MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP TỔ CHỨC CẶP, NHÓM HIỆU QUẢ TRONG GIỜ DẠY TIẾNG ANH THEO PHƯƠNG PHÁP MỚI (Some useful measures for organising group and pairwork effectively in the english class)

- In groupwork, the teacher divides he class into small groups to work together usually four or five students in each group.. PART IISOME MEASURES OF ORGANISING PAIRWORK AND GROUPWORK E

sở giáo dục và đào tạo hng yên TRƯờNG THPT khoái châu

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Đề tài:

MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP TỔ CHỨC CẶP, NHểM HIỆU QUẢ TRONG GIỜ DẠY TIẾNG ANH THEO PHƯƠNG PHÁP MỚI (Some useful measures for organising group and pairwork

effectively in the english class)

Họ và tên : Lơng Anh Đức

Chức vụ : Giáo viên

Đơn vị công tác : Tổ ngoại ngữ

Năm học: 2007 - 2008

PART I : INTRODUCTION

*Reason for choosing the topic

In the time of rapid developement of technology and industry, foreign languages have really become “a golden key” for the exchange and cooperation between countries all over the world In Vietnam nowadays, the demand of foreign languages, expecially English increases higher and higher English has become a compulsory subject at school as well as universities.But it seems that teaching and learning English at many secondary school in Vietnam is not very effective One

of the most important reasons is unsuitable methods in teaching and learning The teachers of English often meet difficulties in approaching new methods of teaching foreign languages communicatively How to organise groupwork or pairwork effectively is also the problem which they often meet Recognizing the importance of groupwork and pairwork, I’ve chosen this topic in the hope of finding out some useful measures in organising groupwork and pairwork activities in the class

* Aims of the study.

- To introduce how to pairwork and groupwork and to show the advantages of working in pairs and groups

- To show how to organise pair and groupwork effectively and how to deal withinitial problems that may arise

- To show how pair and groupwork can be used for various classroom activities

- To give teachers confidence in using pair and groupwork themselves

* Scope of the study :

This study is only concerned with ways of organising activities in the class rather than with teaching techniques

* Theoretical background

Begin by making sure that teachers understand what

pairwork and groupwork involve :

- In pairwork , the teacher devides the whole class into

pairs Every student works with his or her partner, and all

the pairs work at the same time ( it is sometimes called

“simultaneous pairwork” ) Point out that this is not the

same as public or open pairwork, with pairs of students

speaking in turn in front the class

- In groupwork, the teacher divides he class into small

groups to work together ( usually four or five students in each group ) As in pair group, all te groups work at the same time

Point out that pairwork and groupwork are not reaching methods but ways of organnising the class They can be used far many different kinds of activities, and are naturally more suitable for some activities than for others.

PART II

SOME MEASURES OF ORGANISING PAIRWORK AND GROUPWORK EFFECTIVELY

PAIRWORK GROUPWORK

For certain type of activity, pairwork and groupwork have

a number of advantages over working with the whole class together So what are the advantages of using pairwork and groupwork ? And what problems might there be ?

Here are some advantages as well as some problems teachers might meet during the process of organising pairwork or groupwork

-More language

practice

-Noise

-Students are more

involved

-Students make mistakes

-Students feel secure -Difficult to control

-Students help each

other

I can analyse more about the advantages and give out some measures to overcome the problems

i) More language practice : Pairwork and groupwork

give students far more chance to speak English Refer to the request : working in pairs, each student makes seven

sentences ( either a question or an answer ).If the excercise were done “round the class”, students would only say one sentence each, and in a large class many students would say nothing at all

ii) Students are more involved : Working in pairs or

groups encourages students to be more involved and to concentrate on the task Refer to the above request : if this discussion were conducted with the whole class together, it would be dominated by a few students and the others would lose the interest

iii) Students feel secure : Students feel less anxiety when

they are working “privately” when they are “on show”

in front of the whole class Pairwork and groupwork can help shy students who would never say anything in a whole-class activity

iv) Students help each other : Pairwork and groupwork

encourages students to share ideas and knowledge In a reading activity students can help each other to explore the meaning of the text; in a discussion activity students can give each other new ideas

Following are some measures to overcome the problems

i) Noise : Obviously, pairwork and groupwork in a large

class will be noisy, and this cannot be helped

But : -Usually student themselves are not disturbed by he

noise; it is more noticeble to the teacher standing at the side

or to someone in the next room

-The noise created by pairwork and groupwork is usually good noise students using English, or engaged in a learning task

ii) Students make mistakes: During a pair or group

activity, the teacher cannot control all the language used, and should not try to do so When doing controlled language practice in pairs or groups, the number of mistakes can be reduced :

-By giving enough preperation The activity can be done with

the whole class first, and pairwork used for the final stage

-By checking afterwards The teacher can ask some pairs or

groups what they said, and then correct the mistakes if necessary

iii) Difficult to control class : The teacher has less control

over what students are doing in pairwork or groupwork than

in a normal class To stop activities getting out of control, it

is important to :

- give clear instructions about when to start, what to

do and when to stop ;

- give clear defined task which do not continue for too long ;

- set up a routine, so hat students accept the idea of working in pairs or groups, and know exactly what

to do.

II) ORGANNISING PAIRWORK

*The first measure :

We should study the following activity in which a teacher organised the pairwork activity.We can see the process of organising the pairwork activity and find out that she was not successful :

Teacher A had an immediate class She presented “ like / don’t like” and then she used free practice in pairs :

Exercise : Likes and dislikes

Pairwork : Ask what your friend like and

doesn’t like.

Ask about :

Food sport music school

subjects

The three processes below show what she did before, during and after the activiy( We used to use these methods before )

Before During After

T :

Alright-Exercise

pairs.Ask

and answer

the

questions

T: (Sit in and

do nothing)

T : Everyone finished ? Good Now look at exercise 4

Do you think the activity was successful ?

What do you think might have gone wrong ?

What could she do to make it more successful ?

I can say that the activity was not successful and I can give some suggestions to make it more succesful:

1- She could prepare for the pair work by establishing what the questions and answers should be She could also demonstrate the pairwork by asking questions round the class, or

by getting one pair of students to ask and answer in front of the class The students would know exactly what to do

2-She could be more active in starting the pairwork Instead of just saying “ Work in pais” ,she could show students

who to work with, check that everyone had a partner, and check that everyone had started working in pairs

3- During the activity she could move quickly round the class to check that students were talking and to see when they finished

4- Instead of waiting everyone to finish, she could stop the activity Then there would be no chance for students to get bored and start talking about the other things

5- After the pairwork she could ask some pairs what they said,or ask a few pairs to repeat their conversation in front of the class

*The second measure:

Now we study the demonstration below to know how the activity could be conducted Pay particular attention to the way

of organising the pairwork :

A possible procedure :

i) Introduce the exercise and show what questions and answers students can give :

T : Now You’re going to talk about things you like and thinks you don’t like Look at the exercise What questions can you ask ? What about food ?

Sts : What food do yo like ?

T : Good What answer could you give ?

Sts : I like chocolate.

I like eating fruit.

I like biscuits.

(and so on)

Wrte the basic questions on the board :

What (food) do you like ?

ii)Ask a few questions round the class, to show the kind

of conversation students might have :

T : What kind of music do you like ? Nam ?

St : I like pop music.

T : Pop music ? Which singer do you like best ?

(and so on)

If you like, ask two students have similar conversations, while the other listen

iii)Divide the class into pairs.

Teacher : Now you are going to work in pairs ( Indicate pairs by pointing If there are single students left without a partner, make group of three.) Ready ? Ask and answer the questions First one person ask all the questions, then change round Start now

iv)Students work in pairs Move quickly round

the class Checking that everyone is talking ( but do not try

to Correct the mistakes, as this will interrupt the activity )

v) When most pairs have finished, stop the activity Ask

a few students what their partners said :

T : Lan, tell me about Mai.What does she like ?

St : She says she likes ice cream, pop music and swimming And she likes English, but not every lesson She doesn’t She doesn’t like writing

*The third measure:

One of the most important things to organise the pairwork

or groupwork effectively is that how to dividing the class.Pairwork and groupwork, like any other class activity, can quickly become a routine Once students are used to it and have regular working partners, it can be organised quickly and easily

“Do this in pairs”) The first few times that teachers try pair or groupwork are very important-they need to be more careful instructions andknow exactly how they will devide the class Here are some best ways of forming pairs and group in the class

First of all , we study the situation below

Here are two rows of a class of 50 students The desk are fixed, and the students sit on chairs How could you divide the class into :

-Pairs ? or Small Groups ? What instuctions would you give ?

O O O O O O

8 9 10 11 12 13

O O O O O O O

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Following are the ways to form pairs and groups in the class shown above

For pairwork : Most students could work work with the

person next to them Student 7 could turn round and work with student 13, and student 8, 9, and 10 work as three together Or student 10 could move to work with student 11, and the front row could be divided into two pairs and one three

For groupwork : Students could work in threes and fours

along this row- his would be easy to organise but would make it

difficult for students to work well as a group,as they would be in

a straight line Or students in he front row could turn round and form groups with those behind ( either three groups of three and one of four or two groups of four and one of five )

* The forth measure:

( Some useful activities in pair or groupwork in the class ).

i) Partern practice : This can be done in pairs in the

same way as the “likes / dislikes” activity demonstrated above Any controlled oral practice can

be done first with the whole class, and then in pairs

ii) Practising short dialogues : Acting the short

dialogues can very easily be done in pairs, with little chance of students makng mistakes It can be done first with pairs of students in front of the class, and then with all the students working in pairs at the same time

iii) Reading a text and answering the questions :

Students can discuss questions in pairs or groups and then read the text; or they can read the text silently, and then ask and answer the questions in pairs or groups This is a good way of involving the whle class in answering the questions

iv) Short writing exercise : Students can sit in groups

and decide together what to write- one student acts as

“secretary” This can be difficult to organise but in a large class it has the advantage that students correct each other’s mistakes and he teacher only has a few papers to mark at the end Pairwork can be used for

sit in pairs and correct what what their partner has written

v) Discussions : 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 conclusions afterwards

vi) Grammar exercises : Students can do grammar

exercises orally in pairs; the teacher goes through the answer afterwards with the whole class, and students write the exercise for homework This is more interesting and productive than students doing exercises alone, in silence

PART III : CONCLUSION

In conclusion, nowadays in Vietnamese secondary schools, the teaching of English in general does not meet the requirement of social development One of the reasons causing this problem is that the methods as well as techniques

in teaching are not appropriate and flexible In my opinion, there are no methods or techniques that show absolute usefulness for the teaching unless the teacher can stimulate his/ her students and arose student’s interest in learning.And what I hope to do in this study just to upon and pesent some measures for better English teaching in secondary schools Due to the short time as well as limited knowledge of he author on this matter, mistakes and errors are invitable So the thesis has left much room for further discussion, criticism and improvement by teacher and those who may

concern All remarks, comments, suggestions are deeply apreciated and well received