conduongcoxua welcome to my blog

Based on students’ backgrounds , their learning needs and my analysis, I realize that there is a need for a new appropriate approach to language teaching and learning in my school wh[r]

a brief discussion of difficulties in conducting the research.

Therefrore, as a teacher of English, in order to promote oral communication

in the classroom, there are a number of things I can do: effective classroommanagement, dynamic learning activities and productive teaching and learningapproach

In considering effective classroom management, many teachers in my schoolexperience that the benefits of group work and pair work are not recognized by thestudents A majority of the students are resistant to group work and pair workbecause they think that group work is a waste of time and they are just interested

in working alone, translating or learning vocabulary and grammar In improvingthe teaching and learning of English, there are many innovations to be introduced.The most important of them is to use pair work and group work in the classroomwhose benefits are to promote classroom interaction which can facilitate secondlanguage acquisition, to personalize the learning process and to increase thestudents’ responsibilities for these own learning.

As an attempt to improve the teaching and learning of English, especiallyEnglish for communication, I conducted this small scale research project whichtook two months, from 1st December , 2011 to 15th February, 2012

CONTEXT

My school has thirty-four classes with over 1400 students each year, is one

of the biggest schools in Dong Nai, an industrial and commercial province, about

50 kilometres away from Ho Chi Minh City My school is also located in a placewhere there are many foreign visitors each year Therefore, many people need touse English to communicate with these foreigners

In my school, each class has forty-five students who are at different levels,some with quite competent English, some whose English is not very good, whileothers whose English is just getting started Most of the students are just part-timeones who go to school in the morning and have to help their parents the rest of theday For these reasons, their English is still limited , especially their practice ofEnglish skills Each of the classes is also equipped with well-lit rooms, enoughtables, a blackboard and a cassette player As common in other high schools inVietnam, the students in my school have to take English as a compulsory subjectand they study English three periods a week

Together with the curriculum, the current ways of teaching English here arestill traditional The grammar translation method is mostly used, classroomactivities are heavily teacher-centred and most of the teachers are regarded as thesource of knowledge and students only come to class to get that knowledge Onemore serious problem is that the class size is big in comparison with the acceptednorm which is only twenty-five students for each class Therefore, I thinkinteractive teaching and learning is impossible without pair work and group work

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

- What are students’ attitudes to group work?

- What should the researcher do to improve the use of group work?

- Can interesting , interactive and meaningful tasks and activities (e.g.

information gap, role playing) maximize the effectiveness of group work?

HYPOTHESES

Students have positive attitudes to group work and will work well in groups

if they are provided with interesting , meaningful and challenging tasks, clearinstructions and directions and effective guidance by their teachers

LITERATURE REVIEW

A successful language program depends greatly on appropriate teachingmodels chosen by flexible, competent teachers, good learning strategies andeffective classroom management In communicative language teaching, groupwork is considered a useful and effective technique to assist learners to use thelanguage in class and then in real-life situations Defining the term “group work”,Brown ( 1994: 173) says, “ It is a generic term covering a multiplicity oftechniques in which two or more students are assigned a task that involvescollaboration and self-initiated language” In considering the advantages of groupwork , Ur (1996:232) states that group work is a form of learner activation which is

of particular value in the practice of oral fluency, and learners in a small group canget five times as many opportunities to talk as in full-class organization She alsoemphasizes that group work fosters learners’ responsibility and independence,helps to improve motivation and contributes to a feeling of co-operation andwarmth in the class When students are put in groups, they can help each other tocarry out interviews, to play roles in a dialogue, to do problem solving, surveys,and values clarification In agreement with Ur, Harmer (1998:21) says, “the otheradvantage of group work and pair work ( but especially group work) is that theygive the teacher the opportunity to work with individual students” He also addsthat group work gives the students chances for greater independence because when

students work in groups, they take some of their own learning decisions Theycan work without the pressure of everybody listening to what they are speaking orwatching what they are doing.

Group work ; however, has some problems the teacher should take intoaccount so that he or she can maximize its effectiveness Ur (1996:232) points out,

“ In individual classes, group work may encourage students to be more disruptivethan they would be in a whole class setting” Obviously , in groups without theteacher, students can make unneccesary noise or use their own language Brown( 1994:177) emphasizes, “ Many students, especially adult-age students, prefer towork alone because that is the way they have operated ever since they startedschool” He adds that some students find group work frustrating since they onlywant the teacher to give them the answers to the problems

In solving the above problem of group work, Brown (1994:177) suggeststhat we should be sensitive to our students’ preferences and help them to see thatlanguage is for communicating with people and that the more they engage in face -

to - face communication, the more their oral communicative competence willimprove He also mentions that problems of group work, such as some members of

a group being reluctant to share information with the others, can be solved bycareful planning and management and by interactive, interesting and relevant tasks,for example practising dialogues with a partner, question and answer exercises,performing certain meaningful substitution “drills”, games, information gap tasks,interviews, problem solving and decision making activities Lynch (1996:115)says, “ when setting up group work, one of the teacher’s important decisions iswho is to work with whom” In his book, Doff ( 1988: 142 ) says that clearlydefined tasks, clear instructions about when to start, what to do, and when to stop

as well as teacher demonstration before students work on tasks All of them canhelp students to know exactly what to do and they, as a result, get more involved ingroup work

Ur ( 1996 : 234 ) states that we should give the instructions before giving outmaterials or dividing the class into groups, and a preliminary rehearsal or “ dryrun” of a sample of the activity with the full class can help to clarify things

In explaining the advantages of group work, Brown ( 1994:173) says thatgroup work helps to solve the problem of classes that are too large to offer manyopportunities to speak He also emphasizes that group work offers the security ofsmaller groups of students where each individual is not so starkly on publicdisplay, vulnerable to what the student may perceive as criticism and rejection,and group work promotes learner responsibility and autonomy.

DEVELOPMENT

From the literature review, we can see that many authors like Brown, Ur,Harmer, Doff, and Lynch who have great influence in the area of group workorganization and English language teaching and learning , define that appropriateand good classroom management, flexible classroom activities and interestingtasks are key factors which contribute to a success of a language programme.Based on students’ backgrounds , their learning needs and my analysis, I realizethat there is a need for a new appropriate approach to language teaching andlearning in my school which will shift the focus of attention from teacher-directed

to student-centred teaching and learning environment with the effective use ofgroup work and pair work and the communicative approach as the key to improvestudents’ performance as well as their outcomes The main reason is that teacher-directed and teacher-dominated classrooms with poor tasks cannot be naturallyinteractive

METHODOLOGY

A Subjects

This study was conducted with the students of the 12th form in my school.Among twelve classes of 12th form, I chose two classes: 12A1 and 12B8 to carryout the surveys Their age ranges from 17 to 18 Some of them were familiar withgroup work , while others were not Twenty students in each of these two classeswere selected at random for the research I chose these two groups of studentsbecause they had learning styles, learning needs, study habits and attitudes thatwere commonly shared by other students in my school and in many other highschools in the province

In addition, two teachers of English in the school: Huy and Tien wereinterviewed I chose these two teachers because they appeared to be active andhard-working and they agreed to help me to carry out the research These teachershad earned a bachelor degree in English language teaching and had much teachingexperience I also learnt from discussions with them that they were aware of thebenefits of group work for second language acquisition and they had madeattempts to use it with varying degrees of success in their classes.

B Instruments

In order to gather information about my students, and classroom activities, Iused three instruments: the class evaluation form, the questionnaire and theinterview I believe that data is more reliable if it is collected from differentsources and with different methods In considering the reliability of data, Wallace (1998: 210) says,“ Triangulation should make our findings more reliable, andsubjecting them to different people’s scrutiny within the action research teamshould make the findings more valid”

+ The Class Observation Form

I designed this form in order to evaluate the teachers and students’performances, attitudes and activities in the classroom Bell ( 1997: 109) says, “Direct observation may be more reliable than what people say in many instances Itcan be particularly useful to discover whether people do what people say they do,

or behave in the way they claim to behave" I invited one more teacher in theschool to conduct this evaluation form I strongly believe that the observationresults are more reliable because “reliability is enhanced by having two observers (the second may be the researcher himself or herself) observe the same behaviour atthe same time, either in the field or on a video tape” ( Slavin, 1992:93) The classevaluation form includes two parts: the first is about the teacher, the second isabout the students and activities in the classroom Each part consists of somestatements ( please see appendix 1) The rating scales of the statements vary asfollows:

1 Not at all

a questionnaire can produce very reliable data and, at the same time, make acontribution to improving the situation”, Altrichter Posch & Somekh ( 1993: 114).

+ The Interview

I asked the teachers ten questions ( please see appendix 3) related to thestudents’ attitudes , learning styles and the teachers’ techniques of classroomorganization or management All the dialogues in the interview were carefullyrecorded The staff included only two teachers, all the questions on the surveywere open-ended When I did the research, I made questions in Vietnamese so that

I could get real information from my students The duration for the interviews werereported to the teachers before the interview

Questioning , orally or in writing, often more direct access to the meaning ithas for the pupil than do other methods I told my students that the responseswould help me to improve my teaching and their learning of English because “ theinterviewee should believe that the outcomes of the interview are useful for him orher” (Altrichter, Peter Posch and Bridget Somekh 1993 ; 101 )

C Data Analysis

+ Class observation data analysis

There are twenty statements, describing the students’ learning styles andattitudes, and the teachers’ teaching methods There are two tables presented in

this section One presented comments on the teaching methods, techniques and skills of group work organization, while the other presented students’ involvement in group work.

The data presented in each table show the frequency distribution of eachstatement The numbers shown in the frequency distribution indicated the majorityratio integrated from five rating scales

Table 1: Teacher Evaluation

 Comments on the teaching approaches , group work organization

Statements

Frequency Distribution

Positive Neutral Negative

Number Scale(%) Number Scale(%) Number Scale(%)

1 The teacher’s instructions are clear

2 The tasks are clearly explained to

students

3 The teacher demonstrates how to do the

task

4 The teacher organizes the group well

5.The techniques are appropriate for each

stage of the tasks

6 The teacher shows interest in the

students’ work

7 The teacher offers help when needed

8 The teacher is flexible and uses many

effective techniques

9 The teacher sometimes joins in a group

10 The teacher answers students’

questions about the tasks given

11 The teacher is cheerful and friendly

12 The teacher skillfully selects group

members, group leaders

13 The teacher signals for everyone’s

attention

Table 2 : Student Evaluation

 Students’ Involvement in group work

Statements

Frequency Distribution

Positive Neutral Negative

Number Scale(%) Number Scale(%) Number Scale(%)

14 Students are involved in group work

15 Students feel relaxed and free to learn

in groups

16 Students co-operate with each other

17 Students participate in doing tasks

18 Students understand the teacher’s

instructions

19 Students show interest in the lesson

20 Students use more L2 than L1 in class

 Questionnaire Data Analysis.

The questionnaire consists of 36 questions related to the students attitudes, learningstyles, learning preferences and the teacher’s methods of teaching There are twotables presented in this section

Table 1: Students’ learning preferences

Table 2: Students’ attitudes to group work and the teachers’ methods of

teaching

The two tables below will show the frequency distribution of each statement.The numbers shown in the frequency distribution indicate the exact number ofstudents’ responses to the questionnaire

Table 1: Students’ Learning Preferences

Statements

Frequency Distribution Positive Neutral Negative

Number Scale(%) Number Scale(%) Number Scale(%)

1 Working in pairs/groups

2 Working in the whole group

3 Working only by myself

4 Working in small groups

5 Working in one large group

6 Talking to other students

7 Discussing with others

8 Working with fluent speakers of

English

9 Working on new exercises/tasks

10.Talking only to my teacher

11.Working with my close classmates

12.Talking to English speaking people

13.Teacher’s lecture

14 Doing exercises and being given

answers by the teacher

15.Small group work

Number Scale(%) Number Scale(%)

21 Group work is interesting

22 Group work is useless

23 Group work is time-consuming

24 Group work helps me a lot in learning English.

25 Group work helps me to work with many

friends

26 She/he wants us to help one another

27 She/he wants to increase classroom interaction

28 She/he wants us to make friends with one

another.

29 She/he does not want to teach

30 She/he has not prepared her/his lesson

31 Tasks are interesting

32 Tasks are boring

33 Tasks are useless

34 Tasks focus on grammar

35 The teacher’s instructions are clear and simple

36 Games are interesting.

+ Interview Data Analysis

There are ten questions dealing with the students, teachers and their methods ofteaching in the interview The data was presented in the form of qualitativeanalysis

+ Time-line

My research was lasted for two months from 1st December, 2011 to 15th February

2012, and I was able to get enough time and preparation to collect data from thestudents as well as teachers

The following time line illustrated what I did for my research report

The First Month

The first week - Wrote an outline

- Draw a concept map

and design questionnaire items