Building students’ confidence in english speaking class through group work at faculty of finance and banking, vietnam university of commerce

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ PHƯƠNG LIÊN BUILDING STUDENTS’ CONFIDENCE IN ENGLISH SPEA

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

PHẠM THỊ PHƯƠNG LIÊN

BUILDING STUDENTS’ CONFIDENCE IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASS THROUGH GROUP WORK AT FACULTY OF FINANCE AND BANKING,

VIETNAM UNIVERSITY OF COMMERCE

(XÂY DỰNG SỰ TỰ TIN CHO SINH VIÊN TRONG GIỜ HỌC NÓI TIẾNG ANH THÔNG QUA HOẠT ĐỘNG NHÓM Ở KHOA TÀI CHÍNH –

NGÂN HÀNG, TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC THƯƠNG MẠI)

M.A Minor Thesis

English Teaching Methodology

601410

Hanoi, 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

PHẠM THỊ PHƯƠNG LIÊN

BUILDING STUDENTS’ CONFIDENCE IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASS THROUGH GROUP WORK AT FACULTY OF FINANCE AND BANKING,

VIETNAM UNIVERSITY OF COMMERCE

(XÂY DỰNG SỰ TỰ TIN CHO SINH VIÊN TRONG GIỜ HỌC NÓI TIẾNG ANH THÔNG QUA HOẠT ĐỘNG NHÓM Ở KHOA TÀI CHÍNH –

NGÂN HÀNG, TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC THƯƠNG MẠI)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field : English Teaching Methodology

Supervisor : Assoc Dr Dương Thị Nụ

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ABSTRACT i

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ii

LIST OF TABLES iii

LIST OF CHARTS iv

LIST OF FIGURES v

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

PART I: INTRODUCTION i

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Methods of the study 2

4 Scope of the study 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Theoretical background of speaking 5

1.1.1 Teaching speaking skill in Communicative Language Teaching Approach 5

1.1.2 Communicative activities 7

1.1.3 Speaking activities 8

1.2 Group work in speaking lessons 9

1.2.1 Definition of group work 10

1.2.2 Some main group work activities 10

2.2.3 Benefits of using group work in large classes 11

2.3 Confidence of students in speaking class through group work activities 12

2.3.1 Concept of confidence 12

2.3.2 Theoretical framework of the role of students’ confidence in second

language learning 13

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 16

2.1 Research context 16

2.2 Sample and sampling procedure 17

2.3 Research methods 18

2.4 Research materials 19

2.4.1 Questionnaires 19

2.4.2 Interviews 19

2.4.3 Class observations 20

2.5 Data collection procedures 20

2.6 Data analysis 21

CHAPTER III: MAJOR FINDINGS, DISCUSSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 22

3.1 Major findings and discussions 22

3.1.1 The importance of group work activities in speaking class 22

3.1.1.1 Students’ assessment about the importance of group work activities in speaking class 22

3.1.1.2 The frequency of organizing group work in speaking class 23

3.1.1.3 The teachers’ methods of encouraging students to speak 24

3.1.2 Factors affecting students’ confidence in speaking 25

3.1.2.1 Students’ confidence in using English in the speaking class 25

3.1.2.2 Comparison between teachers’ and students’ assessment of the topics in speaking lessons 27

3.1.2.3 Comparison between students’ speaking time and teachers’ expectations 28

3.1.2.4 Students’ evaluation on learning speaking English 30

3.1.2.5 Comparison between teachers’ and students’ assessment about factors affecting students’ confidence in speaking lessons 33

3.1.3 Suitable group work activities used to stimulate and encourage

students’ confidence in speaking class 34

3.1.3.1 Teachers’ and students’ assessment of most popular working group activities 34

3.1.3.2 Comparison between teachers’ answers and students’ expectations about the most suitable group work activities that stimulate students’ confidence35 3.1.3.3 Problems teachers have to face in teaching speaking skill 36

3.1.3.4 Comparison of teachers’ and students’ suggestions to increase students’ confidence in speaking class 37

3.2 Recommendations 38

3.2.1 Recommendations for teachers 38

3.2.2 Recommendations for students 39

PART III: CONCLUSION 40

1 Conclusions 40

2 Limitations and suggestions for further study 40

REFERENCES 41 APPENDIXES I

ABSTRACT

Speaking plays a very important role in communicating with others in a second language, not only in teaching and learning environments, but also outside the classroom The students should be able to take part in conversations, discussions, negotiation and to express with their own view However, most of them feel nervous in speaking and unwilling to participate in speaking activities in the class because of lack of vocabulary, fear of making mistakes, inconfidence in their pronunciation, etc

The above mentioned situation has been improved a lot through group work activities applied in the speaking class It is undeniable that group works stimulate students a lot in exchanging information and ideas among partners with less anxiety

of making mistakes as well as more confidence in speaking English

Therefore, the study “Building students’ confidence in English speaking class through group work at Faculty of Finance and Banking, Vietnam University of Commerce” has investigated the main factors affecting students’ confidence in speaking, suggested suitable group work activities to encourage them to speak, and appropriate teaching methods to lengthen their talking time

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

VCU : Vietnam University of Commerce CLT : Communicative Language Teaching EFL : English as a Foreign Language

LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 1: Students’ learning styles 30

Table 2: Student’s motivation 31

Table 3: Factors causing students’ inconfidence 32

Table 4: Students’ language levels 32

LIST OF CHARTS

Page

Chart 1: Students’ assessment about the importance of group work activities in

the speaking class 22

Chart 2: Teachers’ assessment about the importance of group work activities in the speaking class 22

Chart 3: Students’ opinion about the frequency of organizing group work in the speaking class 23

Chart 4: Teachers’ opinion about the frequency of organizing group work in the speaking class 24

Chart 5: Students’ assessment of the teachers’ methods of encouraging students to speak 24

Chart 6: The teachers’ methods of encouraging students to speak 25

Chart 7: Students’ assessment of their confidence in speaking English 25

Chart 8: Students’ assessment of their reluctance in speaking 26

Chart 9: Students’ speaking time 28

Chart 10: Teachers’ assessment of students’ speaking time 29

Chart 11: Teachers’ talking time in the speaking class 30

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 1: Comparison between teachers’ and students’ assessment of the topics in

speaking lessons 27

Figure 2: Students’ and teachers’ answers about factors affecting students’ confidence in the speaking class 33

Figure 3: Teachers’ and students’ assessment of most popular group work activities 34

Figure 4: Group work activities stimulate students’ confidence most 35

Figure 5: Teachers’ assessment of their problems in teaching speaking skill 36

Figure 6: Teachers’ and students’ suggestions to increase students’ confidence 37

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

English is considered to be one of the most popular languages in the world In Vietnam, with the changes and the development of the economy and society, as well as the implementation of the open - door policy, English has been used more and more widely both by the young and the old It has been the most popular foreign language English has been influenced on our education curriculum as a compulsory subject It is known that, in learning a foreign language in general, and English in particular, speaking plays an extremely important role It is an important skill that “makes you more fluent language user; speaking is a chance to notice the gaps between what you want to say and what you can say; it is a chance to test hypotheses about language” (Marilyn Lerris, 1999 quoted by HeLina) Like many other universities, teachers and students of Vietnam University of Commerce (VCU) realize the role of building speaking skill, applying Communicative Language Teaching method to create more opportunities for students to practice English through group work, and encourage students communicate confidently in oral English as much as possible Speaking well is of great importance to students when communicating with others in a second language, not only in teaching and learning environments, but also outside the classroom The students should be able to speak in a well structured way and develop their ability to take part in conversations, discussions, negotiation and to express with their own view Over the past years, as a teacher for non – English - major students at VCU, Faculty of Finance and Banking, the researcher found that during the speaking lessons, students usually keep silence and encounter a lot of difficulties in working group activities Students start with the beginner level of English when they enter the college, so just a small number of them are able enough to communicate in English They only like working individually, answering the

questions of teachers, not working in groups or speaking with their partners So, what are the reasons? Some students are afraid of making mistakes; some may feel nervous because they lack vocabulary; some feel unconfident with their pronunciation, etc

The above mentioned situation has urged the researcher to conduct the study

“Building students’ confidence in English speaking class through group work at Faculty of Finance and Banking, Vietnam University of Commerce” The expectation is to make a contribution to an increased understanding of using group work in speaking lessons at VCU

2 Aims of the study

The aim of this study is to explore the reality of the o rganization of group

work in the speaking lessons for first year students at Faculty of Finance and Banking, Vietnam University of Commerce where the researcher is teaching

In addition, this study attempts to investigate the popular group work activities and to identify strategies used by teachers to stimulate confidence of students

in speaking class Another aim is to identify which group work activities are suitable to encourage confidence of students in speaking in the class The third aim is to compare teachers’ practice with students’ expectation Basing on the findings, the researcher suggests practical recommendations for group activities in speaking lessons for the first year non – English - major students

at VCU

In particular, the study is conducted to ascertain the answer to the following question:

In what ways group work activities in speaking lessons help build confidence for the first year non major students at Faculty of Finance and Banking, Vietnam University of Commerce?

3 Methods of the study

In order to realize the above aims of the study, quantitative survey method of research was mainly used The data collected for the study came from the first year

students at Faculty of Finance and Banking, Vietnam University of Commerce Survey questionnaire was used to gather information and evidence for the study

In addition, to make the data collected more reliable and authentic, qualitative method was applied with two instruments: an interview and class observation All the comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusions provided in the study were based on the data analysis of the study

4 Scope of the study

In fact, group work is applied in any of the four skills, namely listening, reading, writing, and speaking However, the researcher has chosen to focus on speaking skill for the fact that mastering speaking is very important in learning foreign language Among four language skills, group work is used the most frequently in the speaking lessons Thenceforward, we excerpt ourselves to identify and apply group work in speaking class to build confidence for the non-English-major first year students at Faculty of Finance and Banking, VCU

5 Design of the study

There are three parts in this thesis

Part I – Introduction presents the rational, the aims, the research question, methods, scope, as well as design of the study

Part II – Development includes three chapters

Chapter I – Literature review presents background knowledge of speaking, teaching speaking skill in Communicative Language Teaching Approach, communicative activities, and speaking activities In addition, this chapter presents the definition of group work, some main group work activities and benefits of using group work in large classes Besides, the concept of confidence and theoretical framework of the role of students’ confidence in second language learning are also presented in this chapter Chapter II – Methodology deals with the overall picture of how the research was carried out from research context, sample and sampling procedure, research methods, research materials to data collection and analysis

Chapter III – Major findings, discussions and recommendations shows the answer

of the posed question: In what ways group work activities in speaking lessons help build confidence for the first year non major students at Faculty of Finance and Banking, Vietnam University of Commerce? The findings end with

recommendations for both teachers and students

Part III – Conclusion reviews the main content and findings of the study, provides conclusions, some limitations of the study and suggestions for further study

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Theoretical background of speaking

Speaking is the interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information (Brown, 1994; Burn & Joyce, 1997) Chaney and Burk (1998:13) share the same view that speaking is “the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts” In addition, Bailey (2005:2) also argues that “speaking is the productive, oral skill It consists

of producing systematic verbal utterances to convey meaning.” Referring to speaking or

communication in language teaching and learning, Brown (1994) shows that interaction is the heart of communication It plays an important role in communicating, exchanging information, thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people According to Bygate (1997:115), “interaction is the use of language for maintaining communication between participants and interaction skills are skills of deciding what to say, when to say it and how

to say it clearly” Therefore, in speaking process, it is necessary to provide students with not only language knowledge, such as grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, but also ability

to speak, ability to communicate confidently and fluently Speaking helps everyone gain the purpose of communication and plays the most important role since it is fundamental to human communication (Ur 1996:120) It cannot be denied that in our daily lives, people spend more time on speaking rather than on writing

1.1.1 Teaching speaking skill in Communicative Language Teaching Approach

There are many methods applied to teach speaking skill in class, such as the grammar-translation method, the direct method and audio-lingualism, communicative language teaching (CLT) approach, etc From 1972, Hymes mentioned the term “communicative competence” to refer to appropriate language performance in contrast to “linguistic competence” In addition, in 1979 Brumfit and Johnson emphasized “the functional and communicative potential of language”

“They saw the need to focus on communicative proficiency rather than on mere

mastery of structures” (Richard and Rodgers, 2001:153) CLT features more interaction – based activities such as role plays, information gaps, pair work and group work In short, among some approaches of the language teaching methods, CLT is the most appropriate way for communication

According to Nunan (1989:194), “CLT views language as a system for the expression of meaning Activities involve oral communication, carrying out meaning tasks and using language, which is meaningful to the learners Objectives reflect the needs of learners including functional skills as well as linguistics objectives The learner’s role is a negotiator and integrator The teacher’s role is a facilitator of the communication progress”

CLT is based on real-life situations that require communication By using this method in class, students have more opportunities of communicating with each other in the target language (Kayi, 2006) We can say that CLT emphasizes communication in a foreign language and improves the learners’ competence through communicative activities CLT has been an influential approach for the last decades with the aim of “learn to communicate by communicating” (Larsen-Freeman, 1986:131) Canale (1983:5) confirms that communicative competence – the final target of CLT – refers to “the underlying systems of knowledge and skill required for communication” In addition, “communicative competence is the aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts” (Brown, 1994:227) The concept of communicative competence is also described in terms of four dimensions: grammatical competence (grammatical and lexical capacity), sociolinguistic competence (the ability to understand and produce appropriate language in the social co ntext which the communication happens) and discourse competence (the ability to employ communicative strategies to initiate and redirect communication) Besides, in order to encourage communication competence for learners, many communicative activities are applied in speaking lessons

1.1.2 Communicative activities

In the traditional classroom, teachers usually ask questions and students answer in turn Through the questions, teachers can know if students understand the lesson or not This is a rather good method to check students’ understanding However, it does not encourage students to communicate with each other, exchange information, role play, and practice dialogues with real situations Therefore, communicative activities play a very important role in building speaking skill, building confidence, and motivation for students in speaking class

Harmer (1991) defines that communicative activities are those that give students who are somehow involved in both the desire to communicate and purpose involving them in a varied use of language According to Harmer (1991), oral communicative activities are divided into eight categories: reaching consensus, discussion, relaying instructions, communication games, problem solving, talking about you, simulation, and role-play Obviously, communicative activities are varied and the motivating value of each one may not be alike

When applying communicative activities into speaking class, Brown (1994:23) reminds language teachers of “the eventual success that learners attain in a task

is at least partially a factor of their belief that they indeed are fully capable of

accomplishing the task” Therefore, to gain the success in speaking lessons, to

build the speaking skill for students, teachers should apply differen t kinds of communicative activities from easier to more difficult In any lessons, the affordable method should be paid much attention to If teachers want to encourage students to speak, they must organize activities suitable for the students’ level of proficiency Maehr (1984) points out that certain activities are more exciting and motivating to students than the others Indeed, motivation of students to participate in speaking class is very important Moreover, right activities in speaking class even are more important because “if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking in class can be a lot of fun, raising general learner motivation and making the English language classroom a fun and

dynamic place to be” (Lawtie 2004:1) Students need to be supplied with suitable activities so that they are interested in solving problems, in exchanging information, making dialogues with their partners in a non - threatening environment Moskowitz (1978) and Scarcella and Oxford (1992) show that one

of motivating and interesting activities which can motivate students to learn is the self - expression activities In these activities students have opportunities to express themselves in these activities

Glasser (1985)’s Control Theory of motivation states that everyone is motivated by the need to satisfy one of five basic needs – survival, belonging, power, freedom, and fun

To satisfy students’ need to belong, teachers need to create an accepting atmosphere, and teach in groups, with cooperative learning strategies To satisfy the need for freedom, Farris indicates students should be involved in rule-making, providing opportunities for free expression, and be encouraged creativity To satisfy the needs for power, we need to create student-centered classroom, and give students choices when possible To satisfy the need for fun, use games and simulations, and encourage students to have good time learning In short, satisfying some basic needs like belonging, freedom, fun, and power is important to motivate students in speaking class

To clarify that communicative activities are effective and motivating, Ur (1996:120) presents some necessary characteristics of them Firstly, “learners talk a lot” which means talking as much as possible Secondly, “participation is even” It means classroom discussion is not dominated by a small number of talkative students; all

of them have the chance to speak, and contribute to the lesson Thirdly, “motivation

is high” can be understood as learners are encouraged to speak thanks to interesting topics Finally, “language is of an acceptable level” It means that learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easy, comprehensible to each other, and acceptable level of language accuracy

1.1.3 Speaking activities

Speaking activities play a very important role in developing learners’ ability to express their thoughts, and ideas through speech In the textbook “English 1.1” used

for the first year students, there are a lot of speaking activities to practice Students have opportunity to work in groups, in pairs, or make presentations individually However, it is more difficult to design and administer such activities rather than to

do so for listening, reading and writing Ur (1996:121) confirms that there are some popular problems to teachers in teaching speaking activities

- First, “inhibition” is one of the barriers in speaking Learners are often inhabited about trying to say something in the class because they are afraid of making mistakes, feel unconfident with their pronunciation or they lack vocabulary, fear of losing face, and feel shy of the attention that their speech attracts

- Second, students have nothing to say Students often complain that they cannot think of anything to say They may lack vocabulary, or lack motivation to speak in the class

- Third, uneven or low participation is among the teachers’ obstacles Only one participant in a large group dominates the time of talking He or she has tendency to speak a lot because of their high level of proficiency Meanwhile, the others can hardly have time to speak

- Finally, mother tongue use is also problematic When many students share the same language, they tend to use it instead of the target language This is because it

is easier and more natural to speak mother tongue than speaking a foreign language Besides, learners will feel less “exposed” if they are speaking their mother tongue

In short, it requires a lot of teachers’ efforts in designing and carrying out speaking activities to overcome those obstacles in speaking class to create successful activities It means that learners talk a lot, participation is even, and motivation is high

1.2 Group work in speaking lessons

The EFL literature suggests that to improve our students’ speaking skill, to build confidence for students in speaking activities, teachers should reduce learner anxiety, create interaction hypothesis, cooperative learning environment, non - threatening learning environment, and ensuring meaningful communicative exchanges in the classroom Therefore, to achieve the above goals for the purpose

of fostering speaking ability, group work is one of the valuable techniques applied

in speaking activities Group work can create a comfortable atmosphere, cooperative learning, and interaction among members of the group

1.2.1 Definition of group work

There are some definitions discussing about group work:

According to Doff (1988:137), group work is a process that “the teacher divides the class into small groups to work together (usually four or five students in each group), all the members of the group work at the same time.”

Richard (1983:189) defines group work is an essential activity because the kind

of interactions produced in group activities has been shown to be quantitatively

as well as qualitatively different forms that go on in the student – dominated lessons

It is clear that group work is a cooperative learning activity, interactive process, in which students can share the same aims and responsibilities They have opportunities to talk independently in the group without the pressure of the whole class listening what they are doing In addition, students will become more confident in speaking through some group work activities Because working in group of four or five, they can interact with each other, practice speaking without fear of making mistakes, learn from the partners through close – pair work and open – pair work

1.2.2 Some main group work activities

According to Brown (2001), there are some activities for group work:

- Role-play and simulations

- Problems solving and decision-making

2.2.3 Benefits of using group work in large classes

The author of this thesis has been teaching English at Vietnam University of Commerce for five years and she has realized that there are many students arranged

in a class studying English, from 50 to 65 students Therefore, the teachers cannot practice speaking for every student, and get feedback from everyone in a three period lesson The most effective way for students to practice speaking is dividing them into group of four of five and follows the instruction of the teacher to do the speaking activities The teacher can go around the class, encourage students to speak with each other, solve problems or obstacles The author has applied this method in large classes and found it really effective In fact, putting students into small groups will open up for them possibilities of interaction which are not usually available in a whole-class approach Group work creates comfortable atmosphere, initiate community for learners to take risk in speaking, opportunities for cooperation, sharing responsibilities, and learning from each other Krashen (2011) indicates that conversation is the typical type of interaction, exchanging information, and practicing to retain and remember the language

Brown (2001) shows four typical benefits of group work

Firstly, group work generates interactive language Interaction in speaking class is very important, very necessary for students to have opportunities to practice speaking, to improve themselves, and build confidence day by day In the traditional classes, the teachers talk most of the time and there is rare chance for students to practice, except for some answers to the teachers’ questions Group work activities which are applied in the lesson are very useful in building speaking skill, confidence, and improving vocabulary, pronunciation for students

Secondly, group work offers a positive affective climate Group work creates a sense of security It is very difficult for students, especially shy ones to speak in front of the class They are always afraid of making mistakes, losing face when they cannot speak anything in front of many friends, and next time they never speak in the class However, working in group helps students feel more equal, free to experiment, and use the target language because they know their partners also feel the same Nimmanit (1998) confirms the role of group work in offering secure

learning environment in sentence “students will not be the only ones to shoulder the

blame or to lose face if they answer incorrectly”

Thirdly, group work promotes learners’ responsibility and autonomy Tsui (2001) and Lee (1999) suggest that “group work provides more opportunities for learners

to initiate and control the interaction, to produce a much larger variety of speech acts and to engage in the negotiation to meaning” and that “being responsible for

their peer’s learning in a group makes students more active” When participating in

group work, students cannot refuse to speak because every member in the group has their own part They cannot avoid speaking or relax when their partners speak In addition, group work allows students to make their own decisions in the group instead of being told what to do by the teacher

Finally, group work is a step toward individualizing instruction In a large class, students have different language needs and levels of proficiency Therefore, teachers have some difficulties in managing all students in class However, small groups can help students with varying abilities to accomplish individual goals In addition, the teacher can group students of the same level, the same interest, the same age, etc so it is easy for students to work with each other Besides, different groups can accomplish different kinds of activities

2.3 Confidence of students in speaking class through group work activities 2.3.1 Concept of confidence

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (1997), definition of confidence is divided into five criteria

- First, belief in others: the feeling that you can trust, believe in and be sure about the abilities or good qualities of somebody/ something

- Second, belief in yourself: a belief in your own ability to do things and be successful

- Third, feeing certain: it is the feeling that you are certain about something

- Fourth, trust: it is a feeling of truth that somebody will keep information private

- Finally: confidence is a secret, a secret that you tell somebody

From the definition of confidence, it is clear that confidence relates to the belief of somebody in their own ability to do something successfully When everyone believes in themselves that they can do something, they can do it and gain success Students feeling confident can speak the target language as much as possible

2.3.2 Theoretical framework of the role of students’ confidence in second language learning

Confidence is a very difficult field to study However, in this part the author only wants to mention some theoretical framework about building confidence in speaking class through group work

 Firstly, it is the humanism in English language teaching

Stevick devotes the second chapter of Humanism in Language Teaching (1990) to

outlining different uses of the word “humanism” in works on foreign language

learning In his opinion, there are five overlapping emphases

- “Feelings include both personal emotions and esthetic appreciation This aspect of

humanism tends to reject whatever makes people feel bad, or whatever destroys or forbids esthetic enjoyment

- Social Relations This side of humanism encourages friendship and cooperation,

and opposes whatever tends to reduce them

- Responsibility This aspect accepts the need for public scrutiny, criticism, and

correction and disapproves of whoever or whatever denies their importance

- Intellect, including knowledge, reason, and understanding This aspect fights

against whatever interferes with the free exercise of the mind, and is suspicious of anything that cannot be tested intellectually

- Self-actualization, the quest for full realization of one’s own deepest true qualities

This aspect believes that since conformity leads to enslavement, the pursuit of uniqueness brings about liberation.” (Stevick 1990: 23-4)

Teaching foreign language in Stevick’s opinion is not only teaching knowledge, understanding, but also other spiritual needs, such as feelings, social relations, responsibility, and self-actualization Jane Arnold shares the same idea about the role of humanistic language teaching when it brings new view of the language teacher In her opinion, teachers not only teach students how to think in the head, study in the head, but they also “facilitate the cognitive in language learning and

encourage the development of the whole person” (Jane Arnold, 1998 Towards more humanistic English teaching: 237) for students It means that students learn in the

class should be active with various kinds of pair work, group work, presentations, etc to help them more active, more confident in speaking activities

Similarly, Stevick (1996) strongly emphasizes the importance for language learning

of the influence of affect on the cognitive processes involved in memory Affective

as well as cognitive aspects play an important role for students to achieve communicative function, and extend their language competence

 Secondly, according to Krashen, one of the five key hypotheses of second

language acquisition that Krashen discussed in his book Principles and Practice

in Second Language Acquisition (1982) is the “Affective Filter Hypothesis” The affective filter hypothesis accounts for the influence of affective factors on

second language acquisition In this hypothesis, Krashen shows that motivation, self – confidence, and anxieties all play a prominent role in language acquisition These factors become crucial in the process of language acquisition, either heightening or interfering with a student’s ability to progress Krashen shows that students who are highly motivated, have a strong sense of self, and enter a learning situation with a low level of anxiety are much more likely to be successful language acquirers than those who do not Students who have low level of motivation, low self-esteem, and high anxiety will encounter a wall when it comes to acquiring language and will not

be able to progress as naturally or as quickly as their peers who are not blocked by these factors The lower the anxiety students have in speaking, the higher the confident they will feel and vice versa

 Thirdly, cooperative learning also helps teachers as well as students a lot in increasing effectiveness of group work and pair work

Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each

with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject Each member of a team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus creating

an atmosphere of achievement Students work through the assignment until all group members successfully understand and complete it

 Fourthly, interaction hypothesis is a theory of second-language acquisition which states that the development of language proficiency is promoted by face-to-face interaction and communication

According to Michael Long (1996), the interaction hypothesis is a type of theory proposing that one of most effective methods of learning a new language is through personal and direct interaction

Similarly to Krashen’s input hypothesis, the interaction hypothesis claims that comprehensible input is important for language learning In addition, it claims that the effectiveness of comprehensible input is greatly increased when learners have to negotiate for meaning Through interaction, teachers can understand students’ level

of proficiency On the other hand, students can exchange information with teachers and their partners to correct mistakes themselves, to improve skills, and to practice English Among the types of interactions, conversation is probably the most emphasized in the Interaction Hypothesis, an idea most probably derived from the

“discourse approach” by Professor Evelyn Hatch who, in 1978, wrote papers that

stressed the importance of constant communication and interaction for Second Language Acquisition

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes the teaching context at Vietnam University of Commerce with the analysis of research context, sample and sampling procedure, research methods, research materials, data collection procedures, and data analysis Although English is taught to both English-major and non-English-major students, my discussion focused on non-English-major students, the first year students at Faculty

of Finance and Banking The author of the thesis is mainly responsible for teaching the first year students of the faculty in this semester Therefore, it is more convenient and easier for her to carry out a survey, to conduct class observation, and interview respondents if necessary

2.1 Research context

The study was conducted at classes K46H2, and K46H4, Faculty of Finance and Banking, VCU Students in those classes are the non-English-major first year ones, coming from different provinces in the North of Vietnam with different levels of English proficiency There are about 50 students in each class of which 60% comes from the countryside, and all of them did not pay much attention to English at high schools because they only took exams in Maths, Physics, and Chemistry However,

in the English lessons, especially in the speaking lessons, most of them enthusiastically, excitedly, attentively take part in activities delivered by the teachers This helps teachers a lot in applying communicative activities, speaking activities in the lessons to encourage almost students to speak English confidently The current teaching material for the first year students is English 1.1 selected by teachers at Faculty of English The Faculty of English was established in May 2006 with 41 teachers who are responsible for teaching both English major and non-English-major students from other faculties of the university All students of the latter are required to complete six semesters of English as part of their general education requirements The first year students will cover English 1.1 in 2 credits,

24 periods with 50 minutes for each period

The textbook used for the first year students is English 1.1 selected by the teachers

of Faculty of English There are eight units in the textbook Each unit comprises five sections: Starting up, Vocabulary, Reading, Skills, and Grammar The syllabus for the first year students is theme-based as briefed below:

1 Introduction Talking about yourself

2 Work and leisure Leisure activities

3 Problems Telephoning solving problems

4 Travel Making bookings and checking arrangements

5 Food and entertaining Eating out and entertaining

6 Sales Presenting a product

7 People Describing people, Negotiating: Dealing with problems

8 Market Type of market

Each unit will be completed in 3 periods It is not very long but enough for the teachers to cover activities in the class

2.2 Sample and sampling procedure

At the moment the number of teachers who teach English 1.1 for the first year students at Faculty of Finance and Banking is 5 The number of the first year students at Faculty of Finance and Banking is about 300 Those students are rather active and motivated in the English lessons, in group activities, and in pair work activities In fact, every student nowadays does realize the importance of English, especially spoken language for their future jobs However, the results of a recent study performed by the present researcher show the non-English-major find a lot of difficulties in working group activities in speaking lessons, and in building self-confidence in speaking English Therefore, it is necessary that the teachers in the Faculty of English at VCU find out effective ways and strategies to help these students overcome all of their difficulties in building confidence in speaking lessons through group work activities – one of the effective methods in CLT

Five female teachers of the Linguistic Practice Division of the Faculty of English

at VCU were selected to take part in the study They were selected as a convenient sample The teacher participants’ age ranged from 24 to 40 years old Most of them have more than five years experience in teaching, only two of them have two years of experience Those teachers have experience in organizing group work activities when they were students Hence, it is not really hard for them to apply this kind of method in teaching speaking skill The questionnaires are also delivered to 100 students in which there are 68 female and 32 male freshmen from two classes K46H2, and K46H4 The student participants’ age ranged from 18 to 20 years old Most of them do not have experience in group work and differ from each other in levels of English proficiency To increase the reliability and validity of the research study and a random sampling procedure was applied

All the teachers and students were asked to complete the questionnaires After that,

to find out more in-depth information or unclear information from the questionnaires, the researcher invites some teachers and students to take part in follow-up interviews and have some class observations

2.3 Research methods

Today, in studies on English as Second Language, it is common for researchers

to perform the study on both quantitative and qualitative findings (Adams, Fujii and Mackey, 2005) Thus, to reach the researcher’s purposes, this study was based on a survey research, which was both quantitative and qualitative The data were collected by means of questionnaires, classroom observation and interviews of both teachers and students

It is undoubted that questionnaires are beneficial for obtaining quantitative information and thanks to their time and energy efficiency for collecting and analyzing Gillham (2000) confirms that using questionnaires creates less pressure on respondents, not under pressure of bias, and analysis of answers is straightforward

Classroom observation is a useful way to investigate external factors in second language learning Through classroom observations, researchers can get reliable

information and a picture of natural setting It is used for observing the class as a whole, not individual student

The interview questions were also conducted to get insight into each issue, identifying more details and reasons for the issues stated in the questionnaires For this reason, semi-structured interviews seem to appropriate tool for exploring the issues Ten out of 100 students were randomly chosen for the interviews to get their opinion about some unclear information collected from the questionnaires To make it reliable, three teachers were also invited to have an interview to get direct opinions about the ways to build confidence in freshmen in speaking class through group work activities

The purpose of using questionnaires, classroom observations and interviews as research materials to collect data in this study is to triangulate the data and to overcome the limitations or drawbacks of other methods because one can well support another which helps strengthen the research findings

2.4 Research materials

2.4.1 Questionnaires

The study employs two questionnaires, one for teachers and the other for students The questionnaire for the teachers consisting of 12 questions was delivered to 5 teachers teaching for the non-English-major first year students at Faculty of Finance and Banking, VCU The questionnaire was used to explore information about their opinions about group work, suitable group work activities to build confidence for students, group work procedure, as well as problems they encounter in organizing group work

The other questionnaire including 15 questions was also delivered to 100 students at Faculty of Finance and Banking, VCU to investigate students’ attitude to group work, factors affecting their confidence in speaking, their favorite group work activities, and their difficulties when working in group

2.4.2 Interviews

Two interviews (one for teachers and the other for students) were conducted in English and Vietnamese between the researcher and 3 teachers and 10 students Each interview lasted about ten minutes including questions, answers and explanation There are 6 questions for teachers and 8 for students These questions are open enough to allow the interviewees to freely express their feelings, opinions, and thoughts

2.4.3 Class observations

Besides survey questionnaires, interview questions, the researcher still used class observations to confirm the reliability and validity of the information about group work activities to build confidence for students in speaking lessons The researcher observed five English speaking lessons In each lesson, the information of teacher’s activities, teaching techniques (group working procedure, encouragement, selecting topics, comment, and feedback) and students’ involvement, participation in group work, etc were mentioned in the checklist

2.5 Data collection procedures

The data of the research was collected through questionnaires, interviews, and class observations

In the first phase, questionnaires were delivered to 100 non-English-major freshmen

at Faculty of Finance and Banking, VCU at the end of the first semester of the academic year 2012-2013 The participants were asked to complete the questionnaires in 50 minutes

After collecting the data from questionnaires, the researcher started interviews with 3 random teachers and 10 students also chosen randomly to get further information and clarify some unclear points collected from the questionnaires The interviews were all tape-recorded to free the interviewer to participate naturally in the discussion and to allow the content to be reviewed carefully Ten interviews with students were conducted in Vietnamese to avoid the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the questions However, three interviews with teachers were conducted in English because there were no language barriers between the researcher and her colleagues in expressing their ideas, feelings, and opinions about the topic of interview

Then, to make sure the validity of the data she observed some English speaking lessons to find out factors affecting students’ confidence in speaking, their favorite group work activities, and effective techniques used to increase their participation in speaking by teachers

2.6 Data analysis

The data of the study was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively Basing on quantitative analysis, we used descriptive statistics to quantify the data in forms of tables, figures, and charts Interview results and class observation analysis provided

us with the qualitative data This data helps to explain the quantitative findings more a specifically and clearly Finally, a comparison between the teachers’ present procedures used in group work activities in the speaking classes and students’ desires when work in group was addressed