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VINH UNIVERSITY HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS ---------- TOPIC: USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES IN SPEAKING CLASS Teacher : Lê Việt Hương School year : 2016-2017 A : Introduction Rationale: - It is undeniable that English is considered as the medium of communication in many different fields .Therefore, the role of English has been more and more increasingly crucial. - However, due to some objective and subjective reasons, teaching and learning communicative skills do not come up to the study aims in High school for Gifted Students. - How to teach and learn speaking effectively is still a challenging question to both teachers and students at Vinh University High School For Gifted Students, especially for non- English majors - For most students, they find speaking especially important yet most challenging one. Some students got into a habit of leaning ‘mute English”, feel bored with speaking process and rarely practice the English to communicate in their daily activities . -Among many methods to make the speaking lesson effective , organizing group work activities seems most optimal . - However, the application of this method is not really effective at my High School . Teachers and learners have been facing many different challenges. With the above reasons, I decided to do the topic with the title: “ Group work activities in the English speaking classes” to find out the better ways to apply group work activities for better speaking skill among students.The research will be a small contribution to teaching and improving speaking skills for students. B. Theoretical background I. Speaking Skill 1. Definition and the role of speaking skill . - Speaking as one of language productive skills is commonly defined as the ability of using a language orally, is usually considered by language learners to be the most important goal among the four language skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing) - A linguist defines speaking as “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information” - Therefore, if learners do not learn how to speak or do not get any opportunities to speak in the language classroom, they may soon get de-motivated and lose interest in learning. i 2. The characteristics of a successful speaking activity Speaking is the skill that students will be evaluated in real- life situations. Their speaking activities those are successful or not based on their fluent and comprehensible speech.They have four characteristics. - The first characteristic is that students talk a lot. Therefore, teachers should only play the role of guiders, and let students be free to express their understanding in their own ways. - Secondly, participation is even. Therefore, the teacher should let all students get a chance to speak, the good as well as bad students have to speak equally. - Thirdly, motivation is high. When the students are interested in the topic and have something new to say about it they will be very eager to speak. - Last but not least, it is necessary for teachers to remember that language or speaking activities must be at the acceptable level. In other words, their language should be relevant to students’ degree, easily comprehensible to students and of an acceptable level of language accuracy and fluency. 3. Definition of group work Group work has been incorporated into language teaching and learning in most parts of the world since the emergence of the CLT in the early 1970s - One linguistist describes group work as follows:” In group work, the teacher divides the class into small groups to work together( usually four or five students in each group) and all the groups work at the same time. Group work refers to tasks, activities and exercises carried out by learners working in small, co-operative groups. 3. Problems with speaking activity for students in High School For Gifted Students. During my teaching, I notice some common problems existing in practicing speaking activities: - Inhibition: learners often have a shy a nervous feeling while speaking, especially in front of class or other people; they worried about making mistake, fearful of losing face, criticism. - Nothing-to-say situations: Some learners do not have anything to say due to the lack of knowledge , vocabulary and low language proficiency, intonation. - Low or uneven participation: A high-level learner may not want to work with a weaker partner and tend to dominate most of the time. As a result, all ii members may not participate equally in discussions, slow learners have the tendency to withdraw and sit still listening to their dominating partners. They don’t speak or speak very little. - Mother-tongue use: learners often share the same mother tongue because they feel the native language is easier to use and it is not natural to speak to other in a foreign language. When preparing activities for a speaking class, teachers should pay much attention to above problems, so that the speaking activities will be successful and useful to students. II. Applying Group work in speaking lessons: 1. Benefits of group work During applying group works activities I found group works offer following benefits : 2.1. Group work gives learner more chance to practice speaking. - Before the teacher talk is really dominant for a long time in so-called traditional language classes. Thanks to group work, student’s opportunities for language practice as well as interaction are increased. 2.2. Group work offers a supportive climate and helps increase students’ confidence. - a small group provides a relatively intimate setting and a more supportive environment in which they will find it much easier to share their points of view in a natural way. 2.3. Group work improves the quality of student talk. Low students can learn a lot from excellent students. 2. Disadvantages Besides the advantages group work brings about, I find some problems. - Firstly, group work in class inevitably results in a noisy and chaotic classroom because many groups work at the same time and the teacher has to monitor a lot of groups. - Secondly, English teacher may face mixed ability students. In a mixed-ability group, A high-level learner may not want to work with a weaker partner and tend to dominate most of the time. As a result, all members may not participate equally in discussions. iii -Last but not at least , that working in group is a relatively slow process compared with working alone. It is really time-consuming. Speaking lesson often takes up 90 minutes. To conclude, although there are some disadvantages of group work, the advantages still outweighs. Applying groups makes the lesson more effective. 3 . The role of the teacher in group work The teacher has the roles of a guide, an instructor, an organizer, an assessor, a prompter and a participant . According to me , the teacher should not do the following: - Don’t sit at your desk and grade papers - Don’t leave the room and take a break - Don’t spend an undue amount of time with one group at the expense of others - Don’t correct students’ errors unless asked to do so - Don’t assume a dominating or disruptive role while monitoring groups Whether group work is successful or not, it depends much on how and where the teacher applies these roles. III. How to organize group work In order to prepare for group work, the following procedures are suggested : 1. Select the activity : - some suggested group work activities in speaking classes are brainstorming, role- play, discussion, games,problem-solving 2. Divide students into groups. - Group size normally ranges between 5-7 students. Groups larger than 8 do not ensure that everyone will participate. - Students can form groups by turning around in seats to face the children behind. 3 . Set - the time for groups to work. It is common that a small group activity constitutes 30 minutes of a 45 minuteperiod, with 15 minutes allowed for sharing small group work with the whole class 4. After giving clear instructions to the students, the teacher go round for help, should be available to answer questions, but not interfere with the groups’ activities. iv 5 . When time is over,Teacher ask a student from each group to present their ideas of the group in front of the class . Let the students speak without interrupting them. Teacher write main ideas on blackboard. 6. Ask students of other groups to listen attentively and give comments about contents, fluency, intonation and gramatical mistakes. 7. Teacher comment on each group ‘s performance - Give feedback and error correction. Sample : Applying group works activities in speaking lesson Unit 10 (English 10) : Conservation The following procedures are suggested : 1. - Teacher show some pictures abouts polutted rivers, lands and ask students to describe the pictures. Teacher present the topic and ask students to discuss: What measures should be done to protect our enviroment. 2. Divide students into groups of 5 or 7. 3 . Set the time for groups to work.( 25 -30 minutes ) 4 .Teacher goes round to help students and monitor . 5 . Ask a student from each group to present their ideas of the group in front of the class . Let the students speak without interrupting them. Teacher write main ideas on blackboard. 6. Ask students of other groups give comments about contents, fluency, intonation and gramatical mistakes. 7. Teacher comment, give feedback and correct errors. Our surrounding environment is so polluted that we should follow specific approaches to tackle this problem. - Saving our water supply -Shopping with reusable bags ,buying recycled products and sorting waste into the appropriate categories such as aluminum cans, glass, plastic, paper and cardboard. - Planting trees. Trees play a critical role in keeping our air clean, both by releasing oxygen into the air and by trapping carbon. - It is also important to take a stand against deforestation and forest fires - Companies consider and find all the ways to minimize the amount of the carbon emissions and recycle their waste or products more effectively as well as wisely choose less toxic materials in the process. - Using public transportations v - Raise people’s awareness about saving energy. To sum up, Environmental pollution is one of the key problem facing our modern world the efforts from individual in saving environment will bring about good results D. Conclusion - It cannot be denied that group work activities play an important role in learning English in general and in learning speaking skill in particular. I find the speaking lesson more effective and interesting using group work activities. - It is expected that the study will make a great contribution to improving the use of group work activities at Vinh University High School for gifted students . - There are many limitations using them in lessons so I hope to get your comments, your advice and suggestions for this activity. vi