Towards pairwork and groupwork in english classes at high schools in an giang province

Setting of the study For the past few years, especially since the new Tieng Anh textbooks were put into use in 2002, remarkable changes have been made in teaching and learning English

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HO CHI MINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES



LAM THANH NAM

TOWARDS PAIRWORK AND GROUPWORK

IN ENGLISH CLASSES AT HIGH SCHOOLS

IN AN GIANG PROVINCE

M.A THESIS

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT

OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

Supervisor

HO THANH MY PHUONG, Ph.D

HO CHI MINH CITY, May 2007

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

TOWARDS PAIRWORK AND GROUPWORK

IN ENGLISH CLASSES AT HIGH SCHOOLS

IN AN GIANG PROVINCE

in terms of the statement of Requirements for theses

in Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree

or diploma in any other institution

Ho Chi Minh City, May 20, 2007

LAM THANH NAM

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

English plays a crucial role in the context of international integration nowadays

As a foreign language, it is one of the basic and compulsory subjects at the high school level in Vietnam Possibly speaking, the English teaching at high schools has made a positive contribution to the national manpower training and development Such achievements resulted from the progressive effort of both teachers and students However, the reality of teaching and learning shows some defectiveness that needs to

be overcome so as to meet the increasing requirements of the country in the current stage This introductory chapter will indicate a problem concerned with English teaching and learning at high schools in Vietnam, particularly in An Giang Province The research questions, the purposes and significance of the study will also be stated

in this chapter

1.1 Background of the problem

1.1.1 Setting of the study

For the past few years, especially since the new Tieng Anh textbooks were put

into use (in 2002), remarkable changes have been made in teaching and learning English at high schools in Vietnam, advocating the two approaches popular in the world and in the country as well: the learner-centered approach (in pedagogy) and the Communicative Approach (in language methodology) Dealing with the improvement

in teaching this foreign language to high school students, the guidebook by the MOET points out:

In the light of the learner-centered approach and the CA, the teacher plays not merely the role of a transmitter of knowledge but also the role of an initiator, an assistant, a consultant, a participant and a reference resource in the students’ learning process For the students’ part, they not only sit face-to-face with the teacher, listening to the teacher’s explanation but also use English to perform communicative tasks in pairs and in small groups actively and voluntarily under the supervision and with the assistance of the teacher (Hoang et al., 2006, p 49)

In fact, organizing the classroom for students to work in pairs and in groups, referred to as PW and GW in this study, is not a new concept in CLT since they have

proved to be extremely effective ways for students’ interactions via the use of the target language to communicate with each other Hence, PW and GW are implemented as an integral part in a large number of modern English coursebooks which are used by many institutions and foreign language centers in Vietnam such as

Let’s Talk by L Jones 1998, Language in Use by A Doff & C Jones 1999, New Interchange by Jack C Richards 2001, Passages by J C Richards & C Sandy 2001, KnowHow by T Naber & A Blackwell 2003, etc And positively, the set of new Tieng Anh textbooks in Vietnam is also included in this list Therefore, whether

teachers of English at high schools have been willing or, for some reason, unwilling to use PW and GW in class, they must be accustomed to these techniques of classroom organization in order to adapt themselves to the current trend in teaching English, and above all, to help students learn and be able to use English for realistic communication, at least in basic daily situations

Nevertheless, no matter how much the textbooks are improved and how advanced the viewpoints in education and training have become, still it cannot be so self-confident to say what is expected to happen should happen smoothly in the reality

of each classroom, particularly in different settings with different teaching and learning styles Obstacles must arise in practice attributed to the teacher’s method, the students themselves, the materials, the classroom facilities for study, and so on In professional workshops held every summer in An Giang Province, for instance, many teachers complain that the new approach is hard to apply to their students Almost nothing happens when they ask them to work in pairs or in groups The students are simply shy and unaccustomed to communicating with their peers in English If it might be a little luckier, some students turn aside to talk with their partners, but what can be heard from their exchanges is mostly in Vietnamese Other teachers feel safer organizing teacher-led discussions rather than assigning cooperative work to their students The reason is that they do not want to receive unpleasant complaints from their fellow teachers teaching nextdoor any time their students work in groups because of the intolerable noise they make

What about the outcome of the teaching process? The percentage of high school graduates in English was not very high in recent years Specifically, this percentage in the 2006 graduation exam was 44.37% for the 3-year curriculum and 64.84% for the 7-year curriculum (*)

It is not a satisfactory result after many long years of teaching and learning at school However, the exam scores cannot assure a degree of reliability in students’ spoken and written English for communication since what they are asked to perform

in the exams is chiefly their knowledge of grammar structures and vocabulary in separated sentence units In his article considering the quality of teaching English as communication, Widdowson (1994) remarks “students in developing countries, who have received several years of formal English teaching, frequently remain deficient in the ability to actually use the language, and to understand its use, in normal communication, whether in the spoken or the written mode.”

High school students in Vietnam are also in a similar situation, particularly those

in the countryside and in rural areas where exposure of English is quite limited Having the same assessment as above, Le (2005) from the National Strategy and Educational Program Institute, in his article on the reality of teaching and learning English at high schools in Vietnam, reports that the syllabus and methodology have not given enough concentration on the development of communicative skills Hence, after graduation, most of the school leavers do not have the ability to communicate in the foreign language as the proposed objective

This pitiful reality is being meliorated by many educational forces More and more language teachers realize that:

(*)

Source: Department of Education and Training of An Giang Province - 2006

Since communication is a process, it is insufficient for students to simply have knowledge of target language forms, meanings, and functions Students must be able

to apply this knowledge in negotiating meaning It is through the interaction between speaker and listener (or reader and writer) that meaning becomes clear (Larsen- Freeman, 1986, p 123)

PW and GW, if used properly, can help to achieve that goal, i.e these techniques can bring students more opportunities to interact with one another in the classroom, either in spoken or written language Therefore, a thorough understanding of what PW and GW are and how to apply them successfully in class is a constant concern of any CLT teacher This study presents an investigation into the implementation of PW and

GW in English classes in An Giang Province hopefully to make some contribution to the improvement of English teaching and learning quality in the home province More practically, it aims to meet the need of the majority of English teachers to have an overall view of PW and GW as leading classroom activities shooting through the new textbooks which will be used on a large scale in the years to come

1.1.2 Description of high school education in An Giang Province

Situated in the Mekong Delta, An Giang Province has a third-ranked city, a town and 9 other districts, each of which has at least one townlet The total number of townlets at the current time is 16, i.e there are nearly 2 townlets in a district For the last years, An Giang has recorded significant achievements in education with the total number of 52 high schools over the population of 2.2 million.(*)

Supporting the policy of socialization in education by the government, An Giang's high schools are diversified into three types: public (79.2%), semi-public (17%) and people-founded (3.8%) schools Every public school has official teachers

of English Some semi-public schools may have guest teachers of English from public schools Currently, An Giang has a teaching staff quantitatively sufficient for the need of the

(*)

Source: Population Committee of An Giang Province - 2005

provincial education The latest statistic of high schools, high school students and teachers of English in the whole province is shown in Appendix A

It is common throughout the province that most of the high schools have big classes in all the three grades 10, 11 and 12 Except for some classes at the only specialized school (Thoai Ngoc Hau school) with about 30 to 35 students each, the

other schools have big classes with the average number of students varying from 40 to

48 each

Teaching and learning at high schools are closely directed by the DOET (of An Giang Province) in training plans, student management and teaching methodology For the English section, all the teachers of English receive professional training every year This professional training aims at providing the teachers with up-to-date information about the new teaching methodology and opportunities for them to share ideas and together solve common problems they have in their teaching

1.2 Purposes of the study

The benefits of PW and GW in language teaching can be popularly found in the literature through the 1980s and early 1990s This study is aimed to make an investigation into PW and GW activities to find out their roles in English classes at high schools Students at this level are expected to be able to use the target language

as a communicative instrument at the basic level of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills so that they can acquire knowledge of modern technology, learn about the world's diversified culture and easily integrate themselves with the international community (Hoang et al., 2006) From the evidence collected, the researcher attempts

to identify what factors help to foster PW and GW in classrooms, so more appropriate procedures and strategies for these activities can be sought to improve the quality of EFL teaching and learning at high schools

1.4 Significance of the study

PW and GW are not new concepts to CLT teachers But a thorough study into these ‘magic tools’, as called by Fujita (1994), is still necessary in the context of EFL teaching and learning in Vietnam for the following reasons:

Firstly, this study is quite suited with the common trend of education in the world and in Vietnam as well

One of the demands on modern education is to reestablish the values of cooperation

in an increasingly depersonalized world It has been suggested that we need an interdependent learning model in which cooperation is structured to be as competition (Rivers, 1983, p 77)

In the current time of international integration, Vietnam’s education in general and English teaching in particular should take this into account In fact, the objectives

of EFL teaching at high schools in Vietnam have gradually been shifted from the traditional Grammar-Translation method focusing on grammar accuracy and translation to the CA emphasizing proficiency in everyday communication In an English classroom, real communication should be considered to be the cooperation between the teacher and students or students and students as message-giver and message-taker Individual work, as Fu (2006) claims, cannot fulfill this requirement while the whole-class work lacks individuality So the task of cooperative learning falls on the shoulders of PW and GW This viewpoint is shared by Rivers (1983, p 78):

Cooperative learning implies full participation of both teacher and student and the interaction of student with student It implies participation in planning and the opportunity to make effective choices It implies small-group activity, large-group instruction, interacting in pairs,

Secondly, the study contributes to improving the quality of teaching English at high schools, especially these days when CLT plays a predominant role in teaching English Through the findings of the study, high school teachers can realize the students’ learning styles and their attitudes towards PW and GW so they can have some appropriate adaptation to their own teaching situations In addition, some PW and GW activities which were successfully used are also included as extensive material to share among colleagues of the same interest

Thirdly, PW and GW are not always popular with everybody, particularly in state schools where many teachers teaching the spoken language under the pressure of

a belief that a good class is a quiet one Therefore, the study serves to court expansive support of colleagues and the governing body towards these new ways of classroom organization, which probably produce noise because (almost) all the students are practicing English orally at the same time If the noise is caused by oral interaction in the target language and can be put under a good control, it is a clear proof that the students are learning

Finally, the study results can serve as an essential reference resource for further research For those who are interested in PW and GW, this study can provide them with useful information in this field so more profound investigation can be undertaken into other learners such as kids, primary school pupils or adults from different backgrounds in varied learning circumstances

1.5 Limitations and delimitations

Because of the space-time limit, the study itself is confined to the students and teachers of English at high schools in An Giang Province only Its main focus is on the implementation of PW and GW in English classes, not all aspects related to classroom interactions in EFL teaching and learning or projects assigned to groups of students to complete out of the classrooms The study will not be generalized to learners of general English at colleges or foreign language centers since the teaching contexts at these institutions are somewhat different in course books, course objectives, schooling facilities, teaching and learning styles, etc

As reported in details in Chapter III, the investigation was undertaken within the first semester of the school year 2006-2007 when the two sets of old and new textbooks were still in simultaneous use Some of the results may change in the up-coming school years when the same series of textbooks and teaching curriculum will

be employed and schooling conditions might be improved

1.6 Definitions of terms

1.6.1 Pairwork

In pairwork, as defined by Doff (1988, p 137), the teacher divides the whole

class into pairs (two students each) Every student works with his/her partner, and all

the pairs work at the same time (so sometimes called 'simultaneous PW') This is not the same as 'public' or 'open' PW, with pairs of students speaking in turn in front of

the class under the teacher’s control

According to Byrne (1991, p 31), there are two main kinds of PW:

 Fixed pairs (also called 'closed' pairs): This is when the students only work with the same partner (usually the student on the left or the right) in order to complete a task of some kind Afterwards they may change partners, either to repeat the activity, or to do something connected with it For example, for a questionnaire activity, the students first have to write the questionnaire (e.g A works with B), then use it to interview someone (A works with C, B works with D) PW activities of the ‘fixed pairs’ kind should be the first choice, if the teacher wants to keep things very simple at the start

 Flexible pairs: For this students keep changing partners They may work with any partner, one by one, to complete a task which required them to collect

information from different people For example, in a Find someone who activity,

each student has many questions (e.g Can you swim? Can you speak Chinese? Can you use a computer?) which he/she uses to interview several others in order

to find out two or three things about each To do flexible PW, the students must stand up and move around the classroom freely This will make the activity more interesting for them as they can then choose the person they want to talk to

1.6.2 Groupwork

Handy (1976) defines a group as "a number of people who interact with one another, who are physically aware of one another, and who perceive themselves to be

a group" In groupwork, the teacher divides the class into small groups to work

together (usually four or five students in each group) As in PW, all the groups work

at the same time (Doff, 1988, p 137)

Some authors put PW and GW together as one because "PW is simply GW in groups of two" (Brown, 2000, p.173) or "Even two people are a group" (Jacobs & Hall, 2002, p 53) Many others tend to refer to PW and GW separately since there are some differences between monitoring pairs and groups (Gower & Walters, 1983; Harmer, 1992; Richards, 1994) This study, as previously stated, is concerned about EFL at high schools where the textbooks use two distinctive terms (pairs and groups)

to refer to them Therefore, in this thesis, PW is used to mean two students and GW to mean three or more students working together

1.7 Organization of the study

The study comprises five chapters in sequence as follows:

 Chapter I: Introduction - gives an introduction of PW and GW as integral parts

in the current trend of teaching and learning English at high school in order to achieve the course objectives By the way, this section briefly explains the author's motivation

to undertake this piece of study on realizing its significance in this research area Two major research questions are also included in logical relation to the research purposes

 Chapter II: Literature Review - provides the theoretical bases and critical

overview of the existing work on this field This chapter presents the notion of CLT and cooperative learning in which PW and GW are crucial techniques to acquire language

 Chapter III: Research Methodology - specifies, on one level, what instruments

were utilized and what procedures were followed to find out the answers to the research questions At another level, this section aims at clarifying how the research instruments' validity was established and their reliability was ascertained

 Chapter IV: Findings and Discussion - presents the study results after the

collected data were analyzed and relates them to the research questions and the theory previously discussed in the literature review

 Chapter V: Conclusions and Recommendations - summarizes some important

findings and provides recommendations for PW and GW in teaching and learning at high schools Besides, recommendations for further search are also included in this final chapter

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

The context of EFL teaching in An Giang Province requires significant innovation in the methodology in order to improve the quality of high school student outputs The term 'Communicative Approach' has been popularly found in several guidance documents by the MOET and the local DOET The purpose of this chapter

is to provide a basic understanding of the CA and to justify the integration of cooperative learning into CLT classes Background theory of PW and GW as typical features of cooperative learning will also be included to clarify their advantages, organization and many other issues related to PW and GW Finally in this chapter is the review of recent studies on PW and GW in EFL/ESL teaching

2.1 The Communicative Approach

The CA has dominated English language teaching and firmly established itself

on a worldwide basis As defined by Richards and Platt (1993, p 65), the CA is "an approach to foreign or second language teaching which emphasizes the goal of

language learning is communicative competence" (*) To achieve this goal, students need not only knowledge of the linguistic forms, but also their meanings and functions as well It is to say, knowledge of the forms of language is insufficient To

be a successful communicator, they must also be able to manage the process of negotiating

_

(*) the ability not only to apply the grammatical rules of a language in order to form grammatically correct sentences but also to know when and where to use these sentences and to whom Communicative competence includes:

a knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of the language

b knowledge of rules of speaking (e.g knowing about how to begin and end conversations, knowing what topics may be talked about in different types of speech events, knowing which address forms should be used with different persons one speak to and in different situations)

c knowing how to use and respond to different types of speech acts, such as requests, apologies, thanks, and invitations

d knowing how to use language appropriately

meaning with interlocutor employing an appropriate function of the language Nunan (1999) holds a strong belief that language as communication involves the active use

of grammar and vocabulary to be learned functionally so that learners are able to see that different forms communicate different meanings

Finocchiaro and Brumfit (as cited in Richards & Rodgers, 1986) describe the CA with major features such as: Meaning is paramount; Language learning is learning to communicate; Comprehensive pronunciation (not native-speaker-like pronunciation)

is sought; Attempt to communicate may be encouraged from the very beginning; Communicative competence is the desired goal (i.e., the ability to use the linguistic system effectively and appropriately); Teachers help learners in any way that motivates them to work with the language; Language is created by the individual often through trial and error; Fluency and acceptable language is the primary goal; accuracy is judged not in the abstract but in context; Students are expected to interact with other people, either in the flesh, through pair and group work, or in their writings; The teacher cannot know exactly what language the students will use, and so

on

One of the most significant aspects of CLT is maximizing the students' participation into the teaching process Typically, activities in CLT are often carried out by students in small groups Small groups of students interacting are favored in order to maximize the time allotted to each student for communicating CLT teachers are advised to minimize their dominating role in the classroom so that students can have more opportunities to express what they want to say, associating language into their own personalities to exploit it (Hoang, Nguyen, & Hoang, 2006) Thus, during the teaching process, focus shifts from teacher control (accuracy focus) to student control (fluency focus) Byrne (1991) suggests the following model for classroom interaction in a balanced approach with activities for class work, PW and GW which aim to get students motivated in using the target language with focus shifting from accuracy to fluency

Figure 1: A model for classroom interaction

According to the model, there are four areas of interaction from A to D as follows:

A Accuracy activities controlled by the teacher and done with the whole class

B Accuracy activities directed by the learners and done in pairs (or

occasionally in groups)

C Fluency activities controlled by the teacher and done with the whole class

D Fluency activities directed by the learners and done in groups (or

occasionally in pairs)

As we can see from the model, activities with accuracy and fluency focus can be

done in pairs and groups PW is more appropriate for accuracy activities than GW

since the exchanges between two students can be put under the teacher's control more

easily Fluency activities should be done with whole class under the teacher's control

as models before they are carried out in groups or pairs for freer practice

According to Byrne (1978), the teacher's task is to strike a balance between the

two goals so that the learners, in the end, are able to use the language both with

accuracy - which depends on mastery of the language system - and with fluency -

which derives from experience of trying out the language for oneself There are

activities, on the one hand, which clearly contribute to the mastery of the language

A C

B D

PAIR WORK  GROUP WORK LEARNER DIRECTED WHOLE CLASS

system and others, on the other hand, which are clearly designed to promote fluency These two types of activities need to be combined because students cannot communicate unless they know essential bits of the language system Equally, these are of no use to them if they do not know how to use the language appropriately for a certain purpose These classroom activities can be shaped in a three-stage lesson recommended by the ELTTP (2002) as follows:

- A grammar or vocabulary lesson has three stages: Presentation, Practice and Production or PPP for short Presentation is where the teacher presents the new

language In the Presentation stage, the teacher does most of the work Practice is

where the students are made to practice the new language with the teacher At this

stage practice is controlled and the teacher emphasizes accuracy In the Practice stage,

the teacher and the students do the work Production is where the teacher makes the

students 'produce' the new language they have learnt on their own (without the teacher) At this stage practice is not controled by the teacher The students learn to

speak by themselves to get fluency In the Production stage the students do the work

- A skills lesson also has three stages: Pre-task, While-task and Post-task For example the first stage in a writing lesson is the Pre-writing stage The second is the While-writing stage, and the third is the Post-writing stage This framework structures the teacher's lesson plan so that students not only 'understand' but use the four skills in

a meaningful, task-based way The Pre-stage prepares students by getting them to

think about the topic or situation before they read, listen, speak or write about it The

While-stage gives students a 'guide' or framework to help them practice the target skill

of the lesson The Post-stage is like the follow-up stage After students have practised

the target skill in the While-stage, they do an extension activity

Each type of classroom activity in each stage requires both the teacher and students to perform different roles so they all can make the best contribution to the lesson Their roles are clarified in the subsection below

2.1.1 Roles of the teacher and students in CLT classes

Freeman (2000, p.130) describes roles of the teacher and students in classroom interaction as follows:

The teacher may present some part of the lesson, such as when working with linguistic accuracy At other times, he is the facilitator of the activities, but he does not always himself interact with the students Sometimes he is a co-communicator, but more often he establishes situations that prompt communication between and among the students Students interact a great deal with one another They do this in various configurations: pairs, triads, small groups, and whole group

Beyond the simple roles of a 'transmitter' and 'receivers' of knowledge, the teacher and students in modern classes play such a lot of roles in various classroom activities so that students can acquire the target language effectively

2.1.1.1 Roles of the teacher

The roles of the teacher are widely recognized and given considerable support from the field of language teaching methodology The traditional concept of the teacher as 'instructor' is inadequate to describe his overall function in CLT In a broad

sense, Littlewood (1998, p 92) describes the teacher as a facilitator of learning, and

may need to perform in a variety of specific roles, separately or simultaneously As a

general overseer of his students' learning, the teacher must aim to coordinate the

activities so that they form a coherent progression, leading towards greater

communicative ability As a classroom manager, he is responsible for grouping

activities into 'lessons' and for ensuring that these are satisfactorily organized at the practical level In many activities, the teacher may perform the familiar role of

language instructor: he will present new language, exercise direct control over the

learners' performance, evaluate and correct it, and so on In others, the teacher will not intervene after initiating the proceedings, but will let learning take place through independent activity, e.g during a PW and GW activity While such independent

activity is in progress, he may act as a consultant or an adviser, giving help where

necessary He may also move about the classroom in order to monitor the strengths and weaknesses of the learners, as a basic for planning future learning activities The

teacher will sometimes wish to participate in an activity as a co-communicator with

the learners In this role, he can stimulate or present new language, without taking the

main initiative for learning away from the learners themselves Harmer (1992) also stresses the importance of teacher non-intervention where a genuinely communicative activity is taking place in the classroom Then the teacher seems to be left with nothing to do In fact, there are still two very important roles though He is acting as

an assessor - although discreetly - and a kind of walking resource center that should

always be ready to offer help if it is needed

In only one of these roles, then, is he the traditional dominator of the classroom interaction This fact is significant not only for the methodological reasons but also for its effect on human relationships within the classroom

2.1.1.2 Roles of the students in a CLT class

In a traditional class, students are put in a passive position That means they just listen to the teacher's explanation, take notes and do tasks as required by the teacher

In a CLT class, students are not purely the receiver of the knowledge transmitted from the teacher but are active learners with new roles Tu et al (2000, p 48) describe the

roles of the students as negotiators These include negotiating with themselves to find

out a learning strategy which is suitable for their own ability; negotiating with peers in groups when they practise language skills in meaningful situations; negotiating with the teacher by giving feedback on personal characteristics and acquisitive ability so the teacher can make the teaching content and his methodology suited for each class The learner in CLT does not depend much upon the teacher's control in the learning process but learns how to learn so that he can discover the target language and practice language skills This is a very important role in learning English communicatively to become an independent learner capable of controlling himself and his working group

2.1.2 Characteristics of communicative activities

As previously presented, the teacher can design communicative activities in order to facilitate communication between and among students These activities are some kinds of practice that give students opportunities to use the language in the same (or nearly the same) as in genuine communication, in which there is little control on

teacher-student or student-student interaction in the target language in class are communicative activities Activities that are truly communicative, according to Morrow (in Johnson and Morrow 1981), have three features in common: information gap, choice and feedback

 An information gap exists when one person in an exchange knows something

that the other person does not If Student A and Student B both know today is Tuesday and A asks B, "What's today?" and B answers, "Tuesday," then A and B's exchange is not really communicative

 In real communication, the speaker has a choice of what he will say and how

he will say it If the exercise is tightly controlled so that students can only say something in one way, the speaker has no choice and the exchange, therefore, is not communicative (e.g a chain drill, a substitution drill, a dialogue practice )

 True communication is purposeful A speaker can thus evaluate whether or not his purpose has been achieved based upon the information he receives from his listener If the listener does not have an opportunity to provide the speaker with such

feedback, then the exchange is not really communicative (e.g forming questions

through a transformation drill may be a worthwhile activity, but it is not in keeping with CLT since a speaker will receive no response from a listener)

In favor of teaching language as interaction among people, Gebhard (2000) also points out at least five closely related factors that can contribute to making EFL/ESL classrooms interactive, i.e communicative activities occur These include reduction in the centrality of the teacher; an appreciation for the uniqueness of individuals; chances for students to express themselves in meaningful ways; opportunities for students to negotiate meaning with each other and the teacher; and choices, both in relation to what students say and how they say it

2.1.3 Cooperative learning in CLT

Deutsch (1962), Johnson & Johnson (1987) claim that no matter what the subject area or age of the students, their learning goals in CLT may be structured to promote competitive, individualistic, or cooperative efforts

 Competitive situations are ones in which students work against each other to

achieve a goal that only one or a few can attain In competition there is a negative interdependence among goal achievements; students perceive that they can obtain their goals if and only if the other students in the class fail to obtain their goals The result is that students either work hard to do better than their classmates, or they take

it easy because they do not believe they have a chance to win

 In individualistic learning situations, students work alone to accomplish goals

unrelated to those of classmates and are evaluated on a criterion-referenced basis Students' goal achievements are independent; students perceive that the achievement

of their learning goals is unrelated to what other students do The result is to focus on self-interest and personal success and ignore as irrelevant the successes and failures of others

 Cooperative learning can be defined as a variety of concepts and techniques for

enhancing the value of student-student interaction Early research clearly indicates that cooperation, compared with competitive and individualistic efforts, typically results in (a) higher achievement and greater productivity, (b) more caring, supportive, and committed relationships, and (c) greater psychological health, social competence, and self-esteem The positive effects that cooperation has on so many important outcomes make cooperative learning one of the most valuable tools for CLT

2.1.4 Elements of cooperative learning

It is really necessary for the teacher to integrate cooperative learning with other forms of learning in a language classroom not only because the sharing of learning processes in teams strengthens the language skills that students are to learn (Rendon, 1995) but because "cooperation is a fact of life, and having learners work together in the classroom teaches them very important life skill" (Wheeler, 1994, p 48)

According to Johnson & Johnson (1987), cooperation is much more than being physically near other students, discussing other material with other students, helping other students or sharing viewpoints among students, although each of these is

may be working individually and unwilling to share their own work It is only under certain conditions that cooperative efforts may be expected to be more productive than competitive and individualistic efforts According to Nunan (1992), those elements are positive interdependence, face-to-face interaction, individual accountability, and interpersonal and small-group skills

The first element is positive interdependence Students must perceive that they

'sink or swim together' Therefore, each group member's efforts are required and indispensable for group success Each of them has a unique contribution to make the joint effort because of his/her resources and/or role and task responsibilities This can

be achieved through mutual goals (goal interdependence); divisions of labor (task interdependence); dividing materials, resources, or information among group members (resource interdependence); and by giving joint rewards (reward interdependence)

Second, cooperative learning requires face-to-face interaction among students

Their verbal interchange is promoted by their oral checking for understanding, explaining how to solve problems, teaching one's knowledge to other, discussing concepts being learned and connecting present with past learning

The third basic element is individual accountability for mastering the assigned

material Every group member is responsible for learning the material The purpose of

a learning situation is to maximize the achievement of each individual student

Finally, cooperative learning requires that students appropriately use

interpersonal and small-group skills Obviously, socially unskilled students cannot

cooperate successfully in a learning group Hence, students have to be equipped with such social skills needed for cooperation as leadership, decision making, trust building, communicating, negotiating, conflict-management skills, etc

2.2 Pairwork and groupwork theory

2.2.1 Types of learning arrangements

In favor of cooperative interaction in language learning, Stevick (as cited in Gebhard, 2000) holds a strong belief that "success [in learning a language] depends

less on materials, techniques, and linguistic analysis, and more on what goes on inside and between people in the classroom" As the most powerful person in the classroom, the teacher has the authority to make all choices about the learning arrangements he sets up within a lesson to create various interactional dynamics of the classroom Both Long (1983) and Krashen (1985) have argued that when second language learners interact focusing on meaningful tasks or exchanges of information, then each learner receives (a) comprehensible input from his/her conversational partner, (b) a chance to ask for clarification as well as feedback on his or her output, (c) adjustment

of the input to match the level of the learner's comprehension, and (d) the opportunity

to develop new structures and conversational patterns through this process of interaction

Figure 2: Model of relationship between type of conversational task and language acquisition

Richards (1994, p 146) specifies the learning arrangements into four types: whole-class teaching, individual work, pair work and group work

- Whole-class teaching: Also called lockstep, where all the students are "locked

into" the same rhythm and pace in the same activity (Harmer, 1992, p 243) In this class grouping, the teacher leads the whole class through a learning task For instance, the teacher presents the target language or conducts a class discussion of a given topic, asking questions about it and eliciting comments around the class

competent speaker to provide feedback

on his/her lack of comprehension

Negotiated modification

of the conversation

Comprehensible input

Language acquisition

- Individual work: Each student in the class work individually on a task without

interacting with peers or without public interaction with the teacher For example, students complete a grammar exercise by going through a worksheet

- Pair work: students work in pairs doing drills, or asking and answering

questions using language that had just been presented Sometimes they merely repeat

a learnt dialogue before using it later as a model for their own conversation or work together on the answers to a reading comprehension exercise

- Group work: students are organized into small groups (of more than two

students each) to complete certain tasks, since a group of two students is called PW Similar to PW, "the teaching aim of GW is often to encourage fluent, uninterrupted communication, even when the aim for the students might be to produce something like a dialogue or a story" (Gower & Walters, 1983, p 45)

Each type has its own value in the teaching process Which learning arrangement

is used depends upon the kind of lesson or activity the teacher is teaching, though he might use some more frequently than others The roles of lockstep and individual work cannot be negated in some teaching sessions Nevertheless, it has often been emphasized that without other kinds of interaction, students are deprived of many useful and opportunities for using and learning the new language Richards (1994, p 152) claims that:

Through interacting with other students in pairs or groups, students can be given the opportunity to draw on their linguistic resources in a non-threatening situation and use them to complete different kinds of tasks

Apparently, students benefit a great deal from working with peers in pairs and groups Advantages of PW and GW will be presented in the following section

2.2.2 Advantages of PW and GW

Doff (1988, p 141) brings out a lot of advantages of PW and GW:

Firstly, more language is practiced when students interact with each other in pairs and groups PW and GW give students far more chance to speak English Since they are working together at the same time, the amount of their participation and language use is remarkably increased For example, in a class of 40 students (an average number of students in many high school classes), if oral work is done for 20

minutes with individual students Then each of them will be able to talk for half a minute at the most - even if they do all the talking On the other hand, if the teacher divides the students into 20 pairs or 10 groups of four for just 5 minutes of work and they are supposed to do the talking properly, i.e one speaks - the other(s) listen, then

we have 100 minutes of STT for the pairs and 50 minutes of STT for the groups On average, each student in a pair or group gets more talking time during those 5 minutes than those 20 minutes during which they do individually

Secondly, students are more involved In a teacher-fronted class, the teacher is controlling the class as a whole, so very few students can participate in the lesson Working in pairs or groups encourages students to be more involved and to concentrate on the task assigned by the teacher since they have the feeling of being part of their own pair or groups and have to take a lot of responsibility for what they

do This aspect of cooperative learning is acknowledged by Kohonen (1992, p 34) as follows:

In a well-functioning cooperative group there is a sense of joint responsibility where learners care about and get committed to each others' success as well as their own; a sense of 'sinking or swimming together'

Consequently, it is hard for any of them to stay out of the common information flow, especially when they are in face-to-face interaction with another student in a pair

Thirdly, PW and GW give students the feeling of security They feel less anxious when they are working 'privately' with partners in their own pairs and groups than when they are 'on show' in front of the whole class PW and GW can help shy students who would never say anything in a whole-class activity In their pairs or groups, they feel free from the teacher's direct control and the 'critical' eyes of the other classmates For those who are afraid of speaking in front of a large class, PW and GW provide them with good chances for oral rehearsal before 'public' performance later

Furthermore, PW and GW are great opportunities for students to help one another PW and GW encourage students to share ideas and knowledge so that they can solve problems together and make their mutual work lighter than when they do it

individually Besides, they can learn from each other through pair and group discussions, which help to confirm what they already know and make them open to new ideas of their partners Then good students can play a role of a tutor helping less able students, which the teacher always wishes to do but he cannot manage the time to

do so

In addition to the above-mentioned benefits, there are many other advantages typical for PW and GW In a PW activity, as Byrne (1987, p 31) points out, "students can face and talk directly to one another, so it is much closer to the way we use language outside the classroom" Hence, once students have been used to talking in pairs, they will be confident to communicate with people in real life Besides, PW offers learners a chance to work independently: this is good for motivation and good preparation for GW, when they will have to take a lot of responsibility for what they

do Not less advantageous than PW, GW "promotes collaboration among students, getting them familiarized with work arrangement to their group, e.g who the group leader is, who the group spokesman is This is a skill necessary for their real lives" (Richards, 1994, p 153) Group diversity brings different life experience and various styles of thinking to the GW This makes discussion in a group more interesting and livelier than in a pair In favor of GW, Nunan (1999, p 84) writes:

GW is essential to any classroom that is based on principles of experiential learning Through GW, learners develop their ability to communicate through tasks that require them, within the classroom, to approximate the kinds of things they will need to be able

to do to communicate in the world beyond the classroom

2.2.3 How to organize the class for PW and GW

 Organizing pairwork

Byrne (1987, p 32) believes "the important thing is for the students to be able to form pairs quickly and without any fuss" Thus he suggests using the existing classroom arrangement by getting the students to work with a neighbor and only moving a student if it is absolutely necessary If there is one odd student, the teacher should not form a pair with him/her but let him/her work with a pair nearby

[If three students have to work together for PW…] For some activities, like practicing a dialogue, they will have to take turns A and B will practice first; then B and C and finally A and C But this does not mean that one student is doing nothing while the

other two are talking! On the contrary, the students have to get used to checking one another (Byrne, 1987, p 33)

In this case, the teacher should not act as a participant in the activity by working with the odd student because this might make the others lose interest in the task as they feel the teacher has lost interest in them Instead, suggested Underwood (1987, p 78), "while students are doing PW or GW, the teacher should circulate to listen and give help where needed."

Whilst it is generally agreeable for students to sit either facing each other for conversation or side by side when looking at the same book or paper, PW can be done very successfully simply by some students turning round or moving along a bit so sit with a partner Young learners tend to want to make pairs with their special friends and this is often perfectly satisfactory According to Underwood (1987, p 77) "it is a good idea sometimes to vary who sits with whom to avoid boredom."

 Organizing groupwork

Putting more than two students in a group is a bit more different Gebhard (2000) suggests some ways to group students either by the teacher's selection or random grouping in class If the teacher wants to make his own selection, he can group students with the same characteristics or mix them by ability (Fluent/Not fluent), experience (Been abroad/Not been abroad) or by personality factors (Shy/Outgoing)

On the other hand, if the teacher likes to have groups by students' choices or formed randomly in class, then he can let students make their own decisions about what group

to join, or group them by lottery (same number, same piece of picture, same colored dot) For example, the teacher has them count off "One, two, three, four…" and having all one’s form a group, two’s another, and so on

However, it is not always best to let students freely choose the groups they want

to be with Davis (1999, p.3) warns that "allowing students to select their own group members can work, but this method always runs the risk of further isolating some students or creating cliques within the class as a whole."

Alternatively, if the teacher wants to let the students continue working on a group basis, Wei (1999) suggests getting them to form new groups in such a way that

each new group contains representatives from all the old groups For example, a class already has four groups A, B, C and D with four members each in Stage 1 If the teacher wants to repeat GW in Stage 2, then one student of each group will together form a new one as follows:

Figure 3: Forming new groups with representatives from the previous groups

Stage 2: Group (1) Group (2) Group (3) Group (4)

Each new group in Stage 2 will have four students, each of whom has different information they got from their GW in Stage 1 By this way students can share their ideas without any intervention from the teacher However, it takes them some time to move to form new group Thus the teacher is advised to gauge carefully which procedure - whole class forum or continued GW - is more likely to benefit the students

Sesnan (1997) even suggest giving permanent groups interesting names like 'Lions', 'Eagles', 'Antelopes', etc and keeping these groups together, like working teams, for a long period or changing them from time to time

According to Richards (1996, p 153), successful GW activities involve decisions about the following factors:

Group size An optimum size for GW needs to be determined based on the kind of task

students are carrying out If the groups is too large, student interaction is affected; only

a few students may participate, the others remaining silent or passive

Purpose Group activities need a goal, procedures, and a time frame to accomplish

them, if they are to be focused and productive

Roles Decisions need to be made concerning the different roles of group members

Will they all have the same role? Are a group leader and secretary required? Will students take on different personas in completing a task?

Ur (1996) provides some guidelines for organizing GW into three stages:

(1) Presentation (Before students work in groups): It is crucial to give clear instructions at the beginning If the students do not understand exactly what they have

to do there will be time-wasting, confusion, lack of effective practice, possible loss of control It is advisable to give the instructions before giving out materials or dividing the class into groups; and a preliminary rehearsal or 'dry run' of a sample of the activity with the full class can help to clarify things Note, however, that if the students have already done similar activities the teacher will be able to shorten the process, giving only brief guidelines; it is mainly the first time of doing something with a class that such care needs to be invested in instructing The teacher should try

to foresee what language will be needed, and have a preliminary quick review of appropriate grammar or vocabulary Finally, before giving the sign to start tell the class what the arrangements are for stopping: if there is a time limit or a set signal for stopping; if the groups simply stop when they have finished, then tell them what they will have to do next It is wise to have a 'reserve' task planned to occupy members of groups who finish earlier than expected

(2) Process (While students work in groups): The teacher should go from group

to group, monitor, and either contribute or keep out of the way - whichever is likely to

be more helpful If the teacher does decide to intervene, his contribution may take the form of providing general approval and support; helping students who are having difficulty; keeping the students using the target language; tactfully regulating participation in a discussion where some students are found over-dominant and others silent

(3) Feedback (After students work in groups): A feedback session usually takes place in the context of full-class interaction after the group work has been finished Lewis (1992) suggests stopping the activity when it is clear that everyone is finished

whereas Byrne (1986) believes it a good idea to stop the activity when most students have had a reasonable amount of practice since the teacher cannot expect all students

to go at exactly the same pace and some students will naturally get more practice than others It means the teacher should not wait and wait until everyone is finished to stop the activity

According to Ur (1996), feedback on the task may take many forms: giving the right solution, if there is one; listening to and evaluating suggestions; pooling ideas on the board; displaying materials the groups have produced; and so on The teacher's main objective here is to express appreciation of the effort that has been invested and its results Feedback on language may be integrated into this discussion of the task, or provide the focus of a separate class session later

2.2.4 PW and GW in skills lessons

PW and GW offer enormous potentials in teaching language skills Discussing their usefulness in this aspect, Harmer (1992, p 247) acknowledges:

They are effective ways of increasing students participation and language use It can

be used for oral work, tasks where decisions have to be taken, joint reading tasks, listening tasks, cooperative writing and many other things

The application of PW and GW into skills lessons is popularly recognized

 Speaking

A wide variety of oral activities can be done in pairs or/and groups with practice focus varying from accuracy to fluency Harmer (1992, p 247) suggests some practical activities as follows:

- Controlled practice (PW): Students are given short model dialogues to practice with word or picture cues for alternatives

- "Find a partner" activities (PW): These involve flexible PW because each student has to get up and move around the classroom to find a "mate" of some kind

- Role play (PW/GW): students are asked to take a role, i.e to imagine that they are someone else (a tourist, a customer) at somewhere else (on a street, in a shop) Role play is a way of taking students out of the classroom for a while and showing them how English can be useful to them in certain situations beside the familiar context of school talks

- Questionnaires and Quizzes (PW/GW): students are given opportunities to talk about themselves or give factual answers on general knowledge These activities involve fixed pairs or flexible pairs or small groups if the time allows

- Games (GW): Games can serve as lesson break for students to learn English with fun and enhance creativity A guessing game or a find-differences game proves

to be very effective to interest students more than a worksheet full of numbered

sentences

 Writing

Byrne (1987, p 51) believes that students often enjoy writing activities more if the teacher let them collaborate This is partly because they feel less isolated and because they can get ideas from another Here are some of the things they can do together:

- Write notes and letters to one another in class to invite him/her to a birthday party, to tell him/her about the last summer vacation

- Write questionnaires including questions to which they like to know the true answers to quizzes to challenge each other's knowledge

- Write a fairy story creatively Story writing, as Harmer (1991, p 141) suggests,

is an activity where students actually write things together and where the process of cooperation is as important as the actual fact of the writing itself

 Reading

While students are reading a text silently, they can be asked to do some related tasks together For example, information-gap exercises, table completion, comparing and correcting one another's exercises or homework from time to time

 Listening

Students cannot actually listen in pairs, of course, but they can collaborate on a task which follows on from listening For example, they can agree an answer or compare their answers However, from the point of view of developing listening, one important aspect of PW is that it gets students used to listening to one another - not just to the teacher Once again, it is a good preparation for GW, when the students

2.2.5 Types of activities suitable for PW and GW

As we can see from the model for classroom interaction in Figure 1, the teacher cannot use PW and GW from the beginning till the last step in a lesson sequence There are stages when teacher-fronted activities are more effective than letting students work in pairs or groups In other words, PW and GW do not take effect in every classroom activity According to Nguyen (2002, pp 73-74), PW and GW are suitable for activities in which there is a need for two-way communication or exchange between two or more people For example:

- Pattern practice: This usually comes after the presentation stage and some minutes after teacher-whole class drill

- Dialogue practice: students take the roles of characters in a dialogue or make

up another dialogue similar to the one presented before with cues for substitution

- Communicative activities such as information gap, role-play, interview, questionnaire, problem-solving, communicative games,

- Asking and answering questions related to a reading text These questions can

be guiding questions before students actually read the text or comprehension questions while students are reading the text

- Grammar exercises: students do the exercises orally in pairs Then the teacher gives feedback on students' work with whole class

- Discussion: This activity can be done in pairs or groups first before whole-class discussion

Towards making as many students as possible say as much as possible, discussion is highly recommended for both PW and GW Ur (1981, p 2) strongly believes that by thinking out some problem or situation together through verbal

interchange of ideas, i.e to discuss, learners are given the most natural and effective

way to practise talking freely in English

2.2.6 How to make PW and GW successful communicative tasks

This is the most concerned questions by CLT teacher Tait (n.d.) argues that

"The success of communicative PW and GW activities is almost always determined

by the work the teacher does before the students begin the activity itself This includes both what is done by the teacher before the class starts and what is done in class to set

up the task." Before class, it is often helpful for the teacher to ask himself a few questions when preparing for communicative activities These questions include: What can I do to set the scene or create a context in which the language forms might

be used? What is the purpose of the task? How can I generate interest in the activity? Will the students require preparation time? What type of groupings will be appropriate, pairs or groups? What type of exchanges should the students be expected

to produce? etc In class, once the teacher has decided on what task to, the process of preparing the students for the activity begins This preparation includes generating interest, setting the scene (where they will be talking, who they will be talking to, and why they will be talking) If the teacher has decided to allow planning time, it might

be worth demonstrating how this time is to be used, e.g the teacher might begin creating a list of suggestions for a sick friend Modeling between teacher-student and/or student-student is believed to be the most crucial element for successful communicative activities because through clear modeling, the target language is shown in action; the objective of the task is clarified; necessary conversational gambits are added, the type of conversational gambits is highlighted; potential problem areas are identified, students' confidence is built

In order to make sure the students are clear about what they are meant to be doing, giving instructions and checking students' understanding of the instructions are taken into serious consideration The ELTTP (2002, p 56) suggests some techniques

to give instructions effectively as follows:

"Step by step" or "Feed in" approach: The teacher gives the students one instruction at

a time, not a list of instructions all together

Demonstration or "Model it" or "Show don't tell": The teacher does not talk about what

the students must do; instead he shows them what to do He becomes a student and gives a demonstration

Say-do-check: The teacher follows 3 steps for each instruction First, he says the

instruction, then he gets the students to do it, then he checks if they have done it correctly before going on to the next instruction

Recall: The teacher checks if the students understand everything by saying, "Tell me

what you have to do in Vietnamese" or "Say it again in Vietnamese"

Students are all different and they work at different speeds Some rush through

an exercise while others take lots of time and care Dealing with this problem, Davis (1999) suggests setting time limits and giving countdowns to remind students of time left in the activity, and encourage them all to finish at the same time

Littlewood (1981, p 85) refers to this preparation phase in class as communicative activities and makes a distinction between pre-communicative and communicative learning activities as follows:

pre-(a) Through pre-communicative activities, the teacher isolates specific elements of

knowledge or skill which compose communicative ability, and provides the learners with opportunities to practise them separately the learner are thus being trained in the part-skills of communication rather than practising the total skill to be acquired

This category includes the majority of the learning activities currently be found in textbooks and methodological handbooks, such as different types of drill or question- and-answer practice Accordingly, the learners' main purpose is to produce language which is acceptable (i.e sufficiently accurate or appropriate) rather than to communicate meanings effectively

(b) In communicative activities, the learner has to activate and integrate his

pre-communicative knowledge and skills so as to use them for the communication of meanings He is therefore expected to increase his skill in starting from an intended meaning, selecting suitable language forms from his total repertoire, and producing them fluently The criterion for success is whether the meaning is conveyed effectively

There is no clear dividing line in reality between these different categories, but they represent differences of emphasis and orientation rather than distinct divisions

2.2.7 Potential problems with PW and GW and some remedies for them

The above-mentioned advantages of PW and GW are not, however, always realized Teachers fear that they may lose control, that there may be too much noise, that their students may over-use their mother tongue, do the task badly or do nothing

at all The following are most-concerned problems the teacher usually has when implementing PW and GW in English classes and how to handle them

 Noise: There is obviously more noise in PW and GW than in a lockstep or individual work Doff (1988, p 141) also admits that "PW and GW in a large class will be noisy, and this cannot be helped But usually the students themselves are not

disturbed by the noise The noise created by PW and GW is usually ‘good’ noise – students using English, or engaged in a learning task" Nevertheless, if the noise level becomes too high, it is really unacceptable to the teacher at the side or to someone in the next room

To adjust the noise level, Kagan (1992) suggests stoplight cards A green card goes on the desk of groups if they are working with an acceptable level of noise A yellow card indicates they need to quiet down a bit When a red card is put on their desk, the group should become completely silent, and all should silently count to ten before starting work again If the teacher can make a good role appointment, "one student per group can be the noise monitor or quiet captain whose function is to urge the group to collaborate actively, yet quietly" (Jacobs, 2002, p 55)

 Students make mistakes: During a pair or group activity, the teacher cannot control all the language used, and should not try to do so since such interruptions may discourage students’ fluency However, as Doff (1988, p 141) recommends, the number of mistakes can be reduced by giving enough preparation, i.e the activity can

be done by teacher with the whole class first, and PW used for the final stage; or by checking afterwards, i.e the teacher can ask some pairs or groups what they said, and then give indirect correction if necessary

 The class is difficulty to control: The teacher has less control over what students are doing in pairs or groups than in a normal class To stop activities getting out of control, it is important to give clear instructions about when to start, what to do, who to work with and when to stop Setting up routine is needed so that students accept and get used to the idea of working in pairs or groups Then just a simple indication prompts them to sort themselves out quickly and quietly Byrne (1987, p 34) shares with us valuable experience that:

Sometimes this [justifying procedures like PW and GW] is just as important as explaining how to do something Do the students understand why they are doing something, they will probably do it better

 Students lapse into using their native language Definitely the teacher expects students to use English in working with their partners in pairs or in groups because if

students are speaking in Vietnamese rather than English during an oral communicative activity, clearly the activity is fairly pointless However this does not mean that all the students will necessarily speak English all the time during PW or

GW as ideally planned by the teacher Lewis (1992, p 34) comments:

If students are working in groups preparing or discussing material and all the students

have the same mother tongue it is not essential that the whole discussion take in

English While this may be desirable, with most classes it is sufficient to ensure the

activity is useful if the reports of the groups, and the general class discussion of the

individual group reports, are in English

Harmer (1992, p 167) gives us another angle of view, to some extent, calming teacher's worry about students' using their native language:

If students are comparing their answers to reading comprehension questions, or trying

to do a vocabulary-matching exercise in pairs, then their occasional use of the mother tongue need not concern us They are concentrating exclusively on English, and if a bit

of their own language helps them to do this in a relaxed way that is all to the good

2.3 Recent studies on PW and GW

PW and GW is a great concern appealing the attention of CLT teachers and researchers not only in Vietnam but also in many countries throughout the world The following section will give a brief look at the results of recent studies about PW and

GW

(1) Both PW and GW have their own advantages Therefore, choosing one configuration over the other may affect learner motivation with the classroom On the one hand, students prefer working in groups to working in pairs Peacock (n.d.) found out the main reason for this preference was that more ideas, opinions and experience were available among three than between two classmates On the other hand, the results from his study indicate that students at university worked significantly harder

in pairs than in groups of three or more It was also observed that less able learners were normally off-task when working in groups The results of Li (1998) also show that pair interaction provided non-native speakers of English with quantitatively more opportunities for using the target language than group interaction Conversely, the take-up of those opportunities was higher in the group condition than the pair condition in relation to the number of self-initiations in each situation

(2) Advantages of PW outweigh those of individual work in that PW provides learners with opportunities to use the secondlanguage for a range of functions, and in turn for language learning (Storch, 2007) Analysis of the edited texts showed that there were no significant differences between the accuracy of tasks completed individuallyand those completed in pairs Analysis of the transcribed pairtalk showed that most pairs engaged actively in deliberations over language and tended to reach correct resolutions

(3) In Japan, PW and GW can be used as appropriate techniques that encourage and measure oral communication in EFL classrooms The results of a three-year study

by Hadley (n.d.) suggest that providing regular incentive for oral classroom communication in pairs and groups helps to foster language learning In his experimental group of 23 college students, grading is based on how much English they speak during PW or information-gap activities without reverting to their mother tongue Students can earn points when volunteering to be a spokesperson of a group-based task The study concludes that these techniques may have some educational value in language classes Provided they are used fairly and consistently, they seem to have the potential to be a valid measure of the learners' oral ability

(4) In Vietnam, GW has not met the teachers' ways of teaching and students' learning styles Tran (2000) comes to a conclusion that the environmental factors at university including the educational context, the cultural context, the Vietnamese concept of face are not suitable for GW and GW has not effectively increased the STT and students' participation Nguyen (2005) reports that GW is proved to be affective

in enhancing high school students' learning motivation and their understanding competence Simultaneously, the study points out possible difficulties for high school teachers when GW is used in the classroom, e.g time-consuming, student controling and dealing with mixed-level classes Besides, the students also have problems in expressing their thoughts in English Many of them do not have positive attitudes towards mistakes in language learning They can not come to mutual agreement because each have a different idea, and good students tend to dominant less able

The findings from the mentioned-above studies give us a more profound understanding about benefits of PW and GW in particular English teaching and learning contexts Nevertheless, how to make them successful in the classroom has not been satisfactorily investigated Because of the increasingly widespread use of

PW and GW in EFL classrooms in Vietnam, the current study would continue to expand the range of investigation to a larger population of subjects in different regions with various English learning backgrounds This research into its variables aim to describe the general picture of the PW and GW application at high schools, where the students are expected to be equipped with basic foundation of using English for their higher study

* * *

This chapter has presented the literature review relevant to the research subject

It provides a theoretical background from which the framework of the investigation is developed to study the implementation of PW and GW at high schools These investigated aspects include the roles of PW and GW in EFL, factors contributing to

PW and GW success, procedures to carry out, and activities for students to perform in pairs and groups

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the methodology employed to investigate the implementation of PW and GW at high schools in An Giang Province The chapter begins with a repetition of the research questions, followed by a description of the research population, the participants and the research instruments This chapter also reports the procedures for data collecting and processing, and finally how the validity and reliability of the study methods are evaluated

3.1 Research questions

As mentioned in Chapter I, a sufficient research in PW and GW in the high school context is urgently needed because of their widespread use in EFL classrooms This study was undertaken to answer the following research questions:

 How are PW and GW activities operated in English classes at high schools in

semi-public school except for Tinh Bien and Tri Ton Only Long Xuyen City and Chau Doc Town have people-founded schools, one in each place, due to the actual needs of the local people A recent statistic of the population of high schools, high school students and teachers of English in the whole province (Academic year 2006-2007) is shown in Table 1

Table 1: High schools, high school students and teachers of English

in An Giang Province (2006-2007)

al

of N

o

.

Location

Administr ative

unit

s

Stud ents

9 (17%)

2 (3.8%)

52 (100%)

46, 88

4

(10 0%

)

262

(100

%)

Note: P: Public; SP: Semi-public; PF: People-founded

English is optionally taught at primary school level but officially included

in the school syllabus from Grade 6, i.e if a student begins to study English from Grade 6 as normal, he/she will have 7 continuous years of English

learning until his/her high school graduation Many students in the city and town who have advantageous conditions can start to learn English at their early ages at primary school However, many others in the countryside may start to learn it very late just when they enter high school, which means they have only

3 years' time learning English

3.3 Data collection

3.3.1 General description of the samples

The samples for this study research were high school students and their teachers

of English selected from the research population They had some characteristics as follows:

(1) The students were in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades, and had different backgrounds of English learning Most of them followed the seven-year English