(LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ) Using group work activities to reduce students'' speaking anxiety-an action research

Using group work has many advantages such as more language practice in classroom, more purposeful communication, more students‟ involvement and motivation, more chances for students to h

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

của học sinh trong giờ học nói

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410

HANOI - 2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

của học sinh trong giờ học nói

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410

HANOI - 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND TABLES iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

I Rationale of the study 1

II Aims of the study 3

III Scope of the study 3

IV Methods of the study 4

V Design of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Speaking skills and its related concepts 5

1.1.1 The importance of speaking skills 5

1.1.2 Elements of speaking skills 6

1.2 Group work in a speaking lesson 7

1.2.1 Definition and description of group work 7

1.2.2 Advantages and disadvantages of group work 7

1.2.3 Teacher‟s role in carrying out group work 9

1.3 Definitions of anxiety in Speaking English in classroom (SEC) 9

1.3.1 Definitions of anxiety 9

1.3.2 Anxiety in second language (L2) and in SEC 9

1.4 Main factors causing students’ anxiety in SEC 10

1.5 Effects of anxiety on students of SEC 10

1.6 Teacher’s role to students’ anxiety in SEC 11

1.7 Teaching techniques to reduce students anxiety in SEC 11

2 Practical grouping strategies 12

2.1 Group formation 12

2.1.1 Random grouping 12

2.1.2 Student- selected grouping 13

2.1.3 Teacher- formed grouping 13

2.2 Procedures of group work 14

2.3 Common oral activities for group work 15

2.3.1 Opening- circle discussion 15

2.3.2 Role play 15

2.3.3 Information Gap Activity (IGA) 15

2.3.4 Problem- solving 16

2.3.5 Other picture card activities 16

2.4 Problems and solutions in using class group work 17

3 Summary 19

Chapter 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 20

2.1 Research questions 20

2.2 Description of data collection instruments 20

2.2.1 The rationale for using questionnaire 20

2.2.2 Questionnaire 21

2.3 Participants 21

2.3.1 The students 21

2.3.2 The teacher 21

2.4 Research method 22

2.4.1 Overview of action research 22

2.4.2 Procedure of the action research 23

2.4.2.1 Initiation 23

2.4.2.2 Preliminary investigation 23

2.4.2.3 Hypothesis 23

2.4.2.4 Intervention 24

2.4.2.5 Evaluation 25

2.4.2.6 Dissemination 25

2.4.2.7 Follow up 25

2.5 Data collecting procedure 26

2.6 Data analysis 26

2.7 Summary 26

Chapter 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 27

3.1 The initial data 27

Results from questionnaire 1 27

3.2 The post data 32

Data collected from questionnaire 2 32

3.4 Discussion 34

3.5 Summary 36

PART C: CONCLUSION 38

1 Summary of main findings 38

2 Limitation and recommendation for further research 40

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE 1

APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE 2

Appendix 3: LESSON PLANS FOR 3 SPEAKING GROUP-WORK

ACTIVITIES OF THE STUDY

Appendix 4: The description of the second lesson during the intervention: Task 2- Unit 13: FILMS AND CINEMA –(English 10), page 134

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Table 2.2 Procedures of group work 14

Table 2.4: Problems and solutions in using class group work 17

Table 1: Students‟ evaluation on their anxiety in SEC 27

Table 2: Students‟ feeling when speaking in group work activities 29

Table 3: Student attitude to group work activities in speaking lessons 29

Table 4: Student‟s attitudes toward grouping strategies 30

Table 5: Students‟ preferences to group work activities in speaking lessons 33

Table 6: Students‟ self- evaluated participation in speaking activities in group 33

Chart 1: Students‟ evaluation on their anxiety in SEC 27

Chart 2: Factors making students anxious in SEC most 28

Chart 3: Students‟ favourite activities 31

Chart 4: Students‟ confident participation in group work activities 32

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

SEC Speaking English in classroom

BCM Being corrected mistakes as soon as they are made

BAS Being asked to speak without preparation

ADT A difficult topic

SFW Speaking in front of the whole class

PART A: INTRODUCTION

I Rationale of the study

In Vietnam for some recent decades, English has taken more and more important role in almost all aspects such as: politics, economy, culture, communication, education and information technology, especially since Viet Nam adopted its open door policy and become a member of WTO English helps Vietnamese labours to have access to latest information in the world and take part in the world labour force with English as an international means of communication in this modern age

However, it is the fact that using English for real communication in general, with limited English speaking ability is a big problem for Vietnamese learners The traditional teaching and learning English at high schools in Vietnam leads to the fact that students are inclined to develop reading and writing skills seem to remain a big problem to Vietnamese learners, meanwhile speaking and listening skills are almost ignored Although students can do some tasks in English, they can‟t use English as a communicative tool Since the teaching approach Communicative Learning Teaching (CLT) was introduced, the teaching and learning of English has changed its emphasis from “Master of language Structure” to “Master of use” According to this theory, teachers teach students how to understand as well as how

to perform But due to the strong effect of the traditional way of ELT in schools in Vietnam, the panorama of ELT, particularly including speaking skill remains dull

Like in most of schools in the north of Vietnam, the majority of the students

in Dong Hy high school (DHHS) where I work, have no ample opportunity to study the English language because they have few English lessons per week (three English lessons per week) Though they are encouraged to take few courses in school in the use of English, the content of these English courses are grossly inadequate for the students to acquire requisite skills in effective use of language for communication and for the give and take of social experience In order to study English as a foreign language and be successful with it, the students must be helped

by the teacher to acquire skills in the four language art skills, namely: speaking,

listening, writing, and reading Of the four skills mentioned above, speaking is the skills secondary school students need great support

Recently, teachers in my school have introduced activities through which they can help students go beyond the mastery of structures to the points and use them to communicate more meaningfully in real situations Also, group work approach has also been applied in all kinds of lessons and has shown its effectiveness It is said that using group work is one of good ways to motivate students in learning English By grouping students, teachers enables students to help one another study Using group work has many advantages such as more language practice in classroom, more purposeful communication, more students‟ involvement and motivation, more chances for students to help each other, more chances for students to foster responsibility, autonomy and independence (Underwood, 1987;

Hyland, 1991; Ur, 1996)

Therefore, simply putting students together in a group is no guarantee that it

is beneficial Without careful planning and facilitation, group work can frustrate

students and instructors and will be a waste of time

In DHHS during the group work there, the better students contribute a lot whereas some weaker ones become passive I realized that there were much more students who were anxious than those confident in speaking English in class Moreover, the anxious students have differently certain manifestations, for example giving frequent communicative feedback such as (uh- huh) and playing with the hair, clothes, or other manipulability objects It seemed that studying on students‟

anxiety was really meaningfully important As we all see “Anxiety is the rust of life,

destroying its brightness and weakening its power.” - said by Tyron Edwards, a

famous American theologian of “New Dictionary of Thoughts”

The wish to help her students to overcome the obstacles in speaking English encouraged the researcher to carry out this study, entitled the use of group work to reduce grade ten students‟ anxiety in speaking lessons at Dong Hy High School

II Aims and objectives of the study

The study aims to:

- gain understanding of factors that cause students‟ anxiety in speaking English lessons in one tenth form class of Dong Hy high school

- experiementing solutions that can address anxiety-causing factors so as to help the students to feel less anxious in speaking English in the speaking lessons

Those aims are specified into the following objectives:

- to find out what students say about factors that make them anxious in speaking English in the classroom;

- to find out effective classroom techniques that can create a low-anxiety classroom atmostphere so that students can be more active in speaking English in the lessons

III Scope of the study

As an action research project, the study was conducted with the researcher‟s own students in her own class The study is, therefore, limited itself to just one

„problem‟ the researcher was encountered with in her teaching, i.e students‟ speaking anxiety On the basis of the analysis of the factors the students, who were

in one grade-10th form, stated, the researcher experiemented with some interventions to address the problem

IV Methods of the study

- A quantitative method was used in this study with the questionnaire being used as the only instrument of data collection To be more specific, a pre-action questionnaire and a post-action questionnaire were employed

V Design of the study

The thesis consists of three parts:

Part A – INTRODUCTION- presents the rationale, the aim, scope, significance, methods, design of the study

Part B – DEVELOPMENT- consists of three chapters

Chapter one- Literature Review- deals with the theories related to the study:

speaking skill and its related concepts, concept of students‟ participation, group works in a speaking lesson definitions of anxiety in speaking English in classroom (SEC), main factors causing students‟ anxiety in SEC, teacher‟s role to students‟ anxiety in SEC

Chapter two- Research methodologies- presents the methodology performed

in the study It provides information about the participants, the instrumentation Data collection and findings are also presented in this chapter

Chapter three- Results and discussion- discuss the data of the study and

propose discussion for using group work activities to reduce grade ten students‟ anxiety in speaking lessons at Dong Hy High School

Part C: CONCLUSION- summarizes all the key issues as well as the limitations of the study and suggestions for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter deals with the theories related to the study: Speaking skill and its related concepts, concept of group works in a speaking lesson, definitions of anxiety in Speaking English in classroom (SEC), main factors causing students‟ anxiety in SEC, effect of anxiety on students SEC, teacher‟s role to students‟ anxiety in SEC, teaching techniques to reduce students‟ anxiety in SEC

1.1 Speaking skills and its related concepts

1.1.1 The importance of speaking skills

Speaking skills are essential in both professional and personal setting, in both public and private sectors Speaking helps us communicate with each other more easily and less misunderstanding Burn- Joyce (1997: 15) says that speaking is more than just a way or making conversation Conversation can be defined as the informal interchange of thoughts and information by spoken words Therefore, speaking skill is always considered as the most effective means of communication According to Penny Ur (1995: 120), speaking seems intuitively the most important and people who know a language are referred to as speakers of that language as if speaking includes all other kinds of knowing,

Firstly, speaking skills contribute an important part to impose other students‟ skills such as listening, reading and writing as well as makes them better at communication It is clear that speaking involves responding to what has been heard Good speaking also means that the speakers have a large volume of both theoretical and social knowledge, which will help them more confident and better at reading and writing In other words, when speaking skill is in progress, other skills also become better

Secondly, good speaking is said to be a good source of motivation for students It helps them use the language appropriately and flexibly an every day communication

According to Harmer (1998: 8) also says that whatever kind of motivation students have, it is clear that highly motivated students do better than ones without any motivation at all Another reason to say speaking is a huge source of motivation

is that it can help students express their ideas naturally and rapidly In addition, through speaking students may realize how much language they have mastered and how they have used it From that, they will study harder to improve their language competence

Thirdly, thanks to students speaking, teacher can get feedback from students fast and exactly Through students‟ speaking activities in class and outside class, the teacher can know how much students understand the lesson, Therefore, she can know what their weak and strong points are in language to have suitable solutions and plans

In conclusion, speaking skill plays a significant in teaching and learning a foreign language That is the reason why speaking skill should be taught and practiced in the language classroom

1.1.2 Elements of speaking skills

Harmer (1999:269-270), presents three elements for oral production as the following:

Connected speed: effective speakers of English need to be able not only to

produce the individual phonemes of English but also to use fluent “connected speed” In connected speed, sounds are modified (assimilation), omitted (elision), added (linking), and weakened (through contractions and stress patterning)

Expressive devices: The use of these devices contributes to the ability to

convey meanings They allow the extra expression of emotion and intensity Students should be able to deploy at least some of such suprasegmental features and devices in the same way if we are to be able fully effective communicators

Lexis and grammar: spontaneous speech is marked by the use of a number

of common lexical phrases, especially in the performance of certain language

functions Therefore, teachers should apply a variety of phrases for different functions such as agreeing or disagreeing, expressing surprise, shock, or approval

Negotiation language: effective speaking benefits from the negotiator

language we use to seek clarification and to show the structure of what we are saying We often need to “ask for clarification” when we are listening to someone else talk

In conclusion, all this brings up important points that are useful to the teaching and learning speaking skill

1.2 Group work in a speaking lesson

1.2.1 Definitions and description of group work

One of the main ways in which the teacher can get the students to practice and develop speaking skill is through the use of group work It is so much a part our everyday teaching routine that it has been considered “one of the major changes to the dynamics of classroom interaction wrought by student-centered teaching.” (Nunan, 1992:142)

The definition of group work according to Doff (1998: 137) is that “the

teacher divides the class into small groups to work together (usually four or five students in each group) and all the groups work at the same time.”

Clearly, group work is a co-operative activity, during which students share aims and responsibilities, moreover; they have chances for greater independence as they take some of their own learning decisions, without the teacher controlling every move, and they can work without the pressure of the whole class listening to what they are doing They learn to negotiate, to listen to different opinions and points of view They participate more confident and in most cases, they feel free to experiment and use the language

1.2.2 Advantages and disadvantages of group work

Using group work in teaching and learning languages has some advantages

as follows:

To promote interaction among students themselves, teachers of large classes agree that a good first step is to create smaller groups Some students are reluctant

to participate in a class of 50 will be ready to interact if the group size reduces to six

or eight In spite of the fact that teacher has to invest much time and energy in preparing teaching materials, this technique is likely to bring a positive effect on teaching and learning process The strong evidence is that, if teacher‟s talk in traditional language classes is dominant and each student might get a few second of class period to talk, then in group work students have greater opportunities to talk,

to practice in negotiation of meaning, to extend conversational exchanges, in general, to develop communicative competence which is the goal of CLT That is the reason why group work is selected among other techniques for increasing students‟ participation in communicative activities in large classes

Group work has some disadvantages Below are their common problems: Brown (1994:106) foresawsome problems when group work is conducted, such as: the teacher is no longer in control of the class; students will use their mother tongue; students‟ errors will be reinforced in small group; teachers cannot monitor all groups at once; and some learners may prefer to work alone However, according to Brown, group work can be conducted successfully if an appropriate task is selected Typical group work tasks include: games, role-play and simulation, drama, project, interview brainstorming, information gap, jig saw, problems solving, decision making, and opinion exchange These activities will be more effective if teachers follow some guidelines on organizing group works, such as plan for each stage of group work When teacher is writing his syllabus for the course, he decides which topics, themes, or projects might lend themselves to formal group work He thinks about how he will organize students into groups, help groups negotiate among themselves, provide feedback to the groups, and evaluate the products of group work Carefully explain to his class how the groups will operate and how students will be graded As he would when making any assignment, explain the objectives of the group task and define any relevant concepts In addition to a well defined task, every group needs a way of getting started, a way of knowing when its task is done, and some guidance about the

participation of members Also explain how students will be graded Keep in mind that group work is more successful when students are graded against a set standard than when they are graded against each other (on a curve)

1.2.3 Teacher’s role in carrying out group work

Teachers who have never before got the ideas of relinquishing any of their total control in class have to adopt new attitudes to the teaching and learning process in large class They should get acquaintance to giving the stage to learners, and letting student self- access and cooperative learning happen in language class For this reason, apart from the traditional functions as the main source of knowledge and the only assessor of correctness and errors in students‟ work, the

teacher plays such different roles in-group work as an organizer, a controller, an

assessor, a prompter, and a participant (Harmer, 1991:124) (Cited in English Now-

The magazine of Vietnam‟s English Teacher and trainer net work (Issue 15- Winter 9- 2008)

1.3 Definitions of anxiety in Speaking English in classroom (SEC)

1.3.1 Definition anxiety

According to George Ostler, 1994, the litter Oxford Dictionary of Current English, “anxiety is troubled state of mind; worry” Additionally, Longman dictionary of Contemporary English defines anxiety as „the feeling of being very worried about something” (http:// www Ldoceonline.com/ dictionary/ anxiety) this definition is also quite broad Moreover, as defined by Oxford Dictionary, anxiety is

“a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome” (http://oxforddictionarries.com/?attempted= true) The third one gives a specific and easy to understand definition of anxiety

1.3.2 Anxiety in second language (L2) and in SEC

At first, Citing Horwitz et al., ElKhafaifi (2005: 207) defined L2 anxiety as

a „a distinct complex of self- perceptions, beliefs, feelings and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process” What is more, Tanveer, M (2007:11) found the centre of L2 anxiety was

anxiety (feelings of tension or nervousness) in speaking and listening That means studying on reducing students‟ anxiety in SEC is a great idea

Though there is no definition of anxiety in SEC found, though ones of L2 anxiety, anxiety in SEC can be understood as a felling of worry, nervousness, or unease in SEC

1.4 Main factors causing students’ anxiety in SEC

According to Horwitz et al (1986: 128, cited by Tan veer, M (2007:11),

“communication apprehension is a type of shyness characterized by fear or anxiety about communicating with people‟, “test anxiety refers to a type of performance anxiety stemming from a fear of failure”, and fear of negative evaluation was defined as “apprehension about other‟ evaluations, avoidance of evaluative situations, and the expectation that others would evaluate oneself negatively.” Furthermore, this great author gave more details about these definitions and relation between them as well Accordingly, firstly, troubles in speaking the language in pairs or in groups which were called oral communication anxiety and these in public which were called stage fright were considered manifestations of communication apprehension Secondly, there were quite a lot of clear details about test anxiety However, because the present research does not study this type (due to having no test on SEC in DHHS high school), the researcher does not care much about it Thirdly, fear of negative evaluation was explained clearly Howrwit et al stated:

“Although similar to test anxiety, fear of negative evaluation is broader in scope because it is not limited to test- taking situations, rather, it may occur in any social, evaluative situation such as interviewing for a job or speaking in foreign language class.” The current researcher find that this type is really real in situations of speaking the language in classroom

1.5 Effects of anxiety on students in SEC

Certainly, anxiety has negative effect on speaking English As generally stated by Horwitz et al (1986), “There have been a number of studies in a number of instructional contexts with varying target languages which find a negative relationship between specific measures of language anxiety and language

achievement” However, It was Hyesook Park and Adam R Lee (2004) who concluded “learners‟ anxiety level was negatively related to their oral performance” Much more specifically, in learning speaking English, learners have a lot of problems such as pronouncing strange and difficult sounds and using body language Therefore, if they lack of confidence, or afraid of being wrong, or shy and anxious, they will not do it well To Vietnamese students, anxiety is really a big problem to learning speaking English In anxiety has badly negative effect on all learners‟ quality of speaking English in general and Vietnamese students‟ in particular To reach a certain target language, it is a must for teachers to reduce their learners‟ anxiety

1.6 Teacher’s role to students’ anxiety in SEC

Kurihara, N (2006) revealed that “teacher attitudes in EFL classroom effect student attitudes in the classroom, and teachers play an important role to change students‟ attitudes and behavior to be more motivated”

Moreover, Tanveer M (2007:71) stated in his recommendation that if students were provided friendly, informal and learning- supportive environments, they would be active in speaking English and these environments could be done by teachers friendly, helpful and co- operative behavior, making students feel comfortable when speaking in the class Indeed, these are very meaningful conclusion and recommendation

1.7 Teaching techniques to reduce students anxiety in SEC

One study which was conducted by Worde (2003) suggests many meaningful measures as following:

- create a low stress, friendly and supportive learning environment;

- foster a proactive role on the part of the students themselves to create an atmosphere of group solidarity and support;

- be sensitive to students‟ fears and insecurities and help them to confront those fears;

- use gentle or non-threatening methods of error correction and offer words

of encouragement;

- make judicious use of purposeful group work or collaborative activities;

- use relevant and interesting topics for class discussions and exercises;

- consider ways to layer and reinforce the material in an attempt to aid acquisition and retention;

- give written directions for homework assignments;

- speak more slowly or consider using English to clarify key points or give specific directions;

- attend to the learning styles or preferences of the students

- hear and appreciate the voices of students for valuable insights, ideas and suggestions

As this is an action research project, the researcher selected just one intervention recommended in the literature to deal with the problem of students‟ speaking anxiety – the use of group work This intervention, the researcher believed, is more appropriate for two reasons First, the class which she was teaching was large Secondly, she hypothesized that the students may feel less stressful while speaking in groups if grouping strategies are appropriate The following section reviews the benefits of group work and some practical grouping strategies

2 Practical grouping strategies

2.1 Group formation

According to Jung (2004: 5-7), frequently employed grouping methods

include random, student - selected and teacher- selected groupings

activities instructors can also use games, competitions, or any other ways that produce groups and making grouping fun

2.1.2 Student- selected grouping

Student- selected grouping is probably the most preferred option by learners Students often cluster with good friends Students are more likely to participate in activities if they feel they are among friends rather than strangers especially when they have to use a language over which they have limited control When engaging

in group work, learners feel more comfortable taking risks, making mistakes, and enjoying themselves while using the target language among friends

2.1.3 Teacher-formed grouping

Teacher-formed grouping is acknowledged by most teachers as requiring the most amount of careful planning When forming groups teachers take into account students‟ prior achievements, level of preparation, work habits, learning preferences… and so forth Teacher- selected groups usually aim to achieve a heterogeneous mix Such a mix promotes peer tutoring, helps to break down barriers among different types of students, and encourages on- task behavior

Table 2.2 Procedures of group work

The teacher introduces new concepts, language items and equips necessary vocabulary, structures to achieve the coming task

Instruction stage

The teacher gives clear, details instructions for the task and models them, checks for clarification

Organization stage

The teacher arranges the students in groups, assigns roles to makes sure there is control and order

Process stage The students engage in the interaction cooperatively

to achieve the task, the teacher monitors, strolls around the class and gives helps when necessary Reporting

Ending stage The teacher assesses the work of groups, corrects

errors, makes amendments to future group work

(Ngoh, 2001:22; Brown, 1994: 183, Cross, 1991: 50)

2.3 Common oral activities for group work

2.3.1 Opening-circle discussion:

Students work in small group, do tasks or discuss certain topics, then the teacher makes a change with group arrangement to give them chance to exchange

their group ideas with members from (an)other group(s) Various rearrangements can be done:

* Three stay- One stray: after a discussion in 4- member groups, one member

of each group moves another group to present their group ideas or decision on the issue given The mover is often the group‟s reporter

* Three stray- One stay: The teacher may count and label each group member a number, then those who get the same number will work one group and share his/ her group‟s agreement to the new group

* Pyramid grouping: Students work in small groups (of 2 or 3) on some tasks, then two or three groups are combined to make a new communicative setting

2.3.2 Role play

Put students in life- like situation, they will take roles to make conversations

It is necessary to model the conversation of the context, assigning roles to students and give the students time to prepare their roles before the conversation The teacher should consider the students‟ competence when assigning roles, easier tasks with more simple expressions for the weaker, the other roles requiring more creative and freer language use for more able students The teacher can support the less competent students by getting them to write down the questions, responses they will need

2.3.3 Information Gap Activity (IGA)

Information sharing is one of the most typical types of group work activities,

it helps to promote individualization of students‟ learning and develop their skills of using the language and other social skills in cooperative tasks There are often 2

steps to follow in an IGA: Step 1: Cognitive and comprehensive stage, students,

receiving materials from the teacher, process the input knowledge and information provided in the materials;

Step 2: Exchanging ideas and information, students work with follow

partners, share the knowledge and information they have just perceived, try their

best to make themselves comprehensible to the partners and they then have further discussion on them

2.3.4 Problem –solving

According to Burne (1990: 58) (Cited in English Now- The magazine of Vietnam‟s English Teacher and trainer net work- Issue 11- Winter 2005) problem- solving has been used to group together a wide range of activities that require students to find “solutions” to problems of different kinds

Many of these problems involve processes that we commonly use in real life

as follows: We frequently hypothesize links between two things (events, actions, people, etc) We detect differences (real or imaginary).We grade things according to criteria (subjective or objective) Clearly, problem solving is believed to be necessary and suited to students of all levels

2.3.5 Picture card activities

The use of the picture cards inevitably involves the use of group work Below are some among the activities that are useful for group work:

Kim’s Game: the students in groups look at the items on the table for about

thirty second Next, the items are covered with a cloth and the groups have to describe and locate the items Then the group leaders report to the class what the group had discussed

What is my line: The students in groups have to ask questions of another

member within a limited time span and discover his /her occupation

Twenty questions: One student is asked to write the name of an object or

select a picture of an object and place it face downwards The others have to question this student and try to guess what the item is

To sum up, the above activities under the category of group are useful for developing speaking skills among students They can create out- of- expectation result in the speaking class

2.4 Problems and solutions in using class group work

Many problems associated with in- class group work can be prevented with careful preparation, specific instructions, and appropriate facilitation Below are some problems and solutions to them (Jacobs and Hall, 1994: 32, 2-13)

Table 2.4: Problems and solutions in using class group work

2 Student talks too

much or dominates

the group

Teacher should explain privately that while you are pleased

he or she has a lot to contribute, you would be like other learners to have more opportunity to think for themselves

3, Students talk too

4, Students are not

listening to fellow

group members

Teacher can gives comment on the issue in the general class setting and then tell students that in the plenary session The teacher should call a time out, and restructure the activity so that all students must connect what they say to what the

previous person just said

5, Students lack the

social skills needed

to work with others

Teacher should encourage students who prefer to work alone to stay in-group work and at the same time assist the group by assigning them a task that would give them some sort of isolation The teacher tell students the way to refuse,

disagree, argue… politely in English

6, Students overuse

mother- tongue

The teacher should make them work task oriented The teacher joins the group briefly to encourage and facilitate the learners‟ participation, and then should set rules, agreed

to by the class, for disciplining frequent offenders

Additionally, the researcher was also interested in the technique devised by Maurie (1983: 429) named 4/3/2 techniques According to this technique “ involves giving the same talk to three different listeners one after the other, but with four minutes to give the first delivery of the talk, three minutes for the delivery of the same talk to the second listener, and two minutes for the third” ( as rewritten by Zhou 2006) In this technique the second feature which is “ the speaker repeats the same talk” helps the speaker ” develop confidence in her ability to deliver the talk and will have less difficulty in accessing the language she needs to deliver the talk.”

It can be inferred that the 4/3/2 technique is effective in reducing speakers‟ anxiety

in speaking English

It is no doubt that the studies reviewed above emphasize teaching techniques relating to the ways to reduce the anxiety These are really meaningful to the present research Although a lot of measures were recommended, it seem that no researcher did an experiment on a teaching plot which aimed to use of group work to reduce students‟ anxiety in speaking lessons The current researcher is keen on supplementing this point

3 Summary

In summary, this chapter is the review of the principal theoretical basis for the study The definitions of implementing group work have been introduced with its possible benefits and challenges facing teachers In order to be effective, the size, duration, and composition of the group work must match the task In addition, the group work activity must be carefully planned and communicated to the students Group must be properly directed and supervised during learning activities The main stages in implementing group work activities in language class are presented

in this chapter In addition, teachers play a vital role in the successful

implementation of small group instruction Finally, theoretical background relating

to “anxiety in SEC”, including definitions, main factors causing students‟ anxiety, effect of anxiety on students, teacher‟s role to students‟ anxiety, teaching techniques to reduce students anxiety in SEC have also been presented which will

be guideline to effective conduction of group work activities, coming in chapter III

Chapter 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter provides a comprehensive description of the research methodology employed in the current study namely: Research questions, data collecting instrument, participants, procedure of action research and data analysis

2.1 Research questions

The researcher carries out this study with the aim to answer two questions :

1 What factors do a group of grade 10th students in Dong Hy high school think cause their anxiety in speaking English?

2 What classroom techniques that help to reduce the students‟ stated anxiety in speaking English?

2.2 Description of data collection instruments

2.2.1 The rationale for using questionnaires

One significant applied in this research is questionnaire which is considered

as one of the most effective tools to collect information because of its many advantages As commended by Burns (1999:129) “Questionnaires have the advantage of being easier and less time consuming to administer than interviews, and the responses of larger numbers of informants can be gathered The informants can also usually respond more rapidly to the questions and, as the responses are supplied in written form, the researcher does not need to further record them with supplementary techniques such as recording or notes

On the other hand, survey and questionnaires require more preparation time than interviews as the researcher needs to be confident that the questions can be interpreted independently as well as easily and unambiguously Also, questionnaires

do not cater as well as for the more in-depth or unexpected responses that may be obtainable from interviews”

Two questionnaires, one pre-action questionnaire and one post-action questionnaire, were administered to the students before and after the action or intervention Both were in Vietnamese, they were supposed to be clear to the students, which helped the researcher to get more details

2.2.2 Questionnaire

The pre-action questionnaire

In order to gain understanding of what caused students‟ anxiety in speaking

English, a questionnaire (Questionnaire 1 -see Appendix 1) was designed and

administered to the students This questionnaire consists of six questions: Question

1 aimed at discussing students‟ evaluation on their anxiety in SEC Question 2 explored the factors affecting on the students‟ anxious participation in speaking lessons Question 3 confirmed the students‟ feeling when participating in group work speaking activities Question 4 assured student attitude to group work activities Question 5 explored the students‟ ideas about grouping strategies Question 6 explored students‟ favorite group work tasks in speaking lessons

Post-action questionnaire

After eight-week intervention, another questionnaire (Questionnaire 2 -see

Appendix 2) was administered to the students The purpose of this questionnaire is

to collect information about the impact of the action on the students‟ speaking anxiety Also, the questionnaire is to find out what groupwork activities the students found most useful in making them more confident in speaking English The questionnaire is composed of three questions Question 1 aimed at asking for students‟ comments on their participation in those activities after eight weeks Question 2 asks students‟ favorite group work activities in speaking lessons Question 3 is to collect students‟ responses about their participation in group work activities Like the pre-action questionnaire, the post-action questionnaire is written

in Vietnamese

2 3 Participants

2.3.1 The students:

For the student survey, 2 questionnaires (Appendix 1, 2) were delivered to

35 students of grade 10A12 at Dong Hy High school with the help of the researcher These students have studied English at their secondary and high schools for over 4 years, but they have not focused much on speaking because they not have good

English environment and speaking test in the exams Therefore, their English is not very good and they are not confident enough to speak English This population was

chosen randomly among 14 classes at my school

2.3.2 The researcher-The teacher

The researcher has been a teacher of English for 15 years and has been working at DHHS for more than 12 years

2.4 Research method

To carry out this study, action research was used A quantitative method was used in this study with the questionnaire being used as the only instrument of data collection

2.4.1 Overview of Action Research

Action research has been defined in a number of different ways Kemis and

Mc Taggart‟s (1988: 5), for example, argue that the three defining characteristics of Action Research are that It is carried out by practitioners (for our purposes, classroom teachers) rather than outside researchers, collaborative, and aimed at changing things Wallace (1998: 12) states that Action Research is a process which collects data on your everyday practice and analyzes it in order to make decision about what your future practice should be

In his book Action Research for Educational Change, John Elliott (1991)

states that Action Research is a process through which teachers collaborate in evaluating their practice jointly raise awareness of their personal theory articulate a shared conception of values try out new strategies to render the values expressed in their practice more consistent with the educational values they espouse record their work in a form that is readily available to and understandable by other teachers and thus develop a shared theory of teaching by researching practice „An action research‟ as defined by Dave Ebbut (1985) is that action research is the systematic study by practitioners who carries out the job to change and improve practices through practical action and to reflect on the effects and results of the action (Cited

in What Action Research is about- Identifying a Research Focus- Regional Language Centre- Dr Tan Su Hwi)

Although, there are different representations of definition and steps of an action research, Nunan's seven- step procedure was adopted for this study He divides the action research cycle into smaller steps: Initiation, preliminary investigation, hypothesis, intervention, evaluation, dissemination, follow up -

Nunan (1992: 17- 19) which are described in details in the next section

2.4.2 Procedure of the action research

2.4.2.1 Initiation (From week 1 to week 2)

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

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

2.5 Data collecting procedure

In preliminary investigation, questionnaire 1 was delivered to the subjects The researcher explained the participants and helps them complete Then the researcher synthesized, compared and discussed the results from the questionnaire

in order to get most credible and correct information for the analysis Next in the intervention stage of the research, the teacher devised a number of strategies for encouraging the students to relate the content of the six speaking lessons of units from 9 to 14 The similarity questionnaire (questionnaire 2) was done to realized what extend students‟ anxiety was reduced once the group work technique has been implemented It was also delivered to students to check how effectively students‟ contributions in speaking lessons due to applying some useful teaching techniques

2.6 Data analysis

Data collected from questionnaires, observation were synthesized and applied Microsoft Excel, Descriptive Statistics, including, means, and percentages, and SPSS for calculating figures including the students contributions in group work activities, effects of factors on their anxiety in SEC, techniques applied by the researcher to reduce students anxiety in speaking lessons Recorded tapings were analyzed in combination with data from questionnaire so as to have analysis in more depth correctness

2.7 Summary

This chapter has covered all significant elements of the research To find answers for the research questions, a number of important factors were put under consideration, the researcher determined the participants of the research, the tools for data collections, procedure, and how the data were analyzed To achieve the aim

of the study, a quantitative method was obtained to this srudy Findings from the data and discussions on the research questions will come as the core of the next chapter