An investigation into Viet Bac High school 11th grade students and teachers' attitudes towards the applications of pairwork and groupwork in teaching and learni

Within the scope of this study, the researcher seeks to aim at a study on “Viet Bac high school 11 th grade students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards the applications of pair work and gr

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BẾ THỊ THU TRANG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO VIET BAC HIGH SCHOOL

THE APPLICATIONS OF PAIRWORK AND GROUPWORK IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS

(NGHIÊN CỨU THÁI ĐỘ CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TRƯỜNG THPT VIỆT BẮC ĐỐI VỚI VIỆC SỬ DỤNG HOẠT ĐỘNG CẶP,

NHÓM TRONG DẠY HỌC KỸ NĂNG NÓI)

MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY

CODE: 60 14 10

HA NOI – 2010

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BẾ THỊ THU TRANG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO VIET BAC HIGH SCHOOL

THE APPLICATIONS OF PAIRWORK AND GROUPWORK IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS

(NGHIÊN CỨU THÁI ĐỘ CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TRƯỜNG THPT VIỆT BẮC ĐỐI VỚI VIỆC SỬ DỤNG HOẠT ĐỘNG CẶP, NHÓM TRONG DẠY HỌC KỸ

NĂNG NÓI)

MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY

CODE: 60 14 10

SUPERVISOR: TRẦN HIỀN LAN, M.A.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION……… ……….… …i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……….……… … ii

ABSTRACT……… … iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS……… iv

PART I- INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale……….… ……… 1

1.2 Aims of the study……….…….… 2

1.3 Research questions ……….….….… 2

1.4 Method of the study ……….…… 2

1.5 Scope of the study ……… … 2

1.6 Design of the study ……….… 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter I- THEORETICAL BACKGROUND I.1 Communicative Language Teaching……… 4

1.1.1 Definition of CLT……… 4

1.1.2 Charateristics of CLT……… 4

1.1.3 Using CLT in teaching speaking skill……… 5

I.2 What is speaking ? 6

I.2.1 Definition of speaking……… 6

I.2.2 Why should we teach speaking skill in the classroom……….6

I.2.3 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity……….7

I.2.3.1 Learners talk a lot……… 7

I.2 3.2 Participation is even……….7

I.2.3.3 Motivation is high……… 7

I.2.3.4 Language is of an acceptable level……… 7

I.3 Pairwork and groupwork……….8

I.3.1 Definition of pairwork and groupwork……… … 8

I.3.2 Advantages and disadvantages of pair and group work in a ……….8

speaking lesson I.3.2.1 Advantages of pair and group work in a speaking lesson……… … 8

I.3.2.2.Disadvantages of pair and group work in a speaking lesson… 10

I.3.3 Pairwork and groupwork in speaking classroom……… 11

I.3.4 Some pair and group activities in a speaking lesson……….12

I.3.5 The arrangement of pair and group work……… 13

Chapter II: THE STUDY……… 16

II 1 Situational analysis ……… 16

II 1 1 The setting of the study ……… 16

II 1 2 The 11th grade English program……… 16

II 1 2 1 The teaching materials……….16

II 1 2 2 The course objectives……….17

II 2 The study………17

II.2.1 The subjects ………17

II.2.2 Instrumentation ……… 17

II.2.2.1 Survey questionnaire……… 17

II.2.2.2 Classroom observation ……… 18

II 2 3 Data analysis……… 18

II 2 3 1 Data analysis of teachers’ survey questionnaire……… 18

II.2.3 2 Data analysis of students’ survey questionnaire ……… 21

II.2.3.3 Classroom observation……… 24

II.2.3.4 The result and discussion from the classroom observation……… 29

Chapter III: FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR BETTER USE OF PAIRWORK AND GROUPWORK IN TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL III.1 Findings……… 31

III 2 Suggestions for better use of pairwork and groupwork in teaching Speaking skill ……… 32

III.3 Model pairwork and groupwork activities for a speaking lesson……… 34

PART III - CONCLUSION I Conclusions .37

II Limitations of the study……… 38

III Suggestions for further study ……… 38

REFERENCES……… 39 APPENDICES

PART I- INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

In the international integrative trend, English starts to become popular in Vietnam, it is considered as a key of communication for Vietnam‟s regional and global integration Because of the Educational Reform, the aim of teaching and learning foreign languages

in general and English in particular has shifted from a focus on the linguistic competence

to an interest in the communicative competence This trend in language teaching has led to the increasingly important role of teaching and learning speaking skills

In the speaking lessons for 11th grade students, there are many activities Among them, pair work and group work are seen as key features of a speaking lesson They create more opportunities for students to work with each other by exchanging their ideas and, therefore, learning so many things from their partners Taking part in pair work and group work make students confident and creative in speaking, they also help students overcome their shyness But, what is the reality of teaching and learning speaking skill in Viet Bac high school? What are the attitudes of students and teachers towards pair and group work in a speaking lesson there? Whether the teachers organize pair and group work in their speaking lessons or not ?

As a practitioner of English at Viet Bac High school for 6 years, I have always been aware of the importance of developing speaking skill for my students I myself think that with profound understanding of the students‟ real needs and their difficulties, teachers can gradually help them achieve fluency and confidence in their speaking Within the scope

of this study, the researcher seeks to aim at a study on “Viet Bac high school 11 th grade students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards the applications of pair work and group work in teaching and learning English speaking skills” It is also hoped that this study may offer

the teachers in the English Faculty, Viet Bac High school, ways on how to use pair work and group work in teaching speaking skills more effectively

1.2 Aims of the study

The study aims to achieve the following primary aims:

(i) to investigate the attitudes of teachers and 11th grade students at Viet Bac high school towards the application of pair and groupwork in teaching and learning speaking skills

(ii) to examine the current situations of the application of pair and group work in teaching and learning speaking skills at this school

(iii) to suggest some simple activities of pair work and group work to make students interested in their speaking lessons

1.3 Research questions

This study aims to answer the following research questions:

(i) What are attitudes of 11th grade students and teachers at Viet Bac high

school towards the application of pair work and group work in learning and teaching speaking skills ?

(ii) What is the current application of pair work and group work in teaching and

learning speaking skills at Viet Bac high school like?

1.4 Scope of the study

As stated above, the study focuses on the investigation into Viet Bac 11th grade students‟ and teachers‟ attitudes towards the application of pair work and group work in teaching and learning speaking skills Basing on the reality, the researcher tends to give some suggestions about pair and group work activities in order to make learning and teaching speaking skills more effective, and more appropriate for students‟ communicative ability

1.5 Method of the study

Both qualitative and quantitative methods are applied

(i) By means of qualitative method, the author has to refer to different materials, lectures, former researches and relevant issues related to pairwork, groupwork and teaching speaking skill to gain more knowledge of the subject matter and to come to the final conclusion

(ii) By means of quantitative method, the survey questionnaire is the main tool Firstly, a survey questionnaire is given to 6 teachers who are teaching English to 11th grade students

at Viet Bac high school Another survey questionnaire is to 100 students at grade 11

These survey questionnaires were used to collect information and evidence for the study with the hope that the research would be reliable and the processing of data would be manageable within limited time

In addition, the researcher also used qualitative method, class observations with the hope that two methodologies supplement each other so that the data could be more reliable

All comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion provided in the study are based on the data analysis

1.6 Design of the study

This study consists of three parts: introduction, development, and conclusion

The introduction presents the background, aims, research questions, scope and design

of the study

The development comprises three chapters:

- Chapter I reviews the theoretical backgrounds, which related to speaking skills, pair work and group work

- Chapter II presents in more details the setting and data analysis

- Chapter III is findings, proposed activities and some pedagogical suggestions

The conclusion at the end of the thesis summarizes the main issues in the study and makes

suggestions for further research

PART II- DEVELOPMENT

Chapter I – THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

I.1 Communicative Language Teaching(CLT)

I.1.1 Definition of CLT

Although there are many definitions about CLT, they have the general idea that CLT emphasizes communication in foreign language teaching and improves the learners‟ competence through communicative activities As for Richards and Rodgers (1986) CLT means using procedures where learners work in pairs or groups employing available

language resources to complete problem-solving tasks

Nunan states “Communicative Language Teaching views language as a system for the expression of meaning Activities involve oral communication, carrying out meaningful tasks and using language, which is meaningful to the learners Objectives reflect the needs

of the learners including functional skills as well as linguistic objectives The learner‟s role is a negotiator and integrator The teacher‟s role as a facilitator of the communication process.” (Nunan, 1989:194)

Nunan‟s definition above, as with any definition of the language teaching method, represents a particular view of understanding and explaining language acquisition

Obviously, the superiority of communicative language teaching approach is that emphasis

on developing speaking ability of students through speaking activities and other

techniques Thus, students are encouraged to use real appropriate language to communicate with one another

I.1.2 Characteristics of CLT

CLT is identified with the following characteristics:

- It makes communicative competence the goal of teaching

- It develops procedures for the teaching of the four language skills that

acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication

teaching process

The objective of language teaching is to develop “communicative competence” In communicative classes, students communicate with each other and learning tasks are completed by means of interaction between students It is clear that students‟ completing a task is fore-grounded and communicating with each other is back-grounded This may lead

to considerable use of pair work and group work and mixed activities In the classroom CLT often takes the form of pair and group work requiring negotiation and cooperation between learners, fluency-based activities that encourage learners to develop their

confidence, role-plays in which students practise and develop language functions, as well

as judicious use of grammar and pronunciation focused activities

Larsen Freeman (1986) states that CLT uses authentic, from life materials

Communicative language teaching makes use of real-life situations that necessitate

communication Thus, it is a good way to provide students with as many opportunities as possible for the communicative purposes

CLT is also associated with learner-centered and experienced based tasks Students

in learner-centered approach are seen as being able to play more active and participatory role

Based on these characteristics of CLT, teachers should choose appropriate

techniques as well as activities in the classroom to increase and improve students‟

communicative competence

I.1.3 Using CLT in teaching speaking skills

According to CLT, teaching speaking skills involves the use of language through different communicative activities When using communicative activities in speaking, it is necessary to make sure that students are comfortable and confident This brings students a feeling of security so they find it easy to discuss and share their ideas with their partners Students also have more opportunities to speak since the students try to achieve mutual understanding and modify their language according to the demand of the situation

Communicative activities encourage motivation because they ensure that

communication is purposeful rather than artificial Communicative activities offer

opportunities to develop speaking skill as well as cognitive ability such as analyzing, evaluating and synthesizing information It is believed that successful communication is an

integrated accomplishment When using communicative activities students are stimulated

to respond actively and participate with their classmates Communicative activities are often conducted with pair work and group work in which students talk to many partners and interact with them This reduces their stress and anxiety about their performance

In brief, communication activities can boost proficiency and greatly improve

communicative competence

I.2 What is speaking?

I.2.1 Definition of speaking

It is regarded speaking ability as the measure of knowing a language Exactly, it is the first step to confirm who knows or does not know a language and a medium through which language is learnt As for Ur (1996), people who know a language are referred to as

“speakers” of that language as if speaking includes all other kinds of knowing

To define speaking Florez states that speaking is “an interactive process of

constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information It

is often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving.” (Florez, 1999,p1)

In language teaching and learning, it is essential for language teachers to pay

attention to teaching speaking skill rather than leading students to pure memorization The teacher should provide real-life communication, authentic language and meaningful tasks for students to promote their learning

I.2.2 Why should we teach speaking skill in the classroom?

Of all the four skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing) speaking skill seems intuitively the most important in language teaching and learning To master a language we not only know how to read, to write and to listen but also know how to communicate with English speakers Motivation and communication are the reasons why we should teach speaking skill

Firstly, motivation makes students want to speak English This means if students do not want to speak they will ignore all the opportunities to speak in the language classroom

As a result, they lose their interest in learning In addition, speaking skill has a great

influence on listening, reading and writing skill If speaking skill is thoroughly practiced,

students with appropriate activities to raise general learners‟ motivation and makes the English language classroom a dynamic place for students to learn in

Secondly, speaking is crutial for human‟s communication In comparison with written communication, in our daily life most of us speak more than we write But many English teachers still spend the majority of class time on reading and writing practice, they

do not pay much attention to teaching speaking and listening skills to their learners

To sum up, speaking skill takes a significant role in teaching and learning a foreign language, so teaching speaking skill in the classroom is necessary after all

I.2.3 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity

Spoken language is the primary objective in language teaching Giving speaking classroom activities that develop learners‟ ability to express themselves through speech is important To evaluate a speaking activity Ur (1996:120) proposes the characteristics of a successful speaking activity as follows:

I.2.3.1 Learners talk a lot As much as possible of the period of time allotted to

the activity is in fact occupied by learner talk.This means that the amount of learning in a speaking lesson is correlated with the amount of talking by the learner Thus, the more time learners engage with in the course of a lesson, the more language they can obtain So learner‟s talking time makes a speaking lesson successfully

I.2.3.2 Participation is even Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority

of talkative participants: all get a chance to speak, and contributions are fairly evenly distributed It is clear that, a successful speaking lesson must provide opportunities of speaking to all learners with different levels The teacher also needs to give every learner the chance to talk at a level adequate to them from the simple to the relatively difficult

I.2.3.3 Motivation is high Learners are eager to speak because they are interested

in the topic and have something new to say about it, or because they want to contribute to achieving a task objective

I.2.3.4 Language is of an acceptable level Learners express themselves in

utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other, and of an acceptable level

of language accuracy To help learners gain success in speaking skill, the teacher should chose the appropriate topic for learners so that they can express their ideas from their own experience and knowledge In addition, the teacher should review and provide relevant

information, vocabulary and structures related to the topic before the activity starts so that learners are encouraged to speak

I.3 Pairwork and groupwork

I.3.1 Definition of pair and group work

According to Communicative Language Teaching, pair work and group work are seen as the most common activities in a language classroom, in which students can interact with each other, and will be able to communicate in the target language But what are pair work and group work ?

Adrian Doff (1988:137) defines that, in pairwork the teacher divides the whole class into pairs Every student works with his or her partner, and all the pairs work at the same time Point out that this is not the same as „public‟ or „open‟ pairwork, with pairs of students speaking in turn in front of the class

The definition of pair work in this case is an activitiy that gives students more opportunities to talk to each other and practices language skills effectively

Gover and Walters (1986:23-33), pair work is also defined: In pair work, the teacher divides the whole class into pairs Every student works with his or her partner and all the pair work at the same time They can face and talk to the person next to them or turn

to the person sitting behind him or her, or if possible students can exchange their seats to work with their working partner rather than the neighbor These depend on the amount of time as well as the type of activity

In groupwork, the teacher divides the class into small groups to work together (usually four or five students in each group) As in pairwork, all the groups work at the same time (Adrian Doff 1988:137)

Obviously, group work is a co-operative activity, during which students share aims, responsibilities, especially independence because they can take some of their own learning decisions without the control of the teacher Students can learn to negotiate, to listen to other opinions Thus, group work is one of the most popular activities of learner-centered approach applied effectively in large language classrooms

I.3.2.Advantages and disadvantages of pair and group work in a speaking lesson

I.3.2.1 Advantages of pair and group work in a speaking lesson

Pair work and group work play an important role in teaching and learning speaking skill because of several advantages as follows:

For students:

Pair work and group work give students more language practice in the language classroom Pair work and group work give students more opportunity to speak English because working in pair and group dramatically increases the amount on speaking time a

student gets in the class

Students are more involved in the activity Working in pairs or groups encourages students to be more involved and to concentrate on the task

Students feel more secure and are more willing to speak Students feel less anxiety when they are working „privately ‟ than when they are „on show‟ in front of the whole class Pair work and group work can help shy students who would never say anything in a whole-class activity

Pair and group work encourage students to share ideas and help each other In a class there are always weak and strong students, so working in pairs or groups, students can learn from one another a lot Pair work and group work encourage students to share ideas and knowledge It recognizes the old maxims that “two heads are better than one”, thus promoting learner cooperation If we get students to make decisions in pairs, we allow them to share responsibility rather than having to bear the whole weight themselves

(Adrian Doff,1988:141; Jeremy Harmer,1999:116)

only take notes of the most common mistakes to discuss them later, but also discover

whether they are able to communicate with each other in the foreign language or not Such

discovery helps the teacher to decide which parts of material need to be repeated or

explained later

It is relatively quick and easy to organize Pair work and group work give the

teacher time to consult the lesson plan and organize materials for the next stage of the

lesson Although the teacher can be prepared for the lesson very well, sometimes she

happens to forget what she must do next Pair or group activities are the best for looking up

the lesson plan It is also good for organizing materials for the next activity

Pair work and group work free the teacher from her usual role of “an expert who

always lectures” and allows her to walk freely round the classroom, leading and

encouraging students, giving help when necessary noting language mistakes for future

remedial work

I.3.2.2 Disadvantages of pair and group work in a speaking lesson

Using pair and group work have several disadvantages for both teachers and

students Belows are their common problems:

For students:

Students overuse their mother tongue Students working in pairs and groups can

veer away from the point of an exercise, talking about something else and often in their

mother tongue Moreover, some students are anxious about making mistakes or being

laughed at by their friends, so they use their mother tongue when express their complex

ideas

It is noisy: Pair and group work in a large class will be noisy, and this cannot be

helped The whole class feeling may dissipate when the class is split into smaller entities

Students‟ dissatisfaction with group arrangement Individuals may fall into group

roles that become fossilized, so that some are passive whereas others may dominate Not

all students enjoy it since they would prefer to be the focus of teacher‟s attention rather

than working with their peers

It is incorrectness During pair work and group work the teacher usually does not disturb the students, even if he/she notices some mistakes they have made, but let them speak freely It is tempting to suggest that students may learn each other‟s mistakes or errors, but we should not forget that errors or mistakes are an indissoluble element of the process of learning

For teachers

It is difficult to control class Pair and group work is frequently noisy The teachers find it difficult to control what students are doing in pair work and group work

than in a class as a whole

The problems of class time: It is clear that teachers have only forty-five minutes for their lesson while they have to cope with many tasks If the teachers are not good at organizing pair work and group work, this activity will take much time and become ineffective

Pair work and group work are connected with noise and indiscipline Participants

in a pair work or group work activity are normally unaware of the noise and of what other pairs or groups are doing The only possible problem here can be if the classroom has particularly thin walls If the activity is organized well and the learners are all actively speaking, then a teacher should let them make a noise, because it is “productive noise.”

In conclusion, despite of several disadvantages, the advantages of pair and group work far outweigh the disadvantages Instead of being dependent on the teacher, students get used to helping and learning from each other Meanwhile, the teacher is left free to discreetly monitor progress and give help, advice and encouragement where and when it is necessary

I.3.3 Pairwork and groupwork in speaking classroom

Pair work and group work are typical organizational features of CLT classroom They give the learners the chance of communicating, negotiating meaning and keeping conversations They read each other‟s work or work on a short dialogues or tasks in which the students can practise the new language that they have just learnt

Pair and group activities provide a variety of ways in which foreign language teachers can create opportunities for students to practise English to improve their communication skills Providing meaningful pair work for beginner learners in particular,

however, can be challenging when students‟ language proficiency is limited Hence, the teacher should select a wide range of activities, choose approriate material, guide students and encourage their contributions in order to develop a communicative lesson successfully

I.3.4 Some pair and group activities in a speaking lesson

I.3.4.1 Role-play

Role-play is an activity in which students are given situations and roles to act out like real This acting is done for the sake of the language and imaginative activity, not for exhibition This activity is not only easy to do but also simple to plan Role-play is recommended to be used in the English speaking classes Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles In role-play activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and what they think or feel Thus, the teacher can tell the student that "You are David, you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and…" (Harmer, 1984)

I.3.4.2 Information Gap

In order to change the asmostphere in the class and get the students‟accuracy and fluency, the teacher can divide the class into pairs and groups In each pair or each group, one asks and the other answers about something he/she wants to know or they exchange information, etc

For example: Filling the gaps in a schedule or timetable: Partner A holds an airline

timetable with some of the arrival and departure times missing Partner B has the same timetable but with different blank spaces The two partners are not permitted to see each other's timetables and must fill in the blanks by asking each other appropriate questions The features of language that are practiced would include questions beginning with "when"

or "at what time." Answers would be limited mostly to time expressions like "at 8:15" or

"at ten in the evening."

I.3.4.3 Discussion:

With more advanced classes, discussion can be conducted in groups It is important

to define the discussion clearly, and to ask each group to report their group‟s work According to Penny Ur (1996), discussion is the most natural and effective way for

students to talk freely in English by thinking out some problems or situations together through verbal interchange of ideas

For example, students can become involved in agree/disagree discussions In this type of discussions, the teacher can form groups of students, preferably 4 or 5 in each group, and provide controversial sentences like “people learn best when they read vs people learn best when they travel” Then each group works on their topic for a given time period, and presents their opinions to the class It is essential that the speaking should be equally divided among group members At the end, the class decides on the winning group who defended the idea in the best way

in a desert; with some tools and limited survival ration, they must decide what to do) students have to use their language, take the risk of experimenting what they have learnt to

find out a solution Therefore, the lessons become more practical and attractive to them

I.3.4.5 Interviews

Students are divided into pairs and are given a series of questions to ask their partner The best interviews focus on interesting events in the students' own lives

Example: When you were a child, did you have a nickname? What games did you play?

Did you ever have any serious illness or accident? Who was your favorite relative?

Interviews can be constructed around a particular grammatical structure, such as the use of past tense or present progressive verbs If the conversational exchange is interesting enough, the grammatical focus will probably not interfere with the interaction, or the conversation will expand naturally into a semantic or contextual emphasis

I.3.5 The arrangement of pair and group work

There are various ways to arrange pair work and group work, however, we should

take a careful consideration to decide how to put individual students into pairs and groups, and with which of their classmates.We can base such decision on any of Harmer‟s principles :

Friendship: When putting students in pairs or groups is to make sure that we put

friends with friends, rather than risking the possibility of people working with others whom they find difficult or unpleasant

Streaming: Streaming is a complex task, since it forces teachers to divide students

according to their ability (pairs and groups should have a mixture of weaker and stronger students.), level of participation

Chance: This is by far the easiest way of doing things since it demands little

pre-planning, and, by its very arbitrariness, stresses the cooperative nature of working together

We can arrange pairs of groups by putting students who are sitting next or near to each other together, by giving each student in the class (in the order they are sitting) a letter from A to E, then ask all the As to form a group, all the Bs to be a group, all the Cs to be a group and so on, or grouping students by people wearing black or green or people with or without glasses, etc

Changing groups: Students do not stay in the same groups from the beginning to

the end of the activity A longer sequence may start with the teacher and the whole class before moving between pairwork, individual work, and groupwork until it returns back to the whole-class grouping

Generally, if we are concerned about the asmosphere of the whole class and some

of the intensions in it, we may make friendship groups If our activity is based on fun, we may leave our grouping to chance, or if we are dealing with a non-homogeneous class in terms of level, or if we have some students who are falling behind, we may stream groups

so that we can help the weaker students while keeping the more advanced ones engaged in

Same proficiency level grouping: students of the same proficiency level are

grouped together

Mixed proficiency level grouping: each group has a mix of proficiency levels Random grouping: students are allocated to groups in some random ways

Grouping based on other differences: In a mixed class, students are grouped so

that each group has a mix of some other characteristic, for example: sex, age, nationality, mother tongue, or ethnic origin

To sum up, the teachers have many ways to organize pairwork or groupwork This

is up to the aim and the activity of a speaking lesson Thus, the teacher can base on these select an effective arrangement of the pairwork and groupwork to adapt for students‟ need

Chapter II: THE STUDY

II 1 Situational analysis

II 1 1 The setting of the study

Viet Bac high school- a school is located in the centre of Lang son city, Lang son province The school has a history of 63 year development since its foundation in 1947

Up to now, it has 55 classes of three grades 10,11,12 There are 14 teachers of English Most of them are young and enthusiatic

English is one of the compulsory subjects in every high school.There are three forty-five minute English lesson for each grade per week Some of students are motivated

to learn English for communication and employment, but some just learn English for passing the national examination by at the end of the high school period

Although the school is situated in the city centre like many other schools in Vietnam, it shares common features with classrooms else where in Vietnam: The class size here is generally from 45 to 50 students The classroom is poorly equipped only with black- boards and short desks for 3 students sharing one and end unremovable furniture There is only one well-equipped classroom for teaching e-lessons This situation raises a great challenge to the teachers of English when organizing group works

II 1 2 The 11 th grade English program

II 1 2 1 The teaching materials

The current teaching material is the new English textbook compiled by Vietnamese teachers The new English textbook - English 11 is theme-based designed with 16 units with 16 topics divided into 6 themes: Personal information, Education, Community, Health, Recreation, The world around us Within the frame work of each unit, the language input is respectively introduced through 5 sections respectively: reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus Each section is designed to be taught separately in one period These sections are theme-based closely related to each other to ensure a smooth transition from one to another The beautifully colorful pictures, illustrations and audio tapes are provided to accompany with the textbook All the practice, activities and exercises in this book are designed to help learners to improve their communicative competence, especially speaking skills

II 1 2 2 The course objectives

In this textbook, the learning objectives are clear and concise and a detailed overview of the topics, functions, structures/ grammar, and skills within each unit can be found in the introductory table of contents

The course book aims at developing learners‟ all the form language skills including speaking skills In each speaking lesson, students have to complete 3 or 4 tasks Task 1 and task 2 focus on learners‟ language input and develop language competencies as well as language specific functions such as expressing preferences; talking about the nature, hobby, the social problems; expressing opinions; asking for and giving information; expressing agreements and disagreements; and making comparison and contrasting…etc Task 3-4 get students to synthesize specific competencies and develop a text for 1-2 minute speaking practice with or without the guidance from the teachers

II 2 The study

II.2.1 The subjects

The 6 teachers teaching 11th grade students were asked to join in the survey

questionaire for teachers Among them, there were two males and four females They were aged from 25 to 40 with at least 3 years experience in teaching English

100 11th grade students at Viet Bac high school were selected to take part in the survey questionaire Their ages were from 16 to17 and from different classes In general, they did not have the same English level and English speaking ability

II.2.2 Instrumentation

II.2.2.1 Survey questionaire

The survey questionaire is considered as one of the most effective instruments for collecting data in social science Because of the advantages of questionaire such as: less pressure on respondents, not under pressure of interview, and analysis of answer straightforward, this study used the survey questionaire as the main source to fullfill its aims Two sets of survey questionaire were designed to investigate 11th grade students‟ and the teachers‟ attitudes towards the use of pairwork and groupwork in

learning speaking skill at Viet Bac high school

Survey questionaire for students consist of 12 questions in order to find their

attitudes towards pairwork and goupwork activities The questionaires were given to 100 students of grade 11

Survey questionaire for teachers was designed with 12 questions to seek teachers‟ attitudes towards the application of pairwork and groupwork in teaching speaking skill and their suggestion for improving their own teaching speaking The questionaires were given

to 6 teachers of both genders and all ages, accounting for about 50% per cent of the total members of the teaching team

II.2.2.2 Classroom observation

Besides questionaires, classroom observation is another tool to collect more

information about the reality of the application of pair and groupwork activities in teaching and learning speaking skill

- Classroom observations were done in 6 classes of different aims and purposes

- The classes observed might not be prepared for being observed.They might be done in normal

- The researcher might not do anything to interfere the classes

- The details of the classes were recorded by taking notes

- After observing the observer and the teacher discussed and exchanged ideas

II 2 3 Data analysis

II 2 3 1 Data analysis of teachers’ survey questionnaire

Table 1: Answers to questions on teachers’ opinion on the role of the teaching speaking skill (by percent)

E unimportant

According to the table above, 50 % of the teachers said that speaking skill was very important meanwhile 50 % consider speaking skill important Thus, almost teachers were aware of the importance of speaking skills as a means of communication and exchanging information with the outside world They were all interested in this skill

Table 2: Answers to questions on teachers’ attitude towards pair work and group work (by percent)

Table 3: Answers to questions on teachers’ current teaching methods in using pair and group work (by percent)

Answering to the next question, 100% of the teachers reponsed they organized pair work and group work in their speaking lessons with following reasons: Firstly, students could help each other, and they were not worried about their ability Secondly, working in pair and group made students more confident and active Next, students had chance to compare and check their mistakes with each other Lastly, it encouraged students to speak, express ideas freely

When being asked about the frequency of the organizing pair and group work, 75 % of the teachers said that they often organized pair work and group work in their speaking lessons and 25 % organized always

Question 7 stated the ways of grouping students into pairs and groups of three or four

75 % of the teachers prefered to group students at the same desk work together This way helped them save time and it was also convenient 50% of teachers chose the easy way was that students who sat next to each other worked with each other.While 12.5 % let students worked with different sexes and students sat far from each other comed to work together Question 8 concerned kinds of activities teachers often used for pair and groupwork It was revealed that most of the teachers (62.5 %) favored role-playing, and conversation 50% of the teachers were interested in using discussing activities 37.5% was the choice for interviewing And games only counted for 12.5 %

Table 4: Answers to questions on teachers’ judgements of their applying pair work and group work activities (by percent)

Question 10 concerned teachers‟ judgements Appropriateness was highly evaluated with 62.5 % 25% of the teachers thought that pairwork and groupwork activities were not very appropriate for their students in a speaking lesson Meanwhile 12.5 % stated pairwork and groupwork were very appropriate

For the next question, most of teachers said that pair and group works were useful enough and very useful for promoting their students learning in speaking lessons Only 12.5 % was not quite useful Question 12 dealt with difficulties, the teacher has experienced when applying pair and group work in the speaking class Although teachers

were totally aware of advantages when using pair work and group work, its problems could not be avoided A majority of the teachers (75%) encountered the biggest difficulty was that students made so much noise and they used Vietnamese during pair and groupwork 12.5 % of the teacher complained that students were shy, timid, passive and lack of words

to speak Another number of teachers (12.5 %) reported that they did not have enough time for preparation because of large class and multi-level students

II.2.3 2 Data analysis of students’ survey questionnaire

Table 5: Answers to questions on students’ opinions on learning speaking skill (by

percent)

Options Questions

B Không thích

C Không thích cũng không ghét

According to question 1 of the table 5, more than half of students (59%) were fond

of learning speaking skill, they also considered speaking skill as an important skill in communication 37 % did not have clear attitude towards learning speaking skill A small number of students (12%) did not like learning speaking skill They explained that they find it difficult to pronounce English sounds, and to express their ideas

For the next question, 59% of the students said that they considered pairwork and groupwork activities very important 27% showed these activities were important, while

10 % showed their opinions were neutral And only 4% students who thought pairwork and groupwork were not important

Table 6: Answers to questions on students’ attitudes toward pairwork and

groupwork in a speaking lesson (by percent)

Options Questions

Table 7: Answers to questions on students’ judgements of their participation in pair and group work (by percent)

Options Questions

B không

64% 36%

B nói tiếng Việt

C nói chuyện riêng

D không nói gì cả

47% 37% 12% 4

Question 5, 64% of the students confirmed that they took part in pairwork and groupwork because they wanted to speak English fluently and improve pronunciation 36% did not want to join in these activities because of their poor vocabulary, structures, and lack of confidence

For question 6, students used English when practising in pair and group work was 47% and Vietnamese counted for 37% It is clearly seen that students still chatted during speaking lesson (12%) Students did not say anything count for a very small number (only 4%)

Table 8: Answers to questions on students’ evaluations of teachers’ using pairwork and groupwork activities (by percent)

Options Questions

Question 8 concerned the effectiveness of applying pair and groupwork in speaking lessons, more than half of the students (56%) reported that speaking lessons were not interesting and improving speaking skill 28% disagreed with that answer, and there were 16% of the students who neither said “yes” nor “no”

Question 9, 59% of students did not like the teacher‟s organization in pair or group 31% enjoyed working in the teacher‟s arrangement 10% favoured for neutral

Table 9: Answers to questions on Students’ desires for activities used in pair and group work (by percent)