A study on applying Group work to increase quality and quantity of language use at High School for Gifted Students = Nghiên cứu về việc áp dụng hoạt động nhóm n

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES    TRAN QUYNH HUONG A STUDY ON APPLYING GROUP WORK TO INCREASE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

   TRAN QUYNH HUONG

A STUDY ON APPLYING GROUP WORK TO INCREASE QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF STUDENTS’ LANGUAGE USE AT HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC ÁP DUNG HOẠT ĐỘNG NHÓM NHẰM TĂNG CƯỜNG VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TIẾNG ANH Ở TRƯƠNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG

CHUYÊN SƯ PHẠM- ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM HÀ NỘI

MINOR M.A THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10

Hà Nội - 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

   TRAN QUYNH HUONG

A STUDY ON APPLYING GROUP WORK TO INCREASE QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF STUDENTS’ LANGUAGE USE AT HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC ÁP DUNG HOẠT ĐỘNG NHÓM NHẰM TĂNG CƯỜNG VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TIẾNG ANH Ở TRƯƠNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG

CHUYÊN SƯ PHẠM- ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM HÀ NỘI

Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.14.10

Supervisor: Do Thi Mai Thanh

Hà Nội - 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION

(1) Rationale for the study………1

(2) Aims of the study ………2

(3) Scope of the study ……… 2

(4) Methods of the study ……… 3

(5) An overview of the rest of the paper ……… 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT……… 6

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW……… 6

1.1 Group work in the History of ELT……… 6

1.2 Concept of group work ……….……… 9

1.2.1 Group ……….…….9

1.2.2 Group work ……… …10

1.3 Classification of group work ……… 10

1.4 Advantages and disadvantages of Group work ……… 11

1.5 Features of a good group work ……… 12

1.5.1 Positive Interdependence……… 13

1.5.2 Individual and group accountability ……….14

1.5.3 Face to face promotive interaction ……… 15

1.5.4 Interpersonal and small group skills ……….15

1.5.5 Group Processing ……… 16

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY ……… 17

2.1 Data collection ……… 17

2.1.1 Participants ……… 17

2.1.2 Data collection instruments ……….……… 17

2.1.2.1 Questionnaire ………17

2.1.2.2 Interview ……… 18

2.1.3 Data collection procedure ……… 18

2.2 Data analysis ……….19

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION………21

3.1 Research question 1……… 21

3.2 Research question 2 ……… 22

3.2.1 Students‟ cooperation in Group activities in class ………… 22

3.2.2 Students‟ Communicative proficiencies after Group work… 28

3.3 Research question 3 ……… 30

PART C: CONCLUSION ……… ……….32

1 Recapitulation……… ……… ……… 32

2 Pedagogical suggestions ……… 33

3 Limitations of the study ……… 35

4 Suggestions for further studies ……… 36

5 Contribution of the research ……… 36 REFERENCES

APPENDICES

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Frequency of Group work ……… …… 21 Figure 2 Overall picture of group members‟ accountability ……… 24 Figure 3 Students‟ accountability to Group work………24 Figure 4 Students‟ improvement in Group work skill……… 27 Figure 5 Students improvement in separate skills after GW……….28

PART A: INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the problem and the rationale for the study, together with the aims, objectives and the scope of the whole paper are clearly stated and explained Above all, this chapter also builds the research questions to work as clear guidelines for the whole research

1 Rationale for the study:

According to the statistics issued by the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training in 2003, English was widely chosen by 98.5% of Vietnamese secondary students as their foreign language This enormous proportion, however, reflects the considerable demand for English rather than the quality

of language learning and teaching itself In fact, English teaching and learning in Vietnam have confronted a number of obstacles, one of which is identified by as students‟ low motivation and limited opportunities to practise communicating in the target language

Michael, H, L & Patricia, A P., (1985) declared that “the use of group work in classroom second language learning has been supported by sound pedagogical arguments” (p.207) In other words, no one can deny the effectiveness of group work in language teaching Therefore, following this educational trend, teachers and professors are trying to extensively exploit group work in teaching with the aim of “promoting communicative language skills for the largest number of students in class” (Shevin et al., 1994, cited

by Richard & Roger, 2001) However, in our country, Grammar translation methods have been applied in language learning for many years, which leads

to students‟ limited group work, presentation skills and inactive learning

principles This, in fact, turns out to be a challenge for the applied group work to achieve their original intentions Thus whether these Group activities can reach their intentional effectiveness is still a big question mark for not only the educationists but also the authority

Students who directly take part in those group activities can help answer this question Inspired by this fact, the researcher decides to conduct

“A study on applying Group work to enhance quality and quantity of language use in High School for Gifted Students”

2 Aims of the study:

This study is conducted to figure out how often group work is conducted in classes of High school for Gifted Students In addition, the research is expected to investigate into the effectiveness of Group work in language classroom With these two aims, this research is carried on to fulfill the following research questions:

1 How are group activities applied in English lessons?

2 How effective is the group work applied in English lessons?

3 What are the solutions to improve group work activities in English classes?

3 Scope of the study

First of all, both quality and quantity of language use which students can enhance after Group work activities in class are too broad for this small- scaled research; therefore, this study does not cover all the features of group

work but only the most important features in the light of Cooperative learning which can help group work foster cooperation among students to get the highest benefits

Second, this study plays a role of collecting and analyzing the feedback from students, who directly work with Group work for further study in the future

Last but not least, it is noteworthy that the samples of the study were restricted to classes of only one senior secondary school in Hanoi, namely High school for Gifted Students Nevertheless, the students would be deliberately chosen so that the survey results would be as highly representative of the whole picture of language learning and teaching as possible

4 Methodology of the study:

4.1 Data collection methods:

The combination of the two data collecting methods: qualitative and quantitative and the one of two data collecting instruments: questionnaire and interview were fully employed in this study Going into more detailed, a set of questionnaire was delivered to 276 students

so that the data would be collected from different viewpoints Moreover, after this survey, some semi-structured interviews were applied to get further information from 6 students who had finished the questionnaires in the previous stage All of the participants here would

be chosen in light of the „stratified random sampling‟ with the aim of

varying the data of different kinds of students

As for the procedure, the set of questionnaire was distributed to students to see whether the textbook content can meet students‟ needs and levels Then, after collecting the surveying data, the interview questions were revised to ask for more information which had not been clearly stated in the questionnaire Then, the in-depth interviews would

be applied to get further information of those students

4.2 Data analysis methods:

The collected data were utilised to answer all three research questions

Then, for each research question, data would be summarized into tables and charts to facilitate the synthesis and generalization of the data In addition, the most important details in the semi-interview were clearly quoted to illustrate the analysis of data

5 An overview of the rest of the paper

The rest of the paper includes five chapters as follows:

Chapter 2 – Literature review – provides the background of the study, including definitions of key concepts, description of the context of applying group work and discussions of related studies

Chapter 3 – Methodology – describes the participants and instruments

of the study, as well as the procedure employed to carry out the research

Chapter 4 – Data analysis and discussion – presents, analyzes and discusses the findings that the researcher found out from the data collected according to the two research questions

Chapter 5 – Conclusion – summarizes the main issues discussed in the paper, the limitations of the research, several suggestions for group work adaptation and further studies Following this chapter are the Bibliography and Appendices

Summary

In this part, the researcher has elaborated on these following points:

1 Rationale for the study

2 Aims and objectives of the study

3 Scope of the study

4 Methodology of the study

5 An overview of the rest of the paper

To sum up, these elaborations have not only justified the major contents and structure of the study but will also work as the guidelines for the rest of the paper

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This second chapter is totally devoted to the literature review, especially to the key concepts and related studies to the research topic At first, the overall picture of background is provided with some key concepts

of group work in details At the mean time, related studies from all over the world in general and in countries in particular are deeply analyzed to illustrate the concepts more clearly

1.1 Group work in the history of ELT:

It is common knowledge that not until the emergence of Communicative Language Teaching was Group work applied to teaching language in class However, in fact, Group work has been taken use of in different versions since the early stage of Language Teaching Method with a typical representative, Grammar Translation Method

According to Richard J C & Rodgers, T S., (2001), even before English totally overthrew Latin to become the international language in the early 19th century, the Grammar Translation Method had become a standard and dominant approach in Language Teaching “Grammar Translation Method is a way of studying a language that approaches the language first through detailed analysis of its grammar rules, followed by application of this knowledge to the task of translating sentences and texts into and out of the target language.” (Richard & Rodgers, 2001) Although this method focuses on widening linguistic knowledge “about the Language not the

language itself” (p.5) for individual students, some original version of Group work was still recognized during class hours from the observation of Nadz DisiNi (2010) when “A student read out loud “when did Mark Twain live?” Another student replied “Mark Twain lived from 1835 to 1910” and after that students come back to “work quietly by themselves” This example reveals the fact that role- playing structure- based dialogues are one common technique in Grammar Translation Method, which laid the foundation for Group work in the next stage of ELT history

The mid and late nineteenth century witnessed a “Revolution” or Reform Movement in terms of Language teaching Method Grammar Translation Method gradually lost its initial position and was replaced by many other alternative approaches and methods Among these alternative approaches was Audio-lingual Method that officially emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century According to Richards & Rodgers (2001), Audio-lingual Method “advocated aural training first, then pronunciation training, followed by speaking, reading and writing” and language is almost studied through extensive repetition only It is that repetitive learning technique that led to some “working together in Chorus”

of students “the dialog is read in chorus, one half saying one speaker‟s part and the other half responding” (Richard & Rodgers, 2001, p 64- 65) However, these kinds of activities are also just considered as another origin

of Group work not Group work itself because there was actually little cooperation among group members

It was not until the appearance of Communicative Language teaching (CLT) that Group work was officially declared as an essential teaching method to achieve the goal of language teaching, which now focuses on

developing “Communicative competence” for students In the light of this approach, English classrooms transformed from “teacher- centered” to

“learner- centered”, in which “students are expected to interact primarily with each other than with teacher” (Richard & Rodgers, 2001, p 166) In stead of following the assigned structures, students working in groups could participate into the actual interaction which “often involves negotiation of information and information sharing” (Richard & Rodgers, 2001, p.165) It

is CLT that laid the stable foundation for the group work in English teaching methods but its alternative approach “Cooperative learning” was exactly the first approach to emphasize on the importance of Group work

According to To et al (2008), Cooperative learning “stresses “team work” as the nature of the classroom and emphasizes cooperation as opposed

to competition” (p 55) This definition demonstrated the nature of

“cooperative learning” when opposing it to “competition” With the similar way of creating concept of Cooperative learning, Roger T & David W J (1988) make a comparison among three ways of students‟ interaction including “competition” when “they can compete to see who is "best"”,

“individualistic”; they can work individualistically on their own toward a goal without paying attention to other students; and “cooperative” when

“they can work cooperatively with a vested interest in each other's learning

as well as their own.” These two explanations shared the same strategies of defining “cooperative learning” through its alternatives “competitive and individual learning” in order to figure out the most outstanding features For

a more correct and comprehensive definition of this term, the researcher would like to introduce the definition of cooperative learning by Johnson et

al (1998) which directly specified its three main features 1 “shared goals”

when all the members of groups work together to achieve one shared goal, 2 equal outcomes to everyone which means “beneficial to themselves and beneficial to all other group members”, 3 “the instructional use of small groups” This definition was proved to be the most successful way of defining Cooperative learning, which could cover almost all of its important features in a very brief and logical way In sum, despite the differences in defining “cooperative learning”, none of these definitions can deny the essential and indispensable role of “group work” in teaching English in the modern times

1.2 Concept of group work

1.2.1 Group

In turning to the concept of Group work, it is very necessary to demonstrate what is meant by Group itself While there are very different ways of defining Group, it is worthwhile looking through a definition which takes it back to the basics Oxford Dictionary (the 6th edition) defines

“Group means a number of people or things that are together in the same place that are connected in some way” (p 568) This definition merely reflects two main features of Group “together” and “connected in some way” What it is meant by “some way” depends much on the purpose of forming that group Based on the objective of Cooperative Learning “to develop communicative competence through socially structured interaction activities” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001), students in an English language teaching class are connected through their studying process to achieve educational goals In order to understand more about Group in education, it

is necessary to consider the definitions of Group work in the following part

In the light of Cooperative learning which is “designed to foster cooperation rather than competition” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001), the most important feature of Group work is to be designed as a teaching technique to

“make group members cooperative” (Jacobs, G M & Ball, J., 1996, p 99)

In other words, the prerequisite of a successful group work is it has to be a cooperative one

1.3 Classification of group work

In terms of Group work duration, Johnson et al (1994, cited by Richard

& Rodger, 2001) divided Group work into three main types: 1 Formal

Cooperative learning groups which “last from one class period to several weeks”, 2 Informal cooperative learning groups which “last from a few minutes to a class period”, 3 Cooperative base groups which “last for at least one year and consist of heterogeneous learning groups with stable membership”

In terms of tasks used in group, Long (1990, cited by Jacobs & Ball, 1996) classified group work into: Closed and Open tasks Closed tasks are those which often require “predetermined correct answer or small set of answers” while in Open tasks, “there is no correct answers” In his book, Long asserted that the Close tasks enhanced cooperation among students than the Open ones because students would try their best to discuss with the aim of finding out the best answer without concerning about the other alternatives

1.4 Advantages and Disadvantages of Group work

In spite of being regarded as an indispensable teaching technique in Language Teaching, group work still consists of both strengths and weaknesses as others

Firstly, coming into details about the advantages of group activities in class, Jacobs & Ball (1994) cited five benefits: “increase quantity of students‟ language use, enhanced quality of the language that students use, more opportunities to individualize instruction, less threatening environment

to use language; and greater motivation for learning” Similarly, “increase students‟ talking time, mimic real English conversations, create more secure and positive classroom atmosphere, and give more fun” are 4 main

advantages of group work in class which are stated by Linda Martine in her research (2005) To sum up, almost all of the research shared the same

opinion about advantages of Group work, especially more time to communicate, increased language use, increased authentic tasks and securer environment which could motivate students in studying

However, there still exist some disadvantages when students work in groups Linda Martin (2005) listed out three shortcomings of Group work in her research: students will speak in L1; teacher may lose control of the class;

it can not help students through their university entrance exam Due to the fact that her surveying population, Japanese students and Vietnamese ones have common in cultural and learning environment, these results seem to be similar to what are happening in our country However, these shortcomings are more of specification in certain situations but can not cover all the common features in general Bridging this gap, Henry Picciotto (2002) stated that group work prevented keeping records of students, lacking accountability in homework (who do the job) His conclusion not only generalized the shortcomings of Group work in class but also guaranteed the validity of the following part “features of a good Group work”

1.5 Features of an Effective Group work:

As stated in the previous part, group work can offer not only numerous advantages but also disadvantages to the studying process Therefore, only

“work in groups” or “work together” can not help students get their highest benefits because “There is a difference between "having students work in a group" and structuring students to work cooperatively” (Roger et al., 1988,

p 3) In other words, in the light of Cooperative Language Learning, making

group work cooperative or fostering cooperation in group work sets the first foundation for the success of group work in learning process

According to Johnson et al (1998), there are 5 criteria for a group work

to foster cooperation including positive interdependence, individual and group accountability, face-to-face promotive interaction, interpersonal and small group skills, and group processing

1.5.1 Positive interdependence:

In terms of defining “positive interdependence”, there are various concepts taken full use of in many studies, among which Dr Spencer Kagan‟s one is considered to give the most detailed information by defining

“positive” and “interdependence” separately With the eyes of a linguist, Dr Kagan (1999) deduced that “positive” in “positive interdependence” meant positive correlation in the outcomes “Our outcomes go up or down together” This positive correlation in outcomes helped students

“spontaneously tutor each other and encourage each other” (Kagan, S., 1999) As a result, all the students can study and get some knowledge from working together Similarly, “interdependence” in the term “positive interdependence” is defined as “lack of independence in the outcomes” (Kagan, S., 1999) or lack of the situations when students can work independently without cooperating with each other to reach their goals In conclusion, Dr Kagan states that positive interdependence “drives cooperation” and is the principle or prerequisite for the success of group work

Although Dr Kagan‟s definition gives the most detailed information about positive interdependence, the most common concept which has been cited by many researchers in different linguistic research comes from Johnson et al (1998) “Positive interdependence is linking students together

so one cannot succeed unless all group members succeed Group members have to know that they sink or swim together.” This definition shares the same opinion with the previous one when focusing on the most typical feature of Positive Interdependence: students have to work together or “sink

or swim together” to achieve success

1.5.2 Individual and group accountability:

Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (the 6th

edition) defines

“accountability” or “accountable” as “responsible for your decisions or actions and expected to explain them when you are asked” (p 9) Individual and group have opposite meanings “individual is a person considered separately rather than a part of group” (p 661) and “group is a number of people or things that are connected in some ways” (p 568) However, they

do not compete with each other especially in this situation of cooperative group work as acknowledged by Johnson et al (1998) that “The group must

be accountable for achieving its goals and each member must be accountable for contributing his or her share of the work” Group accountability aims to foster the cooperation among group members while the Individual accountability “exists when the performance of each individual is assessed and the results are given back to the group and the individual in order to ascertain who needs more assistance, support, and encouragement in learning.” (Johnson et al, 1998) The key here is Individual accountability

not only fosters the cooperation in group work but also makes each member

a stronger individual in his/her own way

1.5.3 Face to face promotive interaction:

The third element of a cooperative group work is “Promotive interaction, preferably Face- to- Face.” (Johnson et al, 1998) “Promote” in group work “has a very close meaning to encourage: to help something to develop or increase” (Oxford Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary, the 6th

edition,

p 1014) In cooperative learning, “promotive interaction” among students means helping each other, which often includes “peer tutoring, temporary assistance, exchanges of information and material, challenging of each other's reasoning, feedback, and encouragement to keep one another highly motivated.” (Biehler, 1997 cited from Houghton Mifflin‟s website) Investigating into the features of this element, Biehler discerns that “Face to face promotive interaction” evolves from positive interdependence “This element is made necessary by the existence of positive interdependence” (Biehler, 1997 cited from Houghton Mifflin‟s website) In other words, Face

to face promotive interaction originates from Positive interdependence but it actually happens only in the working process of group work

1.5.4 Interpersonal and small group skills

Differing from these three previous elements, “interpersonal skills” are not a requirement for the group work itself but for the students or the participants of group work to gain after taking part in Group activities As explained by Johnson et al (1998) “Social skills must be taught to students just as purposefully and precisely as academic skills.” because these small

group skills can help empower students to manage both teamwork and task work successfully in the future

1.5.5 Group Processing

The last principle for a successful cooperative group work fits in the stage after group works‟ completion In so many words, in order to achieve their goals, students are expected to maintain “the careful analysis of how members are working together and determining how group effectiveness can

be enhanced.” (Johnson et al., 1998, p 4) According to (Johnson et al.,

2006, cited by NDSL from http://serc.carleton.edu/) group processing plays the role of evaluating or reflecting on “how well group members are achieving their goals and maintaining effective working relationships among themselves” Students have duty to sit down after the Group work evaluating their own performances as well as the whole Group performance for a positive improvement in the future cooperation

Summary:

In this chapter, by providing the key concepts of Group work, and features of a good Group work in the light of Cooperative Learning, the researcher has created a theoretical background about the research problem Moreover, the researcher‟ deeper investigation into international related studies helps guarantee the validity of all these concepts and definitions

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

The previous chapter has provided the basic theoretical background for the paper Continuing the line, this chapter underlines the practicality of the research by presenting the method by which it was carried out In details, this method is discussed through four sub headings, namely data collection and data analysis

2.1 Data collection

2.1.1 Participants:

As mentioned in the Literature Review Chapter, students are considered the most suitable researching populations who directly work with Group activities in class Therefore, 316 students from these three schools were chosen under the light of “Stratified random Method” to answer the Questionnaire In the next step, an in- depth interview was conducted for 6 students who had just finished the Questionnaire in order

to confirm the results

2.1.2 Data collection instruments:

My research was carried out under a combination of the two data collection instruments: the questionnaire and the interview

2.1.2.1 Questionnaire:

The research was conducted with the support of one set of questionnaire for the students who are studying English at High school for Gifted students In order to avoid the unnecessary misunderstanding from

the respondents, the questionnaire paper including both close-ended and open ended questions were designed in Vietnamese

The questionnaire (Appendix 1& 2) included two pages The top part

of the first page also served as a pre-face with a brief introduction, concise explanation of the research topic The main content of questionnaire was

divided into two main parts: “Information background” and “Group work

in class” “Information background” included one important question to

see whether students had worked in groups before going to this school or not, which would affect the research results Meanwhile, “Group work in class” part was divided into 14 smaller questions with the aim of partly answering the second research question and fully investigating the third one

2.1.2.2 Interview:

Interview is the most suitable cooperative assistant to minimize the abstractness of the answers in Questionnaire Therefore, one set of interview for students was designed in a semi-constructed format, which meant flexibility depending on the different flows of particular interviews (Appendix 3& 4) Using Vietnamese language helped the interviewees feel more comfortable and confident to answer the interviewer‟s questions Some of the interviews were recorded under the permission of the interviewees

2.1.3 Data collection procedure:

The procedure of collecting data for the research was conducted in 3 phases:

Phase 1: Designing and Piloting questionnaires

Based on the Literature Review, the researcher gradually designed the questionnaire In the meantime, the first draft of interview question was also created Then, piloting questionnaires was also conducted with 5 voluntary students, the result of which was taken into great consideration for the formulation of the final drafts of Questionnaires

Phase 2: Delivering questionnaires

After redesigned, the student set of questionnaire was distributed to

316 students at that school Thanks to the support from the school authority, the researcher met almost no difficulty collecting data from 316 students However, among these 316 questionnaire papers, only 276 ones can meet the requirements

Phase 3: Conducting semi- structured interview

With the aim of clarifying what is still vague in the questionnaire collecting process, the researcher came back to the interview set to complete the final drafts After these final drafts were completed, 6 students from this senior secondary school took part in the interviewing section

2.2 Data analysis:

After the data had been gathered, they were classified, analyzed and synthesized carefully and systematically with a view to revealing particular patterns to be interpreted later Both descriptive statistics and qualitative data were fully employed

Firstly, in order to answer all the three research questions, descriptive statistics were employed Data information was categorized in different values which would be transferred into the format of bar chart, pie chart and table, etc

After that, the data collected from the interviews were compared with those collected from the questionnaires Also, the data from interviews could help the researcher have a more specific understanding of the problems of students and the solutions as suggested by them

All the data collected from the questionnaires and the interviews were classified according to the research questions Noticeably, they would be analyzed and then demonstrated for comparison and interpretation Besides, some of the quotes from the interviews with teachers and students would be cited by summaries and quotation into qualitative data to support the points here and there in the research

Summary

This chapter has justified the methodology of the study by elaborating

on the participants including the students at High school for Gifted Students, as well as the two data collection methods: questionnaire and interview Clarification has also been given to the data analysis methods and process The presentation and interpretation of findings from such analysis are going to be made clear in the next chapter

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The previous chapter has clarified the methodology applied in this study, particularly the descriptions and justifications of the choice of participants, the instruments and data collection and analysis process In this chapter, all the results collected from the two sets of questionnaire and interviews will be presented and discussed in details

Below are the data presented in accordance with the three research questions The discussion is also engaged in the data presentation with a view to making the arguments more sharply deployed

3.1 Research question 1: How Group activities are conducted in class

Figure 1: Frequency of Group work

As is illustrated by the pie chart, nearly half of the surveying students affirmed that they occasionally took part in Group activities in class and only 11.9% of this surveying population declared that the frequency of conducted Group activities in their classes can reach the level of “always”