An investigation into teachers and students perceptions of implementing group work in efl reading lessons at vo van kiet high school

--- ∞0∞--- NGUYEN THI MINH PHUONG AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF IMPLEMENTING GROUP WORK IN EFL READING LESSONS AT VO VAN KIET HIGH SCHOOL MASTER OF

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NGUYEN THI MINH PHUONG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS

OF IMPLEMENTING GROUP WORK

IN EFL READING LESSONS

AT VO VAN KIET HIGH SCHOOL

MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

HO CHI MINH CITY, 2022

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

- ∞0∞ -

NGUYEN THI MINH PHUONG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS

OF IMPLEMENTING GROUP WORK

IN EFL READING LESSONS

AT VO VAN KIET HIGH SCHOOL

Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Major code: 8 14 01 11 MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

Supervisor: LAM THANH NAM, Ph.D

HO CHI MINH CITY, 2022

GIẤY XÁC NHẬN

Tôi tên là: Nguyễn Thị Minh Phương

Chuyên ngành: Lý luận và phương pháp giảng dạy Tiếng Anh

Mã học viên: 1881401110029

Tôi đồng ý cung cấp toàn văn thông tin luận án/ luận văn tốt nghiệp hợp lệ về bản quyền cho Thư viện trường đại học Mở Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh Thư viện trường đại học Mở Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh sẽ kết nối toàn văn thông tin luận án/ luận văn tốt nghiệp vào hệ thống thông tin khoa học của Sở Khoa học và Công nghệ Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh

(Ghi rõ họ và tên)

………

Ý KIẾN CHO PHÉP BẢO VỆ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ

CỦA GIẢNG VIÊN HƯỚNG DẪN

Giảng viên hướng dẫn: Lâm Thành Nam

Học viên thực hiện: Nguyễn Thị Minh Phương Lớp: MTESOL018A

Tên đề tài: An investigation into teachers’ and students’ perceptions of implementing group work

in EFL reading lessons at Vo Van Kiet High School

Ý kiến của giáo viên hướng dẫn: đồng ý cho học viên Nguyễn Thị Minh Phương được bảo

vệ luận văn trước Hội đồng

Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, ngày 12 tháng 04 năm 2022

Người nhận xét

Lâm Thành Nam

Van Kiet High School”, is my own work

Except references were made in the thesis, the whole or small parts of thethesis have not been published or used for being awarded another degree

No materials published by another person were used in the thesis without dueacknowledgement

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma inany other university or institution

Ho Chi Minh City, 2022

Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong

Lam Thanh Nam, for his continuous support and encouragement of this thesis.Thank you for his patience and enthusiasm that help me learn more knowledgeduring completing my thesis Without his invaluable instructions and helpfulsuggestions, I could not have finished my thesis promptly

I am thankful to the instructors teaching the class TESOL18 at Ho Chi MinhCity Open University for their interesting lectures in my coursework which hadmajor benefits for my thesis

I must say thank you to the boards of Vo Van Kiet High School giving methe most favorable conditions to conduct my research Besides, I am grateful for theenthusiastic cooperation of the participants who contributed to my research

Finally, I would like to thank my family and my friends for theirunconditional love and considerable assistance Especially, I desire to give mywarmest thanks to my mother who always encourages me to broaden my knowledgeand pursuit the lifelong learning

perceptions of implementing group work (GW) in EFL (English as a foreignlanguage) reading lessons The study aimed to explore participants’ perceptions ofhow beneficial GW is in teaching and learning in reading lessons, what challengesteachers and students may confront, and what factors contributing to GW’s successperceived by candidates The study was done at Vo Van Kiet (VVK) High School

in District 8, Ho Chi Minh City, with 10 English teachers’ and 307eleventh-graders’ participation in the second semester of the academic year2020-2021 I adopted a research design combining data from classroomobservations, questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews The findingsrevealed that teachers and students both had positive perceptions of using GW inreading lessons since this approach provides diverse benefits The results indicatedthe factors concerning teachers’ role, the tasks for GW and classroom context thataffected the effectiveness of GW implementation Future research should be carriedout on a larger scale with numerous participants from many schools

Keywords: group work, reading lessons, factors, perceptions.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF FIGURES vii

LIST OF TABLES viii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ix

Chapter One: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Statement of the problem 1

1.2 Research aim 4

1.3 Research questions 4

1.4 Significance of the study 4

Chapter Two: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Classroom interactions 6

2.2 Group work 7

2.2.1 Definition of GW 8

2.2.2 Types of GW 8

2.2.3 Formation of GW 10

2.2.4 Stages of GW 11

2.2.5 Benefits of GW in L2 education and in reading lessons 13

2.2.6 Challenges of GW in language education 16

2.3 Teacher’s and students’ roles in GW activities 17

2.3.1 Teacher’s roles in GW activities 17

2.3.2 Students’ roles in GW activities 18

2.4 Factors influencing the success of GW activities 18

2.4.1 The classroom context 19

2.4.2 The teacher’s role 20

2.4.3 Tasks for GW 20

2.5 Reading skills 21

2.5.1 Definition 21

2.5.2 Class organization in reading skills 21

2.5.3 Reading skills in EFL education at Vietnamese high schools 22

2.6 The relationship between GW and reading lessons 23

2.7 Previous studies about the effects of GW in language learning 23

2.8 Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of implementing GW in EFL reading lessons 26

2.8.1 Teachers’ perceptions of GW 26

2.8.2 Students’ perceptions of GW 27

2.9 Research gap 27

Chapter Three: METHODOLOGY 29

3.1 Research design 29

3.2 Participants 30

3.3 Sampling 30

3.4 Research instruments 31

3.4.1 Classroom observations 31

3.4.2 Questionnaire surveys 32

3.4.2.1 Teachers’ questionnaire 33

3.4.2.2 Students’ questionnaire 34

3.7 Data analysis procedure 38

3.8 Validity and reliability 40

3.9 Ethical consideration 40

Chapter Four: FINDINGS 42

4.1 Findings from the classroom observations 42

4.1.1 Effects of GW in reading lessons 42

4.1.2 Difficulties in GW 42

4.1.3 Factors contributing to the success of GW in EFL reading lessons 43

4.2 Findings from the questionnaire surveys 44

4.2.1 Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of implementing GW in EFL reading lessons 44

4.2.1.1 Teachers’ perceptions 44

4.2.1.2 Students’ perceptions 49

4.2.2 Factors contributing to the success of GW in EFL reading lessons 54

4.2.2.1 Teachers’ perceptions 54

4.2.2.2 Students’ perceptions 56

4.3 Findings from the interviews 59

4.3.1 Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of implementing GW in EFL reading lessons 59

4.3.1.1 Teachers’ perceptions 59

4.3.1.2 Students’ perceptions 64

4.3.2 Factors contributing to the success of GW in EFL reading lessons 68

4.3.2.1 Teachers’ perceptions 68

4.3.2.2 Students’ perceptions 71

Chapter Five: DISCUSSIONS 75

5.1 Discussions on teachers’ and students’ perceptions of GW in reading lessons 75

5.1.1 Teachers’ perceptions 75

5.1.2 Students’ perceptions 77

5.2 Discussions on factors contributing GW’s success in reading lessons 80

5.2.1 Teachers’ perceptions 80

5.2.2 Students’ perceptions 81

Chapter Six: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 83

6.1 Summary of the findings 83

6.1.1 Perceptions of GW in EFL reading lessons 83

6.1.2 Factors contributing GW’s success 85

6.2 Pedagogical implications 87

6.2.1 Implications for English teaching practices 87

6.2.2 Implications for English learning activities 89

6.3 Limitations of the study 89

6.4 Recommendations for further research 90

REFERENCES 93

APPENDICES 105

Appendix A: Example of a reading lesson in Tieng Anh 11 textbook 105

Appendix B: Teacher’s questionnaire 109

Appendix C: Students’ questionnaire (English version) 114

Appendix I: Classroom observation protocol 127 Appendix J: Coding scheme of participants and data sources 129 Appendix K: Quotes from Vietnamese interviews with research participants 130

Figure 2.1 Conceptual framework of GW in three stages 13 Figure 4.1 Students’ perceptions of the ways to form groups 57 Figure 4.2 The students’ favorable number of students in one group 58

Table 3.2 Cronbach’s alpha index of students’ questionnaire 40 Table 3.3 Cronbach’s alpha index of teachers’ questionnaire 40 Table 4.1 Means and standard deviations (SD) for teachers’ perceptions of effects of GW on students’

reading skills and capacity 44

Table 4.2 Means and standard deviations (SD) for teachers’ perceptions of effects of GW on students’

responsibility and autonomy 45

Table 4.3 Means and standard deviations (SD) for teachers’ perceptions of effects of GW on learning

reading skills and capacity 50

Table 4.8 Means and standard deviations (SD) for students’ perceptions of effects of GW on students’

responsibility and autonomy 51

Table 4.9 Means and standard deviations (SD) for students’ perceptions of effects of GW on learning

CLT : Communicative Language Teaching

EFL : English as a Foreign Language

ESL : English as a Second Language

MKO : The More Knowledgeable Other

Chapter One: INTRODUCTION

This chapter will indicate the problem related to teaching and learning English athigh schools in Vietnam, particularly in reading lessons The research aim, researchquestions and research significance will also be mentioned in this chapter

1.1 Statement of the problem

For the past decades, English has become an international language which isconsidered as “lingua franca of whole world” (McKay & Hornberger, 1996, p.53).Lingua franca is defined as a language used for communication among groups ofpeople who speak different languages (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary,2008) Nowadays, English is used in many fields such as education, science,economics, politics (Hoang, 2020) Many books and other sources of informationare written in English Besides, a number of companies, schools and universitiesrequire staffs and students to have a great command for English Thus, masteringEnglish is the key to broaden the knowledge and get a job The increasing demandfor English has resulted in great requirement for appropriate teaching methods.Many studies have been conducted to seek effective teaching methodologies andtechniques to help learners gain the development of English, which opensemployment and educational opportunities for learners

Learners are quite inactive in traditional English classrooms They sat quietly,listened passively to what the teacher taught and wrote anything the teacher wrote

on the board (McLeish, 2009; Prince, 2004) In other words, learners lackedopportunities to use English in class In traditional classrooms, students who arepassive listeners of lectures without interaction with teachers or classmates are notlikely to gain and retain information and skills longer as students who activelyparticipate in group learning (Davis, 2009; Prince, 2004) Meanwhile, in the modernera of globalization, learners do not only need English to read texts but also useEnglish to communicate with others This result in the change of classrooms thatsets environment for learners to practice English Hence, in the need of English

language teaching, it “has shifted from the traditional whole-class approach to amore communicative classroom” (Karim, 2015, p.97) In other words, the aim ofteaching and learning foreign language is no longer limited to the teacher’s askingthe student to do lexical and grammatical exercises, or to develop one or twolanguage skills such as reading or writing Instead, the aim of teaching and learning

is focusing on communication in target language with purpose of understandingothers and making ourselves understood (Hoang, 2016)

One of the most significant techniques in communicative language teaching

is GW (Nešić & Hamidović, 2016), which is gradually adopted for use in EFLclassroom to develop students’ communicative ability and language proficiency(Zhang, 2005) Many studies indicate the effectiveness of GW in develop secondlanguage learning (Ahmadian, Amerian, & Tajabadi, 2014; Dobao, 2014)

Within in context of Vietnam, English is the most common foreign languageand becomes a compulsory subject in numerous schools from primary schools touniversities across the country (Hoang, 2010) Hence, the demand for English forstudents from primary schools to universities is becoming greater and greater.Among seven foreign languages (English, Russian, Chinese, French, Japaneses,German, and Korean) taught as a compulsory subject in Vietnamese general schoolsystem, English has always gained dominant status (Hoang, 2020) Besides, thenumber of students learning English as a required subject always accounts for over98% out of the number of students learning foreign language in the Vietnamesegeneral school education (Hoang, 2020) Thus, English is becoming more and moresignificant for both education and career in Vietnam

Some problems in teaching English in Vietnam have emerged One of theproblems is that teaching English has failed to meet the demand for competentEnglish-speaking people (Hoang, 2010) The reason explained for this is that themismatch between teaching and testing English in Vietnam Whilst teaching relies

on the communicative approach, testing concentrates mainly on learners’lexicogrammatical knowledge (Hoang, 2010) Moreover, in the context of

Vietnamese education, students are often inactive in class and are used to rotelearning Furthermore, teachers are familiar with dictating everything in classinstead of providing sufficient opportunities to share ideas for students (Dang,2010) As a result, it is vital to seek the efficient approach for learners to learnEnglish following the communicative approach instead of old methods.

Reading can be considered by far the most significant of the four skills,especially in ESL or EFL (Carrell, Devine, & Eskey, 1988) In the context ofVietnam, teaching and learning English occur in a non-native environment, soreading is regarded as a vital means to obtain knowledge and enhance further study

to happen (Nguyen, 2009) In other words, reading skills provide students with thelarge amount of useful English knowledge and expressions for fostering other skills.Therefore, it is important that development of reading skills worth noting toimprove language learning in Vietnam

In terms of the relationship between reading comprehension capacity and

GW, the result of Behjat’s study (2011) proved that reading in collaboration withother learners could ameliorate the learner’s comprehension than readingindividually This is due to the fact that during GW, learners can have support fromothers and help the others Furthermore, GW is supposed to be the most effectiveteaching approach in extensive reading class (Zhang, 2004) Through GW activities,learners can practice reading skills instead of reciting skills definitions, therebyimproving their reading skills Thus, working together seems beneficial to readingclasses In the context of Vietnam’s EFL education, GW is a suggested techniquewhich is always adopted in reading lessons of English textbook at high schools (see

Appendix A) In Tieng Anh 10, 11, 12 textbooks for high school students, GW

activities are usually recommended for pre-reading and post-reading activities

The efficiency of GW is impacted by many factors, among which areteachers’ and students’ perceptions (Alkaff, 2013; Webb, 2009) Conclusively,teachers’ and students’ perception of GW in reading lessons in context of Vietnam

should be explored with purpose to improve students’ reading capacity and Englishproficiency as well.

1.2 Research aim

The purpose of this study was to explore teachers and students’ perceptions

of using GW in EFL reading lessons at VVK High School in Ho Chi Minh Citybecause perceptions play integral parts of implementing GW in language learning(Saborit, Fernández-Río, Estrada, Méndez-Giménez, & Alonso, 2016) Perceptionswould be analyzed regarding how beneficial GW was in language teaching andlearning, what challenges which they might face in GW activities and whether theyhad positive or negative perceptions of working in groups in EFL reading lessons.Besides, this study aimed to find out factors contributing the success of GWactivities in reading lessons

1.3 Research questions

The study is guided by the two following questions:

1 What are teachers’ and students’ perceptions of GW in EFL reading lessons?

2 As perceived by teachers and students, what factors contribute to the success of

GW in EFL reading lessons?

1.4 Significance of the study

The result of this study is expected to enhance student’s awareness oflearning English through GW, which is frequently applied in English classrooms.Teachers and students will gain a deeper understanding of the GW’s effectivenessand solutions to drawbacks which GW might cause

Through the findings, the teacher will adjust teaching methods as well asdesign activities or tasks more appropriately to help learners learn Englishefficiently In addition, the teacher will explore useful techniques to facilitatestudents’ learning such as group formation or question strategies

The study broadens the my knowledge and experience in English teachingand how to design the activities I will gain valuable knowledge in teaching thanks

to information in books and articles used to support this study Furthermore,

through observations and questionnaire surveys, I learn experience from the others

in teaching and designing activities suitably to enhance learners’ English learning inreading lessons

Finally, the study findings can serve a reference resources for the furtherresearch For those who are interested in GW and reading skills, this study canprovide them with useful information in this field

Chapter Two: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter firstly provides some theories related to communicativelanguage teaching and classroom interactions Furthermore, it brings the definition,types and formation of GW, planning GW activities, and pros and cons of GW.Also, this part mentions the role of teacher and students in GW, the role of reading

in language learning in Vietnam, and the relationship between GW and reading.Relevant studies about the effect of GW in language learning and factorscontributing to the success of GW are also mentioned in the chapter Lastly, theimportance of teachers and students’ perceptions of GW and research gap are alsomentioned

2.1 Classroom interactions

Since CLT appeared in the 1970s and 1980s, it has gained a great deal ofinterest from language teachers and teaching institutions throughout the world(Richards, 2005) It is “defined as having reached a turning point-one in whichexplicit direct elements are gaining significance in teaching communicative abilitiesand skills" (Celce-Murcia & Domyei, 1997, as cited in Spada, 2007) In other words,the significance of communicative language teaching is letting learners engage incommunication to help them enhance communicative competence (Savignon, 2007)

as its activities require meaningful negotiation and interaction among learners(Richards & Rodgers, 2001; Richards, 2005) Thus, interaction seems to play anintegral part of communicative language teaching

It is widely accepted that interaction is vital to learn and teach language andraises awareness of pedagogical attention Generally, interaction is defined as theaction of communication with someone while working or playing with them(Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2008) In terms of within the context oflearner performance, interaction is understood as an act occurring between a learnerand learner’s environment for the purpose of responding to the learner in a wayintended to modify his or her attitudes towards a pedagogical target (Wagner, 1994,

as cited in Tran & Le, 2017) This can be understood that classroom interaction is atwo-way process between the participants in the learning process in which theteacher has influence on students and vice versa (Dagarin, 2004).

In addition, interaction which involves talking and working together givesstudents chances to participate in a learning community (Cohen & Lotan, 2014).Thus, the word interaction is important for language teachers to concern (Brown &Lee, 2015) Moreover, they indicated that interaction is the heart of communication

in the period of communicative language teaching, which requires the enhancement

of communication between learners with learners or learners with the teacher.Through interaction, learners have many opportunities to communicate with theirteacher and their friends, that is to say, interaction provides learners withopportunities to participate and act as members of a learning community (Cohen &Lotan, 2014) Consequently, learners will have chances to practice using Englishmeaningfully in class

In line with the role of interaction in language acquisition, learners obtainopportunities to pay attention to the difference between their formulations oflanguage and the language used by their partners through input and interaction withinterlocutors (Gass & Mackey, 2006)

Crucially, in a classroom, it is through language in interaction that weaccess new knowledge, acquire and develop new skills, identify problems ofunder standing, deal with ‘breakdowns’ in communication, and establishand maintain relationships (Walsh, 2011, p.2)

In terms of language correction, learners also receive feedback which bothmodifies the linguistic input they receive from others and enables them to modifytheir output during the act of communication (Gass & Mackey, 2006)

2.2 Group work

Group work which is a significant feature of classroom interaction (Ellis, 1994, ascited in Çinar, 2011) emerged in the nineteenth century (Long & Porter, 1985, as

cited in Galegane, 2018) Thenceforth, it has been applied in language teaching for

a long time because of a variety of its benefits (Dobao, 2014)

2.2.1 Definition of GW

GW was described as a pedagogical activity concerning a small group of learnerswho work together on a simple task or on different parts of a more complicated one(Richards et al., 1985, as cited in Kasim, 2015)

It [GW] is a generic term covering a multiplicity of techniques in which two

or more students are assigned a task that involves collaboration and selfinitiated language (…) It implies small GW, that is, students in groups ofperhaps six or fewer (Brown, 2001, p.177)

Because there is expected no direct and immediate supervision from teacher(Cohen & Lotan, 2014), group members work interdependently to complete acommon goal, keep up patterns and standards of group membership and involve ininteractive communication (Harris & Sherblom, 2008; Prince, 2004) Thus, GW is aterm indicating numerous techniques which require learners to perform a taskinvolving collaborative activity and self-initiated language (Brown & Lee, 2015).This means that GW requires collaboration between students and productionlanguage on their own Conclusively, GW is considered a learning activityinvolving a group of learners working together to complete a task, which aims atgiving learners more chances to practice the target language through interactionapproach

PW and GW differ from each other in the ways they are monitored(Richards & Lockhart, 1996) However, as mentioned above, two or more studentscan create a group (Brown, 2001) That is, PW can also be considered GW since

“PW is simply GW in groups of two” (Brown, 2001, p.177) or “even two people are

a group” (Jacobs & Hall, 2002, p.53) Consequently, in the current study, GW isused to mean two or more students working together

2.2.2 Types of GW

GW is classified into three categories based on the time group members worktogether (Davis, 2009) The three kinds of GW consist of informal learning groups,formal learning groups, and study teams (Davis, 2009; Johnson et al., 1991).

Informal learning groups refers to grouping of students within a lesson which

is temporary and not planned in advance (Johnson et al., 1991) Besides, informalgroup can be organized at anytime in the class at any size to check students’understanding of the materials and give them a chance to practice what they havelearned (Davis, 2009) For instance, the teacher asks students to turn back theirneighbors and spend two minutes discussing one question given to students orrequires student to work in groups of three with two friends near him or her toanswer the question posed by the teacher in one minute This type of group can beused to make students aware of the materials and set a favorable mood in learning.Additionally, the informal learning group also makes sure that students makeprogress cognitively, rehearse the materials being used, summarize knowledge thathas been learned by students Furthermore, informal group is applied to introducethe following part and give the closure to the instructional part

Informal group occurs within a short time in class, whereas formal group isset up to take a long time in class or outside the class (Johnson et al., 1991) Formalgroup is used for students to complete a specific task such as carrying out a labexperiment, reporting something, conducting a project, or preparing a presentationwhich may last over a couple of weeks or the whole semester (Davis, 2009).Students have to work together until the task is completed

While the first two types of GW require learners to work together until theirassignment has been done, study teams have them work in groups over the course

of a term which means that they are long-term groups (Johnson et al., 1991) Eachgroup member is responsible for supporting, encouraging and assisting other groupmembers to complete course assignments Moreover, study teams also help studentskeep up with other group members since when a member is absent, others will

inform the lectures, materials and assignments for him or her Furthermore, thecomplexity of the assignment will boost the value of study teams (Davis, 2009).

All in all, the three types of GW mentioned above have differentcharacteristics Hence, the use of what kind of GW should be based on their typicalfeatures to make use of their advantages

Forming groups randomly means that the teacher divides students intogroups Some teachers assign students to groups by using their first letter ofstudents, their number of table or their position in class Other teachers dividestudents into small groups by requiring them to count from 1, 2, 3 to n, and then letstudents with the same number into one group Nonetheless, random assignmentcan produce unbalanced teams in terms of skill sets and diversity (Davis, 2009)

Self-selection refers to students’ having a right to choose their groupmembers Choosing their group members can bring positive effects provided thatstudents have already known their teammates, which can prevent conflicts fromhappening during GW activities (Davis, 2009) However, that students have rights

to choose their teammates can have some drawbacks This causes some studentsfeel isolated since they were the last one to be chosen (Davis, 2009) Generallyspeaking, however, learning to work with new friends and forming interpersonalrelationships enhance efficiency of GW (Feichtner & Davis, 1984)

The teacher can combine the two kinds of group formation: forming grouprandomly and students’ self-selection For instance, the teacher can ask students to

name three classmates that they prefers to work with, and then assign students intogroups with one or two students in their friend list (Davis, 2009) Anothersuggestion is that the teacher lets students into groups based on genders, majors ornon-majors, or uses software to assign them into groups.

Specifically, there is another type of group formation that is assigningstudents to groups based on specific criteria (Davis, 2009; Taqi & Al-Nouh, 2014).The teacher can put students into groups based on specific criteria such as maleswith females, active with inactive students, or low-level students with high-levelstudents (Taqi & Al-Nouh, 2014) With these group formation, the teacher canmaximize group heterogeneity which is advocated by many researchers (Feichtner

& Davis, 1984) The reason is that in heterogeneous group, the lower-level studentscan learn from the higher-level ones during GW activities In addition, whenlearners work in heterogeneous groups, the more knowledgeable other (MKO) in agroup can help a learner in their zone of proximal development (ZDP), which refers

to “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined byindependent problem solving and the level of potential development as determinedthrough problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with morecapable peers” (Vygotsky, 1978, p 86) Besides, heterogeneous group learners can

be given more opportunities to collaborate with others and perform their taskefficiently (Ellis, 1994, as cited in Çinar, 2011) while homogeneous grouping wouldmake the loss of the benefits of working in groups (Attle & Baker, 2007) In otherwords, heterogeneous group which consists of learners with different ability levelsbrings more beneficial than homogeneous group which comprises the same abilitylevel learners

2.2.4 Stages of GW

Organizing students in groups makes GW successful in foreign languageclassrooms (Salas, 2005) GW organization is divided into three stages whichconsist of presentation, process, and feedback (Ur, 1996)

In the presentation stage (before GW), the teacher should explain carefullyhow the group will operate and how students will be graded (Davis, 2009) Studentsneed to know how many members in one group, the time allotted, the topic, and themarks they will get when the activity finishes Modelling is also necessary in casethe activity is completely new to students (Brown & Lee, 2015) The teacher needs

to give instructions in detail and useful expressions to help students avoid usingmother tongue during GW activities (Salas, 2005) It is advised that the teachershould give the instructions clearly before giving out materials and requiringstudents to work in groups (Ur, 1996) After dividing class into small groups, theteacher should check for clarification by asking them some questions so as to makesure that they know what they will do in groups (Brown & Lee, 2015)

In the process stage (during GW), the teacher should go around to monitorand contribute if necessary (Ur, 1996) By doing this, he/she can provide thesupport for students and help them solve difficulties they may deal with (Race,2000) Moreover, the teacher can tactfully remind students to avoid using mothertongue and regulate participation in discussing (Ur, 1996) Using mother tongueinstead of English during GW is considered a great hindrance to learners’ languageimprovement The teacher moved around the class to prevent learners from joininggroup owing to teacher’s requirement, but doing nothing By contributing a little to

GW assignment, learners gain language Ending GW activity at a certain point isalso considered significant Timing for GW needs concerning because sufficienttime allows students to have a reasonable amount of practice When most studentshave enough time for practice, the teacher should stop GW activities It is suggested

to finish the activity when students are still interested in it (Ur, 1996) In otherwords, the teacher should not wait until every student has finished practising

In the feedback stage (after GW), they should be allowed to reflect on theprocess involved in working together and evaluate the effectiveness of GW (Race,2000; Ur, 1996), which is called feedback section (post - GW) There are manyforms of feedback on GW tasks such as giving the right solution, evaluating

suggestions, pooling ideas on the board, displaying materials produced by thegroups, and so on (Ur, 1996) Additionally, feedback on language may be integratedinto this discussion of the task or discussed in the following session.

Figure 2.1 summaries the teacher’s and students’ activities in three stages ofgroup work which was adapted from Ur (1996) This framework was used for myobservation and evaluation of GW incorporation into EFL reading lessons at theresearch site/intended high school

Figure 2.1 Conceptual framework of GW in three stages

2.2.5 Benefits of GW in L2 education and in reading lessons

GW brings many benefits for learners who learn ESL or EFL GW isconsidered to be a superior technique for development of academic languageproficiency by setting up less threatening environment for interaction amongstudents occurring and enhancing shared responsibility for their work (Davis, 2009)

help students understand

GW activities and avoid

using mother tongue

evaluate and express appreciation GW activities

give the right solution, comments and

feedback, evaluate suggestions

listen and write down

understand what and how

they are expected to do in

groups

evaluating and expressing arrangements

giving comments, feedback and evaluating

listening and writing down

supporting, tactfully regulating

participation in discussion

interacting with peers, working as directed to complete tasks

learning in cooperation and from group interactions

Besides, by creating situations where students are encouraged to cooperate with oneanother, GW promotes greater academic success (Johnson et al., 1991).

Learners working in groups achieve better learning and longer retention ofknowledge than working individually (Hassanien, 2007) since GW generatesinteractive learning (Brown & Lee, 2015) In traditional classroom, teacher-centeredapproach is dominant During a lesson, the teacher gives explanation of grammar,drills students and leads students to discuss as a whole class (Hassanien, 2007).Hence, students have little time to use and practice the target language In otherwords, students tend to be passive, listen what the teacher teaches and write what hewrites in the board, which is likely to make students bored with learning English.When students work in small groups, they have maximum time to practice English,have face-to-face give-and-take, and practice in negotiation with other students intheir group Thus, on the basis of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (1978), classroomtasks should be designed to push learners to work and produce language throughcompleting the tasks collaboratively (Nassaji & Tian, 2010) Such pedagogicalactivities encourage learners to produce output together such as their assignments orlanguage improvement but also give them opportunities for scaffolding and peerfeedback (Swain, 2005, as cited in Nassaji & Tian, 2010) Especially, GW providesopportunities for “more knowledgeable ‘others’ additional to the teacher to beinvolved in this process” (Lin, 2018, p.164), that is, students can learn from otherstudents and help others as well Therefore, working in groups increasesopportunities for students to approach academic skills and linguistic proficiency(Davis, 2009)

In L2 classes, working together offers students a comfortable environment todiscuss and engage in joint activities with their friends (Harmer, 1991, as cited inAlfares, 2017) Students feel secured and confident to express their ideas or opinionwhen working in groups with three or four friends looking at them (Salas, 2005)because they are not vulnerable to criticism and rejection in front of the whole class

in case they make mistakes (Brown & Lee, 2015) Thus, reserved students become

active to contribute to the process of learning and practice achieving goals Thefriendly climate helps students feel safe and therefore they will participate in groupsactively.

GW can boost learners’ responsibility and autonomy in learning language(Brown & Lee, 2015; Hassanien, 2007) In whole-class activity, students seem to bepassive, keep quiet and hide themselves In contrast, in GW activity, students arekept involved in their work (Davis, 2009) They are hard to keep silent since eachstudent plays an significant role to contribute to the common task In other words,when working together, students are more responsible for doing the task anddeveloping their autonomy

In terms of teaching, GW serves as a bridge to individualize instruction(Brown & Lee, 2015), which occurs thanks to opportunities for teacher to discusswith students the structure of the task (Foster, 1998, as cited in Alfares, 2017) It isobvious that each student has diverse needs as well as different language abilities.Therefore, when working in groups, they gain the opportunity to vary their abilities

to accomplish different goals Furthermore, thanks to selecting small groupscarefully and administering various tasks to different groups, the teacher can takeadvantage of the other individual differences such as age, culture heritage, field ofstudy, cognitive style, motivation, aptitude and personality

In addition to the advantages GW brings for learning foreign language ingeneral mentioned above, this kind of classroom activity takes benefits for students

in reading lessons specifically Thanks to the comfortable learning environment

GW creates, students can improve reading skills (Bolukbas, Keskin, & Polat, 2011).When working together, students receive help from others, which boosts theircomprehension capacity rather than reading individually (Behjat, 2011) Besides,working in groups also helps students to achieve better result in the task related toreading comprehension assigned by the teacher (Cohen & Lotan, 2014) This is due

to the fact that when students cooperate with each other to complete reading tasks,they engage in discussions after their reading Each person plays the role as a reader,

a recorder and a facilitator in collaboration Through GW activities, students gainopportunities to practice their reading skills As a result, students’ reading skillsimprove considerably.

2.2.6 Challenges of GW in language education

Along with benefits GW offers, there are some drawbacks in GW activities.Negative aspect of GW concerned first is that teacher may lose their control in theclass during GW activities (Brown & Lee, 2015; Salas, 2005) Especially, in a largeclass with more than 40 students, the teacher will have difficulty in controlling andmonitoring all of groups simultaneously

That students tend to use native language when working in groups is anotherdrawback that the teacher may confront (Brown & Lee, 2015) Specifically,students who have low confidence in their L2 ability tend to switch to nativelanguage in order to maintain their communicative needs (Eguchi & Eguchi, 2006).Though using native language in class is possible if necessary cannot be denied,using too much native language will hinder the development of languageproficiency

Another disadvantage of GW needs to be considered is students’ error will

be reinforced (Taqi & Al-Nouh, 2014) It is clearly that students can learn from andhelp their group mates However, the knowledge students learn from each other isnot always true, and the teacher has few opportunities to correct their errors Interms of students’ interest, some learners prefer to work individually as they find

GW frustrating while they can do tasks on their own

The other shortcoming needs concerning is that each student has differentlearning styles such as right-brain-oriented students, left-brain-oriented students,quicker thinkers, impulsive learners, competitive students and so on since learningstyles play integral parts of academic and social learning (Kyprianidou, Demetriadis,Tsiatsos, & Pombortsis, 2012) For example, whilst right-brain-oriented studentstend to be good at sequential and logical process, left-brain-oriented ones are good

at simultaneous and creative process (Coffield, Moseley, Hall, & Ecclestone, 2004)

because right hemisphere brain copes with the associative meanings of words anduses imagery while left hemisphere brain processes the syntactic and logical aspect

of language (Cornett, 1983) Thus, learning styles decide the role of students in GWactivities (Brown & Lee, 2015) For instance, in some groups, there will be somestudents who want to be leaders while others want to be followers Some studentstake more roles and often change their role whereas others maintain one role(Alfares, 2017)

Organizing GW may be time-consuming for both teachers and students(Hassanien, 2007) Teachers need to take long time to design GW activities Also,students spend more time when moving in groups and discussing (Ur, 2012)

Noise is also a negative effect of GW activities (Salas, 2005; Taqi &Al-Nouh, 2014) While students work in groups, they intend to discuss, exchangetheir ideas all at once to complete their assignment Hence, interaction betweenthem can cause noise, which bothers the adjacent groups and classes and reducesthe efficiency of language learning

2.3 Teacher’s and students’ roles in GW activities

GW activities have implied new roles in the classroom for teachers and students(Richards, 2005)

2.3.1 Teacher’s roles in GW activities

Teacher’s role has changed dramatically in GW activities (Cohen & Lotan,2014) Putting students in groups does not ensure that learning will take place(Webb, 2009), so the teacher has a crucial role to facilitate students’ learning ingroups despite being under pressure to fulfill curricular demands (Fung, To, &Leung, 2016) GW has changed the role of the teacher dramatically (Cohen & Lotan,2014) In the traditional classroom, the teacher played a key role of a dispenser toprovide knowledge for students (Dagarin, 2004) He or she had to be responsible forfulfilling empty students’ head and correcting students’ speech and writing to helpthem produce completely correct sentences (Richards, 2005) In contrast, theteacher now plays many roles depending on different situations (Dagarin, 2004)

Within GW activities, the teacher acts as a facilitator of learning instead of andispenser of knowledge (Hertz-Lazarowitz & Shachar, 1990, cited as in Gillies,2008) In other words, the teacher will perform various specific roles synchronously

or asynchronously (Littlewood & William, 1981) These particular roles of teachersinclude a general overseer, a classroom manager, a language instructor, a consultant,

a co-communcator (Littlewood & William, 1981) In addition, the teacher also playsother roles such as a controller, an assessor, an organizer, a prompter, a tutor and aninvestigator (Harmer, 2007)

2.3.2 Students’ roles in GW activities

Students’ role has also changed along with the role of teachers Students are

no longer passives recipients in learning process within GW (Tran, 2015) Instead,they are engaged in contributing to their group assignment Students must haveresponsibility for making sure that their GWs efficiently and group members helpmutually (Cohen & Lotan, 2014) Besides, they have to be familiar with listening totheir group members in GW in the place of depending on the teacher as a languagemodel (Richards, 2005) Meanwhile, each member of one group plays a specificrole to complete the same task For instance, if a group is about discussion, it canhave a leader, a reporter and a secretary (Zhang, 2005) The leader will monitor thediscussion and ensure that every member participates in discussion whilst thesecretory takes note ideas which others say The reporter will be the representative

to present in front of and the rest of the group will contribute their ideas By thisway, students are supposed to be greatly responsible for their own learning nomatter what level of proficiency in English they have

All in all, GW has changed the role of the teacher and students The teacherbecomes less dominant in class and students become independent of the teacher

2.4 Factors influencing the success of GW activities

It is obvious that many factors decide whether GW activities are successful or not.Some studies have been conducted to find out the factors contributing to the success

of GW in EFL classroom, namely the classroom context, interactions between

children, the teacher’s role and the tasks for group (Blatchford, Kutnick, Baines, &Galton, 2003; Gillies, 2014; Le & Nguyen, 2017) In addition to the four elementsmentioned before, the learning goals of GW influence the success of GW activities(Nation, 1989) In this study, I will focus on three key factors contributing thesuccess of GW including the classroom context, the teacher’s role and the tasks.

2.4.1 The classroom context

Classroom context includes class seating arrangements, group size, and groupcomposition (Blatchford, Kutnick, Baines, & Galton, 2003)

In terms of class seating arrangements, seating arrangements play significantroles in supporting GW activities (Le & Nguyen, 2017) Using furniture and seatingflexibly makes a big difference and using the physical layout and space toencourage students’ interaction in GW activities is significant (Blatchford, Kutnick,Baines, & Galton, 2003) Additionally, seating arrangements ensure students’interest and participation (Nation, 1989) Thus, seating patterns need to meet therequirement of learning objectives

It is suggested group size should be suitable for the students’ age andexperience, the GW’s purpose and the task at hand (Blatchford, Kutnick, Baines, &Galton, 2003) However, students gain more when they work in groups of three orfour people than in groups of five to seven people (Lou, Abrami, Spence, Poulsen,Chamber, & d’Apollonia, 1996) Also, this finding is supported by a studyconducted by Le and Nguyen (2017) in a university in Vietnam, which claimed that

an appropriate group should be from three to four students

Regarding group composition, groups will vary in terms of other factors,namely “the gender-mix, and the mix of friends and non-friends” (Blatchford,Kutnick, Baines, & Galton, 2003, p.166) Allowing students to choose their groupmembers can have some benefits such as preventing conflicts from happeningduring GW activities Nonetheless, students choice for group members also brings afew drawbacks such as making students not chosen feel isolated (Davis, 2009) andreinforcing social divisions such as gender or ability (Blatchford, Kutnick, Baines,

& Galton, 2003) Moreover, group composition is different for students who havedifferent language ability (Lou, Abrami, Spence, Poulsen, Chamber, & d’Apollonia,1996) Low-ability students benefit more in heterogeneous groups whilstmedium-ability students learn more in homogeneous groups.

2.4.2 The teacher’s role

The teacher plays a crucial role in promoting interactions among students in

GW (Gillies, 2014; Le & Nguyen, 2017) Putting students in groups enables them tolearn from peers and develop autonomy through the tasks they complete in groups.Having students work together gives students opportunities to become more active

in responsible for their own language learning This combines students’ interest andminimizes destructive behavior and has a good influence on their learning (Sharan

& Shaulov, 1990, as cited in Gillies, 2014) Four ways conceiving how teachers canmake GW successful comprise minimizing the challenges students encounter whilelearning, scaffolding GW, guiding on the side and planning lesson carefully(Blatchford, Kutnick, Baines, & Galton, 2003) Teachers need to do something tolower the students’ threat and make GW fun since sometimes students feel worried

by working in groups Scaffolding GW involves “a host of things includingadapting and structuring the GW context and the task” (Blatchford, Kutnick, Baines,

& Galton, 2003, p.168) Besides, teachers should observe students working groups,guide them if necessary, not attend GW activities or control too much Moreover,teachers need to plan and structure lesson carefully to boost the effectiveness ofgroup working Conclusively, the teacher plays the role as the model and the strongsupporter of GW

2.4.3 Tasks for GW

The task which students complete in groups is significant since it influences theinteraction between group members (Cohen, 1994, as cited in Gillies, 2014).Besides, the task for students working in groups impacts the effectiveness of GW(Le & Nguyen, 2017) However, designing tasks which boost GW activities is hard(Blatchford, Kutnick, Baines, & Galton, 2003) In order for GW to be effective, the

task must be designed to stimulate all of group members to discuss and worktogether In addition, the task is required to be meaningful, engages in the lessonsand has clear purposes Particularly, the task needs to be set up to be appropriate forstudents’ level and the allotted time.

2.5 Reading skills

Reading is the most important academic language skill for second languagestudents which can lead to their professional, social, and personal development

reading for joy, reading for information, reading for work, reading for personaldevelopment and academic reading.(Alqarni, 2015)

2.5.1 Definition

Reading, which is about understanding written texts, is a complex activity thatinvolves both perception and thought (Pang, Muaka, Bernhardt, & Kamil, 2003) In

sense of a text (Mikulecky, 2008) Besides, reading was defined “as an interactionamong three factors: background knowledge, conceptual abilities and learningstrategies” (Venkateswaran, 1995, as cited in Alqarni, 2015, p.161) Readingproficiency plays an integral part in understanding a written statement in theaccuracy and efficiency (Khand, 2004)

Reading comprises two related processes: word recognition and comprehension(Pang, Muaka, Bernhardt, & Kamil, 2003) Word recognition refers to the process

of perceiving how written symbols correspond to one’s spoken language.Comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences and connectedtext

Reading is a complex process for learners in learning their first language.And this process becomes more challenging when learners learn a foreign language(Mikulecky, 2008)

2.5.2 Class organization in reading skills

There are three kinds of class organization in reading lessons: the individual mode,the teacher-centred class, and GW (Nuttall, 1996).

In the individual mode, each students work on their own for most of the time.Because the privacy of the reading process, this mode is appropriate for readinglessons The advantage of this mode is that students read materials which aresuitable for them and progress at their own pace

In the teacher-centred class, the teacher-in-charge controls the wholeactivities such as deciding the sequence of work, setting tasks and make surestudents’ participation This mode has both strengths and weaknesses All studentswith different levels must complete the assignments in the same way and at thesame speed However, this mode helps the teacher manage the whole class moreeasily than in the individual mode

In the GW mode of organization, much of the guidance comes from the otherstudents in groups Each group member tries to contribute to the common task.Nonetheless, some may not be working or wasting time In contrast, motivation can

be promoted and the less-threatening learning environment will be created

2.5.3 Reading skills in EFL education at Vietnamese high schools

Most of the textbooks used to teach English in both Vietnam or other countrycontext are designed based on the acquisition-learning Krashen’s (1982) hypothesiswith listening, speaking, reading, and writing in order respectively Meanwhile, thetextbooks which are currently used in Vietnamese high school system are designedwith a start on reading lesson (Hoang, 2011) The reason why each unit starts withreading lesson involves in naturally communicative environment While learners inother countries such as Singapore or Philippines learn English in naturallycommunicative environment, Vietnamese learners do not Consequently, within thecontext where oral input is limited, reading is the method that helps to increasestudents’ approach to the target language (Hoang, 2011; Zhao, Guo, Biales, &Olszewski, 2016) Through reading, students get accustomed to the topic of lesson,gain vocabulary and expression related to this topic, then deepen and broaden them

in the next other skills lessons: speaking, listening, writing and language focusrespectively As a result, reading plays an integral part in foreign languageeducation in Vietnam.

2.6 The relationship between GW and reading lessons

According to Nuttall (1996), how the teacher organizes the class determinesthe effectiveness of students’ reading To guide students while they are reading,

teacher-centred class, and GW (Nuttall,1996) These three mode can be combined

reading lessons is not exceptional Reading in groups can boost students’comprehension capacity rather than reading individually (Behjat, 2011) Studentscan receive help from others during GW activity Additionally, working togetheralso helps students to achieve better result in assignment showing their excellentcomprehension (Cohen & Lotan, 2014) This is due to the fact that students helpeach other complete reading tasks and/or engage in discussions after their reading.Each student plays the role of a reader, a recorder and a facilitator In the light ofextensive reading classroom, GW seems to be the most effective teaching approach

to enhance reading skills (Zhang, 2004) Via GW activities, students getopportunities to practice their reading skills Hence, their reading skills improveconsiderably

2.7 Previous studies about the effects of GW in language learning

There have been many studies conducted to indicate that GW facilitates languagedevelopment better than other teaching approaches (Hassanien, 2007)

Teacher can ameliorate foreign learners’ speaking skills A study wasconducted to examine the effectiveness of GW activities in enhancing Arabicspeaking skills (Awang, Mohamed, & Sulaiman, 2013) They used semi-structuredinterviews, group discussions and direct observations to select data The findings ofthis study highlighted the significant role of GW activities in improvement ofspeaking skills Particularly, GW activities helped learners who were shy and fear

of speaking foreign language in front of others could boost their confidence Inaddition, by means of using pre-test and post-test to measure the students’ ability inspeaking skills through GW activities, Abdullah (2016) stated GW activities wereefficient to learners develop speaking skills.

In addition to speaking skills, GW can improve reading skills Learners whostudied Turkish as a foreign language could enhance reading skills thanks to GWactivities (Bolukbas, Keskin, & Polat, 2011) In their study, they used experimentaland control group with 20 students in each group In the experimental group,cooperative learning techniques were used for reading comprehension activities,while traditional teaching model was followed in the control group The data weregathered through the ‘Reading Comprehension Skills Achievement Test’ developed

by the researchers Furthermore, their study found out that learning in groups helpedlearners gain fun during learning process and get to know more about theirclassmates

Along with reading skills, GW also helps students improve their writingskills The study about the effect of GW on Iranian EFL learners' writing accuracyhas indicated positive effect of using GW (Jafari & Ansari, 2012) The experimentalgroup wrote collaboratively while the control group completed individual writingtasks Both groups participated in four essay writing sessions with the same topics.The results found out that students in experimental group outperformed the student

in other group Consequently, GW activities played a vital role in language learningwriting

Regarding the effect of GW in vocabulary acquisition, GW also helpsstudents acquire vocabulary easily and retain them longer Group dynamicassessment is as effective as vocabulary exercises in enhancing word learningthrough lexical inferencing (Bahramlou & Esmaeili, 2019) Besides, thecombination of group dynamic assessment and vocabulary exercises could enhanceword learning through lexical inferencing even more However, doing taskstogether made lead to gain more phrasal verbs than doing tasks individually

(Nassaji & Tian, 2010) The findings showed that working collaborativelycompleted the tasks more accurately than completing them individually Besides,this study’s result indicated that collaborative tasks did not facilitate vocabularyacquisition than individual tasks This is inconsistent with the other studies’ results.Recently, examining the comparison of vocabulary learning between GW andindividual work was conducted at university in Taiwan by using pre-, post- anddelayed-post test to measure learners’ vocabulary gains after being engaged inreading activities (Lin, 2018) The findings indicated that gains of vocabularyknowledge in learners working in groups was significant better than that in learnersworking individually Nevertheless, later retention of new word of GW was notsignificantly higher than that of individual work.

Besides improving vocabulary learning, GW also has a good influence onfostering the students’ attitudes towards language learning Ibnian (2012) conducted

a study to investigate the effect of using the GW technique on developing attitudes

of non-English major students at the World Islamic Sciences and EducationUniversity (WISE) towards leaning EFL The findings revealed that GW had a goodeffect on developing attitudes of learners towards learning second language Sincethat learners had sufficient opportunities to express their ideas could enhancelearners’ attitudes towards learning in target language

In Vietnam, Le’s study (2006) was conducted to investigate the effectiveness

of GW at university Students participating were divided into two groups Onegroup consisted five students with the same English level while the other comprisesfour students with the same level and one student with higher level The procedureand outcomes of both groups were observed to discover the differences Theobservation showed that the students of the two groups acquired new words and thegroup interaction assisted them in committing vocabulary to memory Furthermore,students in the first group often used Vietnamese during group discussion while theother did not thanks to the presence of one senior students

All in all, the above studies show the effectiveness of GW in all aspects oflanguage learning such as reading, listening, speaking, writing and vocabulary.Nevertheless, the success of GW depends on many elements, amongst whichperceptions of teachers and students play an integral part ((Saborit, Fernández-Río,Estrada, Méndez-Giménez, & Alonso, 2016) Consequently, how teachers’ andstudents’ perceptions influence GW will be discussed in the next part.

2.8 Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of implementing GW in EFL reading lessons.

GW has long been considered beneficial to language learning However,many factors influence the success of using GW in EFL classrooms such asmembers’ perceptions, attitudes and willingness to cooperate and contribute as ateam (Daba, Ejersa, & Aliyi, 2017) Some research indicated the relationshipbetween perception and achievement in language learning (Alkaff, 2013)

Perception is defined as “a process by which organism interpret and organizesensation to produce a meaningful experience of the world” (Lindsay & Norman,

1977, as cited in Pickens, 2005, p.52) In other words, when individuals face with asituation, they perceive it as something meaningful to them according to theirprevious experiences though their interpretation and reality may not be the same(Pickens, 2005)

It has been believed that perception is a key factor for an appropriateimplementation of GW in language learning (Saborit, Fernández-Río, Estrada,Méndez-Giménez, & Alonso, 2016) Hence, identifying perceptions of teachers andstudents is significant to teaching and learning language

2.8.1 Teachers’ perceptions of GW

Teachers’ perceptions have played a significant role to determine whether

GW is efficient or not since it is a factor for implementing properly GW inclassroom (Webb, 2009) Furthermore, teachers’ perceptions influence the sort oflearning opportunities that they provide for their students (Good & Brophy, 1987, ascited in Mulryan, 1994) On the one hand, only teachers who have positive

perceptions can promote and apply it in classes (Dweck, 2012) On the other hand,that teachers who have negative perceptions of GW can create barrier for itsimplementation in classes (Saborit, Fernández-Río, Estrada, Méndez-Giménez, &Alonso, 2016) Their refusal to implementing GW in classes may originate fromdifficulties which they confront when applying it in classes such as managing timeeffectively and well preparing (Gillies & Boyle, 2010) In other words, teacherswho have positive perception of GW will be willing to implement it in teachingsince they perceive GW as a good teaching method or they may find easy to apply it.Others who have negative perception will hesitate for using GW in class since theymay find GW inefficient or complicated Therefore, teachers’ perceptionscontribute to the success of GW in EFL classroom.

2.8.2 Students’ perceptions of GW

Along with teachers’ perceptions, students’ perceptions also play a key role

in GW’s efficiency Numerous studies indicated different results about students’perceptions of GW in classes Most of them find out that students have positiveperceptions of working in groups because they have opportunities to make friends,interact with them and improve their language (Gillies, 2003; Li & Campbell, 2008;

Li, Clarke, & Remedios, 2010) However, students misunderstood the objective of

GW (Daba, Ejersa, & Aliyi, 2017) They perceived GW as a way to get bettermarks instead of considering it as a means of learning cooperatively Besides, “there

is a high relationship between attitude and achievement” (İnal, et al., 2003, as cited

in Alkaff, 2013, p.108) The study conducted in 2016 indicated that students’negative attitudes towards Arabic speakers may hamper their Arabic pronunciationacquisition whereas students’ positive ones can boost their process of Arabicpronunciation acquisition (AlMansour, 2016)

2.9 Research gap

Most of the previous studies indicated the effectiveness of GW in languagelearning They used tests as tools for exploring the effect of GW in boostinglanguage learning Besides, their participants were students at university Like