Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS using group work in english grammar lessons for first year students in the college of technologies and economics in trade

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ====== HOÀNG THỊ MINH PHƯƠNG USING GROUP WORK IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR LESSONS FO

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

DEPARTMENT OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

======

HOÀNG THỊ MINH PHƯƠNG

USING GROUP WORK IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR LESSONS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS IN THE COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGIES AND ECONOMICS IN TRADE

NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP HỌC NHÓM TRONG VIỆC DẠY NGỮ PHÁP TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TRƯỜNG

CAO ĐẲNG KINH TẾ-KỸ THUẬT THƯƠNG MẠI

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 601410

HOÀNG THỊ MINH PHƯƠNG

USING GROUP WORK IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR LESSONS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS IN THE COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGIES AND ECONOMICS IN TRADE

NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP HỌC NHÓM TRONG VIỆC DẠY NGỮ PHÁP TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TRƯỜNG

CAO ĐẲNG KINH TẾ-KỸ THUẬT THƯƠNG MẠI

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology

Supervisor : Lê Văn Canh, M.A

2.3 Group work in CLT: advantages and limitations of using group work 6

2.3.1.1 Group work increases students’ talking time 6 2.3.1.2 Group work creates a more secure and positive classroom atmosphere 6 2.3.1.3 Group work gives chance for students learning from each other 7

2.3.1.5 Group work has positive effect on the teachers 7

2.3.2.1 Students often speak in their native language 8 2.3.2.2 Students do not take the same equal responsibilities in the group 8 2.3.2.3 Using group work can make noise and indiscipline 8

2.4 Studies on the use of group work in foreign language teaching and learning 9

2.6 Design group work activities for grammar lessons 12

3.1.2 Problems and issues in English language teaching at CTET 16

3.3.1.1.1 Students’ awareness of the importance of learning English grammar 18 3.3.1.1.2 Students’ attitudes towards learning English grammar 19 3.3.1.1.3 The students’ evaluation of English grammar teaching they have

3.3.1.1.4 The students’ attitude towards using group work for English

3.3.1.2.1 The personality of students in learning generally 25 3.3.1.2.2 The students’ preference of learning styles 25 3.3.1.2.3 The students’ general attitude towards using group work to

3.3.1.2.4 The students’ evaluation of the effectiveness of using group

3.3.1.2.5 The students’ justification of benefits and limitations of using

4.1 Suggestions for grammar teaching for the first-year-student in CTET 37

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 2: The student’s justification of the learning atmosphere in grammar lessons 21 Table 3: The reasons lead to boring learning atmosphere in grammar lessons 21 Table 4: Students’ attitude towards using group work for grammar lessons 23 Table 5: The personality of students in learning generally 25 Table 6: The changes in students’ attitudes towards using group work 27 Table 7: Students’ evaluation of using group work to learn grammar 30 Figure 1: Students’ participation in grammar lesson before and after using group work 30

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

In the past few years, the trend of globalization has become faster than ever before, the students’ awareness of learning English has been raised dramatically However, the question of how to teach and to learn English well is still in controversy; especially, teaching grammar is the most controversial one In Vietnam, English language teaching often follows grammar-focused method, and for many English language teachers, teaching English means teaching grammar In this process, students are supposed to learn whatever teachers give; therefore, not only knowledge but also learning styles are imposed on students by their teacher As a result of this traditional language teaching method, not only the atmosphere of leaning is affected, the students’ ability of communication is also not good As each student has their own interest and habit of learning, the old way of teaching grammar enhances their creative ability and leads to their neglect of learning Because of this reason, I choose the topic “Using group work in English-grammar lessons for first year students in CTET” for my thesis I want to make out whether using group work to teach grammar will make the above situations different

I choose the topic also because of my own interest as a teacher of English I am myself always interested in teaching grammar and I have never stopped finding new ways

of teaching each grammar items I have observed teachers in my college and in other places teaching grammar, each of them have different ways of teaching; however, it is so difficult to make grammar teaching satisfactory to all students It is not easy to find that if only follow some unchanged ways to teach grammar, students and teachers themselves will feel monotonous That’s why it is always haunted in my mind how to make teaching and learning English grammar easier and more interesting for myself and my students

Applying group work in teaching grammar lessons is new ideas and maybe it is the best answer to my question By using group work, students are supposed to participate more in the learning process, so they would be more motivated and successful Of course, there is

no single method that satisfies all teaching and learning situations but at least, I know that I

am on the way of improving my teaching method

1.2 Aims of the study

The specific aims of the study are:

 To find out the students’ attitudinal changes about grammar and grammar learning

 To find out the students’ evaluation about the effectiveness of applying group work

in teaching English grammar

1 3 Research questions

The aim of the research is to find out students’ attitude and the effectiveness of using group work to teach English grammar lessons in CTET In order to achieve this aim, the researcher intends to find out the information needed to answer the following questions:

1) What are the first-year-students’ attitudes towards grammar?

2) How does grammar practice in groups affect the students’ attitudes towards grammar?

3) What do students perceive of the benefits and limitations of using group work in learning grammar?

1.4 Methods of the study

The main methods used in this action research are questionnaires survey and classroom observation A survey on the use of group work in teaching English grammar was conducted for two classes with about 85-first-year non-English major students in CTET College Besides using questionnaires, classroom observation is also used to observe the classroom behavior and students’ performance on the grammar lessons

1.5 Scope of the study

Using group work in English teaching methodologies is one of the most popular methods of communicative language teaching and it can be applied widely for all of the language teaching skills However, due to the time and length constraint of the study, this thesis only focuses on the use of group work in English grammar lessons for first year students in CTET College

1.6 Design of the study

This thesis consists of four main chapters:

Chapter one, the introduction, provide an overview of the study with brief information about the reasons of choosing the topic, the aims, the scope of the study, the methods as well as the design of the study

Chapter two, the literature review, is aimed at giving the theoretical background for the thesis In this chapter, an overview on the role of grammar in ELT is first mentioned

After that, the key factors about group work are presented I will mention some definitions about group work activities, the advantages as well as the limitations of using group work

in English grammar lessons The reasons why I choose using group work in English grammar lessons and some main group work activities are also highlighted in this part

Chapter three, the development of the research, is the backbone of the thesis It contains the background of teaching and learning grammar in CTET College, the detail description of data collections, data analysis and the discussions of the findings

Chapter four proposes some suggestions for using group work effectively when learning English grammar at CTET College and presents the summary and the suggestions for further study

The last part of the study is the appendix and the references

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews the literature on general aspects of group work in the light of ELT and the use of group work in grammar practice First, a review of the role of grammar

in foreign language teaching is presented This is followed by a discussion of using group work in teaching grammar

2.1 The role of grammar in ELT

Over the past few years, whether or not grammar should be taught explicitly or implicitly has been a controversial issue Until now two main opposing opinions exist among many linguistics and researchers The first view is against teaching grammar

Extensive grammar research has shown that grammar should be neglected in teaching English ever since communicative methodology appeared in 1970s It was claimed that language should be acquired through natural exposure, not through formal instruction (Krashen as cited in Nassaji & Fotos) In Natural Approach ( Krashen and Terrell: 1983), Krashen distinguishes leaning ( explicit knowledge) and acquisition ( implicit knowledge)

He points out that these are cases where leaning has taken place, but some learners are still unable to use what have learnt in the conversation, because he has not yet acquired them

So, according to him, teachers should give a lot of communication activities in class so students can acquire language Opposing with the views above, recent studies have demonstrated that grammar instruction enables learners to attain high level of proficiency, both in accuracy and fluency Without grammar, learners can communicate effectively only in limited number of situation (Florez, 1999) Giving strong support to grammar teaching, Smith (2001) claimed that if we do not pay attention to grammar nor create opportunities for learners to improve their grammar, they are likely to stand the risk of fossilization

As for me, through my experience and observation, poor English grammar hinders the pace and quality of learning English Students can obtain English much more easily if they pay enough attention to grammar right from the beginning Further more, grammar teaching can be beneficial to learners in the sense that it raises learner’s consciousness concerning the differences and similarities of the fist language and the second language

Among many new teaching methods in the world today, some of researchers think that it does not need to teach grammar for students as they can draw the grammar structures for themselves I totally agree that it will much more effective if students can have the grammar structures for their own thanks to the special teaching methods, as they can memorize and use them better than to be taught However, that method cannot be applied in every learning context, especial in Vietnam With the learning environment like Vietnam, I believe that teaching grammar explicitly for students plays important role for Vietnamese students understanding and using English language well There is no single method to teach grammar that can satisfy all students so the combination of different methods of grammar teaching may be is the best choice to satisfy different students’ level

at different teaching context

2.2 Definition of group work

There are many definitions of group work have been suggested by a number of researchers

According to Slavin, (1986, as cited in Dunkin, ed 1987: 238) group work is “a division of the class into learning groups of four to six members who are all levels of ability These groups also have mix of boys and girls and students of different racial, ethnic background in about some proportion, they represent in the class as a whole.”

In Beard’s (1978, as cited in Dunkin, ed 1987: 288) opinion, “Group work is a discussion of academic work that affords students the opportunity to organize their thinking by comparing ideas and interpretation with each other and to give expression and hence form to their understanding of a subject.”

The list of definition of group work is still going on It also has been suggested by Bennett and Dunne (1989, as cited in Galton and Williamson, 1992: 10) that “In collaborative work, all the pupils are expected to work together to produce a single out come and the group has to debate a social or moral issue and produce agreed solutions or recommendations,”

To put it briefly, we can see some common factors of group work are: it consists of several students working together for a common goal and they share recourses and ideas

together Groups can be homogeneous or heterogeneous on the basis of students’ physical characteristics, gender, race, ethnic origin, individual differences and interests On the other hand, teachers plan, organize and supervise them

2.3 Group work in CLT: advantages and limitations of using group work

2.3.1: Advantages of using group work 2.3.1.1 Group work increases students’ talking time

The first and foremost benefit of group work is that they increase the amount of student practice Long and Porter (1985) estimated that in a 50 minute lesson with 30 students, if the students talked only to the teacher, they would get 30 seconds of talking time per lesson They calculate that this equals “just one hour per student per year” (p.208)

This amount of time is not enough for students to practice the new language, which cause

to low achievement by many classroom SL learners Hubert Skrzyński (2005) proved that using group work can help to solve this problem When working in groups, instead of only one student speaks to the teacher, a lot of other students can talk and exchange ideas to each other at the same time, and it substantially increases the opportunities the students get

to talk English

2.3.1.2 Group work creates a more secure and positive classroom atmosphere

According to Yasemin Godek (2004), another extremely important advantage of using

group work is the learner’s confident With many students, it can be a frightening experience when being called on by teacher to answer a question in front of the whole class

Martine, L (2006) proved that even if students know the answer to the question, they are often not sure if it is correct and do not want to give their opinion (p 35) As a result, the atmosphere of the class is often very boring and stressful, which is counterproductive to language learning However, in a small group, there is a sense of security as students feel much more comfortable to speak in a foreign language to just for some people than to the whole class and to the teacher Especially timid students or ones who are not good at manipulating the language yet, feel more relaxed and self-confident to come up with answer that reflect their own thinking (Hubert Skrzyński, 2005)

2.3.1.3 Group work gives chance for students learning from each other

Working in group, students can help each other a lot A group usually consists of a mixture of different ability levels, therefore, when given tasks, students can teach their

friends (Yasemin Godek, 2004) What is more, they give an enormous number of new

items and expressions for their friends By this way, students are able to share knowledge, correcting each other mistakes in a very natural way So they can lean to work interdependently and not be dependent on their teacher In group work the importance of teacher is the planner, supervisor and organizer The more important point is that students learn to become active and patient, learn to cooperate with other people They respect each other, their ideas and weaknesses They become social but not individualist (Yasemin

Godek, 2004: 30)

2.3.1.4 Group work motivates learners

Long and Porter (1985) highlights that group work can help to engage the students fully in their language acquisition This is because group work can make the classroom an entertaining and lively environment In group, students can use the language freely and express their opinions and thoughts without any restrictions It is not difficult to see that involving in the group gives students the atmosphere of independence and in the state of relaxation

Group work usually motivates students also because it is quite simply more fun to work and talk with their classmates than it is to do the tasks individually (Martine, L 2006)

By making lessons and activities more fun we can stimulate students not just to come to class but also enthusiastically contribute to their own learning

2.3.1.5 Group work has positive effect on the teachers

According to Yasemin Godek (2004), not only the students benefit from group work

in English lessons, but also the teachers First of all they save time “The teachers do not need to teach every student separately but they can make the entire students do the exercise

at the same time by dividing the class into groups As a result, teachers can use their teaching time economically and efficiently This is intended to improve quality of learning.” (p31) When timed is saves, the teacher can let their students do more exercise

and activities This way of teaching will be for sure appreciated by students and the teacher will be liked by his students, and he will enjoy their work because it brings him satisfaction, pleasure, and fulfillment

2.3.2: Limitations of using group work

Besides mentioned advantages, using group work also brings about a lot of limitations

These are four main limitations

2.3.2.1 Students often speak in their native language

In her study, Martine, L (2006) shows that it is very common problem that students in the same group use their mother tongue to speak English, especially when they find the activities is difficult or boring, or even when they do not understand the instruction from the teacher However, it is usually because of the inability of students to express their ideas

in English that leads to the overuse of mother tongue between students So the solution is that teacher should choose activities that relevant, interesting and fun for the students The teacher should also encourage students to use English to discuss by giving very clear instructions, moving around the class to control and give help to students when necessary

Yasemin Godek, (2004) in his research also pointed out some more problems of using

group work as follow:

2.3.2.2 Students do not take the same equal responsibilities in the group

One of the main disadvantages for the learners is that shy or weak students can be eliminated from the practice; because of better students who are always tend to dominate

Subsequently, low achieving students may not have chance to take part in the discussion and show their opinion so they may feel discourage or less confident The situation becomes worse when students in the group do not help each other

2.3.2.3 Using group work can make noise and indiscipline

It is usually more troublesome for the teacher than for the students that using group work can cause noise and indiscipline Students in group work activities are usually not aware of noise, and they even do not care about what other group are doing However, this can be considered as good noise or productive noise because it means that students

participate in learning tasks One problem of this noise is that it can cause frustration for the surrounding classes

2.3.2.4 Teacher may lack of time

It is common that each English lesson last for forty-five minutes and it usually needs a lot of time for students to do their activities in group So if the group work takes so much time, teacher can not finish the lesson or he/ she can teach only some of the lesson plans

To avoid this, teacher should arrange time for group work suitably with limited number of

students in each group (Yasemin Godek, 2004: 31)

2.4 Review of previous studies on the use of group work in foreign language teaching and learning

There are so many researches have been conducted in the field of teaching English in general and teaching grammar through group work activities Below is the review of the studies already conducted in this field

Long and Porter (1985) proved that group work allows for a greater quantity and richer variety of language practice, practice that is better adapted to individual needs and conducted in a more positive affective climate Students are individually involved in lessons more often and at a more personal level Group work also motivates the classroom learners (p 212)

The study conducted by Long, Adams; Mclea, and Castanos (1976) was designed to contrast lockstep teaching with group work and the results showed enhanced quality and variety of student speech in groups, as compared to lockstep instruction Lockstep here means predominant mode of instruction from the teachers

According to Cross (1985), group work activities are frequently used in large classes because the use of groups minimizes the times and expense that would be needed to produce materials for large classes

The list of researches and studies support using group work in English teaching is still going on In the field of using group work to teach English grammar lessons, Aisha Bibi (2002), Ney (1989) and Davidheiser (1996) have valuable researches

The research study conducted by Aisha Bibi (2002) concludes that: teaching of English grammar through group work activities has positive effect on the academic achievement of students By using group work, not only students can significantly improve the ability of applying the rule of grammar, they can also improve reading, writing, listening and speaking ability Moreover, the attitudes of students toward using group work

to learn English grammar are very good

Ney, James (1989) examined the effectiveness of collaborative learning models for the teaching of a modern English class at the college level According to the author, the collaborative learning resulted in a more adequate mastery of the subject matter and in better attendance for the class

Davidheiser (1996) explored a successful student-centred method of grammar instruction in second language classes He concludes that by using group work and pair work, teachers can improve the quality of grammar instructions and the ability of recalling the grammar structures of the students

There are so many other valuable studies related to using group work to teach English

in general and English grammar lessons that it is unable to list down in my small research

Thanks to these researches, I can gain precious knowledge for my own research

2.5 Reasons of using group work in grammar teaching

2.5.1 Challenges in teaching grammar

English grammar is considered especially important in Vietnamese school from secondary to higher education; however, it seems to contain a lot of problems in both teaching and learning methods Although grammar is not so difficult to understand, students find it hard to perceive More seriously, students could hardly apply grammatical rules to make real communication The traditional method of teaching English grammar is mostly the deductive method, i.e definition of the aspect of grammar is dictated and its examples are illustrated (Richards & Rodgers, 1986: 6) This way can help students know how to label certain sentence elements but cannot produce any English themselves, illustrate the fact that just teaching grammar in itself is not exactly effective

Normally in Vietnamese schools, grammar is taught based on the textbooks However, textbooks often contain very artificial sentences which are hardly used in real life situations Teaching grammar according to grammar-translation method is very popular, where grammar rules are taught in isolation and sufficient practice is not given in the use

of different aspects of grammar in reading, writing, speaking, etc Language is a skill, which needs a lot of practice Only learning the rules of grammar or mere memorizing the meanings of words and phrases would not help learning the foreign language Especially, the attitude of students towards this way of teaching grammar is poor They often get bored very quickly with the monotonous grammar items and the boring atmosphere in the class

This situation calls for a change in the grammar teaching methods and the use of different techniques in teaching grammar

2.5.2 Reasons of using group work in grammar teaching

The aim of this research is to find out whether the problem of teaching English grammar can be solved by adopting the method of teaching it in communicative way It is better if we want to teach structure, we should at least provide a realistic context and relate

it to communicative situations The best thing to do is probably to integrate all different aspects of language By all the advantages mentioned above of group work, it is supposed that using group work is the good choice for teaching grammar

According to Gee, (2005) “….the theory of language … is that language has meaning only in and through social practices” (p.8) Long and Porter (1985) in their research proved that “group work improves the quality of students talk by creating genuine communication” (p.209); and by using group work, we can create communicative situations in the classroom and at the same time make these situations resemble real life because “face-to-face communication in a small group is a natural setting for conversation”

(p.209) In such case, a certain grammatical language item is practiced in a more realistic situation and students are much more actively involved in such activities, and therefore, remember things more easily That’s why we can suppose that teaching English grammar through group work has significantly improved the ability of students to apply the rules of grammar Above all, because using group work is interesting and effective (Martine, 2006),

the attitude of students toward it is positive They are motivated and can help each other to make progress in learning through group

That’s why group work is supposed to be a very suitable way to teach English

grammar

2.6 Design group work activities for grammar lessons

According to Nation, Paul (1989), “a useful way of classifying group work activities

is to look at the distribution of the information needed to do the activity.”(p 20) He divides group work activities into the four following types:

2.6.1 The co-operating arrangement

In this type of group work activities, learners have equal access to the same material

or information and co-operate to do the task

This type of activity can have more effective result if it is carried out follows Robert Slavin (1991) method, called “Student teams-achievement divisions” In this method, students are assigned to four or five member in a group, called learning teams Each team

is a microcosm of the entire class, made up of high, average, and low-performing students

These students may take turns quizzing each other, discuss problems as a group, or use whatever means they wish to master the material By this way, students can help each other and create exciting learning atmosphere

2.6.2 The superior-inferior arrangement

In this type of group work activities, one member of the group has information that all the others need This student presents this information for the group

2.6.3 The combining arrangement

In this type, each learner has a different piece of information that all the others need

This method can be called the Jigsaw method In this type, students are assigned to four or five members; academic material is broken into some sections

2.6.4 The individual arrangement

In this activity, each learner has access to the same information but must perform or deal with a different part of it

Nation (1989) pointed out that the four different types of group work achieve different learning goals, are best suited to different kind of tasks; require different kinds of seating arrangement, and draw on or encourage different kinds of social relationship Below is the table that describes the factors involved in group work

Combining Cooperating Superior -Inferior Individual

Distribution

of information

Each learner has unique essential information

All learners have equal access to the same information and to each other’s view of it

One or more learners have information that the others do not have

All learners have the same information but use a different part

Sitting arrangement

Learners site at an equal distance from each other, facing each other

Learners sit beside each other facing the information

The knowers face the seekers

The learners face each other

Social relationship

Equality, mutual dependency Equality

Inequality, the knowers are in a superior position

Equality, but with focus on individual performance

Most suitable learning goals

Negotiation of input, mastering content fluency

New language items, fluency

New language items, mastering content

Fluency, new language items

Most suitable tasks

Completion, ordering providing directions,

matching, classifying, distinguishing

Ranking, completion, choosing, finding, implications, causes, uses

Data gathering, completion, providing directions

Solving problems Completion

A typical example A strip story A ranking exercise An interview

A chain story or role play

2.6.5 The grammar activities for group work

According to Hubicka (1985); Williams (1980), and Braughton (1969) (as cited in Aisha Bibi, 2002: 17), the following activities can be used for group activities in practicing grammar:

2.6.5.1 Doing grammar exercises

Teacher can design exercises suitably for each kind of grammar items These exercises can be easily found in a lot of grammar textbooks and they can be done either in the class or at home Students will do these exercises in group, helping each other and

discussing the answers

2.6.5.2 Reading dialogues

Students work in small group, practice reading the dialogues, or making the similar dialogue to the one they have been learnt, dealing with new lexis, problem of pronunciation, stress and intonation

2.6.5.3 Practicing using language according to situations

Teachers can give situation suitably for each kind of grammar item and then ask students to practice, e.g inviting and responding and using maps for giving directions;

telling a story about the past event, etc

2.6.5.4 Playing games

Students can play games, using the grammar items they have learnt These games can

be simple games that can be done for the whole class, or more complex games like games-tournament” (Slavin, 1991), where students play academic games to show their individual mastery of the subject matter In teams-games-tournament, students play these games in weekly tournaments in which they compete with members of other teams about the subject matter

“teams-2.6.5.5 Discussion

According to Penny Ur (1996), discussion is the most natural and effective way for students to talk freely in English by thinking out some problems or situations together

the simplest questions to the most political and philosophical debates In English grammar lesson, discussion can be used to distinguish the different or similarity between different grammar points or to find out the answer for grammar exercises

2.7 Summary

This chapter has reviewed the necessary considerations when using group work in English grammar lessons Usually, group work is used for speaking, listening, writing or reading skills, but in this small research, I apply group work for grammar lesson because when using group, a certain grammatical language item is practiced in a more realistic situation and students are much more actively involved in such activities, and therefore, remember things more easily Further more; group work also helps to motivate learners when learning grammar

As other English skills, using group work for grammar lesson also has a lot of advantages, such as: it increases students’ talking time, creates a more secure and positive classroom atmosphere, motivates learners, etc Beside, group work also has some limitations when being used, such as teacher may lack of time to teach the whole lesson plan, students may not take the same equal responsibilities in the group Some will dominate the group and some will talk too little To make the groups work well, the activities for group work must be carefully planed by the teacher

CHAPTER III: DEVELOPMENT OF THE RESEARCH

In this chapter, firstly the context of the studies is presented, and then is the research methodology which describes how to achieve the aims and objectives of the study and the data collection procedures Finally are the data analyses as well as the discussion of the findings

3.1 The context of the study 3.1.1 The students and the text book

Most of my students follow group A, which means they are supposed to be English major students and they have to take the general English training course during their first year before studying English for Special Purpose in their second years As their major relates to trade and economy, we choose the textbook Power Base by author David Evans to provide them with basic English for trade and economy After studying these two books, students are expected to be fluent in English communication, especially they can understand and use words relate to their majors Because of these aims, using group activities in practicing grammar may be useful to help students to increase the ability of communicating in English

non-The text book I use to teach my students is “powerbase – pre intermediate”, it includes of 10 lessons written from easy to difficult ones All the lessons begin with the introduction part, and then come grammar, working life, and real world In this text book, the main grammar items that students have to learn are: the present simple and continuous, the future simple, and the past simple, modal verb, comparative and superlative, the order

of adjective, the present perfect, and the first and second conditional Among these grammar items, the first five grammar items will be chosen to teach during the treatment time of the research

3.1.2 Problems and issues in English language teaching at CTET

Like most other schools in Vietnam, English language teaching in CTEC also have the same problems, such as: there are too much students in one class, desks and chairs are

the class during the lesson, etc These factors may cause some difficulties when organizing students in group

A normal class in our College usually has from sixty to eighty students with mixed level of English learning, which means some are very good at English while the others may have never learnt English before As a result, one single teaching method may hardly satisfy all of the students Using group work to teach grammar for these students is not exceptional method and it may also cause dissatisfaction for some students For example, if

a group consists of both too excellent and too bad students at English, they may feel frustrated when leaning together

3.2 Methodology 3.2.1 The subjects

The subjects of this research were two classes of the first-year non-English major students Each class has about 40 students, both male and female and they all follow the same course of English The class meets two times per week, each week has five periods, and each period lasts 50 minutes The students in each class worked in 8 permanent mixed-ability groups for the whole period of the research

3.2.2 The instruments and procedures 3.2.2.1 The questionnaires

In order to obtain data for the research, two cycles questionnaires for students were employed: pre-treatment and post-treatment questionnaires

The pre-treatment questionnaire was carried out before using group work to teach English grammar with 8 questions They were designed to find out the attitudes of students about English grammar and the use of group work in English grammar lessons The questions emphasizes on the following categories:

- The students’ awareness of the importance of English grammar (Q1)

- The students’ general attitude toward leaning English grammar (Q2 and 3)

- The students’ evaluation of English grammar teaching they have learnt in the class (Q4-6)

- The students’ attitude toward using group work for English grammar lessons (Q7-8)

The post-treatment questionnaire was carried out after using group work to teach English grammar with 11 questions They were designed to find out the differences in students’ attitude toward learning English grammar before and after using group work as well as their evaluation about the effectiveness of using group work to learn grammar The questionnaire also aims at finding how students perceive the benefits and limitations of using group work in learning English grammar

The process of collecting the questionnaires in the class above is also the procedure

of the research

3.2.2.2 The classroom observation

Along with the survey questionnaires, classroom observation is also used to collect data for the study My observation falls on the classroom procedures as well as the students’ behavior and performance in the grammar lessons During the research period, I

acted as a non-participant observer and my observation was noted down in my teaching

journals after each lesson

3.3 Data analysis and discussions 3.3.1 Questionnaire

3.3.1.1 Pre-treatment questionnaire

3.3.1.1.1 Students’ awareness of the importance of learning English grammar

Question one in the questionnaire relating to the students’ awareness of the importance of learning English grammar The results showed that the majority of students agreed it is very important to know English grammar Specifically, among 85 students were asked, 95.3 % of them said that learning English was important or very important, 4.7 % said it was not important but necessary to learn English grammar There weren’t any students who had no idea or said that learning English grammar was not important at all

As we can see from the result above, nearly all students are aware of the important of learning English grammar When being asked why they think learning English grammar is

- Mastering of English grammar helps students to do exercises well, so they can get good marks at their English examinations (15 answers)

- Mastering of English grammar helps students to produce correct sentences, so they don’t “lose face” when speaking before the crowd (7 answers)

- Knowing grammatical rules is very important to write correct sentences (32 answers)

- English grammar is very important to communicate successfully because using right English grammar can make other people understand us easily (42 answers)

- Good understanding of grammar helps a lot in academic reading and translating from English to Vietnamese and vise versa (3 answers)

Beside 95% of students who realize the important of English grammar, there was 4.7% who thought grammar was not important to learn With them, they learnt grammar only because it was a must in the school curriculum Luckily, most of students find grammar is important to learn English well, which means focusing on grammar is still a desirable part of language learning

3.3.1.1.2 Students’ attitudes towards learning English grammar

The second and the third questions in the survey questionnaire asked the students whether they liked or disliked learning English grammar and how difficulty they felt when learning it The answers among 85 students to the second question: “Do you like to learn English grammar?” are:

- 17.6 % of students liked learning English grammar very much

- 70.6 % of students neither liked nor disliked learning English grammar

- 9.4 % of students didn’t like learning English grammar at all

- 1.2 % of students felt very bored with learning English grammar

- 1.2 % of students had no idea at all

To my surprise, although all students were aware of the important role of learning English grammar, 70.6% of them said they neither liked nor disliked learning English