuss it Then call on a few kids to share their ideas with the class

6.Team Interview

Students take turns standing and being interviewed by their team They can be interviewed about a favorite book or about a current event article they have read They can be interviewed about a topic they have researched or a section of the textbook they were assigned to read Students can even assume roles, like famous scientists and historical figures

7 Showdown

One student on each team turns over a task card and reads the question aloud Everyone writes the answer on their chalkboard Next, the leader asks students to show their answers to the team Team members discuss the correct answer and the leader records the answer for the team

8.Line Ups Students line up in order according to a topic named by the teacher For example, you could have students line up by their birthdays or first names You can also give students task cards with numbers or words and have them line up in order

9.Teammates Consult

Students all have the same worksheet They place their pencils in a cup while discussing each question Then they take their pencils out to silently write the answer

10 Numbered Heads Together

The teacher calls out a question and students put their heads together in teams to discuss the answer Then a number is called, and one person from each team responds (without help from the team.)

11 Jigsaw

Students are on "base teams" of four Each student is assigned a different role as an

"expert." All experts with the same topic meet in a corner of the classroom to learn about their topic Then they prepare a brief presentation on the material and return to their base teams They teach their base team members the new material they learned

12 Corners

The teacher calls out a question or a prompt and names 4 possible answers or responses The teacher designates a corner of the room for each response Students write down their personal answer and move to the corner of the room that represents their choice They pair up with another student to discuss why they chose that answer or response

13 Mix-N-Match

A great classroom review structure that also serves as a classbuilder Each student is given a problem or answer card, and they move around the room searching for their "match." This structure is a great activity for those times when students are restless after a long period of an activity

14 Three-step Interview

Three-step interviews can be used as an ice breaker for team members to get to know one another or can be used to get to know concepts in depth, by assigning roles to students

• Teacher assigns roles or students can "play" themselves teacher may also give interview questions or information that should be "found."

• A interviews B for the specified number of minutes, listening attentively and asking probing questions

• At a signal, students reverse roles and B interviews A for the same number of minutes

At another signal, each pair turns to another pair, forming a group of four Each member of the group introduces his or her partner, highlighting the most interesting points

This concludes the introduction to CL as an overall approach to teaching that can be used with any subject area The next section looks more specifically at CL in regard to language pedagogy

V Cooperative Learning and Language Pedagogy

As stated earlier, great deals of researches have been done on cooperative learning (CL) However, first language pedagogy is probably not the subject area in which the most CL research has been done, with even less having been done in the area of second language instruction Nonetheless, these areas have not been neglected A great deal of practical and theoretical work

of relevance to the interface between CL and language learning has been done, and group activities are certainly a prominent feature of language teaching in many classrooms (Jacobs, Crookall, & Thiyaragarajali, 1997) The next section briefly examines eight hypotheses, theories and perspectives on language pedagogy in terms of their overlap with CL

V.1 The input hypothesis

The input hypothesis (Krashen & Terrell, 1983) states that we acquire a language as we comprehend meaning in that language in the form of written or spoken words Thus, reading and listening provide input which our brains utilize to build language competence Our knowledge advances as we understand input at the i+1 level, i.e., input that is slightly above our current level of competence

Three ways that CL helps increase the quantity of comprehensible input are:

a) Peers can provide each other with comprehensible input

b) Input from fellow learners is likely to be comprehensible

c) Peer groups may provide a more motivating, less anxiety-producing environment for language use, thus, increasing the chances that students will take in more input

V.2 The interaction hypothesis

A second hypothesis about language learning that overlaps with CL is the Interaction Hypothesis which states that language learners increase the quantity of comprehensible input they receive by interacting with their interlocutors (the people with whom they are speaking) This interaction is called negotiating for meaning Pica (1994: 494) defines negotiation for meaning as

"the modification and restructuring of interaction that occurs when learners and their interlocutors anticipate, perceive, or experience difficulties in message comprehensibility." Students negotiate for meaning by such means as requesting repetition, explanation and clarification Reid (1993) states that negotiating for meaning can also take place during peer feedback on student writing

Two ways that CL may promote interaction are:

a) Group activities, especially those in which members feel positively interdependent and individually accountable, provide a context in which students may be more likely to interact than in

a whole class setting

b) Long (1996) proposes that group activities can encourage students to interact with each other in a way that promotes a focus on form, i.e., "to attend to language as object during a generally meaning-oriented activity" (p 429) Such a focus on form can be encouraged when grammar constitutes at least one aspect of group tasks

V.3 The output hypothesis

The Output Hypothesis (Swain, 1985) proposes that in order for learners to increase their language proficiency, they need to generate output, i.e., produce language via speech or writing and receive feedback on the comprehensibility of their output Input is necessary, but not sufficient for language learning Output is seen to be essential as it promotes fluency; pushes students to engage in syntactic processing of language, rather than only attending to meaning; gives students opportunities

to test their hypotheses about what works and is acceptable in a particular language and affords students opportunities to receive feedback from others

The main way that CL overlaps with the Output Hypothesis is illustrated in the CL principle simultaneous interaction, because CL greatly increases students’ opportunities to create output, as many students are talking simultaneously, instead of one person, normally the teacher, doing all the talking (Long & Porter, 1985) The CL principle equal participation attempts to balance the opportunities that each student has for creating output

V.4 Sociocultural theory

The ideas of Vygotsky (1978) and related scholars have found many applications in language pedagogy Vygostky’s sociocultural theory views humans as culturally and historically situated - not as isolated individuals A key emphasis lies in the ways that we help each other learn, rather than learning on our own This help can be called scaffolding (the support provided

as buildings are being constructed) Scaffolding can be provided to a student by teachers, more capable peers and even by students at or below that student’s current level When teachers use

CL, they seek to enable students to work towards groups in which scaffolding takes place because the members care about each other, have the skills to help one another (see the CL principle collaborative skills) and are involved in tasks they find meaningful (see the CL principal cooperation as a value)

CL overlaps with Sociocultural Theory by attempting to build an environment that fosters mutual aid As Newman and Holtzman (1993, p 77) note:

Vygotsky’s strategy was essentially a cooperative learning strategy He created heterogeneous groups of … children (he called them a collective), providing them not only with the opportunity but the need for cooperation and joint activity by giving them tasks that were beyond the developmental level of some, if not all, of them

V.5 Content-based instruction

The key concept underlying content-based instruction is that language is best learned while focusing on meaning rather than focusing on the form of language Thus, an overall inductive approach is followed in which students learn content from anywhere in the curriculum, e.g., science or social studies, but at the same time, they are learning grammar and vocabulary as they receive input and produce output while learning that content

Content-based language instruction fits well with CL (Chamot & O'Malley, 1994) as: a) Research suggests that CL promotes learning regardless of the subject area, making it useful for teaching any subject, not just for teaching language

b) The CL principle cooperation as a value provides a rich vein of content that may also enhance students’ understanding of the benefits of cooperation Examples of such content include how insects cooperate among each other, how environmental destruction in one part of the world impacts plants and animals elsewhere, how people throughout history have collaborated and how

we depend on so many people in various parts of the world for so many of the things we do and use everyday

V.6 Individual differences

In the past, there was a tendency in education towards an assembly line model of education

in which all students were to learn in the same way Today, the pendulum has swung somewhat, and there is a great appreciation of the many differences that exist between students and a belief that teaching needs to take these differences into account Kagan and Kagan (1998) capture this new perspective in the slogan “The more ways we teach, the more pupils we reach” (Cohen 2, p 6)

The individual differences perspective on learning fits well with CL as:

a) group activities provide a different mode of learning rather than a steady diet of teacher-fronted instruction

b) within groups, students can develop more fully as they can play a wider range of roles than are normally available via teacher-fronted instruction

c) the CL principle heterogeneous grouping encourages students to interact with peers different from themselves, providing students opportunities to benefit from this diversity and to learn to work with people different from themselves

d) When groups are working on their own (see the CL principle group autonomy), teachers have more time to spend with students who may need individual attention

V.7 Learner autonomy

The concept of learner autonomy implies that students should take an important role in choosing what and how they learn and in monitoring their own learning This fits with the belief that

education should be a self-directed, life-long process Learner autonomy does not necessarily mean that students are learning alone, rather it is a matter of moving away from a situation in which control rests solely in the hands of teachers and, instead, of moving towards students playing the greatest possible role given the learning context

Learner autonomy fits well with CL as:

a) Groupmates can learn to depend on each other rather than always on the teacher

b) In line with the CL principle group autonomy, teachers seek to devolve authority to the groups, while still playing a guiding role

c) students provide feedback to and receive feedback from each other, thereby developing their evaluation ability (which can then be used for self-assessment) and the proclivity to look beyond authority figures for feedback

In the previous sections, we have looked at the interface between CL and language learning In the next section, we will present theory of CL in second language teaching which will server as a reference for us in the implementation of CL in teaching speaking

VI Cooperative language learning

VI.1 The goals and advantages of CLL

In second language teaching, CL which is often referred to as cooperative language learning (CLL) has been embraced as a way of promoting communicative interaction in the classroom and

is seen as an extension of the principles of communicative language teaching It is view as a learner-centered approach to teaching held to offer advantages over teacher-fronted classroom methods Richards and Rodgers (2001) proposed that in language teaching the goals of cooperative learning are:

• to provide opportunities for naturalistic second language acquisition through the use of interactive pair and group activities

• to provide teacher with a methodology to enable them to achieve this goal that can be applied

in a variety of curriculum settings (e.g., content-based, foreign language classroom; mainstreaming)

• to enable focused attention to particular lexical items, language structures, and communicative functions through the use of interactive tasks

• to provide opportunities for learners to develop successful learning and communication strategies

• To enhance learners motivation and reduce learner stress and to create a positive affective classroom climate

CLL is thus an approach that crosses both mainstream education and second and foreign language teaching From the perspective of second language teaching, Mc Groary (1989) offers six learning advantages for ESL students in CLL classroom:

1 Increase frequency and variety of second language practice through different types of interaction

2 Possibility for development or use of language in ways that support cognitive development and increase language skills

3 Opportunities to integrate language with content-based instruction

4 Opportunities to include a greater variety of curricular materials to stimulate language as well

as concept learning

5 Freedom for teachers to master professional skills, particularly that emphasis communication

6 Opportunities for students to act as resources for each other, thus assuming a more active role

VI.2.2 The syllabus

CLL does not have any particular form of language syllabus, since activities from a wide variety of curriculum orientations can be taught via CL Thus, we find CLL used in teaching content classes, ESP, the four skills, grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary What defines in the systematic and carefully planned use of group-based procedures in teaching as an alternative

to teacher-fronted teaching?

VI.2.3 Types of learning and teaching activities

1 formal cooperation learning groups: these last from one period to several weeks These are established for specific task and involve students working together to achieve shared learning goals

2 Informal cooperative learning groups: these are ad-hoc groups that last a few minutes or a class period and are used to focus students’ attention or to facilitate learning during direct teaching

3 Cooperative base groups: these are long term, lasting for at least one semester or a year and consist of heterogeneous learning groups with stable membership whose primary purpose is to

allow member to give each other support, encouragement, and assistance they need to succeed academically

VI.2.4 Learner’s roles

The primary role of the learner is as a member of a group who must work collaboratively on tasks with other group members Learners have to learn teamwork skills Learners are also directors of their own learning They are taught to plan, monitor, and evaluate their own learning, which is viewed as compilation of lifelong learning skills Thus, learning is something that requires students’ direct and active involvement and participation Pair grouping is the most typical CLL format, ensuring the maximum amount of time both learners spend engaged on learning tasks Pair tasks in which learners alternate roles involve partners in the role of tutors, checkers, recorders, and information sharers

VI.2.5 Teacher roles

The role of teacher in CLL differs considerably from the role of teacher in traditional teacher-fronted lesson The teacher has to create a highly structured and well-organized learning environment in the classroom, setting goals, planning and structuring tasks, establishing the physical arrangement of the classroom, assigning students to groups and roles, and selecting materials and time An important role of the teacher is that of facilitator of learning In his or her role as facilitator, the teachers must move around the class helping the students and groups as needs arise:

During this time, the teacher interacts, teaches, refocuses, questions, clarifies, supports, expands, celebrates, empathizes Depending on what problems evolve, the following behaviors are utilized Facilitators are giving feedback, redirecting the groups with questions, encouraging the group to solve its own problems, extending activities, encouraging thinking, managing conflicts, observing students, and supplying resources (Harrell 1992: 169)

VI.2.6 The role of instructional materials

Materials play an important part in creating opportunities for students to work cooperatively The same materials can be used as are used in other types of lessons but variations are required in how the materials are used For example, if students are working in groups, each

might have one set of materials (or groups may have different sets of materials), or each group member might have a copy of the text to read and refer to Materials may be especially designed for CLL (such as commercially sold jigsaw and information-gap activities) modified from existing materials, or borrowed from other disciplines

VII Speaking skill

VII.1 The nature of speaking:

Brown and Yule (1993) begin their discussion on the nature of spoken language by distinguishing between spoken and written language They point out that for most of its history, language teaching has been concerned with the teaching of written language This language is characterized by well-formed sentences which are integrated into highly structured paragraphs Spoken language, on the other hand, consists of short, often fragmentary utterances, in a range of pronunciations There is often a great deal of repetition and overlap between one speaker and another, and speakers frequently use non-specific references (they tend to say ‘thing’, ‘it’ and

‘this’ rather than ‘the left-handed monkey wrench’) Brown and Yule point out that the loosely organized syntax, the use of non-specific words and phrases and the use of fillers such as ‘well’,

‘oh’ and ‘u huh’ make spoken language feel less conceptually dense than other types of language such as expository prose They suggest that, in contrast with teaching of written language, teachers concerned with teaching the spoken language must confront the following types of questions:

• What is the appropriate form of spoken language to teach?

• From the point of view of pronunciation, what is the reasonable model?

• How important is pronunciation?

• Is it any more important than teaching appropriate hand writing in the foreign language? If so, why?

• From the point of view of the structures taught, is it all right to teach spoken language as if it was exactly like the written language?, but with a few ‘spoken expressions’ thrown in?

• Is it appropriate to teach the same structures to all foreign language students, no matter what their age or their intention in learning spoken language is?

• Are those structures which are described in standard grammars the structures which our students should be expected to produce when they speak English?

• How is it possible to give students any sort of meaningful practice in producing spoken English?

(Brown and Yule 1983:3) Brown and Yule also draw a useful distinction between two basic language functions These are the transactional functions, which are primarily concerned with the transfer of information, and the interactional function, in which the primary purpose of speech is the maintenance of social relationships

These two authors propose another basic distinction when considering the development of speaking skills is between monologue and dialogue The ability to give an uninterrupted oral presentation is quite distinct from interacting with one or more speakers for transactional and international purposes While all native speakers can and do use language internationally, not all native speakers have ability to express on a given subject to a group of listeners This is a skill which generally has to be learned and practiced They suggest that most language teaching is concerned developing skills in short, interact ional exchanges in which the learner is only required to make one or two utterances at a time They go on state that: “… the teacher should realize that simply training the students to produce short turns will not automatically yield a student who can perform satisfactorily in long turns It is currently fashionable in language teaching to pay a particular attention to the forms and functions of short turns … It must surely be clear that students who are only capable of producing short turns are going to experience a lot of frustration when try to speak foreign language.” (Brown and Yule 1983:19-20)

Another author examined the nature of spoken language is Pattison (1987) who is concerned with the lack of transfer from the practice of motor-perceptive skills to genuine communicative interaction She contrasts what conventionally happens in the language class with what typically happens outside the classroom in relation to the content, reason, result, participants and means of communication The contrasts are as follow:

List 1 FL (oral) List 2 FL (oral)

Practice in the classroom communication outside the classroom

WHAT: Content of communication Content or topic is decided by teacher,

textbook, tape, etc the meaning of what

they say may not always be clear to

speakers The content is highly predictable

Speakers express their own ideas, wishes, opinions, attitudes, information, etc they are fully aware of what they wish to convey The exact content of any speaker’s message is unpredictable

WHY 1: Reason for communication Learners speak in order to practice

speaking; because the teacher tell them to,

or in order to get good marks, etc

Speakers have social or personal reasons to speak There is an information gap to fill, or

an area of uncertainty to be made clear What is said is potentially interesting or useful to participants

WHY: Result of communication The FL is spoken; the teacher accepts or

corrects what is said, a mark is given, etc

(extrinsic motivation)

Speakers achieve their aims; they get what they want, an information gap is filled, a problem is solved, a decision is reached or social contact is made, etc the result is of intrinsic interest or value to the participants WHO: Participants in communication

A large group in which not everyone is

facing the speakers or interested in what

they say; except for one person, the teacher,

who pays less attention to what they say

than to how correctly they say it

Two or more people, usually facing each other, paying attention to and responding to what is said, rather than to how correctly it

is said

HOW: Means of communication

Language from teacher or tape is very

closely adapted to learner’s level All

speech is as accurate as possible, and

usually in complete sentences Problems in

communicating meaning are often dealt

with by translation Learners are corrected

if their speech deviates from standard

forms, whether or not their meaning clear

Teacher helps learners to express

themselves more correctly

Native speaker output is not closely adjusted to foreigners’ level Meaning is conveyed by any means at the speakers’

command: linguistic or Para-linguistic (gestures, etc.) problem is dealt with by negotiation and exchange of feedback between speakers Translation is not always possible errors not affecting communication are largely ignored Native speakers help foreign speakers to express themselves more clearly

(Pattison: Developing communication skills, pp.7 and 8)

In summary then, successful oral communication involves developing:

• The ability to articulate phonological features of the language comprehensibly;

• Mastery of stress, rhythm, intonation patterns;

• An acceptable degree of fluency;

• Transactional and interpersonal skills;

• Skills in taking short and long speaking turns;

• Skills in management of interaction;

• Skills in negotiating meaning;

• Conversational listening skills (successful conversations require good listeners as well as good speakers);

• Skills in knowing about and negotiating purposes for conversations;

• Using appropriate conversational formulate and fillers

VII.2 Problems with speaking and speaking activities

VII.2.1 Problems with speaking

Brown (1994:256) points out the characteristics of spoken language that can make oral performance difficult as follows:

• Clustering:

In order to speak fluently, speakers have to select from their store of language clustering, that

is groups of words, not word by word

• Reduced forms:

Contractions, elisions, reduced vowels, etc create difficulties in teaching and learning spoken English If learners do not learn colloquial contractions, they can develop the kind of speaking that is stilted, bookish

• Colloquial language :

Colloquialism appears both in monologues and dialogues If learners are only exposed to standard English and/or "textbook" language, they sometimes find it difficult to understand and produce words, idioms and phrases of colloquial language

• Stress, rhythm and intonation:

Learners of English often find it difficult to pronounce English words, to stress the right syllables, to follow the stress-timed rhythm and intonation patterns of spoken English

VII 2.2 Problems with speaking activities

Classroom activities that develop learners' ability to express themselves through speech are

an important component of a language course where CLT is applied However, it is more difficult

to design and administer such activities than to do so for listening, reading or writing Teachers often come across the problems that Ur (1996:121) lists out:

• Inhibition :

Unlike reading, writing and listening activities, speaking requires some degree of real-time exposure to an audience Learners are often inhibited about trying to say something in a foreign language in the classroom because they are worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism

or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts

• Nothing to say :

Teachers often hear learners complain that they can not think of anything to say They may have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be speaking

• Uneven or low participation:

Only one participant can talk at a time if he or she is to be heard In a large group, this means that each one has only very little time for talking This problem is compounded by the tendency

of some learners to dominate the group, while others speak very little or not at all

• Mother-tongue use:

When all, or a number of the learners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it This happens because it is easier, because it feels unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language and because learners feel less ''exposed'' if they are speaking their mother tongue If they are talking in a small group, it can be quite difficult to get some classes, particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones, to keep to the target language

Overcoming the above-mentioned problems to create a successful speaking activity where learners talk a lot, participation is even, motivation is high certainly requires a lot of teachers' efforts in designing and carrying out speaking activities

Generally, there are many approaches to CL, but all have common characteristics of a learning activity suitable for groupwork, small group based tasks which encourage cooperative behaviours, students’ positive interdependence, individual accountability and responsibility for task completion Under the CL conditions, students’ cooperative efforts are expected to be more productive than competitive and individual efforts Moreover, working in CL environment with the group-goal structures and self-esteem building strategies, the students are not only well- structured to participate equally and trained collaborative skills which are very helpful in learning but also are encouraged and motivated to strive to strengthen themselves and friends Thus, it can

be said that CL and CLL are very likely to be effective in solving the problems of speaking activities

VIII Summary

In summary, the chapter has so far presented the issues and aspects concerning the topic

of the study It has discussed the theory of cooperative learning in general and in language teaching in particular The most important issues including the definitions, the principles, the structures, the interface between CL and language learning and cooperative language learning as well as the teaching and learning of the skill focussed, speaking have all been discussed Basing

on this review and realization of CL and CLL advantages, we will be carrying out an action research on implementing CL structures to teaching speaking to the second year students at my Department The thorough research will be presented in the next chapter

CHAPTER 2: DEVELOPMENT OF THE RESEARCH

I Learning situation of the second year students at the department of English, Gialai teachers’ training college

I.1 Students and Teachers

Students

The most significant feature of the students entering DE, GTTT is that most of them come from different high schools in the districts of the province and Pleiku city where traditional method of teaching English is popularly applied Their English learning used to focus on reading and writing but not listening or speaking, thus they had very little chance to speak English It can

be acknowledged that most of them find the college learning completely different from that at their schools (only some of them who live in the city center can join classes at the Foreign Language Center where new methodology is encouraged to apply) After one year at the college, the second-year students are now getting acquainted with the new learning environment They have learned the new language skills, worked harder for the requirements of the courses and gradually, they now have had ideas of concepts, techniques, and structures of new methodology During class hour, they can get into group activities easily and quickly

As regards to the level of English, their English is not as good as students from universities because most of them had failed entrance examinations into universities before entering the college where the marks required for the admission are not high However, they are very active, enthusiastic and hardworking in the study, which has encouraged the teachers in the department to keep looking for ways to help the students to improve their studying

The teachers

Whether in the traditional teacher-centered approach or the learner-centered approach, the role of the teachers is still undeniable At the DE, GTTC, there are 15 teachers, who were all trained in universities in Viet Nam (Da Nang University of Foreign Languages and Hue University of Social and Human sciences) They are from 30 to 50 years of age 5 of them are experienced

teachers who have devoted 15 – 20 years of their life to the development of the Department and the grown-up of generations of teachers in the province, others are young teachers who are friendly, active, knowledgeable and full of inspiration for teaching

During 2000 and 2001, all of them were sent to University of Foreign Studies in Thanh Xuan,

Ha Noi to participate in one component of Viet Nam-Australia Training Project, the Teacher service Education program which specialized in training teachers in English teaching methodology, using CLT as the model of instruction The three-month course of methodology and CLT is considered to have brought positive changes in the teachers' attitudes toward teaching methodology and CLT principles and techniques are thought by many teachers to be applied in their teaching

In-I.2 College and class

The 20-year-old English Department is one of the 6 major departments in GTTC It was founded in 1984 with its main aim being training teachers of English who would work in most of the junior high schools in Gia Lai Province Up to now, the DE, GTTC has produced hundreds of teachers, many of whom are now good teachers at many junior high schools in the province

In recent years, along with the nationwide educational innovation, the DE, GTTC has been continuously improving the quality of teaching and studying Many alternations have been brought about, especially since the reform which has really started since the first year of the new millennium There are many teachers sent to seminars, to training courses organized in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City In the English Department, many foreign teachers with enthusiasm and experience from Voluntary Service Overseas (a non-governmental organization belonging to the British Council) have also come for assistance It is recognized that seminars, training courses and VSO teachers' effective help have changed the teachers' attitudes toward teaching methodologies and especially, toward Communicative Language Teaching With a new knowledge of methodologies, the teachers in the Department have tried out new techniques, activities and views in their classroom and they have resulted in many achievements

Improvements in teaching method are accompanied by improvements in the college’ infrastructure Students are now in small-sized class, each class has one private classroom to

study The rooms are especially designed for small classes with large windows, blackboards, fans, lights and especially single movable chairs which are very convenient for group activities There is also a small library with many books, cassettes which are good and useful for English learning donated by British Council

However, the students in our department have very little chance to practise oral communication skills as there are no language learning laboratory, satellite televisions with English channels, update newspapers and magazines in English or English speaking clubs This rare exposure to the native language explains why students lack communicative competence and become inhibited to speak English

I 3 Speaking tasks and materials in teaching speaking

For the particular features of the students in the department, it is necessary and favorable to use the coursebooks designed by the teachers basing on the students’ need analysis For speaking, with the fund of 150 periods’ class work allocated through 5 semesters, a set of five courses books is designed to help the students take step by step speaking correctly on different topics and

in different situations in their ordinary life The coursebooks, with reference to the two important books (Penny Ur: A Course in Language Teaching) in which the teaching of speaking is guided

to be carried out mainly though topic-, task-based activities and discussion activities; and (David Nunan: Designing Tasks for the Communicative classroom) which provides a practical introduction to the design and development of communicative language learning tasks Moreover, there is a wide range of activities and tasks at many different levels available from different sources (a series of communication game books and many websites on the internet) taken and adapted to be appropriate in term of goals, input, roles, settings, and difficulties of their reality of teaching with their particular students in the classroom The books are clearly laid out with plenty of authentic models of spoken language, and communicative activities to help students practice using the language in the classroom Most importantly, there are many pairwork and groupwork in the books Here below are some tasks in the books:

• Work in pairs to discuss the following questions:

- What is happening in each picture?

- Have you ever had a bad day like that? Tell your partner or the class

• Work in the groups and discuss the following questions:

- What will the world be like in 2050?

- What will Vietnam be like in 2050?

• Work in groups Choose a real-life crime or one from television, a book or a film (what happened? how was it solved?) to tell your groupmates

• Work in groups Each group is a committee, which has to work out a plan for secondary education reform Discuss and make a list of changes that you would like to make You may consider come of the following:

However, It can be seen clearly that the activities are not well-structured enough, which cause problems during class activities such as not even participation, students are inhibited to speak, students have nothing to say or they use mother tongue, act

In conclusion, the books have covered a range of topics, situations, language functions and structures that aim to help students be prepared for an appropriate communication in their ordinary life and in their work in the future However, some modifications to the group structuring, especially the tasks, should be taken into consideration so that the problems of speaking activities such as not even participation, students’ inhibition, nothing to say, use of mother tongue can be solved and the students are structured by find out and use suitable learning strategies during their process of learning to meet the requirements of the course

I 4 Requirements for the second year students in speaking skills

After two years, the students at the DE, GTTC are required to communicate appropriately

in various situations in ordinary life and talk about simple topics To achieve this, students need

to be equipped with the basic knowledge of speaking skills For the second year students at our department, speaking requirements are limited to daily communication and are set up with reference to the graded activities for speaking in Design Tasks for the Communicative classroom

by David Noonan as follows:

Level 1

- Name common objects

- Give personal details such as name, age, address

- Memorize and recite songs and rhymes in chorus

- Take part in short, contextualized dialogues

- Give simple descriptions of objects

- Request goods and objects

- Make statements of ability about self and others

Level 2

- Describe family and friends (e.g refer to age, relationship, size, weight, hair, eye)

- Recite songs in chorus and individually

- Ask and make statements about the likes of self and others

- Spell out words from core vocabulary list, and say words when they are spelled out

- Answer questions and give details of simple descriptions following an aural presentation

- Request details about the family and friends of others using cue words

- Make short statements (one or two sentences) on familiar topics using cue words

- Talk about regular occurring activities

- Compute quantities and money in English

- Tell the time in hours and half hours

Level 3

- Answer questions/give details following an aural presentation