applying cooperative language learning to the learning skill at vinh medical university

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT I hereby certify that the thesis “Applying Cooperative Language Learning to the teaching of reading skill at Vinh Medical University” is my own work in fulfillment

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT

I hereby certify that the thesis “Applying Cooperative Language Learning

to the teaching of reading skill at Vinh Medical University” is my own work in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at Vinh University

Nghe An, September 2013

Vo Tu Anh

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis has, in many senses, been accomplished with the help and encouragement of many people Therefore, I hereby wish to send my gratitude to them

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor,

Mr Dr.Trần Bá Tiến, for his valuable support, guidance, and encouragement

he gave me during the time I tried to do the research This thesis would not be completed without his great help from the beginning when this study was only

in its formative stage

My sincere thanks also go to all lecturers and staff of Postgraduate Studies for their valuable lessons and precious help Thanks to their lessons, I could overcome enormous obstacles when doing the research

In addition, I am also grateful to my colleagues and my students who helped me collect the necessary data

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my beloved family whose support and encouragement have always been the great source of inspiration for me in bringing this study to a success

ABSTRACT Cooperative learning is a process through which students with various abilities, gender, nationalities and different level of social skills carry out in their learning process by working in small groups and helping each other Cooperative learning is a pedagogical use of small groups which enable students to maximize both their own and others’ learning

This study was carried out in order to: 1) identify the efficiency and the effects of Cooperative Learning Approach (CLA) on the reading skills of the students who learn English as second language, 2) to survey the students’ attitudes towards cooperative learning method used in English classroom, 3)

to examine their cooperative learning behaviors A Student Teams — Achievement Divisions (STAD) program was used with the subject group over an eight — week period

The pre — test and post — test scores of the group were compared using

a t — test dependent measure Results indicate that the students obtained higher reading comprehension scores for the post — test rather than the pre — test scores at the 05 level of significance As to their attitudes towards cooperative learning, the findings indicate that most students rated cooperative learning moderately positive Also, assessment forms show they performed good cooperative learning behaviors in their tasks

TABLE OF CONTENT

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3.1 Methods of the study

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4.2.2 What are the students’ attitudes towards CL?

4.2.3 To what extent do they cooperate in the group?

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APPENDIX 1: THE RESULUTS OF PRE-TEST AND POST-TEST 63 APPENDIX 2: THE PRE - TEST AND POST - TEST - - 65 APPENDIX 3: PEER ASSESSMENT FORM - 6552 ScSccxsrrsrrrvsrev 70 APPENDIX 4: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE 5552 S5Sccxvsrrsrrrvrrev 71 P\219))9)8G18109)A4190.)01910072Đ 73 APPENDIX 6: QUESTIONS FOR INTERVIEW c5 91 APPENDIX 7: READING TEXTS - 3322 32k rhey 92

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CIRC: Integrated Reading and Composition

CL: Cooperative Learning

CLL: Cooperative Language Learning

CLA: Cooperative Learning Approach

DRTA: Directed Reading Thinking Activity

ESL: English as a Second Language

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

GE: General English

STAD: Student Teams-Achievement Divisions

TAI: Team Accelerated Instruction

TGT: Teams-Games-Tournaments

TLS: Top — Level Structure

VMU: Vinh Medical University

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Means of the Pre- test and Post- test of the students

Table 2: Descriptive statistic of Students ‘Attitudes towards Cooperative Learning

Table 3: Percentage of students shown in Five Rating Scales

Table 4: Descriptive Statistics of Students’ Cooperative Learning Behaviors

Chapter 1:

INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Thanks to communication and information technologies, the disappearance of the borders with the spread of globalization, and the world getting smaller make it necessary to learn a foreign language In accordance with these advancements, the interest in English language also increases Upon the bottom in the interest in English language, those working in the field mostly focus on how to teach English more effectively or how students can learn this language on their own In other words, the innovations

in the field of education have started to be applied in teaching English as a second language

To meet the increasing needs for using English as a means of international communication, English has been a required course in the curriculum of VMU It is taught with the purpose that the students will use it effectively to fulfill their daily work in the future, so it receives great deal concern of both teachers and students here Non - stop attempts have been made to provide the students with general English

Reading is necessary when students further their study, especially at the university level They need good reading skill for acquiring knowledge and learning new information However, we can see that most students’ reading abilities are not good enough to do so During the past decade, a new approach called “Cooperative Learning” has attracted considerable attention and became popular This conceptual approach is based on a theoretical framework that provides general principles on how to structure cooperative learning activities in a teacher’s specific subject area, curriculum, students, and setting Teachers can use this approach to stimulate students to acquire

the knowledge as well as create interpersonal and team skills Traditionally, classes always consist of good students and weak students The weak students sit in isolation as they lose confidence in their ability to learn English Working in groups, therefore, is believed to help solve this problem Shy students who don’t like to speak in a large class are more comfortable speaking out in smaller groups Group members can complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses in English Each student has a different background and ability in English, which he or she can bring to the group For example, one student might have a strong vocabulary that can supply to students with a solid background in grammar Furthermore, poor students will benefit from interaction with better ones, and good students will feel proud that they play

an important role in helping their weaker classmates

In teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam, reading has always received a great deal of attention This is understandable, English is learnt and taught in non — English environment, so reading is not only the important means to get knowledge but also a means for further study This skill is extremely important to non - major students for the reasons that it

is used mainly in their future jobs Most of books for certain fields are in English If students want to read specific books to do their homework or read any documents that help them to get further details on their work, reading skill

is very important for them What is more? If reading skill is in their capacity, they find it easy when reading any kinds of paragraphs, texts or essays

Large mixed classes are a reality in many countries in general, and at Vinh Medical University in particular The number of students per one class in average is up to 50 As we know the ideal number for English class should be from 20 to 25 students; however, English is a fundamental subject for students

in practical rooms, as well as do shift work in the hospitals With its own features, it is hard for the school to organize small classes for students to learn English Hence, this situation has posed a major challenge This research paper aims to provide a way to maintain doing pair work, group work to do reading tasks in order to reduce the burden for the teachers as well as to motivate the collaboration capacity among students in their class

As it has already known, teaching a language is a multidimensional task which requires different techniques and methods compared with teaching other subjects In order to study a language either as first or second language, one makes an effort to develop and integrate four basic skills which are listening, speaking, reading and writing However, it is difficult to improve these skills all at once in terms of teaching a foreign language since proficiency in learning a foreign language differ from an individual to another, whereas a native language can be learnt by all the members of a society to some extent Therefore, it is necessary to make use of various methods and techniques which will minimize the differences within a classroom and help learners to participate in lessons equally

To the medical students at VMU, reading skill is especially important Most of medical books, which are edited and printed by high — qualified publications over the world, are now in English Vietnam is a developing country; therefore, the medical students need to read as many references in English as possible to enhance their knowledge about medical field which is already developed in prosperous nations

Cooperative learning which is the focus of this study is one of the methods which help learners to participate in lessons equally and effectively

Textbooks are attributed to have important role in teaching and learning

a language in Vinh Medical University The medical students are going to

study here for six years During the first year they handle with Basic English material “New Headway Elementary, the third edition, Oxford University Press” which prepares them for grammar, vocabulary and basic skills to step toward to learn professional English in the second year In the writing, the researcher only concentrated on cooperative language learning in reading texts that belongs to “New Headway Elementary, the third edition, Oxford University Press, 2006.”

1.2 Aims of the study

This thesis was carried out to:

e Study the effect of cooperative learning on English reading skill development of 40 first — year students at VMU

e To survey the students’ attitudes towards cooperative learning methods used in English classroom

1.3 Research questions

In brief, these objectives are summarized into the three main research questions addressed as follows:

1 What are their attitudes towards cooperative learning?

2 To what extent do they cooperate in the group?

3 To what extent do the students improve their English reading skill through working in cooperative groups?

1.4 Scope of the study

Within the scope of an individual teacher research, the researcher has

no ambition to cover all aspects of CLA and all the students as well The study only focused on the effectiveness of CLA in the teaching of reading skill for the first year students at Vinh Medical University The subjects were

40 first - year medical students The activities were selected and designed

edition, Oxford University Press, 2006” by Liz and John Soars The data collection and analysis were based on pre-test and post - test, the behavioral assessment form, the individual quiz, the survey questions and informal interviews carried out during the first semester from September 2012 to November 2012

1.5 Design of the study

The study is comprised of five chapters:

Chapter | is the introduction which presents the rationale, the aims, the scope, the research questions and the design of the study

Chapter 2 is the literature review, consisting of four components: related research, reading, CL and CLL

Chapter 3 is the research methodology referring to which research approach is utilized, who are study subjects, what data collection instruments are applied and how research procedures, data analysis are carried out and how its reliability and validity

Chapter 4 is the findings and discussion which presents results achieved from the study, a brief discussion of the findings The researcher also mentions some recommendations on ways of applying CLL to the teaching of reading skill in the form of giving samples Chapter 5 is the conclusion which offers a summary of the study, limitations and suggestions for further study

Chapter 2:

LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Cooperative Learning

2.1.1 Definitions of cooperative learning

Cooperative learning is one strategy for group instruction which is under the learner — centered approach Over the past twenty years, different approaches to cooperative learning have been developed by different individuals Therefore, CL takes various forms and definitions Following are some of the definitions by the most famous scholars:

Slavin (1995) states that “Cooperative learning is an instructional programme in which students work in small groups to help one another master academic content.”

Spencer Kargan (1994) proposes a definition on CL as “group learning activity organized so that learning is dependent on socially structured exchange of information between learners in group and in which each learner

is held accountable for his or her own learning and is motivated to increase learning of others.” Jacobs (1997) generalizes ideas emerged now and then in

a definition that captures the spirit of CL According to him, CL is a body of concepts and techniques for helping to maximize the benefits of cooperation among students in education In other words, CL provides language teachers with essential concepts of heterogeneous classes, learner cooperation and mutual help in learning; and it equips teachers with effective instructional techniques to exploit cooperation in language learning classes

In his recent definition, Johnson (2001) defines CL as a general term for an instructional approach that “emphasizes the conceptual learning and the development of social skills as learners work together in small heterogeneous

members are organized in small groups after receiving instructions from the teacher; they then work through the assignment until all the group members successfully understand and complete it All their cooperative efforts help to strive for mutual benefit so that all group members gain from each other’s efforts, recognizing that they all share a common fate No on group member possesses all the information, skills or resources needed for the highest possible quality result The researcher likes this definition the most because the definition itself tells us the nature of CLL

According to Johnson (2005), cooperation is not assigning a job to a group of students where one student does all the work and the others put their names on the paper It is not having students sit side by side at the same table

to talk to each other as they do their individual assignments as well It is not having students do a task individually with instructions that the ones who finish first are to help the slower students On the contrary, cooperative learning is a teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject Each member of a team is responsible not only for helping teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement Students work through the assignment until all group members successfully understand and complete it

Although stated variously, definitions of CL basically falls into three major points: Firstly, CL is said to be a strategy where students work together

in small learning group, helping each other to accomplish individual and group tasks CL encourages responsibility among group mates as each member is not only in charge of his own learning but also of other teammates’ learning Secondly, CL is recognized as a method of instruction that promotes the learner’s development of high-order levels of thinking, essential

communication skills, improved motivation, positive self-esteem, social awareness, and tolerance for individual differences in group activities This characteristic differentiates CL from its ancestor named Group work Group work has students work in groups to do tasks There may exist uneven participation of group members as one or two better students may dominate the work while CL strains interdependence and individual accountability among learners in group, which helps to stick students to the mutual work Also, in group — work, learners can sit around the table while studying, but they cannot communicate with each other independently while studying together Therefore, small study groups cannot affect each other positively That’s why their communication can be considered to be individual learning Then, in cooperative learning, learners’ efforts are rewarded as group To illustrate, if learner groups are to do an assignment, if only one student does that whole task, and studies without the help of the others, this cannot be considered as a group work based on cooperative learning method In cooperative learning groups, sense of responsibility means that group members should know that materials prepared by all group members are for the sake of the success of the group The learners in these groups do not need

to learn how to cooperate since teachers manage the organization and the structure of the groups (Johnson and Johnson, 2002) In order for a group work to be a cooperative one, learners should be aware of the fact that they need to study so as to maximize the learning of both their own and their friends In these groups, learners make an effort to develop their own and other group members’ learning since the performance of cooperative learning groups is possible only when each individual struggles for the benefit of all group members

is dependent on the overall success of the group Therefore, the ones who want to be successful are forced to help other group members Wilkinson (1994) states that cooperative learning enables fast learners to help respectively slow learners in terms of improving their skills In other words, every learner struggles to develop both themselves and other group members because they are aware of the fact that the success of the group depends on the performance of each individual

According to cooperative learning, group is a whole entity and all the members are responsible for the success or the failure of the group A group goal encourages learners to make an explanation in order to help their learning; to teach them learning strategies; and to communicate actively based

on a theme, whereas it motivates low-level learners to ask for help In cooperative learning groups, even though the success of the group is the focus, it should be noted that it is also based on individual performance of the learners

Lastly, the CL process also helps to build students’ understanding of a few concepts maintaining Content-based tasks designed in the light of CL give learners, especially the lower level ones, opportunities to raise the voice confidently with their reservoir of world knowledge

In general, we can simply understand that cooperative learning is referred to as any variety of teaching methods in which students work in small groups to help one another learn academic content As there have been different views on CL, various principles have been put forward in the CL literature

2.1.2 Principles of cooperative learning

a) Heterogeneous grouping

Heterogeneous groups in which students do CL tasks are the mixed clusters of students with on or some variables including sex, religion, ethnicity, personality, age, social class, language proficiency and diligence Heterogeneous grouping is believed to have a number of benefits in comparison with homogeneous grouping, such as making peer-tutoring more likely to happen, providing a variety of perspectives or helping students get to know and learn tolerance to others’ differences

In order to achieve heterogeneous groups for speaking activities, teachers may want to look at their class and make conscious decisions about such things as which students should work together, and how different the levels of students in groups should be, rather than leaving the matter to chance

or to students’ choice

Choosing suitable group size is also an important factor to conduct group work effectively Chen (2004) suggests that groups of three or four likely work best; sometimes larger group, of from five to ten, are expected to give good results in big tasks where enormous human resource and the variety

of people in terms of skills, background knowledge, etc are required

b) Collaborative skills

Collaborative skills are those interpersonal and cooperative abilities students need to work with others effectively Most books on collaborative skills suggest that they be explicitly taught one at a time, however, which to teach depends on particular students and tasks that the skill instruction intends

to be combined in Some of the many skills important to successful collaboration are: checking that others understand, asking for and giving reasons, disagreeing politely and responding politely to disagreement and encouraging others to participate and responding to encouragement to

d) Simultaneous interaction

In traditional classroom, where no group activities are used, the normal interaction pattern is like this: one person speaks at a time — usually the teacher, and occasionally a student who is called to answer a question or so This sequential structure is seriously disastrous in communicative language classes as they leave too little time per student for active participation In contrast, the use of small group work gives learners room to learn actively and engage to the negotiation of meaning with others The smaller the size of groups is, the more students will speak at the same time This CL principle is called Simultaneous Interaction

Even when groups are used, it is common at the end of a group activity for teachers to bring groups together as the whole class; then it might be the time for group report done by group representatives, for teacher’s evaluation

of the group work and teacher’s revision of the main points discussed When this takes place, we are back to sequential interaction Thus, scholars urge that successful practical education in CL classes require teachers to combine simultaneous and sequential interaction in a flexible way

e) Equal participation

Researchers affirm that students learn by interacting with the content and with fellow students, and participation is an essential ingredient for student success, and equal participation is an essential ingredient for the success of all students But a frequent problem in groups is that one or two group members dominate the group and, for what reason, impede the participation of others CL offers many ways of promoting equal participation

in groups, such as assigning and rotating roles among group members — they take turn to be facilitator, checker, questioner, encourager .; and using multiple ability tasks (Cohen, 1994), ie the tasks that require a range of abilities, such as drawing, acting, singing, rather than only language abilities Sf) Individual accountability

Individual accountability is said to be the flip side of equal participation, since it is hard to maintain equal participation in groups if there

is no Individual accountability among group members When we encourage equal participation in groups, we try to make everyone feel that they have opportunities to take part in group work The Individual accountability principle helps to avoid problems in group work such as sleeping partners, social loafing or hanging around

Techniques for encouraging Individual accountability include giving each group member a designated turn to participate in small-sized groups, calling on students at random to share their group’s ideas to check the group work and having a task to be done individually at the end of the group activity In an open, friendly accommodating atmosphere with a number of fellow classmates, learners are found more accountable for their learning and group common tasks

g) Positive interdependence

This principle lies at the heart of CL theory When Positive interdependence exists among group members, they feel that they are helping themselves by helping others, and that what hurts one member of the group hurts the other members It is the “All for one, one for all” feeling that keeps the members staying on group tasks and creates the wish to help each other to share a common goal

Johnson & Johnson (1998) suggest nine things teachers should establish to promote Positive interdependence Six of them are: (1) A group mutual goal to achieve; (2) A warm and friendly environment; (3) Assigned roles to group members as leader, reporter, time reminder, etc, (4) Shared resources; (5) External challenges (e.g: references, websites) for long-staying groups to improve group dynamics; and (6) Joint rewards

In order to encourage Positive interdependence in groups, teachers should give careful thought before putting students in groups If they cannot

do this, there possibly occurs no interdependence or negative interdependence among group members instead of the desired positive one

We have just looked at the definitions and some major principles of

CL In the next section, the theory of CL in second language learning and teaching will be presented This will serve as a reference for us in the implementation of CL in teaching reading skill

213 Student Teams—Achievement Divisions (STAD)

Cooperative learning can be structured in many different models As

Olsen & Kagan (1992) stated, all cooperative learning models share the idea that students work together to learn and are responsible for their teammates’ learning as well as their own The general ones are Student Teams- Achievement Divisions (STAD), Teams-Games-Tournaments (TGT), and Jigsaw II Moreover, some are designed for use in particular subjects at particular grade levels such as Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC) for reading and writing instruction in grade 2-8 and Team Accelerated Instruction (TAI) for mathematics in grades 3-6

The approach used in this research is based on Student Teams— Achievement Divisions (STAD) It was developed by Robert Slavin and his colleagues at the John Hopkins University STAD has been used in such diverse subject areas as math, language arts, social studies, and science In STAD, students are assigned to four-member learning teams that are mixed in performance level, gender, and ethnicity STAD has five major components These are class presentation, team study, quizzes, individual improving scores, and team recognition (Slavin, 1995) The teaching phase begins with the presentation of material, usually in a lecture -discussion format Students should be told what it is they are going to learn and why it is important During team study, group members work cooperatively with provided worksheets and answer sheets Next, each student individually takes a quiz Using a scoring system that ranges from 0 to 30 points and reflects degree of individual improvement over previous quiz scores, the teacher scores the papers Each team receives one of three recognition awards, depending on the average number of points earned by the team For example, teams that average 15 to 19 improvement points receive a GOOD TEAM certificate Teams that average 20 to 24 improvement points receive a GREAT TEAM

2.2 Cooperative Language Learning (CLL)

2.2.1 Goals of CLL

In second language teaching, CL is seen as a way of promoting communicative interaction in the classroom, thus it is considered to be an extension of the principles of communicative language teaching

Richards and Rodgers (2001) propose five goals of cooperative learning in language teaching: (a) to provide opportunities for naturalistic second language acquisition through the use of interactive pair and group activities, (b) to provide teachers with a methodology to enable them to achieve this goal which can be applied in a variety of curriculum settings; (c)

to provide opportunities for learners to develop successful learning and communication strategies; (d) to enhance learners’ motivation and reduce learners’ stress and to create a positive affective classroom climate; (e) to enable focused attention to particular lexical items, language structures, and communicative functions through the use of interactive task

2.2.2 Advantages of CLL

From the perspective of second language teaching, CLL offers six learning advantages for ESL students: (a) Increase frequency and variety of second language practice through different types of interaction; (b) Opportunities to integrate language with content-based instruction; (c) Possibility for development or use of language in ways that support cognitive development and increase language skills; (d) Opportunities to include a greater variety of curricular materials to stimulate language as well as concept learning; (e) Freedom for teachers to master professional skills, particularly those which emphasize communication; (f) Opportunities for students to act

as resources for each other, thus assuming a more active role in learning

2.2.3 Design of CLL

When implementing CLL, the teacher needs to take into account a number

of issues The following issues are commonly divided:

a) Objectives

The overall objectives of CLL are: to foster cooperation rather than competition, to develop critical thinking, and to develop communicative competence through socially structured interaction activities More specific objectives will derive from the context in which they are used

b) The syllabus

As CL can be used to teach activities from a variety of curriculum orientations, CLL does not have any particular form of language syllabus We can find CLL used in teaching content classes, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, ESP and the four skills

c) Roles of the teacher

Teacher’s role in CLL is considerably different from that in traditional lessons A very important role of the teacher in CLL classroom is that of facilitator of learning As a facilitator, the teacher has to move around the class helping the students and groups as needs arise Other things the teacher must do are: creating a highly structured and well-organized learning environment in the classroom, setting goals, planning and structuring tasks, establishing the physical arrangements of the classroom, assigning students to groups and roles, selecting materials and time, and teacher is also a facilitator

of learning: interact, teach, refocus, question, clarify, support, expand, celebrate empathize

Johnson & Johnson (1998) suggest nine things teachers should establish to promote Positive interdependence Six of them are: (1) A group

roles to group members as leader, reporter, time reminder, etc, (4) Shared resources; (5) External challenges (e.g: references, websites) for long-staying groups to improve group dynamics; and (6) Joint rewards

In order to encourage Positive interdependence in groups, teachers should give careful thought before putting students in groups If they cannot do this, there possibly occurs no interdependence or negative interdependence among group members instead of the desired positive one

STEPS OF TEACHER’S ROLES (Johnson et al., (1994: 9)

Take your existing lessons, curriculum, and sources and structure them cooperatively

Tailor CL lessons to your unique instructional needs, circumstances, curricular, subject areas, and students

Diagnose the problems some students may have in working together and intervene to increase learning groups’ effectiveness

@) Roles of the learners

The primary role of the learner is as a member of a group who must work collaboratively on tasks with other group members Therefore, learners have to learn teamwork skills They are also directors of their own learning They are taught to plan, monitor, and evaluate their own learning CLL requires their direct and active involvement and participation Pair grouping is the most typical CLL format, ensuring the maximum amount of time both learners spend on learning tasks

e) Learning and teaching activities

Types of learning and teaching activities are of great importance to the design of CLL Three main ones the teacher may use are:

e Formal cooperative learning groups: these activities are used for specific tasks and involve students working together to achieve shared learning goals These may last from one period to several weeks

e Informal cooperative learning groups: this type of activities just lasts a few minutes or a class period, and is used to focus students’ attention or

to facilitate learning during direct teaching

e Cooperative base groups: activities of this type consist of heterogeneous groups with stable membership The main purpose of these activities is to allow group members to give each other support, encouragement needed to be academically successful These are long term, lasting for at least one semester or a year

Numerous descriptions exist of activity types that can be used with CLL Coelho (1992b:132) describes three major kinds of cooperative learning tasks and their learning focus, each of which has many variation

1 Team practice from common input — skills development and mastery of facts

All students work on the same material

Practice could follow a traditional teacher — directed presentation of new material and for that reason is a good starting point to the teachers and/

or students new to group work

The task is to make sure that everyone in the group knows the answer

to a question and can explain how the answer was obtained or understand the material Because students want their team to do well, they coach and tutor each other to make sure that any member of the group could answer for the team

This technique is good for interview and practice tests; the group takes the practice test together, but each student will eventually do an assignment or take a test individually

This technique is effective in situations where the composition of the group is unstable (in adult programs, for example) Students can form new groups every day

2 Jigsaw: differentiated but predetermined input — evaluation and synthesis of facts and opinions

Each group member receives a different piece of the information

Students regroup in topic groups (expert groups) composed of people with the same piece to master the material and prepare to teach it

Students return to home groups (jigsaw groups) to share their information with each other

Students synthesize the information through discussion

Each student procedures an assignment of part of a group project, or take a test, to demonstrate synthesis of all the information presented by all group members

This method of organization may require team - building activities for both home groups and topic groups, long — term group involvement, and rehearsal

of presentation methods

This method is very useful in the multilevel class, allowing for both homogeneous and heterogeneous grouping in terms of English proficiency Information — gap activities in language teaching are jigsaw activities in the form of pair work Partners have data (in the form of text, tables, charts, etc.) with missing information to be supplied during interaction with another partner

3 Cooperative projects: topics / resources selected by students — discovery learning

Topics may be different for each group

Students identify subtopics for each group member

Steering committee may coordinate the work of class as a whole

Students research the information using resources such as library reference, interview, and visual media

Students synthesize their information for a group presentation: oral and/ or written Each group member plays a part in the presentation

Each group presents to the whole class

This method places a greater emphasis on individualization and student’s interests Each student’s assignment is unique

Students need plenty of previous experience with more structured group work for this to be effective

Olsen and Kagan (1991:88) describe the following examples of CLL activities:

Three-step interview: (1) Students are in pairs: one is interviewer and the other is interviewee (2) Students reverse roles (3) Each shares with team member what was learned during the two interviews

Roundtable: There is one piece of paper and one pen for each team (1) One student makes a contribution and (2) passes the paper and pen to the student

of his or her left (3) Each student makes contribution in turn If done orally, the structure is called Round Robin

Think - Pair -Share: Teacher poses a question Students think of a response Students discuss their responses with a partner Students share their partner’s response with the class

Sohe — Pair — Share: teacher poses a problem Students work out solutions individually Students explain how they solved the problem in interview or Round Robin structures

Numbered Heads: Students number off in teams Teacher asks a question Heads Together — students literally put their heads together and make sure everyone knows and can explain the answer Teacher calls a number and students with that number raise their hands to be called on, as in traditional classroom

J) Role of instructional materials

Materials play an important part in creating opportunities for students

to work cooperatively CLL does not require a different material from other types of lessons, but variations in the way the materials are used are a must Materials may be especially designed for CLL lessons, modified from existing materials, or borrowed from other disciplines

According to Goodman (1971: 135), reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which the reader, a language users, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display’, and the act of reconstruction is viewed as “a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and confirming.”

Rummelhart (1977) defines “reading involves the reader, the text, and the interaction between the reader and the text’ It means the role of learners and reading texts are placed an important position in reading act

Harmer (1989: 190) seems to be interested in the notion of reading He says “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message.”

Rubin and Thompson (1994: 91) offer another definition of reading:

“reading is active information — seeking process in which readers relate information in the text to what they already know’ From this point of view, the reader’s knowledge of the language and knowledge of the world is of importance to their reading success

Though definitions of reading are numerous, none can certainly capture all the ideas and features of what reading is However, what they all share is that they try to find out the nature of reading, and reading act, in which the readers, reading process, and reading message are emphasized

2.3.2 Classification of reading

In reading the objective of the reader is not always to understand everything which is written down Therefore, reading is divided into various types according to the manners and purposes

2.3.2.1 Manner — based classification

2.3.2.1.1 Reading aloud

“Reading aloud involves looking at the text, understanding it and also saying it.” (Doff, 1988: 70) Though reading aloud is considered a way to convey necessary information to the others, it is unpopular activity outside classroom For the teachers, reading aloud is more of a speaking exercise of pronunciation Nuttal (1996) sees reading aloud as an important aid for beginners to improve their pronunciation However, Greenwood (1985) criticizes this idea He fears that students may be unable to focus adequately

on the text’s meaning when they concentrate too hard on pronouncing the words

As for Doff (1988: 58), reading aloud is not a very useful technique for some reasons:

- Only one student is active at a time, the others are either not listening at all or listening to a bad model

- Students’ attention is focused on pronunciation, not on understanding the text

- Itis an unnatural activity, most people do not read aloud in real life

- Because students usually read slowly, it takes up a lot of time in class

By whispering the words while reading, reading aloud slows the reader down and forces him to read every word so it can distract him from understanding the text

2.3.2.1.2 Silent reading

Unlike reading aloud, silent reading is more often used in both real life and classroom, and “it is the method we normally use with our native language, and on the whole the quickest and most efficient” (Lewis, 1985: 110) With silent reading we can best understand the reading materials in the shortest possible time because we do not need to read all the words in the text,

we can read at our own speed and if we do not understand what we are reading, we can read again or slow down for intensive reading For the teachers, silent reading is helpful for controlling the class In silent reading, students are in fact concentrating on the text, obtaining the meaning and extracting what they need

In short, silent reading is the most useful and practical way to develop the students’ reading ability However, it is more beneficial when the teacher sometimes combines it with reading aloud to improve students’ pronunciation and intonation because reading aloud also has its own advantages

2.3.2.2 Purposes — based classification

2.3 2.2.1 Skimming

When skimming, we go through the reading material quickly in order to get the gist of it, to know how it is organized, or to get an idea of the tone or the intension of the writer Nuttal (1982: 36) says “by skimming, we mean glancing rapidly through the text to determine whether a research paper is relevant to our own work or in order to keep ourselves superficially informed about materials that are not of great importance to us.” As for Grellet (1981: 19) “we get its main points or the intention of the writer, but not to find the answer to specific questions” Clearly, the reader skims in order to satisfy a very generous curiosity about the text This type of reading does not aim at learners at the beginner level but it is more suitable for gifted students of

they can get from reading material; therefore, their subsequent reading is more efficient

2.3 2.2.2 Scanning

Scanning occurs when a reader goes through the text quickly searching for

a specific piece of information or to see if the text is suitable for a specific reading purpose According to Grallet (1981: 19), “when scanning, we only try to locate specific information and often we do not even follow the linearity

of the passage to do so” Like skimming, scanning is a useful reading skill that may at first strange to a learner who is used to reading everything in a foreign language with the same degree of attention It can be appropriately applied in teaching and learning reading as it can be very useful as a study technique

2.3 2.2.3 Intensive reading

Nuttal (1982: 36) defines: “Intensive reading involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a task which forces the student to focus on the texf’ Grellet (1981: 4) states that “Intensive reading means reading short text to extract specific information This is an accuracy activity involving reading for detailed” The objective of intensive reading is to achieve a full understanding of the text not only of what it means but also of how the meaning is produced Through intensive reading, the reader must arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of logical arguments, the rhetorical arrangement, the pattern of the text, the attitude and purposes of the writer and his linguistic means to achieve his purposes In other words, intensive reading is reading for accuracy which is essential to the students’ comprehension

2.3.2.2.4 Extensive reading

Grellet (1981: 4) points out that “Extensive reading means reading long texts, usually for one’s pleasure This is a fluency activity, mainly involving global understanding” The purpose of extensive reading is to train students

to read directly and fluently in a foreign language for his own enjoyment, without the aid of the teacher to achieve a general sense of the text, skimming for the gist and scanning for some key details Extensive reading is a relatively rapid and efficient process of reading a text for global or general meaning

In short, there are different types of reading and they are determined not by the texts but by the reader’s reasons for reading However, effective readers do not use these styles isolatedly, they must know how to use suitable style to achieve their reading purpose

2.4 Previous studies on CL

Cooperative Learning (CL) has interested thousands of researchers all over the world as one of the educational innovations which has the best and largest empirical base With a view to realizing its effectiveness in encouraging the students to learn reading in class, the researcher has set herself two tasks for a review of literature: finding out the benefits of CL and how well students learn together in cooperative language learning lessons The benefits of cooperative learning have been proved by researchers Many of researches have come to generally positive conclusions about its academic benefits in that cooperative learning has been shown to help improve student’s learning and re-vitalize teaching methods (Johnson, Johnson & Stanne, 2000) Researchers have also concluded that students who learn in groups develop intercultural understanding (Slavin, 1990), interpersonal skills (Johnson & Johnson, 2000), and that they are better

Cooperative learning is also seen as essential preparation for participating in a democratic society (Kagan, 1994)

In comparison with competitive and individualistic approaches, cooperative learning has been proved to be more effective instructional method (Johnson et al., 2000) To be more specific, apart from better academic outcomes, cooperative learning has been demonstrated to benefit students from developing critical thinking skills (Brandon & Hollingshead, 1999), developing creative thinking ability (Johnson et al.,1994) and enhancing social skills such as communication, presentation, problem- solving, leadership, delegation and organization (Cheng & Warren, 2000) According to Slavin, cooperative learning also helps solve teachers’ instructional problems

However, Slavin (1995) notices that cooperative learning only benefits students when cooperative learning strategies are held properly, Otherwise, they would decrease students’ academic achievement Other researchers also realize the importance of CL strategies in designing and carrying out CL activities successfully

Most early studies dealt with cooperative learning in other content areas outside the field of language learning such as social studies, science, and mathematics However, after the effectiveness of gaining in language acquisition of non-native speakers had been documented, ESL and EFL researchers turned their intention to the approach They shared the belief that the approach may possibly have benefits in second or foreign language learning (Tang, 2000) Many studies on factors affecting the learning have been done by foreign researchers These studies are summarized and presented as follows:

Pinkeaw (1993) investigated students’ view on interaction and learning achievement through cooperative learning method in upper — secondary English classes for 82 Mathayomsuksa 4 students The subjects were classified into three groups of 30 high achievers, 24 moderate achievers, and

28 low achievers The teacher taught all classes herself for 20 periods The questionnaires on students’ view on interaction were given before teaching After teaching, students were given the test and the same questionnaires on interaction including their opinion of the STAD approach The findings indicated that all students’ listening and speaking achievements were satisfactory No difference was found between pre-teaching and post — teaching on the views of the high and low achievers, but the moderate achievers’ views in general decreased significantly after teaching Their opinions on the STAD approach were at the satisfactory level but no significant difference was found among the three groups

Hampton and Grundnitski (1996) compared the progress of college business students of different achievement levels after they had engaged in cooperative learning A ration of the average post — cooperative test scores for each student showed the progress in a semester long introductory course The results indicated that 215 achievement diverse participants in cooperative learning did not benefit equally Additionally, the low achieving students appeared to benefit most from cooperative learning This result suggests that cooperative learning may be particularly valuable in helping low achievement

Thupapong (1996) studied the effects of Students Teams — Achievement Division (STAD) learning English reading achievement and cooperation with 78 Mathayomsuksa 4 students The subjects were divided

the control group taught by the teacher’s manual for six weeks The instruments used in this study were reading achievement tests and cooperation tests The results revealed that the gained English reading achievement scores

of the students taught by the STAD approach were not significantly different from those of the students taught by teacher’s manual approach at the level of 05 The gained scores of the high, medium and low achievers taught by the STAD teaching approach were not significantly different in their cooperation

at the level of 05

Another study examined a comparison of the effectiveness of cooperative learning in small groups with whole classroom instruction using the Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) during reading Subjects for the eight — week study were 53 sixth — graders from two classes in Brooklyn, New York The stories used all came from the same basal reader A reading comprehension test was given each child after each story was completed Children in cooperative learning groups read stories on their own and wrote any questions or comments in their reading log The next day, each group met

to discuss the story Students worked in groups for approximately 4 weeks For the next four weeks, the students continued to read, using the DRTA strategy, and when the story was completed the students read and answer questions about the story independently A reading comprehension test was again given after the completion of each story Results indicated that the majority of children in the cooperative reading groups scored higher on their reading comprehension tests than when they used the DRTA Findings suggested that cooperative learning can be used as instructional strategy whereby students can improve their reading comprehension (Almanza,

1997)

Siriratana (1999) compared English reading comprehension, writing ability, cooperative learning activities through instruction using Top — Level Structure (TLS) with CIRC and the Teachers Manual The subjects for this study consisted of 80 Mathayomsuksa 5 students in the first semester of the

1999 academic year of Debsirin School, Bangkok They were selected by using simple random sampling and divided into the experimental and control groups, with 40 students in each The randomized control group pretest / posttest design were used in the experiments The experimental group was taught through the method based on the Top — Level Structure (TLS) with CIRC, whereas the control group was taught with lesson of the same content for twenty 50 minute periods The instruments used in this study were English reading comprehension test, writing ability test and cooperative test The data were statistically analyzed by t-test for dependent samples The results of this study revealed that the English reading comprehension, between the experimental and control groups, was significantly different at the 01 level The English reading comprehension, the English writing ability and the cooperative learning of the control group, between the pre — test and post-test was significantly different at 01 level

Tang (2000) did a research on 12 ESL students from India, South Korea, Hong Kong, Croatia and Taiwan at a secondary school in Canada which used the concept mapping skills to teach ESL reading in the classroom The observation of ESL students’ cooperative learning activities in an eight — week period indicated that teaching reading by using the concept - mapping strategy could improve reading comprehension and the communication skills

as they learned how to negotiate meaning with their partners and among themselves

Metteum (2001) conducted a case study research on cooperative learning by using the jigsaw technique with nine second — year English major students at Naresuan University The purposes of the study were to investigate students’ use of linguistic features in their discourse while being involved in cooperative structures, to examine the improvement in students’ grammar and competence, to investigate the quality of language input, output and context in cooperative learning, and to study to what extent the students have positive and negative attitudes towards the cooperative learning method The design

of the study was based on a qualitative approach Research data came from four instruments including a grammar test, a structured filed observation, a semi — structured interview and a reflective journal The results showed that there were 39 language functions and 3 social language functions used in learning sessions All subjects had higher academic and oral achievement test scores after engaging in this learning Moreover, the cooperative language learning also generated functional and communicative, frequent, and redundant input The last finding revealed that nearly all subjects had positive attitudes towards cooperative learning in terms of oral competence, academic achievement, social skills, personal development, collaborative skills, thinking skills, and learning atmosphere

Moryadee (2001) studied the effects of cooperative learning using Student Team — Achievement Divisions (STAD) technique on self — efficacy and English learning achievement of prathomsuksa 5 students of Samsen Kindergarden School They were randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group, comprising of 39 students in each group The experimental group studied through the conventional method This research employed the pretest/ posttest control group design All subjects were tested their self — efficacy and English learning achievement before and after the

treatment than the treatment at the 01 level of significance The students who studied through STAD have a higher self — efficacy and English learning achievement than those students who studied through the conventional method at the 01 significance

Noorchaya Yahya and Kathleen Huie from Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, Florida, USA) applied “Reaching English Language Learners Through Cooperative Learning” to their teaching This is a model of a cooperative learning lesson that allows all levels of ELL learners from preproduction to intermediate level to tackle tasks that are appropriate to their language proficiency skills and also that allows each student to take an important part in doing the group's assigned tasks since without each student's expertise, the group's task is incomplete

Somapee (2002) compared critical thinking skills of students who studied Business English I at Chiangrai Commercial School using the cooperative learning method with those of students using the traditional group work method and surveyed the opinions of students towards the cooperative learning method A pretest was used to assign students so both had the same level of critical thinking skills During the eight weeks of teaching, unit pretests and posttests were given to students at the beginning and at the end of each unit respectively After the implementation, the pre-test was assigned for them to take as the post-test Then, two sets of averaged scores taken from the pre-test and post-test were compared by t-test A questionnaire was then given

to the experimental group to assess thei opinion about cooperative learning The results of the tests revealed that critical thinking skills of students in the experimental group were higher than those in the control group The post-test scores of students who were taught through the cooperative learning method

through the traditional group work method at p ¢ 05 level Moreover, the unit post-test scores of the experimental group were higher than those of the control group as the statistical difference was significant at p .05 level The results of the questionnaires showed that the students’ opinions towards the cooperative learning were moderately positive The results of the study showed that the post-test scores after learning English reading using cooperative learning were higher than the pre-test scores at the 05 level of significance Most of the samples displayed very good behavior had increasingly developed Some elements of poor behavior had decreased by up

to 14.29 percent

Many researchers have been interested in doing research to investigate appropriate reading strategies to help students have better understanding when they read Many reading methods have been used in classrooms alternately The results show that some are successful with a particular group of students but some are not Actually, what should be taken into consideration now is the way the knowledge is presented As we know, teacher — centered approaches taking place in traditional classrooms do not produce active recipients and results in fossilized language learning It is not effective enough to promote language acquisition

At VMU, undergraduate students at three levels: Secondary, College and University are all required to take English as a fundamental subject The time allocated to study English is limited to only 4 periods per week per one class In the eye of the researcher eight weeks are not enough to improve their language competence Also, students themselves have different level of language proficiency before class work begins Some students’ background of English knowledge is very poor, so they cannot catch up with others in class