Ứng dụng các bài tập giải quyết vấn đề nhằm giúp nâng cao kỹ năng nói cho học sinh lớp 12

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGESNGUYEN TUYET ANH USING PROBLEM SOLVING TASKS TO PROVE GRADE 12 STUDENTS’ ENGLISH IM-SPEAKING SKILLS Ứng dụng các bài tập giải quyết vấn

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

NGUYEN TUYET ANH

USING PROBLEM SOLVING TASKS TO PROVE GRADE 12 STUDENTS’ ENGLISH

IM-SPEAKING SKILLS

(Ứng dụng các bài tập giải quyết vấn đề nhằm giúp

nâng cao kỹ năng nói cho học sinh lớp 12)

M.A THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

THAI NGUYEN – 2019

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

NGUYEN TUYET ANH

USING PROBLEM SOLVING TASKS TO PROVE GRADE 12 STUDENTS’ ENGLISH

IM-SPEAKING SKILLS

(Ứng dụng các bài tập giải quyết vấn đề nhằm giúp

nâng cao kỹ năng nói cho học sinh lớp 12)

M.A THESIS

M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION)

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Dr Nguyen Thanh Long

THAI NGUYEN – 2019

DECLARATION -***** -

I certify that the thesis entitled “Using problem-solving tasks to improve grade

12 students’ English-speaking skills” is my own study in the fulfillment of therequirement for the Degree of Master of Arts at Foreign Language Faculty,Thai Nguyen University

Thai Nguyen, July 15, 2019

Nguyen Tuyet Anh

Approved bySUPERVISOR

Dr Nguyen Thanh Long

This thesis could not have implemented if I did not have a great support andassistance of many people Therefore, I would like to extend my sincere grati-tude to all of them

First of all, I would like to express my deepest thanks and gratitude to my pervisor Dr Nguyen Thanh Long for his patience, kindly support and usefuladvices during the time I conducted my research But for his precious com-ments and instructions, the thesis could not have done effectively

su-Secondly, I received tremendous support from my school – Hon Gai HighSchool I would like to give many thanks to the students who directly engaged

in the lessons throughout the process of data collection Their enthusiasm andserious contribution made the process of data collection effective and reliable Ialso acknowledge my thankfulness to my headmaster who helped facilitate myresearch conducted smoothly I would also like to state my thanks to the col-leagues for their engagement in the interviews

Another special thank goes to teachers of English Department, School of eign Languages, Thai Nguyen University Without their advices and encour-agement, I would not have been able to pursuit my research

For-My endless thanks approve to my parents, especially my mother, for their time,encouragement and support me on my way of study My mother did not onlyhelped me to take care of my baby and me but she also worried about each step

of my completion of the study Another gratitude sends to my little daughterwho was born at time of my Master study Despite the difficulty, her appear-ance motivates me a lot

Finally, I am grateful to my classmates for their spiritual support and agement They encouraged me through my rough time Without their support,

encour-my thesis could not have been completed

English speaking skills have received more and more concern as these skillsmake a great contribution to students’ communication skills The study aims atmeasuring the effectiveness of using problem-solving tasks to help students ofgrade 12 improve their speaking skills The study was carried out using bothqualitative and quantitative approaches 44 students of grade 12 from Hon GaiHigh School were the participants of the study Students were taught speakingskills with a practice session using problem-solving tasks The researchers usedPre-Test, Post-Test, Observation Sheet, Interviews as the tools to find out theanswers The results of the thesis showed that problem-solving tasks influencedpositively on students’ speaking ability, made them feel more confident tospeak and can speak more fluently At the same time, the problem-solving tasksmotivated students to speak as well as overcome their fear of speaking in front

of the class In the light of the results, it is recommended that teachers shoulduse problem-solving tasks to improve students’ speaking skills

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION ii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Research topic area 1

2 The study context 1

3 Focus of the study 2

4 Rationale of the study 2

5 Structure of the thesis 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Problem-solving tasks 4

1.1.1 Problem-solving 4

1.1.2 Problem – solving tasks 5

1.2 Speaking skills 6

1.3 Language Learning Motivation 7

1.4 Problem-solving tasks in teaching speaking skills 8

1.3.1 The relationship between problem-solving tasks and speaking skills 8

1.3.2 The steps to apply Problem – Solving Tasks into teaching English-speaking process 9

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 11

2.1 Field site and participants 12

2.2 Data collection methods 12

2.2.1 Classroom observation 13

2.2.2 Interviews 15

2.2.3 Speaking Tests 16

2.3 Data analysis methods 17

2.4 Ethical considerations and data reliability 18

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 19

3.1 Students’ motivation on learning English by engaging in problem- solving speaking tasks 19

3.1.1 Learner’s motivation and autonomy 19

3.1.2 Learner’s motivation and confidence 20

3.1.3 Learner’s motivation and positive peer interaction 21

3.2 The positive effects of problem-solving tasks on student’s speaking

skills 22

PART C: CONCLUSION 29

1 Summary of the key findings 29

2 Pedagogical implications of the study 30

3 Limitations of the study 31

4 Recommendations 31

REFERENCES 33

APPENDICES 36

The test results 38

Table 1: Observation details

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2: Problem-solving tasks

Table 3: Classroom Observation sheet

Table 4: Interviews

Table 5: Criteria for assessing students’ speaking skills

Table 6: The longest pausing time

Table 7: Result of the Students’ Speaking Pre-test and Post-test ScoresTable 8: Paired Samples Statistics

Table 9: Paired Samples Correlations

Table 10: Paired Samples Test

Table 11: The longest time of the participants’ speaking

Table 12: Students’ using Vietnamese

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Research topic area

English is obviously the most popular language learned by people in the world Teaching English as a foreign language in many countries becomes an important goal of many Departments of Education and Training In learning English, learners focus on developing skills, including reading, speaking, listening and writing Re- cently, speaking has been regarded as the most important skills One issue in this area is to make language learners become better with different proficiency Speak- ing skills play the significant role in real life In speaking, the ability to communi- cate in different situations is a need However, improving students’ speaking skills

is not easy at all Speaking English in classes is different from speaking English in real life Teaching students to speak needs to activate students’ background knowledge and then produce a message Language teachers have tried out many ways to improve students’ speaking skills One of the techniques that can be helpful

is problem-solving tasks Because life is full of problems Problems are a central part of life Every day, people are facing tremendous problem-solving and decision- making situations Fortunately, a problem is a stimulus situation which requires an organism response without ignoring it (Shulman, 1975) Language teachers can takeadvantage of problems in real life as a stimulus to motivate learners to speak

However, the difficulty in speaking English fluently and effectively is faced by many students because of the limitation of vocabulary, reluctance to participate in the conversation, lack of confidence, fear of committing errors, slow reaction of the real-life situations and so on This research aims at finding out whether teaching English attaching to real life problem solving can help students become better in speaking skills or not and figuring out if students are interested in applying prob- lem-solving activities into their English studying

2 The study context

The present study was conducted in a Vietnam EFL teaching context With the aim

to totally change the ways of foreign language teaching and learning in the tional system to make foreign languages become Vietnamese’s strength (PrimeMinister, 2008), the government of Vietnam launched a national foreign language

educa-project policy known as “Teaching and learning foreign languages in the nationaleducation system from 2008 to 2020” (Government of Vietnam, 2008).Learners ofthe project are expected to improve their capacity in using the language One of thesignificant focus of the innovation is to apply communicative approach in teaching.The focus on teaching four skills is considered more important than teaching gram-mar traditionally Learners’ proficiency is assessed through CEFR scale, CommonEuropean Framework of Reference Hon Gai High School located in the center of

Ha Long city, Quang Ninh province always tries to fulfill the objectives by ing the teaching methods and equipping students with all four skills Speaking skills

innovat-is the crucial part The research aims at measuring one of the methods that utes to the improvement of students’ language capacity

contrib-3 Focus of the study

This study aims to examine how problem-solving tasks help students of grade 12improve their English-speaking skills

In order to achieve the goal, this study needs to fulfil the specific objectives as lowings:

fol First, to determine the effectiveness of problemfol solving tasks in improvingstudents’ speaking skills in grade 12 at Hon Gai High School

- And second, to examine the grade 12 students’ motivation in speaking ties using problem-solving tasks

activi-In order to achieve the above objectives, this study aimed to answer the followingresearch questions:

(1) What are the effects of problem-solving tasks on students’ speaking skill ingrade 12 at Hon Gai high school?

(2) What elements motivate students to speak in problem-solving task?

4 Rationale of the study

I conducted the present study for the following reasons:

Firstly, I started this study based on my own interest of problem-solving tasks,which I accidentally knew through the material of teaching methodology I won-dered how the tasks could help my students in their language acquisition This wasthe initial driving force that led me to commit to conducting the study The studyhelped to enrich my knowledge of teaching methods

Secondly, my school where I conducted my research paid much attention on proving students’ integrated skills as the main approach of each lesson plan Theneed to innovate language teaching methodology and motivate students to engage inthe communicative activities encourage me to conduct this study The findings ofthe study could help not only me but my colleagues in our profession.

im-Finally, conducting the research was an experiment on my students to change theway of learning to improve the quality of language teaching and learning at myschool,

5 Structure of the thesis

The study composed of three parts Part A introduces the topic area, the study text, the study focus, and rationale of the study Part B includes Chapter 1, Chapter

con-2 and Chapter 3 Chapter 1 describes the general background of the study, dealswith some concepts relating to the study This chapter also review some relatedstudies Chapter 2 describes the research methodology It justified the choice of themixed methods of qualitative and quantitative approaches In this chapter, it alsoexplained three instruments applied to conduct the study, including interviews, ob-servations, and speaking tests Chapter 3 addresses the findings and discussion ofthe study And Part C consists of the summary of the study, pedagogical implica-tions, the limitations of the study and recommendations

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This study examines the effects of using PST to improve grade 12 students’ lish-speaking skills and how they motivate in the tasks In order to provide the basictheoretical framework for the study, this chapter begins with a review of the con-ceptualization of problem-solving tasks Then, I will discuss the concept of speak-ing skills Then, the chapter also discusses prior studies, which focus on the findings

Eng-on the relatiEng-onship between PST and speaking skills The chapter ends with thesteps to apply PST in speaking activities

1.1 Problem-solving tasks

1.1.1 Problem-solving

Problem-solving is generally defined as the process of mental operations to find thesolution to the problem given Specifically, problem-solving, according to Oxforddictionary, is defined as a cognitive process to find out a solution to a question orsituation According to J.R Anderson, problem-solving can be defined as the cogni-tive operations to achieve the goal Or the meeting of challenges is also can be rec-ognized as a signal of problem-solving A problem-solver “is challenged to accom-plish a specific result, often under prescribed conditions” (Fowler & Fowler, 1978,

p 883) Problem-solving is the discovery of the answer to complex question basing

on physical need rather than intellectual curiosity (Mithaug, 1993, p 26) E PaulTorrance defined problem solving as “the process of sensing problems or gaps ininformation, forming ideas or hypotheses, testing and modifying these hypotheses,and communicating the results (Torrance, 1994)

A problem is “a question or situation that presents doubt, perplexity, or difficulty or

a question offered for consideration, discussion or solutions” (Webster, 1995) J.E.Ormrod defined “problem-solving is using existing knowledge and skills to address

an unanswered question or troubling situation, while problem-based learning is anapproach to instruction in which students acquire new knowledge and skills whileworking on a complex problem similar to those in the outside world (Ormrod, 2006,

p 111-112) Mayer and Wittrock (2006, p 287) defined “problem-solving as a nitive process directed at achieving a goal when no solution method is obvious tothe problem solvers.”

cog-1.1.2 Problem – solving tasks

The term “task” has been defined in a variety of ways When leaners engage selves in a communicative task, it means they need to comprehend, manipulate,produce or interact in the target language The principal focus of the learners’ atten-tion is on meaning rather than form The task should also have a sense of complete-ness, being able to stand alone as a communicative act in its own right” (Nunan,1989)

them-Problem-solving tasks especially contribute to communicative goals in real-worldcontexts The learners focus on completing the tasks by interacting with other peo-ple, identifying the problem, representing the problem mentally, developing a solu-tion strategy, selecting a solution and finally implementing the solution (Brandford

& Stein, 1993)

Problem-solving tasks provide learners with a reason to communicate Learners areencouraged to interact with other people to offer advice or recommendations on theproblem given The problem-solving tasks proposed by teachers around the world tostimulate learners to use their existing knowledge and skills to suggest the answersfor the need-to-be-solved situations (Ormond, 2006) Achieving the goal in theproblem-solving tasks is a cognitive process directed when there is no given solu-tion to the problem solvers Mayer and Wittrock (2006, p 287)

For the problem-solving tasks to be successful, students can follow many differentsteps suggested by the scholars However, most of them agree on some the problem-solving circles Firstly, problem-solvers need to recognize the problem At thisstage, learners can use tools such as brainstorming, interviewing to gather infor-mation Mostly, the problems are identified by the teacher when she gives the task

to the students Secondly, define the problem mentally In this stage, learners aftergather the information need to measure whether the information is suitable andgood to be chosen Reorganizing the information is a need Thirdly, learners willdevelop a solution strategy Each member of the group suggests a solution, explainswhy he/she chooses that solution, then the whole group generate the solutions andconsider which one is the best Next, this stage is to choose a solution which is thebest and receive agreement of the whole group Finally, when students finish dis-cussing, they will report the result Newell & Simon (1972) in Artificial Intelli-gence, DZurilla & Goldried (1971) in Behavior Modification, Valett (1986) Theprocess of working to find out the solution may be difficult if the learners do not

have suitable knowledge If this happens, there may be many useful websites thatgive useful information To make the tasks effectively, the teachers should, there-fore, explain the nature of the problem, elicit if necessary, or do relevant primingphrase in the previous lesson Obviously, students will arrive at a deep understand-ing of the topic area and construct new knowledge and understanding on which theyare able to make decisions.

In general, the core component of problem-solving tasks lies in using cognition tosolve problem Problem-solving tasks are generally referred to tasks in which what

is meant to be learned will be presented in form of question rather than explanation,description of a report (Hmelo-silver, 2004) Problem-solving tasks involve collect-ing data to solve the problem in the best possible manner This involves a hugeamount of reading by the students from every possible resource such as reading upbooks in the library and assessing databases They may also interview experts in thefield, and this would mean bringing the student closer to the real world

1.2 Speaking skills

Speaking is an activity of delivering massage, it occurs between speaker and listenerorally In other words, the main point of speaking activity is that speakers com- municate their massage to the listeners In this case, the speaker and listener should

be able to understand each other The speaker can produce the sounds that involved the massages and the listener can receive, process, and response the massages According to Byrne (1984) speaking is oral communication It is a two ways pro- cess between speaker and listener and involve productive and receptive skill of un- derstanding, while Huebner (1969) states that speaking is the main skill in commu- nication Based on this idea it is understood that through speaking, someone can communicate or express what she or he wants in order to understand one another Rivers (1978) says through speaking someone can express her or his ideas, emo- tions and reactions to another person or situation and influence other person Fur- thermore, someone can communicate or express what he or she wants from other and response to another speaker It means that in order to express someone’s ideas, speaker must also attend the aspect of speaking, in order that the massage is under- standable to the listener

According to Brown (1987) in all communication or conversation two people areexchanging information or they have a communication or conversation need Itmeans that the reason for the people to communicate with other is in order to tell

people something, which they do not know, or to find something out from otherpeople.

Johnson (1983) refers to speaking as the ability to produce articulation, sounds orwords to express, to say, to show and to think about ideas, taught and feeling Muri-

ca (1978) says speaking is the primary element of language and it can be developedfrom the beginning when someone was born, from the first contact with the lan-guage

Furthermore, in speaking, there are some aspects that should be concerned They arefluency, accuracy (grammar and pronunciation) and comprehensibility Fluency isthe smoothness or flow with which sounds, syllable, words and phrases are joinedtogether when speaking Besides fluency and accuracy, comprehensibility is alsoneeded in speaking since it reflects how much the speaker understands what he istalking about If someone says something beyond the topic discussed, it can be saidthat he has no comprehensibility towards the topic In other words, comprehensibil-ity determines how well the speaker interprets and responds the massage received.Comprehensibility is defined as measurement of how much interpretation is re-quired to understand the others’ responses

From the theories above it can be concluded that speaking is an ability to expressideas, feelings and emotions to other person The language is used to express one-self to be understood by others Therefore, speaking is a skill of transferring the idea

to others in spoken language It concerns with the use of language in daily activity

in which people need to communicate with others to fulfill the need of socialization

1.3 Language Learning Motivation

Motivation plays a vital role in language learning It explains the failure as well asthe success in language learning contexts (Dörnyei, 2001; Dörnyei & Csizér, 1998).Motivation decides how much students’ language achievement, success and im-provement In fact, affective variables, such as attitude, orientations, anxiety, andmotivation, have been shown to be at least as important as language aptitude forpredicting language learning achievement (Gardner, 1985) Motivation, according

to many researchers, is responsible for determining human behavior by energizing itand giving it direction Based on its crucial role in language learning, much researchhas been conducted to determine the elements of motivation However, self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) was popular in language education Ac-cording to SDT, one needs the satisfaction of three basic psychological needs

These needs are autonomy (a personal endorsement of one’s activities deriving fromself), competence (self-confidence in the ability to complete activities) and related-ness (positive interpersonal relationships with others).

1.4 Problem-solving tasks in teaching speaking skills

1.3.1 The relationship between problem-solving tasks and speaking skills

The benefits of problem-solving tasks (PST) in language learning are various Aconsiderable number of studies have investigated the relationship between PST andspeaking skills Many researchers have claimed that utilizing problem solving activ-ity promotes construction of useful knowledge, develop reasoning strategies and ef-fective self-directed learningstrategies, increase motivation for learning, and be-come effective collaborators (Hmelo and Evensen, 2000)

Natela and Gulnara (2008) believe that problem solving in teaching a foreign lan- guage can avoid students giving ready-made answers, help students overcome the language problems arising in the process of communication independently, and solve the problems in real life It is necessary to arouse problems that can use stu- dents background knowledge to solve to help students improve in their learning Yousef & Banafshed (2017) made an attempt to investigate the effect of utilizing problem-solving tasks as an approach to teaching and learning the second language

on the improvement of speaking skill They carried out the research on two intact groups of 21 intermediate EFL learners in an English language institute in Iran Two groups were assigned to the control and experimental groups The data analy- sis collected after conducting an independent-samples t-test The results showed thatproblem-solving tasks effectively improved Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ speaking proficiency These tasks also helped students improve their problem- solving skills in a range of learning context as well as in real life The tasks utilized

in the research encouraged students use their content knowledge in innovative and creative ways and promoted deep understanding They also found that problem- solving tasks made the classroom cheerful and dynamic, which increases students’ motivation in learning a lot

Reza F., Hery Y & Rosita S conducted a research on increasing students’ speakingability through problem solving also claimed that students improved their speakingability dynamically after being taught through problem solving They also found outthat students performed better on the familiar topics It can be included that prob-lem-solving tasks help a lot to improve students’ speaking ability However, the

students’ motivation can depend on their background knowledge on the topics givenand the skills they are taught to solve the problems effectively.

Particularly in language classroom, PST promotes meaningful interaction in theclassroom The interactions that occur while students were dealing with real-worldissues and problems are more meaningful and authentic than interactions producedduring activities such as assigned role plays or repetition of dialogues Since PSTshifts the emphasis on learning activity from teachers to students, it can also helpstudents become more autonomous learners who will transfer the skills learned inthe classroom to their lives outside of the classroom (James, 2006) As to activatelearners to interact with each other in listening speaking class, PST can be powerful

To the writer assumption, while students are focusing on the problem to be solved,they will try to overcome the linguistic hindrance, retrieve prior knowledge of thelanguage to be used, and finally, become skillful language users

In the preview’s explanation one of features of PST is skills to communicate orally,

in line with this statement, communication is an essential need for human being.One of the ways in communication is through speaking It is very important to mas-ter speaking skill In order to do it, students must be trained to use English in com-munication orally The frequency in using the language will determine the students’speaking ability, and without implementing the experience of learning the language

in the real life; it is difficult for the students to master speaking ability Hence,speaking competence can be accomplished by practicing it orally

Through problem-solving tasks, the students speaking ability will be improved fromthe weakness students to the stronger one and speaking ability can be activated, be-cause, the activities in problem based-learning engage the students to communicateand explore the ideas in English to solve the problem Automatically it has the sig-nificant effect on students speaking ability

1.3.2 The steps to apply Problem – Solving Tasks into teaching speaking process

English-Copland (2001) stated that the most important thing to make problem-solving taskssuccessful is the amount of time and energy spent creating the project Generally,many researchers agreed on the similar steps of solving problems.In this research,the application of PST into teaching English-speaking process included 5 steps asfollowings:

Step 1: Orienting students to the problem In this step, the teacher explains the

pur-pose of the activity, motivates students, shows the problematic situation and asksstudents some questions to check their background knowledge about the topic.Step 2: Organizing the students to the study Teacher uses aids such as pictures,cards, slide shows to organize students to the problem As Hill (1990) pointed outthe standard classroom is usually not a suitable language learning environment.Teacher organizes the class, presents the problems in form of slides, handouts, orflashcards, explains the materials and gives some grammar structures, vocabularies,

or does some drilling to help them carry out the activity in the right way

Step 3: Guiding the exploration in individual or group The group brainstorms theideas, collects the information Brainstorming helps students apply their backgroundknowledge in using English After that, each student of the group suggests a solu-tion based on their own findings The group may need to ask for further infor-mation At this time, the teacher can do some help

Step 4: Developing and presenting a solution The whole group discuss to jump tothe best solution Groupwork at this step gives students many opportunities It cre-ates learning communities in which students feel comfortable to share their ideas,raise questions (Allen, Duch, & Groh, 1996) Groupwork also encourages students

to communicate, become actively involved in the work (Cohen, 1994) Then,

teach-er gives students chance to present their ideas on the solution for the problem

Step 5: Reflecting problem-solving process At this stage, students after presentingthe solution can have some time to reflect their work with the help of the teacher.May be the group finds it possible to produce more than one solution Or the othersolution is better After the activity, the teacher helps students to reflect on whatthey have learned, and how they functioned as a group

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

The study aimed to explore the extent to which using problem-solving tasks canhelp improve grade 12 students’ English-speaking skills It also aimed to explorestudents’ attitudes towards problem-solving tasks The research was conducted in anAction Research frame Action Research according to Burn (2010) is related to theideas of “reflective practice” and the teacher as researcher” Burns states that class-room action research can be a valuable way to improve teachers’ teaching skills andget more understanding of their own classrooms and students Action Research in-volves taking a self-reflective, critical, and systematic approach to explore theteaching contexts In Action Research, a teacher becomes an investigator or explor-

er to identify the problematic situation or issue that needs looking into deeply in der to bring about changes and improvements The central idea of the action part ofAction Research is to intervene in a deliberate way in the problematic situation inorder to bring about changes and improvements in practice

or-In the first step, the researcher identifies the problem or issue and develops a plan ofaction in order to bring about improvements in a specific area of the research con-text The problem is the need to improve students’ speaking skills I wondered howproblem-solving tasks can help in improving students’ speaking skills The secondstep is Action In this step, the researcher considers the plan which involves somedeliberate interventions into the teaching situation that is put into action over anagreed period of time carefully In this step, I carried out 8 lessons having 10 - mi-nute problem-solving tasks The third step involves the researcher in observing sys-tematically the effects of the actions and documenting the context, actions and opin-ions of those involved This is the stage to collect information about what is happen-ing The last step is when the researcher reflects on, evaluates and describes the ef-fects of the action in order to make sense of what has happened and to understandthe issue more clearly I used both qualitative and quantitative approaches to collectdata In terms of qualitative approach, observations and interviews were implement-

ed among participants Observation is the systematic description of the events, haviors, and artifacts of a social setting Observations can help me to know abouthow the participants interacted and how the lessons carried out in the setting Theobservations provide the observer with the deep understanding of their interest inthe tasks Interviews are useful to obtain detailed information about students’ feel-

be-ings, perceptions and opinions They allow more detailed questions to be asked.They usually achieve a high response rate The teacher can understand students’feelings and their own ideas toward the tasks In terms of quantitative approach,speaking tests are used to assess students’ speaking skills The tests give clear figureshowing the improvement of students’ skills after the research.

2.1 Field site and participants

The study was conducted in a High School in the North of Vietnam during the ond semester of the school year 2018-2019 The reason why I chose this school for

sec-my research is that this is a public high school equipped with modern facilities withthe total number of over 1.000 students Students were placed into different classesbased on their abilities and strengths There were 13 grade-12 classes There were

39 to 45 students in each class Another reason was that this school is where I amteaching, so it was a familiar research site for me This familiar site could support

me to a certain extent during the time of data collection After a personal meeting,the headmaster allowed me to carry out the research with the students of my classwhich I was teaching

This study involved 44 grade 12 students of class 12A1 of the school They were atthe age of 18, with 21 girls and 23 boys The students were chosen randomly Thisclass is the class which I am teaching as an English teacher The number of the par-ticipants fit the number of students in the class Students were free to join the re-search They could choose not to join the observations and interviews at any time

In this research, I conducted classroom observation, provided a pre-test and a test on these 44 students After that, I also interviewed 8 students at the end of thesemester to investigate their opinions and beliefs towards the tasks and to see if thetasks could help them in any ways The interviews were followed the form of asemi-structured one Students were asked in Vietnamese or English according totheir choice in view to making them feel comfortable to share and to get the mostreliable information

post-2.2 Data collection methods

The data of the research were collected from three main sources: classroom vation, interviews and Pre and Post Tests results These data collection methods aredescribed in details as below

in classroom activities According to The Glossary of Education Reform (2013),classroom observation refers to all occasions when learning and teaching activitiesare observed for a specific purpose.

Driven by the research questions, my observation focused on the students only

In this research, I directly taught the class while taking the role of the observer.Students’ work was observed to know whether the students were involved andinterested in the problem-solving tasks Before the observations, I had met andtalked with the class about the purpose of my research and the details of my ob-servations Classroom observation was conducted containing 44 students in all.The class was divided into 8 groups of 5 to 6 students Each group had bothstrong and weak students Before starting to observe, I aksed students’ permis-sion to record their performances during the tasks to make sure there was nomissing information and for accurate figures The observation process took placeduring a period of the 10-minute tasks, four times per semester The table belowshows the information of the tasks The table below provides information aboutthe observations

Table 1: Observ ation Details

Duration

10 minutes

10 minutes

10 minutes

10 minutes

Table 2: P roblem -solv ing tasks

Table 3: Classro om Observatio n Sheet

2.2.

2 In- ter vie ws

I conducted ase-riesofinterviews with the participations of 8 students This is because interview is themost common format of data collection in qualitative research According to Oak-ley, qualitative interview is a type of framework in which the practices and stand-ards not only are recorded, but also achieved, challenged and as well as reinforced

In this research, I chose semi-structured interviews, because semi-structured views can provide more flexibility for the interviewees to share their ideas, opinions

inter-on the specific questiinter-ons Therefore, the results of the study can be more reliable(Kumar 1996; Maxwell 1996) Semi-structured interviews also allowed me to asksupplementary questions for further information if the participants’ answers werestill not clear to me Also, semi-structured interview allowed me, as an interviewer,

to re-order the questions, paraphrase the questions in order to avoid ings Based on the research objectives, I chose 8 students randomly to interview.They were free to choose to join the interview or not The interviews were recorded