Tài liệu A study on the using of cooperative learning in doing project assignments of grade 10 students at cam khe high school

HUNG VUONG UNIVERSITY FACULITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES NGO THI HUYEN TRANG A STUDY ON THE USING OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN DOING PROJECT ASSIGNMENTS OF GRADE 10 STUDENTS AT CAM KHE HIGH SCHOOL B.A GRADUATION PAPER Field: English Teaching Methodology Phu Tho, 2018 TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HÙNG VƯƠNG KHOA NGOẠI NGỮ NGO THI HUYEN TRANG A STUDY ON THE USING OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN DOING PROJECT ASSIGNMENTS OF GRADE 10 STUDENTS AT CAM KHE HIGH SCHOOL Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng phương pháp học hợp tác trong phần "Dự án" của học sinh lớp 10 Trường THPT Cẩm Khê. B.A GRADUATION PAPER Field: English Teaching Methodology Supervisor: Ngo Thi To Loan, M.A Phu Tho, 2018 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply indebted people whose help to make my graduation paper possible. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor Ms. Nguyen Thi To Loan, M.A, whose invaluable comments, guidance, criticism and generous help were very important to me in the process of carrying out this study. My special thanks also go to all lecturers and the staff of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Hung Vuong University for their useful materials, guidance and enthusiasm during my course of study. I really wish to thank all of my colleagues and my students at Cam Khe high school for their enthusiasm participating in doing the questionnaires. Without their valuable opinions and ideas on the questionnaires, the study would not have been accomplished. Last but not least, I would also like to show my deep gratitude to my beloved family and my friends who always support and stand by me with their consideration and encouragements. Viet Tri, May 2018 Ngo Thi Huyen Trang ii ABSTRACT In upper-secondary schools in Vietnam, with the innovation of textbook for 10th form students in light of Communicative Approach, the teaching of the four skills has been much more focused on. So far, the English teaching methods have been on the way to perfect. However, in doing project assignments is a crucial lesson that the teachers of English experience a lot of difficulties. In order to improve the quality of doing project, the graduation paper limits itself to the study on using cooperative learning in doing project assignments for 10th students. This study is to bring some effectiveness to the process of doing project in the classroom. The study has been conducted for the purpose of investigating the real situation of using cooperative learning in doing project assignments to improve in project lesson of grade 10th students at Cam Khe high school, Phu Tho province. Thus, two sets of survey questionnaires are used to investigate student‟s attitudes, perspectives toward in doing project and cooperative learning in project to find out the teachers‟ difficulties in carrying out this technique. From the results collected from the survey questionnaires and teacher‟s interview, the researcher recommended some solutions to deal with the cooperative learning and improve the students‟ project performance. The results showed that the use of cooperative learning in doing project assignments are an effective way to improve doing project assignments for high school students. This is also the researcher‟s wish to have a suitable and interesting method in teaching project to help grade 10 students at Cam Khe high school improve project assignments. Hopefully, the graduation paper will make a small contribution to the improvement of learning and teaching in general and in doing project assignments in particular. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS i PART I: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1 1. Rationale............................................................................................................ 1 2. Previous researches ........................................................................................... 2 2.1. In the world .................................................................................................... 2 2.2. In Viet Nam .................................................................................................... 3 3. Research purposes ............................................................................................. 4 4. Research questions............................................................................................ 4 5. Significance of the study .................................................................................. 4 6. Scope of the research ........................................................................................ 5 7. Design of the research ...................................................................................... 5 PART 2: CONTENT ............................................................................................. 7 CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND .............................................. 7 1.1. An overview of cooperative learning ............................................................. 7 1.1.1. Definition of cooperative learning .............................................................. 7 1.1.2. Benefits of cooperative learning in language education ............................. 9 1.1.3 Key elements of successful cooperative learning....................................... 10 1.1.4 Distinguishing cooperative learning from traditional groups ................... 12 1.1.5 Limitations of cooperative learning ........................................................... 14 1.2. Overview of doing project assignments ....................................................... 15 1.2.1. Definition of project .................................................................................. 15 1.2.2. Definition of Project- based learning (PBL) ........................................... 16 1.2.3 Teacher’s role in doing “project” assignments ......................................... 17 1.2.3. Benefits of project...................................................................................... 18 1.2.4 Limitations of project ................................................................................. 19 1.3. Description of English textbook 10 (pilot book) and project assignments .. 21 1.3.1. English textbook 10 (pilot book) ............................................................... 21 1.3.2. “Project” part in the new textbook ........................................................... 23 iv CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY ...................................................................... 26 2.1. Settings of the study ..................................................................................... 26 2.2. Participants of the study ............................................................................... 26 2.3. Instruments of the study ............................................................................... 27 2.3.1. Survey questionnaires ............................................................................... 27 2.3.2. Research procedure .................................................................................. 29 CHAPTER 3: DATA REPRESENTATION ...................................................... 32 3.1. Current situation of implementation “project” part in English 10 textbook at Cam Khe High school ......................................................................................... 32 3.1.1 Data analysis from the students’ survey questionnaires............................ 32 3.1.2. Data analysis from teacher interviews...................................................... 37 3.2. The effectiveness of CL in doing projects ................................................... 38 3.2.1. The results from students’ questionnaire .................................................. 38 3.2.2. The result of teachers’ interviews ............................................................. 42 3.3. Discussions ................................................................................................... 43 CHAPTER 4: MAJOR FINDINGS AND SOME PROPOSED SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN DOING PROJECT ASSIGNMENTS ................................................................................................. 45 4.1. Major findings of the research ..................................................................... 45 4.1.1. The real situation of applying cooperative learning in doing project assignments ......................................................................................................... 45 4.1.2. Awareness about benefits of CL ................................................................ 46 4.1.3. Difficulties of using CL in doing project assignments .............................. 47 4.2. Some proposed suggestions to improve CL activity in doing project assignments for grade 10 students at Cam Khe high school ............................... 48 PART 3: CONCLUSION .................................................................................... 53 1. Summary ......................................................................................................... 53 2. Implications ..................................................................................................... 54 3. Limitations of the study .................................................................................. 55 v 4. Suggestions for further researches .................................................................. 56 REFERENCES .................................................................................................... 57 APPENDICE ......................................................................................................... 1 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CL Cooperative learning PBL Project Based-Learning CLT Communicative Language Teaching EFL English as a Foreign Language ELT English Language Teaching ESL English as Second Language % Percent vii LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES NO 1 Table Table 1.1: Distinguishing cooperative learning from Page 16 traditional groups 2 Table 1.2: The contents and structure of units in Textbook 25 English 10 3 Table 1.3: Checklist of project in current “English 10” 26 Textbook 4 Table 2.1: The English entrance examination scores of 28 grade 10A4 5 Table 2.2: Summary of the students‟ questionnaires 30 6 Table 2.3: Summary of the teachers‟ interview questions 30 7 Table 2.4: The experiment procedure at Cam Khe High 32 school 8 Table 3.1: Students‟ understand doing project assignments 34 9 Table 3.2: “What students know about the CL 37 10 Table 3.3: Students‟ opinion about “the benefits of CL” 37 11 Table 3.4:Students‟ expectations in using CL in English 38 lesson 12 Table 3.5: Benefits of CL in doing project 41 13 Table 3.6: Students‟ difficulties in CL method 42 14 Table 3.7: Students‟ expectations of using CL in doing 43 project NO 1 Figure Figure 3.1: Student‟s attitude before using of CL in doing Page 35 project (%) 2 Figure 3.2: Students‟ feeling in doing project assignments difficult (%) 36 viii 3 Figure 3.3: Students‟ attitudes towards doing project 40 assignments (%) 4 Figure 3.4: Students‟ feeling about CL in doing project 41 assignments (%) 5 Figure 3.5: Students‟ opinion about necessary CL in doing 42 project (%) 6 Figure 3.6: The frequency of using cooperative learning in doing project 43 1 PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Recently, cooperative learning (CL) has been a proper solution to enhance learner‟s performance. It has been widely believed that there are some sound reasons to take CL into implementation but not other methods. Obviously, as one of the most popular structures of learners-centered approach in the recent years, cooperative activities have been widely used in language classroom, especially in encouraging learner‟s participation and improving their motivation in learning. First, CL is highly appraised for their contribution to student's achievement. It is beneficial both for academic achievement and the development of the learners social and learning skill. Second, CL has a rigorous foundation on research. Studies have been conducted and come to a conclusion that CL are associated with achievement, high thinking level, self esteem, liking for the subject matter, for schools and the intergroup relations. Furthermore, many studies have proved that cooperative learning has positively influenced students‟ project-based learning (PBL) performance (William, 2003; Noel & Robert, 2003; Graham, 2005). CL has enormous advantages over traditional one because traditionally, students only communicate with the teacher about their learning but in CL classrooms students are involved in group work and discussions, which not only improves doing project assignments accuracy but also betters their problem solving skills as well as establish a social atmosphere and meaningful learning. However, the real situation is always different from theory. According to my observation, many students at Cam Khe High School find project a difficult task, they find project hard to do, they only deal with tasks in class and they don‟t often learn at home. Moreover, most teachers often skip this part because they found difficult to design classroom activities to attract students‟ participation. They encounter lots of challenges in finding appropriate methods to learn this part. And they often ask students to finish this part at home without 2 checking what their students had done. Obviously, students themselves often neither study at class nor at home. One of the difficulties of students when learning in doing project because this is a difficult task to them and it is absolute new to them. Moreover, despite the benefits of CL, there is still inadequate research on the issue, especially in the context of Vietnam. Similarly, at Cam Khe High School, there has been no research on the subject of improving students in doing project by cooperative learning. For this reason, the researcher decided to carry out a research on “A study on the using of cooperative learning in doing project assignments of grade 10 students at Cam Khe High School” 2. Previous researches 2.1. In the world Ahangari and Samadian (2014)conducted a study about “The effect of cooperative learning activities on writing skills of Iranian EFL learners”. 50 students of Islamic Azad University were selected for their experimental study. The outcomes of the study confirmed the effect of cooperative learning activities on improving the components of writing skills such as content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanics. The researchers suggested that writing performance can be improved through small-group cooperative interaction among peers in a supportive and stress-reduced environment. Ilhan Ilter (2014) also had a study on “The efficacy of project-based learning approach on Social Studies Education: Conceptual achievement and academic motivation.” In this research, an experimental study was carried out in social studies 4thgrade students' to develop students' conceptual achievement and motivation to succeed academically. The study aims to investigate the effectiveness of project-based learning (PBL) in social studies. The findings indicated a statistically significant difference in favor of the experimental group on the concept achievement and motivation. Students who participated in the PBL environments not only enriched and expanded their knowledge but also 3 achieved a higher level of motivation than the control group. The PBL in team format activities were provided to promote the experimental group students' motivation to succeed academically and to develop their conceptual achievement. The results demonstrated that the PBL improved students' understanding regarding social studies concepts and helped them achieve the behaviors which were aimed academically. The experimental group's intended behaviors in academic motivation at the beginning of the experimental treatment turned into performed behaviors at the end. 2.2. In Viet Nam The study titled “ The effects of cooperative learning activities on improving writing skills of EFL students at International school, Vietnam National University a quasi experimental research” of (Tran Thi Lan Huong 2013) was conducted as an attempt to examine the perceptions of first-year EFL learners towards CL to investigate their participation level and quality in CL, find out possible influential factors on their participation, pinpoint teachers‟ monitoring strategies to motivate students to participate in activities, and recommend several pedagogical implications to motivate and balance their oral participation. The study titled “The Effect of Project-Based Learning on Student Performance” by Nguyen Thi Huyen Trang (2016) analyzed the effectiveness of an alternate pedagogical approach in the form of standards-focused projectbased learning (PBL) teaching model in psychology classes. Both the control and experimental groups initially adopted a negative attitude when presented with an alternate method of learning. They viewed the group project as an unnecessary task although the literature contradicts their initial perception. Data analyzed found that the experimental group that engaged the project and took responsibility for the learning of their peers scored significantly higher on the multiple-choice exam when compared to the control group. No significance was found in the second experimental group where majority of the students did their 4 part, but did not report feeling a sense of responsibility for the learning of their peers. Key indicators for higher academic performance were: 1) high selfefficacy; 2) high level of perceived control; and 3) growth mindset. This is the first time the study “A study on the using of cooperative learning in doing Project assignments of grade 10 students at Cam Khe High School” is carried out in Cam Khe district. Different from other studies, it focuses on studying CL in teaching and doing project assignments whereas the above studies focus on different aspects. 3. Research purposes The study aims at: - Investigating the current situation in of teaching and learning “Project” part in English 10 textbook at Cam Khe High school. - Applying CL in teaching “Project” part in English 10 textbooks. - Evaluating the effectiveness of CL in teaching “Project” part in textbook for grade 10 students. - Proposing some suggestions to improve CL activities for teaching and learning project of grade 10 students at Cam Khe High school. 4. Research questions In order to achieve the above-mentioned purposes, the study seeks to answer the following questions: 1. How is “Project” part in English 10 textbooks being implemented at Cam Khe High School ? 2. How is “ Cooperative learning” applied in doing “Project” part in English 10 textbooks? 3. Is that activity effective in enhancing student‟s performance in doing project? 5. Significance of the study Although the study was conducted on a small scale with a particular group of grade 10 students at Cam Khe high school, the researcher hoped that 5 its findings could be of great significance. This study is a contribution to an understanding of the applicability of the cooperative learning to the teaching of English in general and the teaching of project for academic purposes in particular in the context of a Vietnamese high school. Besides, the findings of the study will make a small contribution to the improvement in using CL in doing project assignments of teachers and students of English in general and those of Cam Khe High school in particular. In addition, the research also helps the teachers and students apply CL more effectively, which may make doing project assignments lessons more interesting, and students‟ presenting skills are hopefully improved. 6. Scope of the research Due to time constraints, instead of studying the current situation of using cooperative learning activities in a larger context, this study only focuses on applying cooperative learning in doing project assignments for 42 students of grade 10A4 at Cam Khe High school. Moreover, in this paper, due to the lack of time and effort, I would solely discuss the use of CL in doing project assignments, not the other parts of the lessons to determine its effectiveness more clearly in the small context of grade 10 students at Cam Khe High school. 7. Design of the research The research consists of three parts. Part 1: Presents the overview of the study including the rationale for the research, previous researches, research purposes, research questions, significance of the research, the scope of the research as well as the structure of research. Part 2is sub-divided into four chapters: Chapter 1 is the literature review. In this chapter, the literature on cooperative learning and doing project are stated. 6 Chapter 2 focuses on the subjects of the study, discusses the instruments and presents the data collection, analysis and research procedures. Chapter 3 in which the current situation in applying cooperative learning for grade 10 students at Cam Khe high school are provided. Chapter 4 focuses on giving some major findings of the study and suggesting some techniques for better using CL for grade 10 students in doing project assignments. Part 3 summarizes the study. Also in this part, the implications for classroom practice, the limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies are clearly presented. In a nutshell, this part has presented the background, and significance of the study. These contribute to the purposes and the research questions of this study in teaching and studying doing project assignments at Cam Khe High school. The present study also provided the scope of the study. An outline of this study was given in the last of this part. 7 PART 2: CONTENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND The purpose of this chapter is to provide information pertaining to this research, which was obtained from reviewing the related literature and studies. 1.1. An overview of cooperative learning 1.1.1. Definition of cooperative learning Since cooperative learning has recently drawn much interest and becomes popular, a number of researches have been done to investigate the effectiveness of this approach of teaching. It is beneficial to discover the definition of the term cooperative learning (CL) to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the approach. In general, CL is a strategy for group instruction which is under the learner-centered approach. In detail, CL is „'an instructional program in which students work in small groups to help one another master academic content. They are a team whose platers must work together in pairs or groups to achieve the goals successfully" (Brown, 2002). In language learning contexts, CL is defined as within-class grouping of students usually of different level of foreign language proficiency who learn to work together on specific tasks for projects in such a way that all students in the group benefit from the interactive experience. Students work together to maximize their own and each other‟s learning. According to Johnson and Johnson (2005), CL is a teaching strategy in which small teams use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject, each member is responsible for learning and helping classmates until they all understand and complete the assigned task. According to Stahl (2006), during the past decade, cooperative learning has emerged as the leading new approach to language teaching. Numerous research have revealed that CL tends to enable to achieve higher academic test scores, higher self-esteem, greater numbers of positive social skills, greater understanding of the content and skills they are studying. CL is especially 8 beneficial to language learners due to the fact that they are provided comprehensive input m appropriate ways and in a supportive and motivating environment (Kagan 2008). Additionally, Olsen and Kagan report some benefits of the strategy-for language learning. First, in traditional classrooms, teachers give students little time to produce language, especially weak students. On the contrary, in cooperative classes, most of class tune is devoted to students‟ activities, and then they have many of chances to produce language, resulting in their activeness and better communication. Furthermore, CL impacts positively on language acquisition because small groups enrich language classroom with comprehensible and accurate input. To sum up, as CL enhances language development and the learning of concepts and contents, assigning students to different groups is necessary for them to benefit more from English language role models. In conclusion, cooperative learning is an approach to group work that minimizes the occurrence of those unpleasant situations and maximizes the learning and satisfaction that result from working on a high-performance team. A large and rapidly growing body of research confirms the effectiveness of cooperative learning in higher education. Relative to students taught traditionally with instructor-centered lectures, individual assignments, and competitive grading cooperatively taught students tend to exhibit higher academic achievement, greater persistence through graduation, better high-level reasoning and critical thinking skills, deeper understanding of learned material, greater time on task and less disruptive behavior in class, lower levels of anxiety and stress, greater intrinsic motivation to learn and achieve, greater ability to view situations from others‟ perspectives, more positive and supportive relationships with peers, more positive attitudes toward subject areas, and higher self-esteem. Another nontrivial benefit for instructors is that when assignments are done cooperatively, the number of papers to grade decreases by a factor of three or four. 9 1.1.2. Benefits of cooperative learning in language education CL is a good way to maximize learners‟ academic achievement as well as their social skills. Especially, highly structured CL enables them to improve their own apprehension of the key materials while developing good relationship with peers by encouraging and assisting them. Firstly, according to Gillies & Ashman( 2003), the most obvious benefit of CL for students fells into academic achievement. Most of the researches conducted into the effectiveness of CL have positive findings. CL activities supply learners with structured chances to collaborate to reach the common goals in language acquisition. They help each others to benefit from their contribution to the learning process. Working in groups enables learners to provide each other with information, suggestions, reminders and motivation. They not only achieve better results, develop their thinking and leadership skills but also enjoy their learning with positive views towards other learners, good self-esteem and a sense of belonging to a group. Graham (2005)& Gillies & Ashman ( 2003), CL strategy was found to be useful for both language education and other aspects such as motivational and communicative activities, good relationship with participants and stress overcoming. Moreover, according to Gabriele (2007), in CL classrooms, lower students learn much from strong partners because when working individually they may get stuck, but collaborating with better students enable them to understand the materials more easily. In the second place, according to Graham(2005),cooperative learning betters students socially and emotionally. CL helps learners to become better communicators and listeners, cooperative members as well as effective leader of a team. Besides improving social skills, CL also develops personal competence of self-reflection and accurate self-assessment. By working closely with classmates, learners can assess their own strengths and weaknesses, know how 10 to make use of the diversity to reach the common goals. In other words, cooperative learning encourages students to become reflective practitioners and strive for continuous improvement. Furthermore, CL is also considered an effective remedy for educational problems by not only helping to improve academic results but also encouraging learners to become involved in social and academic settings. It also has good impact on the problem solving ability of children. According to William(2003), Children of lower ability who completed their work collaboratively with peers of higher ability had significant improvement m their performance. In addition, learning cooperatively enables learners to communicate with each other, which gives them opportunities to talk together about their work socially and collaboratively. Discussion with peers is also a good way to make writing more meaningful and apparent and helps learners to become able to read their work critically. 1.1.3 Key elements of successful cooperative learning Johnson, Johnson & Holubec (1993), Johnson & Johnson (2005), CL can only be more produce competitive and individualistic efforts under certain conditions. There are five basic elements of successful cooperative as follows: 1.1.3.1 Positive interdependence According to Johnson, Johnson & Smith (1998), group members understand that they need each other to fulfill the assigned tasks so they will contribute to the learning of group actively. This element is the heart of CL because the nature of CL is die improvement and maintenance of positive interdependence among team members. Students need to do activities in which they learn to depend on each other as they get help from one another. Instructors may structure positive interdependence by establishing mutual goals to maximize own and each other‟s productivity, giving joint rewards, for example if all members achieve above the criteria each will receive bonus points, sharing resources with members‟ different expertise and 'assigning roles of summarizer,