Sử dụng hoạt động nhóm để cải thiện kỹ năng nói của sinh viên năm thứ nhất trường Cao đẳng Kinh tế-Kỹ thuật Thương mại

Therefore this minor thesis focuses on studying these students' problems in the English speaking class and suggests some teaching techniques and strategies that can be used... The resear

TABLE OF CONTENT

Declaration i

Acknowlegements ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

Part 1 Introduction 1

Part 2 The development of the research Chapter I Literature review 3

1 Theoretical background of speaking 3

1.1 Nature of speaking skill 3

1.2 Teaching Speaking skill in CLT Approach … 4

1.3 Communicative activities and features of communicative activitiies… 6

1.4 Problems with speaking activities 10

2 Group work .11

2.1 Definition of group work .12

2.2 Group size 12

2.3 Group work activities .13

2.4 The advantages of group work .14

2.5 Some problems and suggested solutions in utilizing group work 15

2.6 Successfully implementing group work: Tips 16

Chapter II The research 18

1 The context 18

2 The methodology 18

2.1 The participants .18

2.2 Data collection .19

3.3 Data analysis and reflection .19

3 Action research process 20

3.1 Cycle one 20

3.1.1 Initiation 21

3.1.2 Preliminary investigation 21

3.1.3 Hypothesis 21

3.1.4 Intervention 22

3.1.5 Data collection 22

3.1.6 Data analysis and reflection 23

3.2 Cycle 2 25

3.2.1 Initiation 25

3.2.2 Preliminary investigation 25

3.2.3 Hypothesis 26

3.2.4 Intervention 26

3.2.5 Data collection 26

3.2.6 Data analysis and reflection 27

3.3 Summary of the findings 30

Part 3 Conclusion, suggestions and limitations 31

1 Conclusion 31

2 Suggestions……… 31

3 Limitations……… 32

4 Recommendation for further study …… 33

References I Appendixes II

PART 1 INTRODUCTION

RATIONALE

Speaking is one of the most important skills that most learners of any foreign

languages wish to achieve It is an important skill that 'makes you a more fluent language user; speaking is a chance to notice the gaps between what you want to say and what you can say; it is a chance to test hypotheses about language' (Marilyn Lerris, 1999-quoted by He

Lina) At the college of Economics, Technology and Trade (CTET), English has been taught

as a compulsory subject for more than 10 years All of the students are non-majored English students And speaking is a problem for most of them During the speaking lessons, the students here usually keep silence whenever I ask them to say something in English they just say yes/no to this kind of questions and encouter a lot of difficulties with open- ended questions such as 'why' or 'what do you think ?'; most of them feel nervous with speaking practice exercises

Although our students start with the beginner level of English when they enter the college and are supposed to obtain the pre- intermediate level after graduation, just a small amount of them are capable enough of communicating in English In fact, our students are more competent in reading, writing, and listening to English but not in speaking English and they think it is their biggest problem in learning English Why is this the case? This can be blamed on some reasons: the effect of entrance examinations, the students‟ characteristics of being quiet and shy, the teachers' difficulties in controlling oral communication activities in large classes, or the lack of oral communicative activities in the textbooks

Due to the researcher's teaching experience, she realises that her students are afraid of making oral mistakes, because they think their mistakes cannot be 'erased' once they are uttered out Anxiety in speaking Enlish is a real problem And the oral activities done in the English class are often irrelevant to their daily life These two obstacles prevent the students from learning to speak in English

Therefore this minor thesis focuses on studying these students' problems in the English speaking class and suggests some teaching techniques and strategies that can be used

to overcome these problems by using group work to reduce anxiety and encourage communication among these students The researcher decided to carry out the research work

entitled "Using group work to improve speaking skill of the first year students at the College

of Technology and Economics in Trade"

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study examines how to use group work to improve the speaking skill of the first year students at the CTET

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The study aims to:

1 Find out the reasons for some problems in speaking lessons

2 Offer group work as a key to improve speaking skill of the first year students at CTET

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1 What are the problems in speaking lessons?

2 Can group work help to improve speaking skill?

DESIGN OF THE STUDY

The study will be designed as follow:

Part 1: Introduction which presents the rationales, the scope, the objectives, the methods and design of the sudy

Part 2: The development of the research

Chapter 1: Literature review Chapter 2: The research Part 3: Conclusion, suggestions, limitations

PART 2

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Theoretical background of speaking

1.1 Nature of speaking skill

Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information (Brown, 1994b; Burns & Joyce, 1997) Chaney and

Burk (1998, p.13) also argues that speaking is "the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" Referring to

speaking or communication in language teaching and learning, Brown (1994b) affirms that interaction is the heart of communication; it is what communication is all about, for example

in the cases of sending messages; receiving them; interpreting them in a context; negotiating meanings; and collaborating to accomplish certain purposes And interaction is the collaborative exchange of thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people resulting in

a reciprocal effect on each other Bygate (1997, p.115) emphasizes that “interaction is the use

of language for maintaining communication between participants’ and ‘interaction skills are skills of deciding what to say, when to say it and how to say it clearly” Therefore, in speaking

process, learners are required to know not only how to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary (linguistic competence), but also when, why and in what ways language is produced (sociolinguistic competence)

Gower et al.(1995, pp.99-100) state the two main aspects of the speaking skill including “accuracy” and “fluency” It is said that accuracy involves the correct use of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation Accuracy if the focus of controlled and guided activities with which students are also encouraged to attempt to use the language items they have learnt in order to communicate accurately Whereas, in Richards et al (1993, pp.141-

142)‟s opinion, fluency refers to the level of communication proficiency which “includes (a) the ability to produce written and/ or spoken language with ease; (b) the ability to speak with

good but not necessarily perfect command of intonation, vocabulary and grammar; (c) the ability to produce continuous speech without causing comprehension difficulties or a breakdown of communication” Gower et al (1995, pp.99-100) describe fluency as “the ability to keep going when speaking spontaneously” In order to get the message across,

language students need to make use of whatever knowledge, resources and ability they have got, regardless of grammatical and other mistakes They also need to employ different strategies such as the use of natural-sounding „incomplete‟ sentences “I went to the cinema last night Did you? With whom?”; the use of common expressions like “I see/ Never mind”; the use of fillers and hesitation devices “Well, let me think/ Let me see”; the use of communication strategies such as for clarification; the ability to paraphrase; the use of useful expressions such as “That reminds me… / By the way,……./ Anyway………/ Strange, really……… ” when finishing with a topic; and “Well I must go./ Nice talking to you.” when finishing a conversation

1.2 Teaching Speaking skill according to CLT Approach

According to Nunan (2003), what is meant by teaching speaking is to teach ESL learners to produce the English speech sounds and sound patterns, to use word and sentence stress, intonation patterns and the rhythm of the second language, to select appropriate words and sentences according to the proper social setting, audience, situation and subject matter, to organize their thoughts in a meaningful and logical sequence, to use language as a means of expressing values and judgments and to use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is called as fluency

Now many linguistics and ESL teachers agree on that students learn to speak in the L2

by interacting Communicative language teaching (CLT) and collaborative learning serve best for this aim CLT is based on real-life situations that require communication By using this method in ESL classes, students will have the opportunity of communicating with each other

in the target language (Kayi, 2006) CLT has been an influential approach for the last decades with the aim of “learn to communicate by communicating” (Larsen-Freeman, 1986, p.131) According to Canale (1983, p.5), communicative competence - the final target of CLT - refers

to “the underlying systems of knowledge and skill required for communication” Moreover,

“communicative competence is the aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and

interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts”

(Brown, 1994a, p.227) The concept of communicative competence is also described in terms

of four dimensions which are grammatical competence (grammatical and lexical capacity), sociolinguistic competence (the ability to understand and produce appropriate language in the social context which the communication happens) and discourse competence (the ability to employ communicative strategies to initiate and redirect communication)

Besides, three key pedagogical principles that developed around CLT were the presentation of language forms in context, the importance of genuine communication and the need for learner-centered teaching Hadfield (1990) suggests that a meaningful use of language over its form means that accuracy and acquisition of the formal features of L2 are less a measure of successful language learning than are fluency and ability to get something across comprehensibly to a native speaker In order to encourage meaningful language use, many communicative activities involve elements of puzzle-solving or simulation

A more successful realization of communicative principles is perhaps found in both content-based and task-based teaching programs Content-based programs involve the teaching of subject matter content in the target language According to Stern (1983), it is closer to the communicative reality of the target language than classroom activities that are only designed to have certain characteristics of natural discourse It also has the potential to

be more motivating of learners given they have a degree of interest in the subject matter While task-based learning is a more resolutely communicative application of CLT principles,

it advocates the use of a syllabus based on communicatively oriented tasks rather than linguistics forms And its aim is to help students to develop the necessary language skills in order to negotiate meaning in various interactions In practice, learners are progressing towards a clear goal by undertaking different kind of language activities or real-word tasks in

classroom settings Crookes (1986, p.1) defines task as “a piece of work or an activity, usually with a specific objective, undertaken as part of an educational course, at work or used to elicit data for research” Long (1985, p.89) seems to hold the same view when he says that

“by task is meant the hundred and one things people do it everyday life, at work, at play and

in between” According to Phillis (1981, p.932), task is “to help the student to acquire appropriate patterns of behaviors” The above definitions state that task-based language

involves realistic communicative language use in which learners are asked to focus on

meaning rather than language structure and gives possibility to acquire “the ability to perform certain communicative functions through a new medium” (Coupland, 1984, p.12)

Task-based teaching is based on learners‟ communicative needs; therefore the use of needs analysis is required Needs analysis helps teachers to define the exact interests and preferences of the target group The information acquired enables the teachers to plan an effective and motivating curriculum, for the interest of the learners Prabhu (1987) suggests three different task-based activity types including information-gap activities (each student has

a part of the total information that they have transferred verbally to each other), reasoning-gap activity (students derive some new information from information through the process of inference, deduction, practical reasoning, or a perception of relationship or patterns) and opinion-gap activity (students are engaged in identifying and articulating a personal preference, feeling or attitude in response to a given situation)

Generally speaking, while participating in task-based or contented-based teaching in CLT approach, learners gain experience how to communicate, solve problems, find out information, organize and present information logically So that the teacher can flexibly pick

up either task-based program or contented-based one or combine both of them in different teaching context

1.3 Communicative activities and features of communicative activities

1.3.1 Communicative activities

Traditional classroom speaking practice often takes the form of drills in which one person asks a question and the other gives an answer The question and the answer are structured and predictable, and often there is only one correct, predetermined answer The purpose of asking and answering the question is to demonstrate the ability to ask and answer the question

In contrast, the purpose of real communication is to accomplish a task, such as conveying a telephone message, obtaining information, or expressing an opinion (National Capital Language Resource Center, nd) In real communication, participants must manage

uncertainty about what the other person will say Authentic communication involves an information gap; each participant has information that the other does not have In addition, to achieve their purpose, participants may have to clarify their meaning or ask for confirmation

of their own understanding So well-prepared communicative activities will contribute to students‟ self-confidence and to their motivation to learn more

Communicative activities, defined by Harmer (1991), are those that give students who are somehow involved in both the desire to communicate and a purpose involving them in a varied use of language Harmer (1991) identifies oral communicative activities into eight categories: reaching consensus, discussion, relaying instructions, communication games, problem solving, talking about you, simulation, and role-play Obviously, communicative activities are varied and the motivating value of each one may not be alike

When applying communicative activities into speaking class, Brown (1994b, p.23)

reminds language teachers of “the eventual success that learners attain in a task is at least partially a factor of their belief that they indeed are fully capable of accomplishing the task”

Therefore, communicative activities must be sequenced from easier to more difficult Moreover, Maehr (1984) points out that certain activities are more motivating and interesting

to students than the others Gagne (1985) states that students‟ motivation to participate in activities is one of important types of motivation, it is essential to consider what kind of activities can enhance students‟ motivation on learning language At the same time, Lawtie (2004, p.1) also strongly believes in the important role of the right activities in speaking class

when arguing that “if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking in class can be

a lot of fun, raising general learner motivation and making the English language classroom a fun and dynamic place to be” Indeed, students need to be provided with activities that they

are interested in solving, and they are most likely to solve them in a supportive, non threatening environment (Sadow, 1982) Classroom activities not only need to be relevant to students, they also need to be interesting and address multiple intelligences and creative thinking As every experienced teacher knows, learners do best at things that interest them (Rubin, 1985) Moskowitz (1978) and Scarcella and Oxford (1992) point out that one of meaningful and interesting activities which can motivate students to learn is so-called self

expression activities (SEA) Students have opportunities to express themselves in these activities

According to Glasser (1985)‟s Control Theory of motivation, everyone is motivated

by the need to satisfy one of five basic needs - survival, belonging, power, freedom, and fun Farris (1990) relates Glasser‟s Control Theory to student needs and possible solutions To satisfy students‟ need to belong, a classroom with an accepting atmosphere should be created, and teaching should be in groups, using cooperative learning strategies To satisfy the need for freedom, Farris suggests involving students in rule-making, providing opportunities for free expression, and encouraging creativity To satisfy the need for power, create a student-centered classroom, and give students choices when possible To satisfy the need for fun, use games and simulations, and encourage students to have a good time learning Basing on the background, SEA as mentioned above will be put under experiment to see whether they can motivate students in speaking class by satisfying some basic needs like belonging, freedom, fun, and power

In order to clarify that communicative activities are effective and motivating, Ur

(1996, p.120) lists out some necessary characteristics of them First, “learners talk a lot”

which means as much as possible of period of time allotted to the activity is in fact occupied

by learners‟ talk Second, “participation is even” In other words, classroom discussion is not

dominated by a minority of talkative students: all get a chance to speak, and contributions are

evenly distributed Next, “motivation is high” which can be understood that learners are eager

to speak because they are interested in the topics and have something new to say about it, or

because they want to contribute to achieving a task objective Finally, “language is of an acceptable level” It means that learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant,

easily comprehensible to each other, and of an acceptable level of language accuracy

Harmer (1999) adds that communicative activities must have some communicative objectives that students must try to achieve since the most important part of any communication is a desire to communicate and a purpose to achieve The aim of communicative activities is to encourage purposeful and meaningful interaction between or among studenG23

ts They are designed to provide students with a reason or a purpose for speaking By successfully doing so, students are likely to try utmost to bridge the information and opinion gap, ask for or find out their fellow students‟ opinion, or give necessary information

In brief, communicative activities perform a very important role in language learning, especially in learning to speak It does help to improve students‟ motivation so it is necessary

to understand the overwhelming advantages of some oral activities over the others in terms of motivation and interestingness

1.3.2 Features of communicative activities

As mentioned above, to provide students with motivating and interesting activities, the understanding of features of successful communicative activities is a necessity The features summarized by Nation (1989) include roles, outcomes, procedures, split information and challenges They aim to fulfill two tasks, one of which is to assist the achievement of the learning goal and the other is to arouse more motivation and engagement in the activity

The use of roles has certain impact on the learning goal as roles allow and encourage

the use of language, which is difficult or sometimes even impossible to be made happen in

classroom situation Roles also help to generate more participation and involvement Nation (1989) points out that if roles are not in use, it would be difficult to sustain interest for long

He also adds that in discussion students could be given responsibilities to suggest solutions, summarize others‟ views or disagree with certain students It means that students are provided chances to express their different opinions on discussion This promises a lot of interesting surprises and fun

Another characteristic of communicative activities is the outcome, which gives the

activities themselves a clear sense of purpose and thus generates more interest Basic outcomes listed by Nation (1989) are direction providing, ranking, ordering or implication choosing and listing, causes or uses, matching, classifying, distinguishing and data gathering

The others are problem solving and material producing

The third feature of speaking activities is procedure, which helps to divide them into

steps This is expected to bring about more participation in the tasks and typical example

could be a pyramid discussion, in which students are first paired up to work out one solution

or completion, then grouped into a larger group and finally required to work with the whole class

Spilt information is another feature of oral activities Lying at the heart of

communication is the exchange of information and when the information is split either evenly

or unevenly among the learners communication must be attempted to obtain what each participant needs

Challenges, as the name suggests, is the feature aiming at making the activities more

demanding and thus more interesting They all have game-like quality to lessen stress if it

happens to occur due to the challenges and ensure more interest and involvement Challenges

could be competition, limitation of time or quantity, memory and hidden solution

To conclude, communicative activities could be characterized with five above categories According to Nation (1989), the employment of one or a flexible combination of some or all features could help teachers to improve the speaking activities or to create new ones

1.4 Problems with speaking activities

Classroom activities that develop learners‟ ability to express themselves through speech are an important component of a language course where CLT is applied However, it is more difficult to design and administer such activities than to do so for listening, reading or

writing According to Ur (1996, p.121), teachers often come across the following problems:

* The first is “inhibition” It is explained that unlike reading, writing and listening activities, speaking requires some degree of real-time exposure to an audience Learners are often inhabited about trying to say something in a foreign language in the classroom because they are worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts

* Nothing to say is the second problem Teachers often hear learners complain they can not think of anything to say They may have no motivation to express themselves beyond

the guilty feeling that they should be speaking The problem is also mentioned by Lawtie (2004) and it is necessary to be tackled

* Moreover, uneven or low participation is among the teachers‟ obstacles Only one participant can talk at a time if he or she is to be heard In a large group, this means that each one has only very little time for talking This problem is compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate the group, while the others speak very little or not at all

* Last but not least, mother-tongue use is also problematic When all, or a number of the learners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it This happens because it is easier, because it is unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language and because or because learners feel less „exposed‟ if they are speaking their mother tongue Lawtie (2003, p.2) also states that the problem would happen if the task or activity is not “pitched at the right level for the students” If the language is pitched too high they may revert to their first language, likewise if the task is too easy they may get bored and revert to the first language, too

To deal with the problems, Lawtie (2004) believes that as a teacher maybe you need to take a closer look at the type of speaking activities in order to make the activities interesting enough to capture students‟ interest and create a real need for communication

In a word, overcoming these obstacles in speaking class to create successful speaking activities where learners talk a lot, participation is even and motivation is high certainly Requires a lot of teachers‟ efforts in designing and carrying out speaking activities

2 Group work

The EFL literature indicate that to improve our students' speaking skill, we must reducing learner anxiety and ensuring meaningful communicative exchanges in the classroom And group work is one of the valuable techniques can help achieve the above goals for the purpose of fostering speaking ability Group work can create a comfortable atmosphere and

the intimate community necessary for learners to take risks in speaking

2.1 Definition of group work

Rod Killen (2004) indicades that 'Group work occurs when you ask two or more students to work together.' Davis (1993) sorts out three types of group work which are called

: informal learning groups, formal learning groups, and study teams

Informal learning groups are ad hoc temporary clusterings of students within a single

class session Informal learning groups can be initiated, for example, by asking students to turn to a neighbor and spend two minutes discussing a question you have posed You can also form groups of three to five to solve a problem or pose a question You can organize informal groups at any time in a class of any size to check on students' understanding of the material, to give students an opportunity to apply what they are learning, or to provide a change of pace

Formal learning groups are teams established to complete a specific task, such as

perform a lab experiment, write a report, carry out a project, or prepare a position paper These groups may complete their work in a single class session or over several weeks Typically, students work together until the task is finished, and their project is graded

Study teams are long-term groups (usually existing over the course of a semester) with

stable membership whose primary responsibility is to provide members with support, encouragement, and assistance in completing course requirements and assignments Study teams also inform their members about lectures and assignments when someone has missed a session The larger the class and the more complex the subject matter, the more valuable study teams can be

2.2 Group size

It seems prudent to keep groups as small as possible to promote positive interdependence, yet as large as necessary to provide sufficient diversity of opinions and backgrounds as well as resources to get the job done The size of groups formed is directly dependent on the activity to be pursued and the length of time the group will stay together Typically, for in-lecture informal activities, group size is often kept small (in the range of two

to four students) since larger groups have insufficient time to become cohesive In contrast, a

complex semester long project may require the resources of a larger group (four to six students) and there is enough time for the group to become effective

2.3 Group work activities

There are some activities for group work activities:

2.4 The advantages of group work

The literature argues that group work creates and comfortable atmosphere and the initiate community necessary for learners to take risk in speaking So, how can group work reduce anxiety, increase communication, and thus, foster greater speaking atmosphere? Koichi (2003) points out that group work allows students to take the initiative in controlling their communicative activities, thus, reducing anxiety, facilitating responsibility, creating communitive, and smoothing progress of fluency as a result Above all, group work with fewer students than a whole class as one large group, create an intimate atmosphere

A second, related, benefit is that group work creates a sense of security As discussed, students are afraid of looking silly in front of the other students though they have a desire to improve their English However, once they are in a small group, where they realize their peers feel the same, Doyon (2000) believes that there is a tendency for students to use more

of their target language Nimmannit (1998) offers another analysis of why students feel

secure in group work: ‘they [individual students] will not be the only ones to shoulder the blame or to lose face if they answer incorrectly’

The third advantage of group work is that it allows students to participate more and to

do so more actively Tsui (2001) and Lee (1999) find that „group work provides more opportunities for learners to initiate and control the interaction, to produce a much larger variety of speech acts and to engage in the negotiation to meaning’ and that ‘being responsible for their peers’ learning in a group makes students more active’

To sum up, it is clear from the literature that group work offers potential advantages which the teacher-centered class lacks: a friendly community, a relaxed atmosphere with a sense of security ; and a more active and responsible attitude with more opportunities to speak out

2.5 Some problems and suggested solutions in utilizing group work

Besides the aforesaid advantages, we must be realistic and assume that there might be some problems Killen (2006) suggests that it is common to have difficulties associated with clarifying the goals of the groups, interactions within the groups, or motivations or emotions

of group members He introduces Tiberius (1990) idea about the most common problems that

we may encounter and some solutions when implementing group work These are:

- Some students may be more interested in talking about other things than becoming involved in the group work This may result from irrelevant activities or uninteresting topic

To avoid it, teachers should plan carefully to make sure that the group work is relevant and interesting for the students and they have been adequately prepared for it Besides, teachers should make sure that their expectations clear to students and occasionally speak quietly to individual student to bring them back on task

- One student may assume a dominant role in a group, either because she/ he wants to lead or because the other students in the group are reluctant to participate This problem could be solved by developing the students‟ communication skills and by establishing clear guidelines for how groups are to operate By doing this we could encourage our students to participate as equals However, this takes lots of time to solve the problem, to help students how to learn from the others

Sometimes, it is useful to make the dominant student the group leader, but with a clear guideline about the leader‟s role

- On most occasions when we use small-group work we will want our students to come to some conclusions which might be difficult However, it is necessary to explain to them that reaching conclusions is a process of making promises and that it is an important part of working together

2.6 Successfully implementing group work: Tips

However, effective group work in the classroom does not occur automatically Indeed, group work requires teachers‟ carefully involvement to be successful The teachers‟ job begins with the planning and preparation for the group work activity There are three requirements that the teachers must be aware of for the group work activity to be successful Great care, preparation, and thought on the part of the teacher are required to address these requirements:

- it is necessary for students to be well- prepared for negotiating

- it is necessary for their task to be open-ended

- it is necessary for their task to require discussion and cooperation of students

(Leki, 2001) Hoekje adds to Leki‟s another requirement: it is necessary for teachers to inform students of the importance of group work That means students need to know the advantages

of group work or “They may feel that the English spoken by other students and themselves is mistake-ridden and not worth listen to” (Hyde, 1993)

The second important tip is the teachers‟ centre role in the actual implementation of group work That is, once an activity begins, teachers‟ circulation from group to group is critical, a technique by which the teachers can signal their accessibility This accessibility is indepensible for students to be motivated, because students‟ recognition of the helpfulness of this activity depends on teachers‟ error correction and suggestions, which can provided only if the teacher circulates among the group (Hoekji, 1993) The second role of the teacher during the activity is to assign roles to each member of the group

A third consideration that the teacher needs to keep in mind to make group work successful is to arrange for frequent group change Maclnyre, et al (1988) identify variables such as learner personality, intergroup climate, and intergroup motivation as among various causes which can affect students‟ involvement in group activities Hyde (1993) adds that students sometimes obliged to share activities with classmates who do not want to talk to, and that some students do not pay attention to what their peer says, insisting on their own

judgments and that ‘this unhappy experience may well becoming something of a nightmare if regular changing was not to occur in class’

CHAPTER II: THE RESEARCH

1 The context

1.1 The first year students

All the students in the target class were admitted to the college after the entrance examination to university Although most of them had to study English at the secondary schools and had to take an English test in their final exams but they do not have the same level at English Furthermore, they are all considered to be the new men in the subject and have to study a set of textbooks from the elementary level Therefore, better students do not encounter many difficulties in getting acquanted with the new textbook and new teaching methods, whereas the other students seem to get difficulties in learning English according to the new textbook These students mostly keep silent in English lessons

1 2 The textbook

The main textbook for the first year students is Market Leader-Elementary It includes

10 units with different topics which relate to business The teachers have to cover the textbook in 40 periods with 50 minutes for each period

1 3 The context of teaching

Covering all the content of the textbook during the class hour is impossible for the teacher Therefore, they have to omit some simple parts and use them as students' homework

to focus on the main issues of the units However, speaking tasks are never left out Most of the teachers pay a lot of attention to help their students to complete the speaking activities in the textbook

2 Methodology

2.1 The participants

- Semi- structured interview

- The groups' secretaries notes

2.2.1 Teacher's observation

Along with the semi- structured interview, classroom observation was also done to collect data for the study The observation covered the classroom procedures as well as the students‟ behavior and performance in the speaking lessons During the research period, the

reseacher acted as a non-participant observer and her observation was noted down in the

teaching journals after each lesson

2.2.3 The groups' secretaries' records

After the first circle, the groups' secretaries had to take records of the students' use of Vietnamese before and after intervening activities

2.3 Data analysis and reflection

The data analysis procedures in two cycles was the same The data for analysis was collected from the teacher's observation and post-treatment interviews

The data collected during first two pre-interventing activities were used to define the reasons for the problems

The data on 4 activities (2 activities before intervention and 2 activities after intervention) were systemised, compared and analysed The data was interpreted to show the differences of students' particiapation (cycle 1) and the overuse of Vietnames (cycle 2)

3 Action research process

To get more knowledge and suggestions, the researcher did literature Then, a new set

of teaching strategies that helped to solve the problems was conducted This set based on the main reasons she found in the literature

5 Data collection

To collect the data about the effects of the taken strategies, the researcher used teacher's observation , follow-up interview and the groups' secretaries notes

6 Data analysis and reflection

The collected data about two pre-intervention and two post- intervention activities was systemized and compared with each other With the results I reached the conclusion on whether the strategies taken were effective or not

The new problems which were discovered through teacher's observation and follow-up interview would be the starting point for the next cycle

3.1 Cycle one

3.1.1 Initiation

During the speaking lessons, I recognized that the class seemed quiet Most of the students just talked if they were asked by the teacher Few of them seemed more active However, their paticipations in the speaking activities were not frequent

3.1.2 Preliminary investigation

A questionaire was conducted to find out what caused the silience in the speaking lessons The questions focused on the importance of speaking skills and what prevented them from joining speaking activities

* The students' attitude to the subject

Most of the students were interested in speaking skill They thought that it was important and wanted to get some improvements in it

* The obstacles that prevent students from speaking

- The students' characteristics: there were the students who were shy, and worried about about making mistakes, being criticised or losing face in front of the rest of the class

- The unfamiliar topics: there were some particular topics that they thought were unrelated to anything they know This demotivated students to speak

- The dominance of some students: some students talked more than the others They kept interrupting the teacher and hardly ever gave the chances to speak to the timid students These students made it difficult for the more reserved students to express themself

3.1.3 Hypothesis

From these analysis, I found the following main reasons that led to the frequent silience in the speaking lessons:

1 Students were reserved and being worried about losing face

2 There were no clear rules in speaking lessons

3 The topics were complicated

4 Some students dominated the class

3.1.4 Intervention

Basing on the reasons found, I decided to try out some solutions for the problems

* For reason 1: where students were reserved and being worried about losing face,

they were asked to work in 5 permanent groups during the speaking lessons

* For reason 2: There were no clear rules in speaking lessons, the students were

asked to followed the rules for working in group

- All members had to contribute to the group

- For each turn, student could give one idea of things only If anyone had more than one idea, s/he had to wait for the next turn

- Cirles of voices: The turn order was not fixed in a circle providing that all group members participated in the group work

* For reason 3: The tasks were complicated for some reserved students

Because the speaking topics were considered fixed in the textbook and were also the requirements of the course syllable, the teacher could not choose new ones Therefore, to help students to get familiar to the target topics, essential vocabulary was pre-taught and/or reviewed before students worked in their own small groups

* For reason 4: The dominance of some strong students

To control the dominant students, I did the following tasks:

- Private talking: I talked to the these students that I valued their active

participation in the speaking lessons And I would highly appriciate if they could help other group members to speak out

- Role assigning: The dominant students were chosen to be group leaders and

secretaries with clear tasks in order to keep them quiet in a period of time

- The group leaders: I ensure that the group completed the task and all group members had their turns

- Secretaries are responsible for recording group decisions and the names of the contributers

3.1.5 Data collection

The two post- intervening activities were observed from 2 angles:

- The teacher's observation

- The follow-up interview

3.1.6 Data analysis and reflection

3.1.6.1 The teacher's observation

* Students‟ attitude changed: they became more attentive and enthusiastic to speaking

*Students had more time and opportunities to practice English in the class

Before the intervention, only some students spoke These were the ones who created the language atmosphere in the speaking lessons The rest just kept silent and listened However, they have now changed When sitting together in smaller 'class' of 5 students, it seemed that they felt more confident to speak out, they speak more

* The newly arising problems

The more active class also meant a more noisy class The students sometimes became excited And when walking round the class, I recognised that they used English when I was somewhere nearby, and they used Vietnamese when I was far away from them

3.1.6.2 The follow-up interview

A set of 7 questions were asked to find out the students' attitudes to group work and how effective it was in reducing students' anxiety and encouraging real communication in speaking class

* Students' attitudes to group work

Most of them liked working in groups in speaking lessons They agreed that group work activities created a positive effective climate They felt more relaxed to talk in smaller group than in front of the teacher or the whole class 5 students said that they did not feel as anxious as they had before 21 students were more confident to express themselves

* Effectiveness of group work

All students said they obeyed the rules seriously They also added that they got their chance to speak Dominant students knew how to control themselves to let shy students give their opinions Timid students also had chance to speak A more equal participation in group work activities was created

They also added that the group secretaries' mentioning the speakers' names in records had a very good effect on their learning behaviour The weak students were encouraged to talk and

in fact could talk more The strong students were still dominant in groups but now they helped others with words or correcting e mistakes

When being asked about the role of the group leaders and secretaries, 20 students thought that they did not really need these positions According to them, the leaders did not do more work than other members in the group The leaders also had to obey the rules (like others), so they could give their opinions when their turns came They also did not have to remind other's of their turns as they were all sure about this Besides, some secretaties slowed down the speed of group activities as it took time for to record the group ideas and attract the others' attention to their writing up

For the questions about the group division, they all said that they liked to work in a mixed- ability groups The main reason for this option was that in these types of groups, the stronger students could help the weaker ones, the weakers could get more motivation to speak, and had chance to learn from their partners

However, there were some complaints about problems that arising from group work: the class was noisy as some students became overexcited; some students did not really want to take part in group work; they did not really listen to each other attentively as being busy with thinking about ideas they were going to give when their turns came, and they used Vietnamese to talk about the topic given and talked away

In summary, the problems in speaking lessons that the reasearcher found were that students kept silent; they did not want to participate in speaking activeities; some better students dominated the class which led to unparticipation After using group work, these problems have been solve partly The above conducted strategies made quite good effects: students wanted to talk more, better students helped the weaker ones and the atmosphere in the class was more „active‟