Tài liệu A study on the use of group work in speaking lessons of 10th grade students at ben tre high school

HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY ====== DO NGOC ANH A STUDY ON THE USE OF GROUP WORK IN SPEAKING LESSONS OF 10TH GRADE STUDENTS AT BEN TRE HIGH SCHOOL (SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF PEDAGOGY IN ENGLISH) SUPERVISOR: DO THI THANH DUNG, M.A HA NOI, 2018 DECLARATION I hereby state that I- Do Ngoc Anh, certify my authorship of the study entitled A STUDY ON THE USE OF GROUP WORK IN SPEAKING LESSONS OF 10TH GRADE STUDENTS AT BEN TRE HIGH SCHOOL The thesis is the study of my own research and that I have not used any sources other than those listed in reference. I further declare that I have not submitted this thesis at any other institution in order to obtain a degree. Ha Noi, May 2018 Student Do Ngoc Anh i ABSTRACT Group work is not a new language teaching technique and it is used quite often in speaking lessons. However, implementing this technique in speaking lessons is not always successful without careful planning and facilitating. The overall aim of this study was to investigate the reality of implementing group work in speaking lessons of the 10th-grade students at Ben Tre High School and discuss some problems teachers and students encountered while implementing this technique. Data was obtained through teachers’ and students’ questionnaires, interviews with four language teachers as well as classroom observation. Group work was not often used in speaking lessons of 10th-grade students at Ben Tre High School. On the one hand, the finding of the study revealed that using group work in the speaking lesson of 10th-grade students at Ben Tre High School has brought about the benefits for students and teachers. For the former, they could maximize the opportunities to engage in oral activities and communication, get independence from the teachers and gain confidence before talking or performing in front of others. As for the latter, group work was a good way to free themselves from being “experts who always lecture”, had more time with small groups and gave more attention to students and made speaking lessons varied in the forms of group work activities. On the other hand, there were some obstacles that teachers have been facing when using group work to make speaking lessons more engaging such as excessive teaching time and noise from groups of students, little time to prepare for group work and mixed- level class. In addition, students also have some problems (improper talking time and limited vocabulary resource). In order to overcome these problems and make group-work effective and successful, some recommendations for students, teachers and the researcher were proposed. Keywords: group work, Ben Tre High school ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the process of completing this graduation paper, I was encouraged by a lot of support, valuable ideas, and encouragement from my teachers, family and friends. Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to Mrs. Do Thi Thanh Dung, my supervisor of this graduation paper. Her detailed ideas and useful tips helped me to shape my ideas and realize my goals. She also provided me with useful materials as well as encouraged and facilitated my research. Therefore, this article could not be completed without her invaluable support. Secondly, I would like to express my special thanks to all the teachers of Ben Tre High School for their participation in the interview and giving me lots of valuable comments. Particularly, I would like to thank 35 students of 10A5 in Ben Tre High School for their enthusiastic and effective cooperation in completing the questionnaire survey. In addition, I warmly thank all my friends for their encouragement and support during the writing process. Their material and spiritual support was a great motivation for me. Finally, I was very grateful to my family, who have encouraged and supported me to complete this graduation thesis. Ha Noi, May 2018 Student Do Ngoc Anh iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ............................................................................................................................ i ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................... iv FIGURES ........................................................................................................................................ vi PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1. The Rationale of the Study .....................................................................................................1 2. Aims of the Study .....................................................................................................................2 3. The scope of the Study ............................................................................................................2 4. Research questions....................................................................................................................2 5. Design of the Study ..................................................................................................................2 PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. The importance of speaking skills in the classroom ........................................................4 2. Group-work in a speaking lesson .........................................................................................5 3. Other studies on using group work ....................................................................................13 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 1. Participants................................................................................................................................15 2. Data collection instruments ..................................................................................................15 3. Procedures for data collection .............................................................................................17 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS iv 1. Students’ survey. .....................................................................................................................18 2. Teachers’ survey .....................................................................................................................21 3. Interview ....................................................................................................................................25 4. Class observation ....................................................................................................................27 CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION 1. The use of group work in speaking lessons .....................................................................29 2. Group work’s benefits ...........................................................................................................30 3. Obstacles in applying group work ......................................................................................32 CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS 1. For the students ........................................................................................................................34 2. For the teachers ........................................................................................................................34 3. Researcher .................................................................................................................................35 PART 3: CONCLUSION 1. Summary of the Study ...........................................................................................................36 2. Limitations of the study .......................................................................................................37 3. Recommendations for Further Study .................................................................................38 REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................39 APPENDIX ...................................................................................................................................41 v FIGURES Figure 1: Students’ opinions on learning speaking skills in group work ............... 18 Figure 2: Students’ opinions on group work for the benefit of speaking skills ...... 19 Figure 3: Students’ obstacles while working in group and factors causing problems........................................................................................................ 20 Figure 4: Students’ opinions on partners ........................................................... 21 Figure 5: Obstacles experienced by the teachers when applying group work in the speaking class by percent ................................................................................ 23 Figure 6: Solutions to overcome obstacles from the teachers .............................. 24 vi PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1. The Rationale of the Study Among the four language skills (speaking, writing, listening, reading), speaking can be considered as a skill that requires learners to spend a lot of time learning and practicing. Vietnamese students have difficulty acquiring this skill (Truc, 2011). This can result from the situation that schools generally do not focus on speaking from the beginning, the students focus on grammar and there is no oral or direct test of speaking ability. As students are carefully prepared with written tests, focusing on grammar rules, reading text and writing, speaking is often ignored, as it is one of the keys that help learners to gradually explore this language. Nowadays, the importance of improving students’ English in general and speaking skills, in particular, has been recognized by school leaders in Vietnam. Language teachers are finding out new methods and techniques to motivate students to raise their voice in class. One of the effective ways to apply much is group work. Because of positive points that group work brings, group work tends to be used quite often in speaking lessons. According to Harmer (1999), working in group can significantly increase the time spent talking to each individual, encourage border skills to participate, cooperate and negotiate, promote learner autonomy by allowing students to self- decide on groups that are not instructed by the teacher, and free teachers from their usual role of the controller-driver-corrector. As a high school student-teacher and as a tutor at a foreign language center, the researcher realizes the significance of applying group work to help promote students’ interest in speaking. However, researchers also face many challenges in implementing work in speaking lessons. This researcher learned that there are not many studies on the use of group work in high school in the rural area. Therefore, the researcher carried out this study to understand this situation with practical evidence and find out solutions for problems related to using group work in speaking lessons. Deriving from the above-mentioned reasons, “A Study on the Use of Group Work in Speaking Lessons of the 10th-Grade Students at Ben Tre High School” is carried out. The researcher hopes that this research will contribute a relatively full 1 and detailed view about how to use this technique effectively. 2. Aims of the Study This study was carried with a view to investigating the possibility of using group work in the speaking class of 10th-grade students at Ben Tre High School. In detail, the purposes of the study were: 1. To clarify what ways group work is used in the speaking lessons of 10thgrade students at Ben Tre High School. 2. To identify obstacles teachers have experienced in their implementation of group work in the speaking lessons of one class – 10A5 at Ben Tre High School. 3. To identify obstacles students have experienced in their implementation of group work in the speaking lessons of one class – 10A5 at Ben Tre High School. 3. The scope of the Study The researcher investigated the current situation of using group work in the speaking lessons of class 10A5 students at Ben Tre High School, as well as the problems that teachers and students encountered, with the participation of 35 students (3 boys and 32 girls) and four language teachers. The study was carried out in the period of seven weeks with five speaking lessons. 4. Research questions This study was carried out to find answers to the following research questions: 1. In what ways is group work implemented in speaking lessons of 10th-grade students at Ben Tre High School? 2. What obstacles have teachers encountered when implementing group work in speaking lessons? 3. What obstacles have students encountered when working in the group in speaking lessons? 5. Design of the Study The Thesis is divided into three parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion. 2 The first part, the Introduction, includes the Rationale of the Study, Aim of the Study, Scope of the Study, and Research questions and Methodology of the study. The second part consists of Literature Review, Research Methodology, Findings, Discussion and Recommendations for students, teachers, and the researcher. The last part is the Conclusion, which summarizes the study and gives out the limitations and recommendations for further studies. 3 PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. The importance of speaking skills in the classroom Obviously, all four skills are very important in learning any language. Nonetheless, speaking is considered as very significant skill for teaching and learning any language. Acquiring speaking well is a fundamental step to conquer other skills. If their speaking skills are good, this can assist learners to read better, listen more easily and write more properly. Speaking is surely the most effective means of communication (Ur, 1996). Speaking skills are very important. The first point is that students are more motivated by speaking lessons. Nunan (1991) points out that success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the (target) language. For the students to speak English correctly, they tend to maximize their chance of using English to express themselves in daily life. Thus, they always try to speak English when possible. On the contrary, those who cannot speak English fluently are not confident to speak even when they are asked to speak in class. Therefore, they may gradually get depressed and lost their passion for learning English. If speaking activities are held in the suitable and creative way, students can find speaking more exciting and motivation in the learners can be raised. The other skills can also be enhanced thanks to practicing speaking if they have collaborated in a suitable way. As a result, speaking lessons are successful and inspire students to learn more. The second reason, communicating with people in society is vital. Individuals use language to exchange information, show emotion or to remain relationship. Without it, the life does not exist. Language is a means that distinguishes us from animals and other human beings existing on Earth. Speaking is considered as survival skills in real life (Ur, 1996). Because of all the above reasons, speaking skills should be considered the main role in learning and teaching foreign language and to attach special importance to mastering a foreign language. 4 2. Group-work in a speaking lesson 2.1. Definition of group work and aspects related to group work Adrian Doff (1988) states group work as a technique within the field of social work where various groups are guided by an agency leader to more effective personal adjustment and community participation. The teacher divides the class into small groups to work together (usually four or five students in each group), as in pair work, all the groups work at the same time. Some common activities often assigned for students are the discussion, role play, and presentations, to help with successful, diverse and motivational speaking activities. Therefore, when working in the group, students work together, share ideas and responsibilities, and have the ideas themselves contribute to the success of the work group with less supervision from teachers and other peers. 2.2. Benefits and drawbacks of using group work in the classroom 2.2.1. Benefits In the book “The practice of ELT”, Harmer (1999), shows benefits of implementing group work in speaking lessons. Firstly, the group work can raise students’ speaking time. In other words, group work helps boost communication. Students who have few opportunities to communicate with each other now can share ideas, become closer in the short term, and above all address common problems assigned by the teacher. In addition, group work helps students produce better outcomes. Simply, because of the number of participants, each with different experiences, knowledge, views and values, greater numbers and more ideas can be given. In addition, the exchange of ideas within a group can be a motivation to encourage individuals to come up with ideas and contribute more and thus contribute more to group activities. In addition, the work of the group can be reduced. The shared responsibility of a group in decision-making can encourage individuals to discover realistic ideas. Personal prejudices and prejudices can be challenged by the group, requiring 5 individuals to recognize them. Group pressure can also encourage individuals to accept that change as necessary. Finally, this technique helps free the teacher from the normal role of "an expert who always teaches" and allows him/her to walk to each group, instruct, answer student questions or encourage students to work actively (Harmer, 1999). 2.2.2. Drawbacks One obvious drawback is that the noise from the group of people having a discussion on the topic or by the group who are really interested in working with their group. It is difficult for teachers to monitor these groups. The noise can confuse other groups. The negative effect of group work is that many are passive and lazy students, and often let their peers do all work and still have names in the results of the group. Working in the group can cause competition. Most students working in a group consider the situation as a contest. This creates destructive behaviors and contributes to disagreement among groups. For example, we often feel bad if our ideas are criticized. The natural reaction is regaining self-esteem, often by trying to interrupt the ideas of those who disagree with us. Rather than finding ways to improve our ideas, we choose to destroy them. Desiring to express our own ideas, we can completely ignore what others have suggested. Power seekers can use tricks such as highlighting errors in other people's arguments, lean questions, and expert presentation to show their superiority. These types of behavior create an atmosphere incompatible with effective problem solving one. Another disadvantage is that working in groups is a relatively slow process than working alone. Because this activity requires each person to work together at a designated time, this can cause organizational problems. It's very time-consuming. It takes a lot of time not only for students in groups but also for teachers. Teachers have to spend more time organizing group work and controlling all team members. To summary, although applying group work in speaking lessons can cause some problems, the advantages still outweigh. Learning together in small groups is much more effective than teaching alone (Harmer, 1999). 6 2.3. Group formation There are three ways to form small groups or learning teams: random (near the seat) groups, teacher-selected groups, or student-selected groups. According to I-Jung (2004), random, student-selected and teacher-selected groupings are group formation used regularly. These ways can be explained as followed: a. Random groups Because of its convenience and availability, random grouping is often applied for classroom activities, which is randomization in a way of grouping students and ignoring any differences between students on the language level, learning style, preferences, etc. With the layout of the seats, the number of cards, the use of cards, or the distribution of different cards, a random group is set. For the class with mixed levels, random groups can be used to bridge the gap between students at all levels. b. Student-selected groups Compared to the random grouping and group chosen by the teacher, the students-selected group is preferred. Knowing their classmates well or knowing how their friend think can help students participate in assigned activities. They can talk more, perform more and make the activities of the group very interesting. However, there is so much noise created because of too much socialization. This can confuse other groups or and it can be hard for the teacher to manage the class. c. Teacher-selected groups Compared to two above types of grouping student, the group selected by teachers is much more time-consuming. The reason is that teachers have to pay attention to the student's interests, as well as the learning style, the dynamics to help lower level students keep up with the better ones. This type of grouping can be an extremely effective way to learn from one another, this is called by peer tutoring. 2.4. Group size The smaller the group, the more opportunities each member has, and more 7 management skills are needed. However, many small groups are made in the class. This can be hard for all groups to have the chance to report to the class due to the limitation of time. The groups with four-members are proposed by Honeyfield (1991), and IJung (2004), Ngoh (1991). A four member group can be more interesting and do more challenging tasks, with more ideas expressed, and negotiation among members is much more before they can reach an agreement. The maximal number for one group is six. It is clear that four is the optimal size for managing student learning. It allows a wide range of personal experiences and contributions. 2.5. Teacher’s and students’ roles in group work 2.5.1. Teacher’s role The roles of the teacher in group work, as mentioned in Communicative Language Teaching, are a guide, facilitator, organizer, evaluator, promoter, and participant (Harmer, 1991). When performing group work, although students are independent, teachers still need to design task, and analyze the needs. Teachers will help students when the team members interact with each other and help them deal with difficulties. Cross (1992) states that as the manager of an activity, the teachers must plan, organize, start, monitor, time and ultimately conclude the lessons. They are not free during group work process but are actively engaged in supporting, monitoring and following-up. The teachers have to observe students’ works from the beginning to the end of the process. More specifically, they are: - Activity selector: teachers must create activities appropriate to the student's abilities, assign tasks to the group, allow for fair distribution and set up "contests" among the group. - Instructor: teachers give necessary instruction so that the students will be not misleading. - Performance controller: While students are working in groups, it is a time for teachers to help them understand and be able to solve difficulties they encounter in the group. - Group evaluator: during group work, the teachers have to assess the work 8 of the whole group and each member of the group as well. If the teachers make a good assessment of the performance of each group, this will help a lot for students and teachers. That is the idea for the following activities. Whether the team is successful or not, it depends a lot on the way teachers apply for these roles. 2.5.2. Students’ roles According to Lin (2006), the most common roles for the group of three to four are described as below: - Facilitator (leader): make sure the objective is met, monitor group discussion, clarify work of the group. - Scribe (secretary): take note group’s result, report writing - Presenter (spoken person): present result to other group and answer questions. - Researcher (resource collector): manage time and plan, follow achievement of the objective. 2.6. Group work speaking activities 2.6.1. Group discussion The discussion section provides an excellent chance for students to use good learning strategies to turn the classroom into an interactive class. In this activity, students have the opportunity to express what they are thinking to their peers. In addition, their personal opinions are clearly stated and highly appreciated. In this section, students use a variety of discussion strategies to present their ideas to their partners. According to Ur (1992), the discussion is the most natural and effective way for a learner to practice speaking freely in English by thinking of a number of issues or situations through exchange words, or in simple terms, to discuss. He also adds a number of elements to the good (or successful) discussion, namely, the topic, teamwork and role play. Sometimes in group discussions, the team has found a different solution to a problem. In groups, students can summarize key points, consider issues such as checking, comparing and contrasting knowledge, ideas or theory, problem-solving; or create ideas for you on the progress of the class or on their level of skills and understanding. 9 2.6.2. Debating Penny Ur, in "Discussion that works”(1992), lists a number of limitations in the debate, however, he stresses the importance of debate as he asserts that what he learned in this activity is much better than anything else. Much more interesting is that when he clearly presents some very useful steps in the design of the debate, including the number of people in each group, the number of groups, the topics of debate, the selection of groups, and the time term as well as motivation. This is also called for and against in “A course in language teaching” (1996) by Penny Ur which is wholly divided into two major groups. One group is for and one is against. Type of groupwork consists of two stages. The first is preparation, the second is the argument. In the first stage, teachers think about the world's arguments as opposites. In the second stage, the teacher divides the class into two groups. One should think of the reasons for agreeing with the topics given by the teacher, and the other group does not agree with that. Then, one or two main speakers present the case to each group, and then the discussion is then thrown out for free participation. It is very important that, at the end of the discussion, the teacher has to put the topic to a vote. 2.6.3. Cross grouping Cross-group, a new type of activity, can help make progress in speaking class. Members in different groups make new groups. The change of members among different groups can make one new environment. This can be called "Jigsaw". First, teacher divides students into small group to discuss one topic after that members in each groups (expert groups) are mixed together to make a new group. New members will share ideas with their new partners in their new group. Thanks for this, students can change ideas and learn from each other (Richards & David, 2011) 2.7. Problems and solutions to make the group work in class effective According to Jacobs and Hall (1994), many issues related to group activities can be addressed by careful preparation, clear guidance and appropriate means. Problems and solutions can be listed below: 10 2.7.1. Some students talk too much or dominate the group It is a good idea to meet these students privately and say that you are satisfied with their contribution to the lessons, you will want other learners to have more opportunities to express themselves by speaking out their own ideas not keeping silent during the time of working in group. The teacher should assign roles to members at an appropriate point during the group task, for the group or for the person (s) with an elite student. Ensure that some roles require significant silence (eg, briefings, detective, recording, observer, attendant, group communication). In other words, talked privately to prominent students and gave him one of these roles. The teacher asks the group to think about the following questions: How do you accomplish tasks as a team? Did someone lead, and if so, how did this happen? What ideas are presented most strongly to solve the task? Is there anything you think but do not really say? For long periods of time work in groups, call for the specified intervals of rxeflective silence (for example, every 15 to 20 minutes) in which the student thinks (and writes) about the points that are thinking about. And, the contradictions have emerged, shortcomings should be added, and tell where the discussion should go next. As the signal to the discussion continues, invite the students to read what they have written. 2.7.2. Some students speak too little or keep silent while working in group Firstly, the teacher should talk to the student privately to identify reasons for lack of participation, such as lack of integration, fear of looking stupid, feeling unprepared, fear of being trapped, or feeling unwelcome, experiment in the past, try to cool, lack of praise. Secondly, consider using even smaller groups. Silent students may feel comfortable participating in this situation, and the "freeloading" students will be less likely to approach the efforts of others. The third point is to check students’ group notes or their preparation notes occasionally.When asking students to do group work, the teacher ought to assign roles to one or all team members. Some roles that involve enthusiastic involvement 11 of teens are spokespeople, skeptics, organizers, facilitators, liaisons with other groups. Besides, the teacher might go round all groups so that each group member has to work out ideas, remind students that quantity is not quality. There is a place for silence in discussion. 2.7.3. Students do not concentrate on listening to fellow group members The teacher should comment on this issue in the generic class context, remind students that after discussing in the group, they will pick up some one to summarize their group’s discussion and answers. Besides, the teacher needs to set time limit and reorganize activities for students to link what they said with what the person said before. 2.7.4. Students lack the social skills needed to work with others Firstly, the teacher should promote students interested in working alone to work in the group and support the group by giving them a job that they feel comfortable. Then, they might explain and ask students to become familiar with active and tolerant listening, instruct students how to make and receive constructive criticism, how to negotiate, manage disputes, refuse, disagree, argue ......... in English in a polite way. In addition, the teacher can use pair work and group work regularly for students to get used to using these procedures. 2.7.5. Mother-tongue is overused Once the activities are carried out, it is very important to stress that target language has to be exploited during group work. While letting students discuss in group, teachers should move around the classroom to remind students of this rule and provide them with language if necessary. The teachers orient students with tasks so that they do not use mother tongue. Letting students participate in the group in short time as a group member is an effective way to stimulate and support learner’s participation. Besides, the teachers can discipline regular offenders according to the rules agreed by the whole class, and set time to limit their talking time. As students tend to use mother tongue after discussion, it is better to shorten the time of practice, and provide students with necessary phrases and structures before making groups. Giving someone the group the role of language supervisor can be a 12 solution. 3. Other studies on using group work There were several studies on group work in teaching speaking of different level students, for example, “How group work is used in speaking lesson of the 1styear major students of English at Vietnam University of Commerce” by Chung (2008). In this study, the author employed interviews (for teachers) and questionnaires (for teachers and students) to obtain the aims of the study which were to clarify how group work is used in speaking lessons, identify teacher’s strategies to encourage students to speak English in group work and identify obstacles teachers and students here experience while implementing group work of 1st year English majors at Vietnam University of Commerce. The result of this study revealed that teacher often used group work in speaking lessons. Games and role play were students’ favorite activities. Most of them chose students near each other and from mixed levels to make a group. Teachers and students thought that it was necessary to help students realize the importance of English. Three biggest problems of students were “students use Vietnamese too much”, “students make noise” and “classroom condition and learning aids”. Group work is used very often not only in Vietnamese schools. There were a lot of studies on this technique of foreign authors. “A study on Kurdish students' attitudes to group work in the EFL classroom” by thman 2015) was carried out to investigate Kurdish students' attitudes concerning group work in EFL classrooms in Kurdistan region of Iraq, advantages and, disadvantages of implementing group work in classroom. Othman employed questionnaire for students, interview questions for students and triangulated to collect data. Their students responded that group work was of mutual interest. Members could clarify difficult things to each other and finish a task in group work in short time. As for negative points, students thought that some members prefer to relax and remained silent or some did not like to work. Besides, they believed that group work wasted time as students talk about external things and cannot reach an agreement. As for benefits, working in the group helped them broaden their mind, keep better communication, make 13