As presented in the previous table, there are some students who did not make any improvement in reading classes though CL helped their classmates very much in learning reading. This phenomenon could be resulted from the fact that these students did not feel comfortable with the learning method or they did not want to integrate in activities with their group mates. Therefore, in this case, CL is not always effective.
To apply cooperative strategies in reading classes, accessing to professional development including the theory and philosophy of cooperative learning, demonstrations of cooperative learning methods, and ongoing coaching and support from other teachers is important for teachers. Only when teachers master it and have
opportunities to work together and learn from one another that the effects of cooperative learning can be greatly enhanced.
Actually, because cooperative learning is more than just putting students in groups and giving them something to do, getting acquainted and becoming skillful at using cooperative learning in EFL teaching take time and effort. Therefore, specific guidelines for the implementation of cooperative learning in teaching reading are thus proposed for teachers interested in innovating their current teaching methods in order to overcome the initial teacher resistance to change from old teaching methods to new one.
4.2.2.1. Forming groups
Forming groups is very important when applying cooperative activities in reading classes. The question is that whether the teachers form groups themselves or permit their students to choose their own groupmates. Most experts on cooperative learning recommend teacher-selected groups, at least until students become proficient at collaboration. There are some criteria that teachers should follow when forming groups.
The first criterion is to form groups of 3 – 4 members for most reading activities.
Groups of 3 – 4 members are recommended by many researchers on cooperative learning because the ideas and approaches leading to many of the benefits of cooperative learning may not be exploited when students work in pairs. In addition, some students are likely to be inactive in teams of more than five members.
The second criterion is to form the groups at heterogeneous level of English.
Features such as learning styles, gender, characteristics, and especially academic achievements should be taken into consideration when teachers form groups. In heterogeneous groups, the weaker students learn from seeing how better students solve
problems, and the stronger students get a deeper understanding of the subject by teaching it to others.
4.2.2.2. Promoting positive interdependence
The fact that the instructions on group operation must be introduced and made clear to all students is extremely important. Different roles to team members should be assigned and the roles should be rotated periodically for each reading lesson. Each team member must be given a role (e.g. leader, checker, recorder, reporter, etc.) and guided how to play the role before giving tasks to teams. With different reading activities, the roles can be rotates so that each student can act different roles and understand the principles of working in group.
4.2.2.3. Teachers’ changing roles
During teaching process teachers need to do some tasks to facilitate individual accountability of the students in order to ensure that each student is individually accountable to do his or her fair share of the team‟s work. Assessing how much effort each member is contributing to the group‟s work and providing feedback to groups and individual students are the first important things. This helps teachers to convey students‟ participation in the tasks assigned, which will help avoid redundant efforts by members of the groups. Besides, teachers should ensure that every member is responsible for the outcome by checking students‟ learning outcome randomly. By doing so, the application of CL will be efficient in reading classes.
4.2.2.4. Suggested in-class activities
In order to maximize students‟ encounter with the target language in a reading lessons, many activities could be incorporated, following are some of suggested ones:
- Think-Pair-Share - Rallytable
- Roundrobin
- Three-steps interview - Corners
- Jigsaw
To sum up, no one suggests that the class be organized in cooperative groups all the time though cooperative learning is found to be effective in teaching and learning reading skill. In fact, students need to know how to cooperate, compete, and work alone in reading classes. It is better to start slowly by using one cooperative learning technique such as Numbered Heads Together or Peer Response (Kagan, 1992) when students and/or teachers are unfamiliar with cooperative learning several times to let students become accustomed to collaboration. It is better to find the right balance of teaching methods according to teacher‟s philosophy of education, reading of the research, students' preferences, and what seems to be working best.
4.2.3. Adapting the reading texts in the coursebook toward CL reading activities Because the surveyed students think that reading texts in the coursebook are difficult, uninteresting and long, exercises are boring, etc. reading exercises and even the reading text need to be adapted to make them more suitable for reading ability and students‟ interests. The textbook being used as we mentioned previously will never be perfect for every teacher's teaching situation and will always need adapting, modifying in order to have optimal results of teaching and learning. For this reason, being flexible in using the textbook is necessary for the teaching and learning process as teachers do not need to do exactly the tasks provided in the student book or the guide and students do not need to complete all the exercise in the coursebook. Teachers can leave one or two as homework for students. Besides, teachers can also design and add more suitable reading exercises or replace difficult ones with easier ones for students‟ levels.
If the teachers work with each other to find out the optimal solution, it can help increase the quality of teaching reading skill. For example, they can discuss the adaptation in the reading exercises in the textbook together, such as which part of the textbook need to be adapted, replaced or simplified, etc...This will help students overcome many difficulties in learning reading and learn reading skill better.
To sum up, though a number of limitations and constraints in applying CL in the classrooms and the current traditional examinations still exist, it has been found to have a number of benefits. Its effectiveness was proved by the significant difference in the post-test scores between experimental and controlled class. However, many solutions were recommended in order to make the application of CL more successful. In the researcher‟s point of view, if there are agreement and cooperation of the administrators, teachers and students, the implementation of CL to NEMs at Vinh University will be successful. Among these factors, teachers, who play the central role in long-lasting changes, can have positive influence on the success of the innovation.
Apart from the support and assistance from administrators, teachers must make every effort to adapt themselves to use CL. It is essential for teachers to have good communicative competence, creativity, and enthusiasm in order to apply CL effectively in teaching EFL in general and EFL reading skill to NEMs at Vinh University.