SEVERAL ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SMALL GROUP WORK IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HOÁTRƯỜNG THPT YÊN ĐỊNH 1 SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM SEVERAL ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SMALL GROUP WORK IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS Ng

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HOÁ

TRƯỜNG THPT YÊN ĐỊNH 1

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM

SEVERAL ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SMALL GROUP WORK

IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS

Người thực hiện: Lê Thị Hà Chức vụ: Giáo viên

SKKN thuộc lĩnh vực (môn): Ngoại ngữ

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS i

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Title of the innovation 1

1.2 Reason for choosing the topic 1

1.3 Aims of the innovation 1

1.4 Subjects of the innovation 1

1.5 Research methods 2

CHAPTER 2 CONTENT 2

2.1 Rationale for the innovation 2

2.1.1 English speaking skills 2

2.1.1.1 The importance of teaching English speaking skills 2

2.1.1.2 Principles of teaching English speaking skills 3

2.1.2 Small group work 4

2.1.2.1 Definition, advantages and disadvantages of small group work 4 2.1.2.2 Teaching English speaking skills through small group work 4

2.2 Context of the innovation 5

2.2.1 General situation 5

2.2.2 Current situation at Yen Dinh 1 high school 5

2.3 The solutions which have been used to improve students’ speaking ability, focusing on small group activities 6

2.3.1 The psychological and methodological preparation 6

2.3.2 Using different activities to promote speaking lessons 7

2.3.3 Specific examples 8

2.3.3.1 Example 1: Using information gap and picture describing activities 8

2.3.3.2 Example 2: Using discussion activities 13

2.4 Effects of the innovation 16

2.4.1 Subjects and data collection methods 17

2.4.2 Results and discussion 17

2.4.2.1 Students’ participation and interaction in small group activities .17

2.4.2.2 Students’ attitudes towards the small group activities 18

CHAPTER 3 CONCLUSION AND SUGESSTIONS 19

3.1 Conclusion 19

3.2 Suggestions for further studies 19 REFERENCES I APPENDIX 1 – Questionnaires 1 I APPENDIX 2 – Questionnaire 2 III

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Title of the innovation

Several activities to improve the effectiveness of small group work inteaching English speaking skills

1.2 Reason for choosing the topic

The process of international integration, also known as globalization,along with the development of the internet poses an urgent need for learningEnglish in schools, because it helps students access to a rich source ofinformation From there, students can actively search for learning materials aswell as approach useful learning methods

Speaking is as important as the other three skills: reading, writing, andlistening for foreign language learners These four skills give learnersopportunities to create contexts in which they use the language for exchange ofreal information, evidence of their own ability (proof of learning) and, mostimportant, confidence Speaking, however, makes it more difficult than othersfor both learners and teachers because it not only requires learners to beconfident to express their thoughts in other language, but also requires teachers

to find a suitable method for learners to practice directly with others (classmates

or teacher), while other skills can be followed individually and then submitted toteachers for correction

Working in small groups, one of the new teaching methods, in my opinion

is suitable for speaking teaching because it increases the interaction betweenlearners with learners, and learners with teachers It thereby createsopportunities for learners to practice more often The fact is that my colleaguesand myself have tried to apply this method in speaking teaching, but it is notreally effective (will be presented in detail in chapter 2) Realizing this situation,the innovation “Several activities to improve the effectiveness of small groupwork in teaching English speaking skills” is implemented

1.3 Aims of the innovation

The innovation on enhancing the effectiveness of small group activities inteaching speaking skills has been carried out with the aim to investigate thebenefits students can gain from the application of working in small groups inspeaking lessons, together with finding out the more appropriate ways toconduct the activities The innovation, thus, aimed to answer the two followingquestions:

- What benefit would students at Yen Dinh 1 high school gain from smallgroup activities?

- What are the more appropriate activities to carry out the small groupwork in speaking class at Yen Dinh 1 high school?

1.4 Subjects of the innovation

This innovation focuses on difficulties of students in class 10A7 and10A8 at Yen Dinh 1 high school when encountering small group activities in

learning speaking skills and some techniques to help them to overcome thesedifficulties.

1.5 Research methods

To achieve the purposes mentioned above, the method of reading andsynthesizing books and other materials on learning speaking skill and onteaching strategies was used, combined with exchange of experience withcolleagues In addition, two data collection tools including observation andquestionnaires were implemented to gather information from students

CHAPTER 2 CONTENT

2.1 Rationale for the innovation

2.1.1 English speaking skills

2.1.1.1 The importance of teaching English speaking skills

Although English is not ranked first in terms of number of native speakersbut it is the most spoken language in the world with an estimation of 1.5 billionspeakers across the world [1] English is widely used in the field of scientificresearch, education, business, the internet, travel and tourism, media andnewspapers, software, medicine, engineering, information and technology,entertainment, banking, and so on All our software development today, thecommunication facilities available to us through internet, our access to a variety

of websites, are all being carried out in English Most of the research works areconducted and compiled in English Furthermore, most of the books related tohigher education are published in English As a result, most of the foreignlanguage learners try to learn English In this process, they have to acquire allthe four basic skills of the language including listening, speaking, reading andwriting Among them, listening and reading are considered to be passive orreceptive skills as the learners do not show their talent in exhibiting these skills.They just listen to the language or read it without producing anything Whereas,the learners have to produce sentences on their own and they need a lot ofpractice and learn many things related to grammar, vocabulary, sentencestructure and usage Therefore, speaking and writing are considered to be active

or productive skills [2,3]

Among these four key language skills, speaking is deemed to be the mostimportant skill in learning English Describing the importance of this skill,Brown and Yuke wrote, “speaking is the skill that the students will be judgedupon most in real life situations” [4], while Yunzhong stated, many languageteachers consider speaking as the most effective means of gaining a fluentreading knowledge and correct speech as the foundation for good writing [5].Indeed, speaking is an important part of everyday interaction and most often thefirst impression of a person is based on his/her ability to speak fluently andcomprehensibly The ability to speak skillfully provides the speakers withseveral distinct advantages such as [6]:

- To participate actively in pair or group activities in the classrooms

- To give a maiden and impressive speech on different occasions

- To participate actively in debates and group discussions

- To develop critical thinking among the learners

- To pursue higher studies in foreign countries

- To interact with people all around the globe

- To promote the sale of products in the business

- To make living abroad simpler and easier

- To get better employment opportunities

- To make use of the internet effectively

- To perform well in job interviews

- To acquire more knowledge

- To travel to a foreign country

- To do good international business

- To earn high respect in the society

- To give presentations for all purposes

- To communicate effectively with others

- To increase the income of the individual

- To boost up the speakers’ self-confidence

- To know the different cultures of the world

- To interact with people all around the globe

- To keep over cognition and reasoning very sharp

- To get better employment opportunities all over the world

- To increase the ability of problem-solving and critical thinking

- To improve the overall development of the speaker’s personality

- To highly motivate and attract the customers in buying the products.Since these important advantages, the English teachers should concentrate

on teaching speaking skills and have to think of various techniques andapproaches to help the learners in speaking development

2.1.1.2 Principles of teaching English speaking skills

According to Anuradha et al., following are the principles of teaching

speaking skills [7]:

- Encourage students to speak right from the first day If not, as early aspossible and not to wait till she teaches them a stock of words, phrases orsentences

- Tolerate the students if some of them simply repeat what they say

- If a student gives one-word answer to any question, bear it for the timebeing

- Let the learners speak actively with whatever English knowledge theyhave

- Propose structures/phrases/words and let the learners use it in differentsituation and drill as much as possible

- Encourage back-chaining or tail-forwarding technique to make longsentences by combining more than ten sentences

- Organize role-play and pair-work as much as possible and supervise thelearners to correct the active ones and activate the passive ones

- Be well prepared in advance in terms of lesson planning, activities andtasks.

- Let the learners commit errors and mistakes at the primary stage.Interruption and correction hinder fluency and discourage the learner

- Individual weaknesses should be taken into account and the teachershould be sympathetic in outlook for individual attention

2.1.2 Small group work

2.1.2.1 Definition, advantages and disadvantages of small group work

Small group work is defined as two or more students, typically 3-6members, working together without direct intervention by the teacher [8] Thisdoes not mean that students are left uninstructed It does, however, mean that theteacher must structure the learning environment so the students can interactproductively under indirect guidance as they work collaboratively towardsachieving particular learning outcomes [8]

A lot of advantages of small group work have been mentioned Itpromotes maximum participation from all students because all of them areinvolved in both thinking and doing [9] Small group work promotes cooperativeskills, such as listening and communication skills, analytical and interpersonalskills problem solving and sharing of tasks Small group work also develops thecapacity to listen, question, persuade, respect the opinions of others, help, shareand participate, all lifelong values [10] In addition, working together can be agreat way for shy students, who often find it difficult to speak to teachers, to getmore involved with classmates in an easygoing atmosphere Therefore, smallgroup discussion provides more opportunities for individual students to voicetheir opinions This allows the teacher to gain an understanding of how eachstudent is progressing

Issues can also arise from small group work This type of group work cansometimes allow students to sit back and not contribute productively This could

be a result of lack of prior knowledge, low levels of metacognitive awareness,feeling socially anxious and worried about being accepted by peer groups [8].Moving students’ positions to fit in groups and exchanging ideas among teammembers leading to classroom noise is another disadvantage of this method

2.1.2.2 Teaching English speaking skills through small group work

It is important to emphasize that speaking is a skill, just like swimming,driving a car, or playing ping-pong Too often, in the traditional classroom, thelearning of English has been relegated to linguistic knowledge only such asknowledge of vocabulary and grammar rules, with little or no attention paid topracticing language skills How can we tell the difference between knowledgeand skill? Bygate pointed out “one fundamental difference is that both can beunderstood and memorized, but only a skill can be imitated and practiced” [11].For that reason, all students of English, whether they are intermediate, advance,

or beginners need to have a lot of practice using their English freely inclassroom to practice the language they have learned With all the advantages ofsmall group work mentioned above, there is no doubt that this is a very valuablemethod for practicing of fluency in speaking Simply imagine that there are 5

groups in a class, students can get 5 times as some chance to speak as in a bigclass.

2.2 Context of the innovation

2.2.1 General situation

Despite knowing the importance of English speaking skills, teaching theseskills at high school in Vietnam has been underestimated or taught but is noteffective for the following subjective and objective reasons:

- Objective reason: The development of speaking skills is not an easy

task for anybody Even the learners learn the language for so many years, theyfind it difficult to speak in real time situations when it is demanded According

to Bueno, Madrid, and Mclaren, “speaking is one of the most difficult skills language learners have to face” [12] There are many aspects that have to be

taken into account in the learning speaking skills, such as: the learners musthave a certain knowledge of grammatical structures and vocabulary; the learnersmust be active and dynamic in practice; during the learning process, the learnersmust be exposed to a natural environment of the target language that enablethem to develop their awareness of conversational features and strategies

- Subjective reasons: In my opinion, it is so hard to get our students to

speak English fluently because of several reasons:

+ In previous years the methodology was teacher-centered with a focus only on reading or writing Grammar was considered of primary importance

and was often taught through a separate grammar book Vocabulary teachingconsisted mainly of memorization Writing lessons consisted of memorizationand writing of model compositions, combined with grammar and vocabularyexercises Speaking skills were not dealt with seriously in any way Englishlanguage teachers taught speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization

of dialogues

+ Most of the teaching activities are of the traditional modes, such asreading the dialogue, reciting texts, doing translation, and the materials chosen

for the students are non-authentic Usually students feel deadly bored instead of

appreciating them and accepting them

+ Many teachers only lay emphasis on accuracy with no thought of

fluency, which makes students worry too much about their mistakes.

+ Almost important examinations do not consist of an oral test, which

causes both the teachers and students to neglect oral English.

+ Teachers are reluctant in using Communicative Approach because of

their deficiency in speaking ability themselves

+ Students’ attitude towards their learning process is also a factor that

causes less effective teaching

2.2.2 Current situation at Yen Dinh 1 high school

For nearly 18 years of teaching English at Yen Dinh 1 high school,besides the general issues mentioned above, my colleagues and I also

encountered the following difficulties in teaching speaking skills:

- The big difference in qualifications between students in a class

requires a lot of time and effort from teachers to come up with an effective

lesson plan (there are about 5 good students, 25 average students, and 15 belowaverage at English subject in each class).

- The large number of students in each class (approximately 40 learners)

is unsuitable for the subject that requires lots of interaction like English There is

no time for each student to practice carefully

- In addition, most students live in rural areas where the importance of

learning to speak English has not been appreciated Moreover, there are notmany clubs or organizations for students to improve or nourish their languageskills

Despite many issues as analyzed, I also realized several advantages in

teaching English speaking to students at Yen Dinh 1 high school, including:

- Most of students at Yen Dinh 1 high school are hard-working students.

- Most of them have been learning English for at least seven years atprimary and secondary schools, from Grade 3 to Grade 9 So, it can be said that

their English background is at an acceptable level.

- With the support of the Thanh Hoa Department of Education and

Training and the Board of Rectors of Yen Dinh 1 high school, English teachers have been able to acquire new teaching methods Recognizing the usefulness

of small group work, my colleagues and I have tried to apply this method inteaching English speaking skills However, the results were limited because onlyone good student in each group would dare to represent the group to speak to thewhole class

2.3 The solutions which have been used to improve students’ speaking ability, focusing on small group activities

2.3.1 The psychological and methodological preparation

- Knowing students’ anxiety to speak a foreign language

Students’ levels are actually different form one to another in the sameclass Some students may be able to speak English fluently because they began

to learn it earlier or their parents spent a lot of time practicing it together withthem However, others may not be so lucky They often feel frustrated or evenshame if they cannot speak English as good as their peers in the class Thismight cause anxiety to those students and it is also a challenge for me whether I

am able to balance my teaching approaches according to deferent levels oflearners

It is said that parts of the speaking anxiety come from students’ confusion

to classroom instructions At this point, I tried to support my students by givingeffective explanation An effective explanation should be brief, clear, andsimple Using illustration with the example or media is also a good idea because

it helps students understand better but also it can attract students to give fullattention to our explanation Keep in mind that our own mind about what needs

to be explained is perfectly clear, but the experience shows that our explanationsare often not as clear to our students as they are to themselves Therefore, to getfeedback from the learners is important

- Understanding the difficulty of students in expressing their thoughts,opinions, and ideas in a second language without immediate help of the teacher:

Speaking lessons often tie in pronunciation and grammar which arenecessary for effective oral communication So, it is very important that studentsare well prepared before the speaking task:

+ Students must know enough vocabulary to do the activity

+ Students must have learned enough correct grammar or appropriatefunctional language to be able to do the activity

+ Students must have enough knowledge of the topic to be able to do theactivity

+ Instructions for the activity must be very clear (as explained above)

- Understanding that the aim of speaking is communication and that doesnot require perfect English:

Students, especially shy students, may take a long time to speak and whenthey do, their English often contains errors To break the silence and encouragethem, I emphasized both two important goals of a speaker including accurate(clear, grammatically and phonologically correct) and fluent (flowing, natural).Then I tried to encourage my students to communicate with whatever Englishthey can use, not necessarily using too much new vocabulary or grammar It isalso important not to interrupt the flow of communication I took notes theirerrors during the activity, then wrote these errors on the board and ask who cancorrect them after the communication

- Knowing each learner’s personality and ability to group effectively:

As mentioned above, the limitation of small group work is that only onegood student representing the group speaks in front of the whole class Toovercome this situation, I took into account the personality and ability of eachlearner, so that during the grouping process each group consisted of students atdifferent levels, with different forte I tried to encourage all students tocontribute to the group’s activities by asking each group to include both simpleand complex sentences in their conversations I then asked all group members topractice, so weak students can also speak some simple sentences Moreover, theevaluation of the effectiveness of group activities was also based on manycriteria In addition to the accuracy in terms of vocabulary and grammaticalstructure, participation of all team members and presentation fluency weregreatly appreciated

2.3.2 Using different activities to promote speaking lessons

By using several different activities listed below in teaching Englishspeaking skills, I tried to create a classroom environment where students havereal-life communication and to promote students collaborate in small group tocomplete a task

- Discussion: this activity fosters critical thinking and quick decisionmaking, and students learn how to express and justify themselves in polite wayswhile disagreeing with others For efficient group discussions, it is always betternot to form large groups, because quiet students may avoid contributing in largegroups

- Role-play: students pretend they are in various contexts and have avariety of roles In role-play activity, the teacher gives information to the

learners such as who they are and what they think or feel This activity increasesthe self-confidence of students because they will have a different role and do nothave to speak for themselves meaning that they do not have to take the sameresponsibility.

- Information gap: in this activity, students are supposed to be working inpairs One student will have the information that other partner does not have andthe partners will share their information Information gap activities serve manypurposes such as solving a problem or collecting information Also, each partnerplays an important role because the task cannot be completed if the partners donot provide the information the others need These activities are effectivebecause everybody has the opportunity to talk extensively in the target language

- Picture describing: in this activity, each group is given a differentpicture Students discuss the picture with their group, and then they describe thepicture to the whole class This activity fosters the creativity and imagination ofthe learners as well as their public speaking skills

- Finding the difference: for this activity, each group is given twodifferent pictures, for example, picture of boys playing football and anotherpicture of girls playing tennis Students in each group discuss the similaritiesand/or differences in the pictures

- General knowledge: A day in the life of a student

- Language: Words concerning school subjects, daily activities, the way to tellclock time, the present simple tense

- Skills: speaking, making dialogues, describing pictures, asking and answering

- Attitude: active and serious in learning Students will know the importance toform the habits

- Teaching method: integrated, mainly communicative

- Testing method: Students in pairs ask and answer questions, answer theteacher’s questions, describe the pictures, write a short paragraph

III Teaching aids: - pictures, board, chalks, textbook, handouts

IV Procedures :

Warm-up

Aims: to introduce the topic of the lesson

and to raise the students’ interest in the

lesson.

- Shows two pictures, and ask students

questions about each

Question 1: What are people in each

picture doing?

Question 2: What do they do?

Question 3: What do they do every

day?

Pre- speaking

Aims: to input students some words or

phrases which helps students do the tasks

2 They are farmers

3 Their work is very hard.They ……… (the answerdepends on the student)

- Write down all the words

- Listen to the teacher andpronounce these words

- Make sentences withthesewords

E.g.: - I have a busy timetable from Monday to Tuesday.

- I have two Civic education lessons a week.

- I like Physical education most.

- I have/ take a bath before dinner.

have a shower (v-phrase)

stadium (n)

- Reminds students the way to tell the

time

While- speaking

Task 1 Quan is a tenth-grade

student He goes to school every morning

Using the information from his timetable

(given by the teacher) to ask and answer

questions with your partner, then fill in the

missing information on the schedule

Example:

A: What time does Quan have an

English lesson on Monday?

B: (He has an English lesson) at 8:55

(In this task, students ask and answer in

pairs The teacher gives each of them a

timetable with some information gap so that

one student will have information that

his/her partner does not have He/she needs

to ask his/her partner to collect information

to complete the timetable.)

Task 2 Talk about Quan’s activities,

using the pictures given by the teacher

Activity 1 Students ask and answer about

Quan’s activities in pairs

7.50: seven fifty/ ten to eight

- Read the requirement of thetask

- Read the information in thetimetable (given by theteacher) carefully

- In pairs, ask and answerquestions to find out themissing information tocomplete the table

Suggested answers:

S1: What lesson does Quan study

at …………?

S2: He has …… (at……) Or: S1: What time does Quan have Chemistry lessons?

S2: (He has a Chemistry lessons)

Suggested answers:

S1: What time does Quan have dinner?

S2: He has dinner at ……