INVESTIGATING ORAL PARTICIPATION IN IN CLASS GROUP WORK BY FIRST YEAR STUDENTS

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOIUNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TỐNG THỊ MỸ LIÊN INVESTIGATING ORAL PARTICIPATION IN IN-CLASS GROUP W

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FALCUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TỐNG THỊ MỸ LIÊN

INVESTIGATING ORAL PARTICIPATION IN IN-CLASS GROUP WORK BY FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, VIETNAM NATIONAL

UNIVERSITY, HANOI

NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC THAM GIA NÓI TRONG HOẠT ĐỘNG NHÓM TRÊN LỚP CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TẠI KHOA ANH, ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ - ĐHQG HÀ NỘI

Summary of M.A Combined Program Thesis

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60-14-10

HANOI – 20101

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ED: English Department

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ELT: English Language Teaching

ESL: English as a Second language

ULIS: University of Languages and International StudiesNNS: Non-native English Speaker

NNSs: Non-native English Speakers

NS: Native English Speaker

NSs: Native English Speakers

VNU: Vietnam National University

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Hyland, K (1991) Managing group work Guidelines, 13, (1), 29-35.

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Jones, J F (1995) A Cross-Cultural Perspective on the Pragmatics of

Small-Group Discussion RELC Journal, 26, (2), 44-61

Le, H (2004) Peer interaction in group work Teacher’s Edition, (6),

28-30

Lee, P (2005) Students’ Personality Type and Attitudes Toward

Classroom Participation Proceedings of the CATESOL State

Conference 2005

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U.S Universities : An Emic Perspective Westport: Greenwood

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Publishing Group, Inc.Long, M H & Porter, P A (1985) Group work,

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work through qualitative interviewing The Qualitative Report, 9

(2), 216-240 Retrieved September, 20th, 2006, fromhttp://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR9-2/melles.pdf

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(1), 19-27

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Swain, M (1993) The Output Hypothesis: Just Speaking and Writingaren’t Enough The Canadian Modern Language Review, 50 (1).Tickoo, M L (1991) Group work in language classrooms: a pedagogic

universal or a partial remedy? Guidelines, 13, (1), 45-54

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Perspectives and Techniques Oxford: Falmer Press.

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Teacher’s Edition, (6), 16-24.

Yuenfeng, Z (2005) Task type and teacher's role: Two important

factors in effective group learning Thinking Classroom Journal

[online] Retrieved October, 11th, 2006 from http://ct-net.net/ct_tcpZhenhui, R (2001) Advantages of group-centered learning in large

classes Teacher’s Edition, (6), 8-11.

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1 PROBLEM STATEMENT AND RATIONALE

Group work’s effectiveness has been reconsidered closely since Tickoo

(1991, p.53) left the open question “is group work a pedagogic

universal or a partial remedy?” Since then, the need to examine how

group-work theory works in practice has emerged Addressing thisissue, various studies (Jones, 1995; Zhenhui, 2001; Martine, 2003;Yuenfeng, 2005; Chen, 2004) were conducted; however, deep empiricalinvestigations into students’ participation in group work and influentialfactors were few in number – Martine (2003) and Yuenfeng (2005).Pitifully, those merely explored the oral participation level measured bythe number of turns and amount of talking time Thus, a morecomprehensive evaluation of their participation would be appreciated.With regard to Vietnam’s ELT context, the aforementioned matter hasnot been thoroughly investigated despite the existence of a few relatedstudies like Vo’s investigation (2004) The urgency to do researchbecomes significant in the ELT context of University of Languages andInternational Studies, Vietnam National University (ULIS, VNU).Although group work is a familiar method at English Department (ED),

it is considerably new for the majority of freshmen, who have had littlegroup-learning experience in high school Consequently, it hasinevitably posed huge challenges for teachers and students at this site.The present study was conducted to examine the participation of first-year EFL learners at ULIS, VNU in group work Hopefully, thisresearch could narrow the gaps and bring new perspectives to the field

2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this study was to investigate the oral participation offirst-year EFL students at ULIS, VNU in in-class group work.Specifically, it addressed the following research questions:

1 What do first-year EFL students at ULIS, VNU think about group work?

2 How are those students’ level and quality of oral participation in class group work?

in-3 What factors affect those students’ oral participation in in-class group work?

4 Which monitoring strategies have EFL teachers at the research site applied to increase the students’ oral participation in in-class group work? Which ones are preferred by the students?

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From the findings, the researcher would recommend severalpedagogical implications to motivate and balance students’ oralparticipation in group work

3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Due to time constraints, instead of aiming at group activities in general,the study focused on those within classroom contexts Besides, thestudy merely examined EFL students’ oral participation Moreover, itwas carried out with just 100 first-year students and five teachers ofEnglish at ED at ULIS, VNU

teams Nevertheless, in this research, “group work” just refers to oral

activities done in informal learning groups in class

4.1.2 Participation

Research has focused on verbal and non-verbal aspects of students’participation in classroom discussions (Lee, 2005; Liu, 2001) Theparticipation in group activities can be also assessed in the similar way.Besides, when investigating oral participation, researchers have justpaid attention to observable aspects, i.e the number of turns or theamount of talking time (Martine, 2003); however, obviously, the quality

of ideas should be also judged to create a more comprehensiveevaluation Due to time constraints, this study merely examinedstudents’ oral participation, measured by the number of turns, theamount of talking time, and the quality of ideas

4.2 ESL/ EFL students’ participation in group work

In ESL/ EFL settings, participation in classroom activities is importantfor efficient learning to occur (Gomez, 1995) As regards working ingroups, without their active participation, learners might not gain anygroup-work benefits In that case, applying group activities in classroomcontexts will become a waste of time and effort Therefore, students’participation is indispensable in this kind of activity (McInnis, 2006)

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Pitifully, several studies such as Ngoh (1991), Tickoo (1991), Martine(2003) and Yuenfeng (2005) have demonstrated students’ lack ofparticipation in group work This easily occurs at the process stage,where they are involved in oral interaction, or the presentation stage.The lack of participation of several members apparently results inunbalanced participation Martin’s study (2003) reveals a high level ofdominance of NS learners over NNS ones when discussing in groups; it

is also the case of EFL learners as identified by Yuenfeng (2005)

4.3 Influential factors on ESL/EFL Students’ participation in class group work

in-A number of studies have elaborated various elements encouraging orinhibiting ESL/ EFL students from participating in in-class group work,which can be grouped into three categories: student-related, pedagogy-related, and culture-related factors

Student-related elements include language difficulties, background orsubject knowledge, difficulties with some aspects of discourse,acceptance of group work, and personalities (Melles, 2004; Chong,1999; Yuenfeng, 2005; Vo, 2004; Martine, 2003)

Pedagogy-related factors refer to the level of difficulty of the task andthe level of interest of the topic, teacher role (setting up rules for group-work participation, giving instructions, and being absent during groupinteraction), and peer cooperation and evaluation (Vo, 2004; Yuenfeng,2005; Ohata, 2005)

Finally, the lack of participation in group work might be due to culturalfactors, namely the concept of face and the fear of losing face, the value

of silence, and views on direct disagreement and co-operation (Ngoh,1991; Martine, 2003; Yuenfeng, 2005)

4.4 Teachers’ monitoring strategies to increase students’ participation in group work

The literature has indicated several basic strategies which teachers canapply to monitor students to ensure their active participation duringgroup activities Those include keeping distance from students whenthey start working, intervening during group work, providing languagehelp when needed, and dealing with common language errors (Ngoh,1991; Brown, 2001; Hyland, 1991) Nevertheless, several educatorsemphasize that it is essential for teachers not to provide excessiveguidance and support for students (Oakley and Crocker, 1977)

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5 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

5.1 Participants

The target sample of the research consisted of 100 first-year EFLstudents from five randomly-chosen classes at ED at ULIS, VNU, andfive teachers of English who were teaching those five classes

5.2 Data collection methods

The data were collected by three instruments, which established atriangulation to enhance data reliability and validity through multiplesources (Burns, 1994, as cited in Burnes, 1999)

5.2.1 Questionnaires

In the study, the questionnaire (Appendix 5), targeting at students,aimed at collecting statistical data It included four parts: the first partabout students’ perceptions of group work (eight questions), the secondpart about their oral participation level and quality in group activities(nine questions), the third part about factors affecting their participation(23 questions), and the final part about teachers’ monitoring strategiesapplied and preferred during group work (12 questions)

5.2.2 Semi-structured interviews

In the research, the interviews were used to triangulate and enrich thequestionnaire data There were four interview schedules, two for theteachers and two for the students

In terms of teacher interviews (Appendix 3), the first schedule with fourquestions was intended to collect the same information in the studentquestionnaire but seen from teachers’ viewpoints The second schedulewith two questions was used to ask teachers to recall about the observedgroup activities, focusing on students’ oral participation level andquality in those activities, and teachers’ monitoring strategies applied.With regard to student interviews (Appendix 3), the first schedule withthree questions collected the relatively same information in thequestionnaire, but was expected to generate more details The secondschedule with two questions was for students to recall about theobserved discussions, focusing on their oral participation level andquality in those activities, and influential factors on their participation

5.2.3 Observations

In the study, an observation scheme with two main parts (see Appendix4) was applied for its convenience in data coding and analysis It wasdesigned to investigate students’ participation level in the observed

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group discussions, basing on the times of turns taken and the total

amount of talking time of each group member, and discover teachers’

strategies to increase students’ participation during those activities

5.3 Data collection procedures

The data were collected during the period of six weeks First, the firstversion of the questionnaire was piloted with five first-year EFLstudents at ED at ULIS, VNU Then, it was carefully revised to ensureits accuracy, conciseness, comprehensiveness and focus After that, thequestionnaires were delivered to 100 first-year EFL students in fiverandom classes at ED at ULIS, VNU in class

Later, five respondents, one in each class, were randomly chosen for theinterviews to yield more interesting points Semi-structured interviews

of fifteen to twenty minutes basing on the first student-targetedschedule were administered in Vietnamese with each participant in aninformal atmosphere to minimize their anxiety Besides, teacherinterviews of fifteen to twenty minutes (using the first teacher-targetedschedule) were conducted in English with five teachers teaching thosestudents in a friendly setting

Next, observations were conducted to examine data reliability Oneobservation of a particular group discussion was carried out in eachclass The researcher strictly followed the observation scheme to takenotes and focus on the points investigated Immediately after eachlesson, a semi-structured interview of five to ten minutes (using thesecond student-targeted schedule) was carried out in Vietnamese withone student in the observed group for data triangulation The teacherswere also interviewed in English (using the second teacher-intendedschedule) for around ten minutes after the lessons It is important tonote that all the interviews and observations were tape-recorded.Certainly, tape-recording did not bear any threats to the data reliability

5.4 Data analysis methods and procedures

The questionnaire data were quantified and analyzed in the form ofdescriptive statistics (using one measure of central tendency – themean) Then, they were illustrated in charts and tables

As for teacher interviews, the recordings were transcribed Meanwhile,student interviews (in Vietnamese) were transcribed and translated intoEnglish Afterwards, a color-coding system was applied to synthesizethose data

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Besides, the first part of the observation scheme was analyzed byfrequency and duration method recommended by Bordens & Abbott(1999), and was illustrated in charts The second part’s data (teachers’monitoring strategies) were demonstrated in a table.

All the data were grouped under four main areas: students’ perceptions

of group work, students’ oral participation level and quality in group work, factors affecting students’ participation in group work, and teachers’ monitoring strategies to increase students’ participation

6 DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

6.1 Students’ perceptions towards group work

6.1.1 Data from the student interviews

It is noteworthy that all the interviewees pointed out various benefitsthey could gain through group activities The first mentioned by threeout of five were improving their language skills and boosting students’confidence through interacting with each other Besides, two referred tothe opportunity to widen their knowledge about certain topics

All the interviewees also reflected on group work’s disadvantages First,four of them agreed on students’ overuse of their native language.Moreover, three acknowledged a noisy and chaotic atmosphere as aproblem of group work Another disadvantage was the imbalance ofparticipation among group members as assumed by two participants

6.1.2 Data from the questionnaires

As regards the first four statements in Table 4.1 (Appendix 1), notably,the first two statements were the most prominent and visible advantagesperceived by the students as they had higher means Meanwhile, theresponses to the others showed a tendency towards the middle (means <3.4), which demonstrated the participants’ wider range of views

In contrast, there were various opinions on the disadvantages The lastfour statements in Table 4.1 all received the mean scores between 3.1and 3.7, among which overuse of mother tongue had the greatesttendency to agreement (the highest mean - 3.66)

6.1.3 Data from the teacher interviews

Generally, the teachers supposed that their students had positiveattitudes towards group work In fact, four of them believed themajority of students loved working in groups However, there were aminority of the learners who were not really aware of the usefulness ofgroup work as acknowledged by two of the teachers

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6.1.4 Summary and discussion

The data collected from different sources supported to confirm that thestudents had good awareness of group work’s advantages and helddifferent attitudes towards its problems Furthermore, the teachers could

be conscious of students’ perceptions of group activities

As shown, the participants were aware of the benefits of group activitieshighlighted in the literature by Zhenhui (2001) and Chen (2004) Thisgreat awareness may be because the students had several learningachievements after joining group work in the first semester, and nowthey could recall their experience Additionally, like the researchers inthe literature, the participants held different viewpoints on the problems

of group work This could be because the application of this activityworked differently in different contexts, and therefore, whether theproblems could be visible or not might depend on a number of agents.Unlike McInnis’s study (2006), which indicated a large number ofstudents’ lack of awareness of the role of participation in group work,the present investigation demonstrated the learners’ fairly positiveperceptions of gains through participating in this activity This could beeasily understood as the participants of McInnis’s study and those ofthis research were not similar in terms of the ELT context, learningexperience or personal achievements

6.2 Students’ participation in in-class group work

6.2.1 Data from the questionnaires

The means of the first four statements concerning participation patterns(Table 4.2, Appendix 1) illustrated that marginal interaction (mean =2.29) and conditional participation (mean = 2.26) were the most popularparticipation patterns among the students in group work while silentobservation was the least common (mean = 1.81)

In terms of the quality of ideas contributed (the last four statements inTable 4.2), sharing many ideas, even irrelevant and/or unconstructiveones was the most common (the highest mean - 2.43), which showedthat the participants did not seem to be selective in sharing ideas.Besides, saying only some words or phrases was least regularly chosen(the lowest mean - 1.91), and this was the only mean below 2

Nonetheless, noticeably, the means of all the eight statements were lessthan 2.5, which showed the students’ tendency to participate differentlyrather than follow a fixed pattern at different times

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Referring to different members’ participation in one group (Figure 4.1,Appendix 2), surprisingly, 26% of the respondents thought theimbalance always occurred It seemed that those bore negativeexperiences concerning peers’ participation in group work Strikingly,

while 41% marked “Sometimes”, 32% agreed on its high frequency.

Those data showed that the lack and imbalance of participation visiblyoccurred in in-class group work The quality of ideas shared in groupwork also needed to be questioned since many students tended to be notselective in deciding on what to say

6.2.2 Data from the student interviews

Three out of five interviewees admitted they tended to contribute little

in group work Interestingly, two of those first used the word “average”

to talk about their participation level, but confessed to lackingparticipation when asked to elaborate more By contrast, the other twoassumed that they had active participation However, one recalled hislittle involvement in the first semester When it came to the observedlessons, most of them confessed to their little participation.Coincidentally, one used the word “average” again when first talkingabout his participation level

Furthermore, strikingly, all of them claimed that the dominance of somemembers visibly happened in their classes This problematic situationwas considerably common, especially when the students just gotacquaintance with this ELT method

As regards the quality of ideas contributed, all of them said that at timesthey spoke whatever they thought of Two of them even confessed totheir low-quality ideas in group activities

On the whole, the student interview findings supported to verify thesimilar problems as revealed by the questionnaires

6.2.3 Data from the observations

In terms of the number of turns (Figure 4.2, Appendix 2), a serious lack

of participation was apparently displayed Half of the students took nomore than three turns, at least twice fewer than those of the personparticipating most actively in each group Furthermore, a greatparticipation imbalance could be seen in every group, most obviously ingroup five where member one had 13 turns, more than the others’ totalturns Notably, in the other groups, two members appeared to dominatethe discussions for taking over half of the group’s total turns

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With regard to the total amount of talking time (Figure 4.3, Appendix2), the same situation was reflected Nearly one third took up less thanfive percent of the total talking time; meanwhile, some were toodomineering Most strikingly, over two thirds of group five’s totaltalking time belonged to member one In the other groups, theimbalance was still clear with one member’s talking time taking up over40% Unsurprisingly, those having more turns talked more in each turn.Moreover, some had the same number of turns but differed in theamount of talking time

In short, the observations disclosed the similar problems in participationlevel identified by the questionnaires and student interviews

6.2.4 Data from the teacher interviews

Interestingly, the teachers held the same view of the discussed matter.Four of them referred to the lack of participation and domination ofsome members Only T3 appeared to be more positive about herstudents’ participation

Regarding the quality of ideas, all the teachers claimed that theirstudents easily went off-topic during the discussions In addition, three

of them concluded that working in groups might reduce the quality ofideas of certain students For example, some were hesitant in usingcomplicated expressions, or used Vietnamese to make others understandwhat they wanted to say These showed that group work sometimesfailed to generate good ideas from the students

6.2.5 Summary and discussion

The data collected by the three instruments helped to conclude thatthere were three major problems in the participation of the students inin-class group activities: a lack of participation, an imbalance in theparticipation ratio in one group, and a shortage of good ideas

These findings are comparatively similar to what has been addressed byearlier researchers (Tickoo, 1991; Ngoh, 1991; Chen, 2004) andidentified in the previous empirical projects (Martine, 2003; Yuenfeng,2005) Thus, it could be concluded that those problems tended to beprevailing in any ELT contexts with all types of learners Certainly, thelevel of seriousness of those problems would differ among differentgroup activities in one context and among different ELT contexts.Nevertheless, different from the related studies, which merely focused

on participation level, this research shed light on the low quality of

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ideas contributed during group work Additionally, the present studyspotted students’ tendency to use the word “average” to describe theirown participation level, which was out of the researcher’s expectations.

6.3 Factors affecting students’ participation in in-class group work 6.3.1 Data from the teacher interviews

It is worth examining the teachers’ views to see whether they could beconscious of this issue and whether there was any mismatch betweenteachers’ views and students’ awareness

The first agreed by all the teachers was students’ unfamiliarity withgroup work, the impact of students’ English proficiency, discussiontopic’s interesting level, and teachers’ observation and facilitation Besides, three of them paid special attention to the influence of peers onthe students during group work Meanwhile, T3 claimed on the impact

of peers’ responses to the work (enthusiastic or uninterested) andattitudes toward others’ turns (encouraging or discouraging) Therewere four other elements mentioned by only one interviewee: the use ofmarks or gifts, the time that the activity takes place, students’personality, and their health or mental status

Notably, T3 discovered more elements than others, which could beexplained by the difference in teaching experience T3 had beenworking with first-year students at this site for seven years while theothers’ working experience just ranged from one to three years

6.3.2 Data from the questionnaires

First, the top striking student-related factors included lackingvocabulary and grammar, lacking previous group work experience,lacking background knowledge, having positive view of group work,and lacking confidence (mean > 2.5) (Table 4.3, Appendix 1) Amongthose, lacking vocabulary and grammar was the most prominent (thehighest mean - 2.9) Moreover, the least influential was being unable tosee group work’s benefits (the lowest mean - 1.81 < 2)

In terms of pedagogy-related factors (Table 4.4, Appendix 1), the mostoutstanding was being encouraged by teachers’ clear instructions (thehighest mean- 2.85 - also the only mean above 2.5) Four factors (seeing

no clear rules for participation, being afraid of negative peer evaluation,being forced to participate more due to lack of peer participation, anddisliking group members) received the means below 2, among whichdisliking group members stood at the bottom of the list (mean = 1.68)

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As demonstrated in Table 4.5 (Appendix 1), the most influentialcultural element was getting used to listening (the highest mean - 2.34),and the least striking was being afraid of losing face in front of peers(the lowest mean - 1.71) Notably, all the culture-related factors’ meanswere less than 2.5 Besides, half of those received the means below 2.When asked to list any other influential factors, just two respondentsreplied Surprisingly, health was the only one mentioned by both; theothers (time, team spirit, peers’ lack of responsibility, and studyenvironment) were merely referred to by either of them.

Overall, the questionnaire data showed that student-related elementswere the most influential while culture-related ones were the leaststriking Of course, the level of impact and the number of factorsdiffered among the participants

6.3.3 Data from the student interviews

Student-related factors

One prevailing factor was the lack of concentration During theobserved group discussions, four out of five experienced it, which madethem unaware of being in group work at times Nevertheless, just three

of them could figure out the reasons

Besides, language difficulties enormously troubled the participants Inthe observed activity, four had problems with vocabulary Three ofthose also acknowledged the failure to express their ideas in English.Only S4 was not troubled by vocabulary; she appeared to be the mostconfident about her proficiency level of English

Furthermore, three of them agreed on the influence of the shortage ofideas and previous experience with group work and English skills Additionally, preference to working individually was mentioned bytwo Surprisingly, both had little previous group-work experience, andexpressed their unfamiliarity with studying in groups Thus, it could beseen that secondary-school experience had great impacts on students’preference to working individually Being afraid of making mistakesalso hindered the participation of two Despite their initial desire tospeak, they did not dare to speak for their anxiety of being underrated.Two other much less striking elements included students’ personalityand students’ attitudes towards group work as stated by one Notably,S2 expressed her negative attitude to group work It seemed that she hadseveral negative group-work experiences

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