A study on the use of group work in speaking lessons of 10th grade students at ben tre high school

HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY ====== DO NGOC ANH A STUDY ON THE USE OF GROUP WORK IN SPEAKING LESSONS OF 10TH GRADE STUDENTS AT BEN TRE HIGH SCHOOL SUBM

HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY

======

DO NGOC ANH

A STUDY ON THE USE OF GROUP WORK IN

SPEAKING LESSONS OF 10TH GRADE STUDENTS

AT BEN TRE HIGH SCHOOL

(SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF PEDAGOGY IN ENGLISH)

SUPERVISOR: DO THI THANH DUNG, M.A

HA NOI, 2018

DECLARATION

I hereby state that I- Do Ngoc Anh, certify my authorship of the study entitled

A STUDY ON THE USE OF GROUP WORK IN SPEAKING LESSONS

OF 10TH GRADE STUDENTS AT BEN TRE HIGH SCHOOL

The thesis is the study of my own research and that I have not used any sources other than those listed in reference I further declare that I have not submitted this thesis at any other institution in order to obtain a degree

Ha Noi, May 2018 Student

Do Ngoc Anh

ABSTRACT

Group work is not a new language teaching technique and it is used quite often in speaking lessons However, implementing this technique in speaking lessons is not always successful without careful planning and facilitating The overall aim of this study was to investigate the reality of implementing group work

in speaking lessons of the 10th-grade students at Ben Tre High School and discuss some problems teachers and students encountered while implementing this technique Data was obtained through teachers’ and students’ questionnaires, interviews with four language teachers as well as classroom observation Group work was not often used in speaking lessons of 10th-grade students at Ben Tre High School On the one hand, the finding of the study revealed that using group work in the speaking lesson of 10th-grade students at Ben Tre High School has brought about the benefits for students and teachers For the former, they could maximize the opportunities to engage in oral activities and communication, get independence from the teachers and gain confidence before talking or performing in front of others As for the latter, group work was a good way to free themselves from being

“experts who always lecture”, had more time with small groups and gave more attention to students and made speaking lessons varied in the forms of group work activities On the other hand, there were some obstacles that teachers have been facing when using group work to make speaking lessons more engaging such as excessive teaching time and noise from groups of students, little time to prepare for group work and mixed- level class In addition, students also have some problems (improper talking time and limited vocabulary resource) In order to overcome these problems and make group-work effective and successful, some recommendations for students, teachers and the researcher were proposed

Keywords: group work, Ben Tre High school

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the process of completing this graduation paper, I was encouraged by a lot

of support, valuable ideas, and encouragement from my teachers, family and friends

Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to Mrs Do Thi Thanh Dung, my supervisor of this graduation paper Her detailed ideas and useful tips helped me to shape my ideas and realize my goals She also provided me with useful materials as well as encouraged and facilitated my research Therefore, this article could not be completed without her invaluable support

Secondly, I would like to express my special thanks to all the teachers of Ben Tre High School for their participation in the interview and giving me lots of valuablecomments Particularly, I would like to thank 35 students of 10A5 in Ben Tre High School for their enthusiastic and effective cooperation in completing the questionnaire survey In addition, I warmly thank all my friends for their encouragement and support during the writing process Their material and spiritual support was a great motivation for me

Finally, I was very grateful to my family, who have encouraged and supported me to complete this graduation thesis

Ha Noi, May 2018 Student

Do Ngoc Anh

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ABSTRACT ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

FIGURES vi

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1 The Rationale of the Study 1

2 Aims of the Study 2

3 The scope of the Study 2

4 Research questions 2

5 Design of the Study 2

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1 The importance of speaking skills in the classroom 4

2 Group-work in a speaking lesson 5

3 Other studies on using group work 13

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 1 Participants 15

2 Data collection instruments 15

3 Procedures for data collection 17

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS

1 Students’ survey. 18

2 Teachers’ survey 21

3 Interview 25

4 Class observation 27

CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION 1 The use of group work in speaking lessons 29

2 Group work’s benefits 30

3 Obstacles in applying group work 32

CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS 1 For the students 34

2 For the teachers 34

3 Researcher 35

PART 3: CONCLUSION 1 Summary of the Study 36

2 Limitations of the study 37

3 Recommendations for Further Study 38

REFERENCES 39

APPENDIX 41

FIGURES

Figure 1: Students’ opinions on learning speaking skills in group work 18 Figure 2: Students’ opinions on group work for the benefit of speaking skills 19 Figure 3: Students’ obstacles while working in group and factors causing problems 20 Figure 4: Students’ opinions on partners 21 Figure 5: Obstacles experienced by the teachers when applying group work in the speaking class by percent 23 Figure 6: Solutions to overcome obstacles from the teachers 24

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 The Rationale of the Study

Among the four language skills (speaking, writing, listening, reading), speaking can be considered as a skill that requires learners to spend a lot of time learning and practicing Vietnamese students have difficulty acquiring this skill (Truc, 2011) This can result from the situation that schools generally do not focus

on speaking from the beginning, the students focus on grammar and there is no oral

or direct test of speaking ability As students are carefully prepared with written tests, focusing on grammar rules, reading text and writing, speaking is often ignored, as it is one of the keys that help learners to gradually explore this language

Nowadays, the importance of improving students’ English in general and speaking skills, in particular, has been recognized by school leaders in Vietnam Language teachers are finding out new methods and techniques to motivate students

to raise their voice in class One of the effective ways to apply much is group work

Because of positive points that group work brings, group work tends to be used quite often in speaking lessons According to Harmer (1999), working in group can significantly increase the time spent talking to each individual, encourage border skills to participate, cooperate and negotiate, promote learner autonomy by allowing students to self- decide on groups that are not instructed by the teacher, and free teachers from their usual role of the controller-driver-corrector

As a high school student-teacher and as a tutor at a foreign language center, the researcher realizes the significance of applying group work to help promote students’ interest in speaking However, researchers also face many challenges in implementing work in speaking lessons This researcher learned that there are not many studies on the use of group work in high school in the rural area Therefore, the researcher carried out this study to understand this situation with practical evidence and find out solutions for problems related to using group work in speaking lessons

Deriving from the above-mentioned reasons, “A Study on the Use of Group

is carried out The researcher hopes that this research will contribute a relatively full

and detailed view about how to use this technique effectively

2 Aims of the Study

This study was carried with a view to investigating the possibility of using group work in the speaking class of 10th-grade students at Ben Tre High School In detail, the purposes of the study were:

1 To clarify what ways group work is used in the speaking lessons of 10thgrade students at Ben Tre High School

-2 To identify obstacles teachers have experienced in their implementation of group work in the speaking lessons of one class – 10A5 at Ben Tre High School

3 To identify obstacles students have experienced in their implementation of group work in the speaking lessons of one class – 10A5 at Ben Tre High School

3 The scope of the Study

The researcher investigated the current situation of using group work in the speaking lessons of class 10A5 students at Ben Tre High School, as well as the problems that teachers and students encountered, with the participation of 35 students (3 boys and 32 girls) and four language teachers The study was carried out

in the period of seven weeks with five speaking lessons

5 Design of the Study

The Thesis is divided into three parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion

The first part, the Introduction, includes the Rationale of the Study, Aim of the Study, Scope of the Study, and Research questions and Methodology of the study

The second part consists of Literature Review, Research Methodology, Findings, Discussion and Recommendations for students, teachers, and the researcher

The last part is the Conclusion, which summarizes the study and gives out the limitations and recommendations for further studies

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 The importance of speaking skills in the classroom

Obviously, all four skills are very important in learning any language Nonetheless, speaking is considered as very significant skill for teaching and learning any language Acquiring speaking well is a fundamental step to conquer other skills If their speaking skills are good, this can assist learners to read better, listen more easily and write more properly Speaking is surely the most effective means of communication (Ur, 1996)

Speaking skills are very important The first point is that students are more motivated by speaking lessons Nunan (1991) points out that success is measured

in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the (target) language For the students to speak English correctly, they tend to maximize their chance of using English to express themselves in daily life Thus, they always try to speak English when possible On the contrary, those who cannot speak English fluently are not confident to speak even when they are asked to speak in class Therefore, they may gradually get depressed and lost their passion for learning English If speaking activities are held in the suitable and creative way, students can find speaking more exciting and motivation in the learners can be raised The other skills can also be enhanced thanks to practicing speaking if they have collaborated

in a suitable way As a result, speaking lessons are successful and inspire students

to learn more

The second reason, communicating with people in society is vital Individuals use language to exchange information, show emotion or to remain relationship Without it, the life does not exist Language is a means that distinguishes us from animals and other human beings existing on Earth Speaking

is considered as survival skills in real life (Ur, 1996) Because of all the above reasons, speaking skills should be considered the main role in learning and teaching foreign language and to attach special importance to mastering a foreign language

2 Group-work in a speaking lesson

2.1 Definition of group work and aspects related to group work

Adrian Doff (1988) states group work as a technique within the field of social work where various groups are guided by an agency leader to more effective personal adjustment and community participation The teacher divides the class into small groups to work together (usually four or five students in each group), as in pair work, all the groups work at the same time

Some common activities often assigned for students are the discussion, role play, and presentations, to help with successful, diverse and motivational speaking activities

Therefore, when working in the group, students work together, share ideas and responsibilities, and have the ideas themselves contribute to the success of the work group with less supervision from teachers and other peers

2.2 Benefits and drawbacks of using group work in the classroom

2.2.1 Benefits

In the book “The practice of ELT”, Harmer (1999), shows benefits of implementing group work in speaking lessons Firstly, the group work can raise students’ speaking time In other words, group work helps boost communication Students who have few opportunities to communicate with each other now can share ideas, become closer in the short term, and above all address common problems assigned by the teacher

In addition, group work helps students produce better outcomes Simply, because of the number of participants, each with different experiences, knowledge, views and values, greater numbers and more ideas can be given In addition, the exchange of ideas within a group can be a motivation to encourage individuals to come up with ideas and contribute more and thus contribute more to group activities

In addition, the work of the group can be reduced The shared responsibility

of a group in decision-making can encourage individuals to discover realistic ideas Personal prejudices and prejudices can be challenged by the group, requiring

individuals to recognize them Group pressure can also encourage individuals to accept that change as necessary

Finally, this technique helps free the teacher from the normal role of "an expert who always teaches" and allows him/her to walk to each group, instruct, answer student questions or encourage students to work actively (Harmer, 1999)

2.2.2 Drawbacks

One obvious drawback is that the noise from the group of people having a discussion on the topic or by the group who are really interested in working with their group It is difficult for teachers to monitor these groups The noise can confuse other groups

The negative effect of group work is that many are passive and lazy students, and often let their peers do all work and still have names in the results of the group

Working in the group can cause competition Most students working in a group consider the situation as a contest This creates destructive behaviors and contributes to disagreement among groups For example, we often feel bad if our ideas are criticized The natural reaction is regaining self-esteem, often by trying to interrupt the ideas of those who disagree with us Rather than finding ways to improve our ideas, we choose to destroy them Desiring to express our own ideas,

we can completely ignore what others have suggested Power seekers can use tricks such as highlighting errors in other people's arguments, lean questions, and expert presentation to show their superiority These types of behavior create an atmosphere incompatible with effective problem solving one

Another disadvantage is that working in groups is a relatively slow process than working alone Because this activity requires each person to work together at a designated time, this can cause organizational problems It's very time-consuming

It takes a lot of time not only for students in groups but also for teachers Teachers have to spend more time organizing group work and controlling all team members

To summary, although applying group work in speaking lessons can cause some problems, the advantages still outweigh Learning together in small groups is much more effective than teaching alone (Harmer, 1999)

a Random groups

Because of its convenience and availability, random grouping is often applied for classroom activities, which is randomization in a way of grouping students and ignoring any differences between students on the language level, learning style, preferences, etc

With the layout of the seats, the number of cards, the use of cards, or the distribution of different cards, a random group is set

For the class with mixed levels, random groups can be used to bridge the gap between students at all levels

b Student-selected groups

Compared to the random grouping and group chosen by the teacher, the students-selected group is preferred Knowing their classmates well or knowing how their friend think can help students participate in assigned activities They can talk more, perform more and make the activities of the group very interesting However, there is so much noise created because of too much socialization This can confuse other groups or and it can be hard for the teacher to manage the class

c Teacher-selected groups

Compared to two above types of grouping student, the group selected by teachers is much more time-consuming The reason is that teachers have to pay attention to the student's interests, as well as the learning style, the dynamics to help lower level students keep up with the better ones This type of grouping can be an extremely effective way to learn from one another, this is called by peer tutoring

2.4 Group size

The smaller the group, the more opportunities each member has, and more

management skills are needed However, many small groups are made in the class This can be hard for all groups to have the chance to report to the class due to the limitation of time

The groups with four-members are proposed by Honeyfield (1991), and Jung (2004), Ngoh (1991) A four member group can be more interesting and do more challenging tasks, with more ideas expressed, and negotiation among members is much more before they can reach an agreement The maximal number for one group is six It is clear that four is the optimal size for managing student learning It allows a wide range of personal experiences and contributions

I-2.5 Teacher’s and students’ roles in group work

2.5.1 Teacher’s role

The roles of the teacher in group work, as mentioned in Communicative Language Teaching, are a guide, facilitator, organizer, evaluator, promoter, and participant (Harmer, 1991) When performing group work, although students are independent, teachers still need to design task, and analyze the needs Teachers will help students when the team members interact with each other and help them deal with difficulties

Cross (1992) states that as the manager of an activity, the teachers must plan, organize, start, monitor, time and ultimately conclude the lessons They are not free during group work process but are actively engaged in supporting, monitoring and following-up The teachers have to observe students’ works from the beginning to the end of the process More specifically, they are:

- Activity selector: teachers must create activities appropriate to the student's abilities, assign tasks to the group, allow for fair distribution and set up "contests" among the group

- Instructor: teachers give necessary instruction so that the students will be

of the whole group and each member of the group as well If the teachers make a good assessment of the performance of each group, this will help a lot for students and teachers That is the idea for the following activities

Whether the team is successful or not, it depends a lot on the way teachers apply for these roles

- Scribe (secretary): take note group’s result, report writing

- Presenter (spoken person): present result to other group and answer questions

- Researcher (resource collector): manage time and plan, follow achievement

2.6.2 Debating

Penny Ur, in "Discussion that works”(1992), lists a number of limitations in the debate, however, he stresses the importance of debate as he asserts that what he learned in this activity is much better than anything else Much more interesting is that when he clearly presents some very useful steps in the design of the debate, including the number of people in each group, the number of groups, the topics of debate, the selection of groups, and the time term as well as motivation

This is also called for and against in “A course in language teaching” (1996) by

Penny Ur which is wholly divided into two major groups One group is for and one

is against Type of groupwork consists of two stages The first is preparation, the second is the argument In the first stage, teachers think about the world's arguments

as opposites In the second stage, the teacher divides the class into two groups One should think of the reasons for agreeing with the topics given by the teacher, and the other group does not agree with that Then, one or two main speakers present the case to each group, and then the discussion is then thrown out for free participation

It is very important that, at the end of the discussion, the teacher has to put the topic

to a vote

2.6.3 Cross grouping

Cross-group, a new type of activity, can help make progress in speaking class Members in different groups make new groups The change of members among different groups can make one new environment This can be called

"Jigsaw" First, teacher divides students into small group to discuss one topic after that members in each groups (expert groups) are mixed together to make a new group New members will share ideas with their new partners in their new group Thanks for this, students can change ideas and learn from each other (Richards & David, 2011)

2.7 Problems and solutions to make the group work in class effective

According to Jacobs and Hall (1994), many issues related to group activities can be addressed by careful preparation, clear guidance and appropriate means Problems and solutions can be listed below:

2.7.1 Some students talk too much or dominate the group

It is a good idea to meet these students privately and say that you are satisfied with their contribution to the lessons, you will want other learners to have more opportunities to express themselves by speaking out their own ideas not keeping silent during the time of working in group

The teacher should assign roles to members at an appropriate point during the group task, for the group or for the person (s) with an elite student Ensure that some roles require significant silence (eg, briefings, detective, recording, observer, attendant, group communication) In other words, talked privately to prominent students and gave him one of these roles

The teacher asks the group to think about the following questions: How do you accomplish tasks as a team? Did someone lead, and if so, how did this happen? What ideas are presented most strongly to solve the task? Is there anything you think but do not really say?

For long periods of time work in groups, call for the specified intervals of rxeflective silence (for example, every 15 to 20 minutes) in which the student thinks (and writes) about the points that are thinking about And, the contradictions have emerged, shortcomings should be added, and tell where the discussion should go next As the signal to the discussion continues, invite the students to read what they have written

2.7.2 Some students speak too little or keep silent while working in group

Firstly, the teacher should talk to the student privately to identify reasons for lack of participation, such as lack of integration, fear of looking stupid, feeling unprepared, fear of being trapped, or feeling unwelcome, experiment in the past, try

to cool, lack of praise

Secondly, consider using even smaller groups Silent students may feel comfortable participating in this situation, and the "freeloading" students will be less likely to approach the efforts of others

The third point is to check students’ group notes or their preparation notes occasionally.When asking students to do group work, the teacher ought to assign roles to one or all team members Some roles that involve enthusiastic involvement

of teens are spokespeople, skeptics, organizers, facilitators, liaisons with other groups Besides, the teacher might go round all groups so that each group member has to work out ideas, remind students that quantity is not quality There is a place for silence in discussion

2.7.3 Students do not concentrate on listening to fellow group members

The teacher should comment on this issue in the generic class context, remind students that after discussing in the group, they will pick up some one to summarize their group’s discussion and answers Besides, the teacher needs to set time limit and reorganize activities for students to link what they said with what the person said before

2.7.4 Students lack the social skills needed to work with others

Firstly, the teacher should promote students interested in working alone to work in the group and support the group by giving them a job that they feel comfortable Then, they might explain and ask students to become familiar with active and tolerant listening, instruct students how to make and receive constructive criticism, how to negotiate, manage disputes, refuse, disagree, argue in English in a polite way In addition, the teacher can use pair work and group work regularly for students to get used to using these procedures

2.7.5 Mother-tongue is overused

Once the activities are carried out, it is very important to stress that target language has to be exploited during group work While letting students discuss in group, teachers should move around the classroom to remind students of this rule and provide them with language if necessary The teachers orient students with tasks so that they do not use mother tongue Letting students participate in the group

in short time as a group member is an effective way to stimulate and support learner’s participation Besides, the teachers can discipline regular offenders according to the rules agreed by the whole class, and set time to limit their talking time As students tend to use mother tongue after discussion, it is better to shorten the time of practice, and provide students with necessary phrases and structures before making groups Giving someone the group the role of language supervisor can be a

solution

3 Other studies on using group work

There were several studies on group work in teaching speaking of different

level students, for example, “How group work is used in speaking lesson of the 1 st year major students of English at Vietnam University of Commerce” by Chung

-(2008) In this study, the author employed interviews (for teachers) and questionnaires (for teachers and students) to obtain the aims of the study which were to clarify how group work is used in speaking lessons, identify teacher’s strategies to encourage students to speak English in group work and identify obstacles teachers and students here experience while implementing group work of

1st year English majors at Vietnam University of Commerce The result of this study revealed that teacher often used group work in speaking lessons Games and role play were students’ favorite activities Most of them chose students near each other and from mixed levels to make a group Teachers and students thought that it was necessary to help students realize the importance of English Three biggest problems of students were “students use Vietnamese too much”, “students make noise” and “classroom condition and learning aids”

Group work is used very often not only in Vietnamese schools There were a

lot of studies on this technique of foreign authors “A study on Kurdish students' attitudes to group work in the EFL classroom” by thman 2015) was carried out

to investigate Kurdish students' attitudes concerning group work in EFL classrooms

in Kurdistan region of Iraq, advantages and, disadvantages of implementing group work in classroom Othman employed questionnaire for students, interview questions for students and triangulated to collect data Their students responded that group work was of mutual interest Members could clarify difficult things to each other and finish a task in group work in short time As for negative points, students thought that some members prefer to relax and remained silent or some did not like to work Besides, they believed that group work wasted time as students talk about external things and cannot reach an agreement As for benefits, working

in the group helped them broaden their mind, keep better communication, make

them more motivated It was good to improve their language skills As for disadvantages, students might become dependent and lazy They tended to use mother tongue Moreover, it could affect unity between students Unnecessary discussions could be raised, and thinking direction can be affected by wrong opinions from other The study was conducted on 100 Kurdish university students who had at least two-year experience of group work at Universities in Kurdistan (Zakho, Dohuk, Salahaddin, and Sulaimani universities), they stated that their students (85%) like group work activities and they could get a lot of benefits from group work Another study on group work was carried out by Ahmed (2013) His participants were students of Dhaka University In his study, Ahmed shown that packed routine and class work causing boredom for students were students’ problems Their students had lot of work to do, and activities were repetitive, which made students feel bored For teachers’ problems, they did not have enough space and time for students to do group work Besides, students were multi-level so that it was hard for teachers do design activities In addition, students did not participate in lessons equally Some were talkative and some were reticent

After consulting studies on using group work in speaking lessons of other authors, the researcher of “the Study on the Use of Group Work in Speaking lessons

of the 10th grade Students at Ben Tre High School” do research on participants who are high school students because there are a lot of studies on group work for university students or language learners in general while those for high school students are limited

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter deals with the instruments which were employed to achieve the aims and objectives of the study

1 Participants

1.1 Teachers

Four female teachers took part in the study are teachers and teaching at Ben Tre High School They are between 30 to 40 years old with at least four-year experience in teaching English Two have taught grade 10 for four years, and the other for five years and they all have got Bachelor degree of English Language Teaching At Ben Tre High School, teachers are asked to teach all four skills (speaking, reading, writing, and listening) They are trained about new teaching method and group work in speaking

1.2 Students

In order to get the data for the study, 35 students (3 boys and 32 girls) from class 10A5 at Ben Tre High School volunteered to join the study All of them are at the age of 16 Their time length of learning English is also the same because they all started learning English in grade 3 Most of them have the same level (pre-intermediate) in English and some students are better than others

2 Data collection instruments

2.1 Questionnaire

The questionnaire is considered as effective tools for collecting data in the social sciences The advantage of using the questionnaire that Gillham (2000) emphasizes is that there is less pressure on the respondent, they are not biased in the interview, and the answer analysis is simple The researcher used questionnaires as the primary source for getting information Two kinds of questionnaires were designed to find out the views of teachers and students about the use of group work

in speaking lessons of grade 10 students at Ben Tre High School Clear instructions were given when questionnaires were administered Questionnaires were given to students and teachers first to collect data

The questionnaire for students: (Appendix 1.1&1.2)

The questionnaire for students was based on knowledge in Literature Review Questionnaire for students included 12 questions written bilingually with the English version and Vietnamese version, administered to 35 students of 10A5 Students were asked to tick the most suitable answers which correspond with their opinion In the question, the participants could choose more than one choice The questionnaires were designed as listed below:

- Question 1: English learning time of all students

- Question 2-5: students’ attitude toward English lessons in a general, and speaking lesson in particular

- Question 6-9: students’ experience of group work

- Question 10-12: students’ opinion about group work

In an attempt to assure the objectiveness, faithfulness and effectiveness, the students were not required to write their names as well as other personal information when answering the questions Besides, the students were provided with clear and detailed guidance and instructions before completing the questionnaire

The questionnaire for teachers: (Appendix 1.3)

The questionnaire for the teachers included 11 questions written in English, given to 4 teachers This was divided into 4 parts:

Part 1: (question 1- 4) Teachers’ opinions on the use of group work in a speaking lesson

Part 2: (question 5- 9).The use of group work in the speaking class of teacher Part 3: (question 10) Obstacles teachers have experienced when applying for group work in the speaking class

Part 4: (question 11).The teachers’ solutions to overcome their obstacles

For options with “other” (specify), the researcher asked teachers to clarify their options

2.2 Interview (Appendix 1.4)

The interview questions were based on knowledge in Literature Review,

given to four English teachers after group activities were conducted in the classroom and after the questionnaires were completed The interviews consisted of seven questions prepared before the interview to ask teachers about their attitude, evaluation toward the use of group work in speaking lessons The advantages of interviewing include the ability to check the teacher's responses, write their idea, and investigate their feelings about speaking by using group work

2.3 Class observation (Appendix 1.5)

The class observation was another research tool for examining student participation in teamwork activities Observation sheet was based on knowledge in Literature Review As different students participate in group activities in different ways, it is difficult to grasp the situation through questionnaires and interviews Consequently, the observations provided immediate information needed in the study and behavior of the student while engaging in the observed activity and the researcher took notes during group work activities Observation sheets were conducted in which the researcher focused on student communication in English, teamwork, interaction among team members, enthusiasm and motivation when working in the group

3 Procedures for data collection

The study was conducted for seven weeks with students in class10A5 It was conducted following steps:

1 Design questionnaire for teachers and students, interview for teachers and class observation sheet

2 Contact language teacher who are teaching this class to ask for permission

to join the class for seven weeks

3 Contact other three language teachers who are teaching or used to teach the 10th-grade students to ask for their agreement to join the interview

4 Deliver questionnaire for teachers and students

5 Observer five speaking lessons in which teacher used group work

6 Interview four teachers

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS

This chapter describes findings based on the data taken from the questionnaires for teachers and students

1 Students’ survey

1.1 Students’ opinion on speaking skills

When asked about the favorite English skills, 45.3% students responded that the skills they like most were reading, while speaking skills occupied less, at 29%

In terms of the attitude toward speaking skills, there were 14.2% students said that they were very interested in speaking skills, and 60% students were rather fond of this skills The rate of participants who do not like speaking skills was 5.8%

1.2 Students’ opinion on learning speaking skills in group work

Figure 1: Students’ opinions on learning speaking skills in group work

As can be seen from the chart that nearly half of the students (48.6%) said they were rather interested in working in the group, while the rate of students who were very fond of working in the group was 11.4% However, the number of students had less interest or did not like working in the group were 31.4% and 8.6% respectively

1.3 Students’ opinion on the use of group work in the speaking class at Ben Tre High School

Figure 2: Students’ opinions on group work for the benefit of speaking skills

It can be said from the chart that more than half of students (54%) found that group was rather beneficial for their speaking skills Thanks to this technique, they were encouraged to speak more in English and gained more confidence This was also the chance for them to exchange their ideas with their partners and learn from each other (about 40% and 49% in return) Regarding the benefit of working in group work, less than 20% of the students stated that it was beneficial to work in the group according to each aspect but only less than 10% thought working in the group did not have benefit

About students’ participation in group work, nearly half of the students responded that they were enthusiastic to take part in group work activities and the rate of the students remaining silent all the time in group work quite was quite small (6%) There was a rather big number of students confessing that they often talked with other group members about other topics and used Vietnamese to discuss in the group (29% and 35% respectively)

1.4 The best size for a group

Regarding the group size, most of the students 71% (25out of 35) agreed that from three to five was the best number and 9% prefer to have as many partners as possible in their group but 20% thought that the group should consist

of more than five

1.5 Obstacles the students are facing while working in the group

Figure 3: Students’ obstacles while working in group and factors causing problems

According to the charts, there were 72% students replying that the partners’ talking more than them was one difficulty in group work so that sometimes they did not have the chance to speak They believed the main reason causing difficulty was they found hard to say something in English (85%) while there were11% students responding that the boring topics (9%) and teacher’s unclear instruction 6%) were the reasons

1.6 Students’ desire for the better group work

Figure 4: Students’ opinions on partners

The effectiveness of working in groups could be affected by choosing the partners to work with When being asked for their favorite kind of partners, there were 40% and 37% of the students preferring to have the partners sitting next to them and partners of the mixed level Only 8% of them prefer to work with the peers of the same sex, and another 8% of them tended to work with partners of the opposite sex

As for students’ favorite activity, 73% of the students like games activities, about 9% of them like to do storytelling activities According to above table, role- play, free talk, discussion, information gap and brainstorming account for 3% equally while no one chooses simulations and interview to be the most interesting activities

2 Teachers’ survey

2.1 Teachers’ opinion on the use of group work in speaking skills

As regard to the teachers’ opinion on the use of group work in speaking lessons, three out of four teachers said they did not often use the group work Only one teacher claimed that she often used group work as regular group work activities

As for success in using group work, 50% teacher pointed that they were very

successful in using it, while the other 50% said that exploiting group work was rather or little successful 50% teacher claimed that group work was quite good, 2 out of 4 teachers said that it had both good and bad points

As regard to the benefits of group work activities, 100% of the teachers responded that group work was very beneficial in improving students’ motivation, increasing exciting atmosphere for the lessons, and they can learn from each other While increasing students’ speaking time, stimulating independence and freeing teacher from their hard role of “an expert who always lectures” accounted for 75% equally Thanks to that teachers’ speaking time could be decreased and more chance for shy and passive students to express themselves and learn from each other There were 50% voted for these two choices In sum, the benefits group work brings were admitted by all teachers especially to the improvement of students in their attitude toward speaking lessons This was a technique to promote students to speak more and encourage them to express their ideas But the success of this technique depended much on how and when teachers applied and designed activities for students

2.2 How the teachers use group work in their speaking class (by percent)

The rate of the teachers designing the task in their own way without any collaboration with others or totally following the task in the textbook accounted for 100% Question six dealt with the way the teacher grouped the students Interestingly but not surprisingly, the teachers said that they could not organize mixed-sex group totally because there were only three boys in the class In addition

to that, there were 100% of the teachers responding that they grouped students sitting near each other And 75% of the teachers grouped their students into the small groups of the mixed English proficiency level None of the teachers let their students group themselves Regarding the activities the teachers chose for group work, role-playing, games, discussion were the most frequently in speaking lessons while conversation, brainstorming, and problem solving were used but not frequently None of the teachers use cross grouping

In this table, question 8 looks into teachers’ preparation for group work activities The percentage of selecting the task carefully, giving clear instructions, and going around to monitor students’ performances, providing feedback, praise,

and encouraging students were100% Providing the language for students to talk received less concern at 75% The three things which consisted of letting the students choose the topics and setting homework relevant to the lesson and stating the focus and objectives of activities were 25%

The things the teachers often did during the time of group work of the students were illustrated in the question 9 All of them often moved around small groups and gave assistance if necessary and gave feedback There were 75% of them responding that only spoke when necessary One of them often stood close to the students who spoke the least and much stand at any place, meanwhile, the things such as standing in front of the class and observe, speaking as much as possible or working as a group member were not taken into account

2.3 Obstacles experienced by the teachers when applying group work in the speaking class

Figure 5: Obstacles experienced by the teachers when applying group work in the

speaking class by percent

Figure 5 offers the result of the types of obstacles the four teachers faced Clearly, all the teachers had too little time to prepare for group work and students made noise Three out of four teachers had difficulty with multi-level class and overload work There were 50 % of the ideas collected went to low students’ proficiency, the resistance of them to participate in activities and too much Vietnamese used in class All of the teachers said that they did not have obstacles with lacking teaching experience, feeling deficient to facilitate a communicative class, immovable seating arrangement Lastly, all of them did not believe that the lack of money for material and teaching aid development or few people with expertise to turn for advice were their obstacles

2.4 Solutions to overcome obstacles from the teachers

Figure 6: Solutions to overcome obstacles from the teachers

The chart shows the solutions of the teachers to overcome their obstacles All

of the teachers resorted to the ways of making the speaking tasks suitable to the students and using different ways of implementing group work However, only one the teachers chose to punish their lazy students None of them chose to ask the administrator or the faculty for help