Tài liệu Improving interaction in practice sessions, new headway pre intermediate an action research

M IN I S T R Y OF E D U C A T IO N A N D T R A IN IN G HANOI UNIVERSITY IMPROVING INTERACTION IN PRACTICE SESSIONS, NEW HEADWAY PRE - INTERMEDIATE: AN ACTION RESEARCH SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER IN TESOL. S U P E R V I S O R : N G U Y E N N G U Y E T M IN H , M .A TRUNG M M T H Ở N 8ĨIN TH Ư V l|N NN-VH NƯỚC HG0Ằ1 T4TV H25W ____ Hanoi October, 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S ..............................................................................................................................................I A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S .....................................................................................................................................IV A B S T R A C T .......................................................................................................................................................................V LI S T O F A B B R E V I A T I O N S .................................................................................................................................VI LI S T O F T A B L E S , F I G U R E S A N D C H A R T S ........................................................................................ VII C H A P T E R 1: I N T R O D U C T I O N .......................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. B a c k g r o u n d l .2. S c o p e t o t h e s t u d y .......................................................................................................................... l a n d s i gn i f i c a n c e o f t h e s t u d y .................................................................................................. 3 1.3. AIMS OF THE STUDY............................................................................................................................................4 i .4. O u t l i n e o f t h e t h e s i s .....................................................................................................................................4 C H A P T E R 2: L I T E R A T U R E R E V I E W ..........................................................................................................6 2.1. INTERACTION IN COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING.................................................................6 2.1.1. Definition and types o f interaction.......................................................................................6 2.1.2. Roles o f interaction in L2 learning......................................................................................7 2.1.3. Factors affecting student interaction.............................................................................. 10 2. 2. GROUPWORK IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING............................................................................ 16 2.2.1. Definition and types o f groupwork.................................................................................. 16 2.2.2. Groupwork and student interaction................................................................................ 17 2.2.3. Principles to apply groupwork activities........................................................................20 2.2.4. Procedure fo r groupwork activities................................................................................ 23 C H A P T E R 3: T H E M E T H O D O L O G Y .........................................................................................................29 3.1. action R e s e a r c h ( A R ) ................................................................................................................................29 3.2. R e s e a r c h P r o c e d u r e .................................................................................................................................. 30 3.2.1. Identifying problem (from week 1 to week 2)................................................................. 31 3.2.2. Collecting initial data (from week 3 to week 5 ).............................................................31 3.2.3. Analyzing data and generating hypothesis (from week 6 to week 7)..........................32 3.2.4. Planning action (from week 8 to week 10)..................................................................... 32 3.2.5. Implementing the action plan (from week 8 to week 1 0 )..............................................32 3.2.6. Collecting data to monitor change (from week 8 to week 1 0 ).....................................32 3.2.7. Analyzing and evaluating data (week 11 to week 12)...................................................32 3.3. D a t a c o l l e c t i o n t o o l s ............................................................................................................................. 33 i 3.3.1. Document analysis.............................................................................................................. 33 3.3.2. Classroom observation.......................................................................................................34 3.3.3. Questionnaire.......................................................................................................................36 3 .4 . P a r t i c i p a n t s .............................................................................................................................................................3 7 3.4.1. The researcher - the teacher.............................................................................................37 3.4.2. The observers.......................................................................................................................37 3.4.3. The students......................................................................................................................... 38 3.5 . S u m m a r y .....................................................................................................................................................................38 C H A P T E R 4: T H E R E S U L T S ........................................................................................................................... 39 4 .1 . INITIAL D A T A ..............................................................................................................................................................3 9 4.1.1. Level o f interaction.............................................................................................................39 4.1.2. Causes o f problem s.............................................................................................................40 4.2. THE ACTION PLAN............................................................................................................................................. 48 4.2.1. Organizing the practice activities..................................................................................... 49 4.2.2. Procedure............................................................................................................................. 50 4.2.3. Feedback...............................................................................................................................51 4.3. D a t a c o l l e c t e d in t h e a c t i o n s t a g e ............................................................................................... 52 4.3.1. Overall level o f student interaction................................................................................... 52 4.3.2. Students' self-reported level o f interaction...................................................................... 54 4 .4 . ACTION RESEARCH EVALUATION......................................................................................................................55 4.4.1. The level o f student interaction before and after the intervention o f the Action Plan 5 5 4.4.2. Students’ s e lf reported level o f interaction before and after the intervention o f the Action Plan......................................................................................................................................56 4.4.3. Discussion............................................................................................................................57 C H A P T E R 5: R E C O M M E N D A T I O N A N D C O N C L U S I O N ........................................................... 61 5.1. R e c o m m e n d a t i o n s .........................................................................................................................................61 5.2 . C O N C LU SIO N ............................................................................................................................................................... 63 5.3. L i mi t a t i o n s a n d s u g g e s t i o n s for f u r t h e r r e s e a r c h ...........................................................64 R E F E R E N C E S .............................................................................................................................................................. 65 A P P E N D I X E 1: O B S E R V A T I O N S H E E T 1 ............................................................................................... 70 A P P E N D I X E 2: O B S E R V A T I O N S H E E T 2 ............................................................................................... 72 A P P E N D I X E 3: L E A R N E R ’ S Q U E S T I O N N A I R E 1 ( E N G L I S H V E R S I O N ) ..................... 74 A P P E N D I X E 4: L E A R N E R ’S Q U E S T I O N N A I R E 1 ( V I E T N A M E S E V E R S I O N ) ............ 75 A P P E N D I X E 5: L E R N E R S ’ Q U E S T I O N N A I R E 2 ( E N G L I S H V E R S I O N ) ...........................76 ii A P P E N D I X 6: L E A R N E R S ’ Q U E S T I O N N A I R E 2 ( V I E T N A M E S E V E R S I O N ) ................ 78 A P P E N D I X 7: L E S S O N P L A N F O R O R A L P R A C T I C E S E S S I O N .............................................80 A P P E N D I X 8: P R A C T I C E S E C T I O N U N I T 7 .......................................................................................... 89 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Mrs. Nguyen Nguyet Minh, M.A for the wholehearted guidance she gave me while I was doing this research. I am truly grateful to her for her precious, valuable ideas, knowledge, valuable com m ents and instructions, assistance, consideration, encouragement and constant support. Without these, the thesis could not have been completed. My special thanks go to Mrs. Nguyen Thai Ha, M.A - Vice Dean o f the Department o f Post Graduate Studies, Hanoi University for her valuable ideas, suggestions and comments on the research approaches. 1 would also acknowledge my great gratitude to all the lecturers and to the organizers for this Master course at Hanoi University. My special thanks are also expressed to my friends, my colleagues and thirty students taking part in my research for their great help with data collection and analysis. Last, I am deeply grateful to my husband and my children for their support, encouragement and love, which were extremely important for the completion o f this thesis. t iv ABSTRACT In an attempt to improve the level o f student interaction in Practice sessions. New H eadw ay P re-interm ediate, at the University o f Economic and Technical Industries (UNETI), the research examined (1) what w ere the causes o f low student interaction and (2) how the interaction changed once the action plan had been implemented. The subject o f the study was 30 second-year students o f class QTI5A 1 - Business Administration section, UNETI. They were observed in practice sessions and invited to complete survey questionnaires. The data collected at the initial stage revealed that the interactive activities, the teacher’s ways to organize the practice and give feedback were not appropriate. The findings initiated the hypothesis that organizing the practice appropriately fo llo w in g the right procedure w ith adequate fe e d b a c k w ould increase the level o f verbal interaction betw een students in practice sessions. An action plan with the strategies to improve the way to organize practice activities and to give feedback was implemented. The post stage results found a positive answer to the hypothesis. The evaluation o f the action research showed that the level o f learner interaction increased when the action plan was implemented. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS UNETI University ofT echn ical and Economic Industries AR Action Research CLT Com m unicative language teaching EFL English as a foreign language LI The first language L2 The second language LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND CHARTS Table I : General goals o f GE course at UNETI Table 2: The level o f student interaction at pre-action stage Table 3: Practice tasks in New Headway Pre-Intermediate Table 4: T eacher's performance in Practice sessions Table 5: Students' opinions on Practice activities, activity organization mode, teacher’s instruction and feedback Table 6: Overall student-student verbal interaction after the intervention o f the action plan Table 7: Students' self-reported level o f interaction after the intervention o f the action plan Figure I : Action research cycle Chart I: I'he level o f student-student interaction before and after the intervention o f the action plan Chart 2: Learners’ self-level o f interaction before and after the intervention o f the action plan vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This first chapter presents the background to the study, the scope and the aims o f the study as well as the organization o f the thesis. 1.1. B a c k g r o u n d to the stu d y The University o f Economic and Technical Industries (UNETI) is a public educational institution and currently has an enrollment o f more than 15,000 students. The University was founded 50 years ago. Originally it was a vocational high school. It was granted permission to function as a college in 1995 and in September 2007 it was upgraded to a University. The main function o f the UNETI is to train engineers specialized in informatics, tailoring, footwear, mechanics, foodstuff, electronics and automobile technology as well as business administration and accounting at university and college level. Besides, it also trains workers for light industrial branches. At UNETI, all o f the students have finished senior high schools and joined the course after passing the compulsory entrance examination in mathematics, physics and chemistry to the university. Their age range is between about 18 and 22 years old. They may have studied General English (GE) for either three or seven years before starting the university depending on the English programs adopted at their schools. At the university, English is a compulsory subject. The total time allotted for English is 270 periods, o f which 225 hours is for General English (GE) and 45 hours is for English for specific purpose (ESP). The requirements o f the GE course for students at UNETI are illustrated in Table 1 below. Table 1: General requirements o f GE course at UN ET I Semester C r e di t s P e r i od s I 6 90 Requirements Develop all four macro skills and G ram m ar at elementary level II 6 90 Develop 4 skills and G ram m ar with emphasis on speaking and listening to obtain pre-intermediate level III 3 45 Develop 4 skills and grammar with focus on speaking and reading to obtain high pre-intermediate level and ready for the English for Special Purposes course. I As can be seen ¡11 Table I, speaking skill and gram m ar are the focal points in the GE curriculum at UNETI. There, multi-level New H eadw ay series (Soars. J and Soars, L. 2000) have been chosen as the main coursebooks for students, o f which New H eadw ay E lem entary is taught in the first term and New H eadw ay P re-Interm ediate is used in the second term. In the third term, the students work with N ew H eadw ay Interm ediate. Each New H eadw ay coursebook (Soars, J and Soars, L. 2000) consists o f 14 units. (Except N ew H eadw ay Interm ediate consists o f 12 units). Each unit is based around a theme, which is o f general interest and has a main structural focus, which is recycled and developed throughout the unit. Each unit o f N ew H eadw ay is subdivided into sections. The first section, Introduction, introduces language related to the theme o f the unit. The second section, G ram m ar, introduces the main gram m ar points o f the unit. In addition, at the back o f the book, there is the G ram m ar reference section, that summarizes gram m ar in each unit, which assists students in remembering new gram m ar items. The third section. Practice, provides students with chances to orally practice the gram m ar aspects in the G ram m ar section, most often in contexts that continue the them e o f the unit. Key functional language is usually introduced in a situation and students are prompted to practise and personalize what they have been familiarized with. Almost all the practice entries in the Practice Section o f each unit are speaking and advised to be organized in pair or group, which is intended to create a great deal of interaction. The next section is Skills development, where students are given opportunities to develop all the language skills such as listening and speaking, reading and speaking. In this section, the theme o f each unit with a subject relevant to students’ real lives is extended. As mentioned above, almost all o f the practice tasks in Practice Section o f New H eadw ay are suggested to be completed orally in pairs or groups. However, the biggest problem that the author o f the study as well as other teachers in the English department o f UNETI had when teaching these sections was the low level o f oral interaction am ong students. The fact was that during the practice sessions, the teacher was the person who led the class and spoke the most as students were passive and uninvolved in class. The students rarely asked questions or shared ideas and opinions with each other. They were often reluctant to use the target language, unhappy with the noise generated from group activities and afraid o f learning “errors” from their group members. Furthermore, having got used to “ lockstep” organization, which was dominant at high 2 school, students kept looking at the course books, com pleting practice activities written or w aiting for their turn to answer teacher's question according to the "list" or “ row" principle (students were asked to answer teacher's questions according to the student list or order o f rows in the classroom). So as to improve the level o f verbal interaction betw-een students in practice sessions, it is necessary for the teachers to get to know the reasons why students were reluctant to participate in interaction with their group members and then find out the ways to deal with those problems. Some researchers such as Tsui (1995), Brown (1994) have reported that the level o f verbal interaction between students are closely associated to cultural, linguistic, personality, classroom setting and teacher’s technique. Those could be the students’ passive learning style; their limitation in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, background knowledge and cultural norms (Byrne, 1999; Davies, 2000; Nunan, 1989). T hey could also be the teachers’ techniques to perform the teaching task e.g. teacher’s m ethods to organize practice activities and give feedback. (Moss, 2005; Brown, 1994; Ur, 1996). Am ong these factors, hurdles in organizing practice activities appropriately and giving relevant and adequate feedback are usually identified as the major ones. In brief, the low level o f student interactions in the EFL lessons has been problems o f great concern for all teachers at the English department at UNET1. They have initiated the study entitled “Im proving interaction in practice sessions o f New H eadway PreIntermediate: An Action Research” with the hope to find the causes o f low level o f interaction and solutions to improve the current learning situation at UNETI as well as benefit U N E T I's teachers and those who are interested in this field o f language teaching. 1.2. S c o p e a n d s ig n if ic a n c e o f the stu d y The low level o f verbal interaction between students in practice sessions is a complex phenom enon and has attracted a great many researchers. So far, factors such as students’ linguistic competence, learners’ personality, classroom physical setting, and teachers’ technique to perform the teaching jo b have been examined. This small-scaled study, however, limits itself to an examination o f interaction between Business Administration students o f UNETI in the Practice Sessions o f N ew H eadw ay Pre3 Interm ediate (Soars, J and Soars, L. 2000). Due to the limit o f time, this thesis does not cover all these factors. In fact, it only focuses on the material, the teacher's technique to organize the practice activities and the way to give feedback. Furthermore, the study was carried out in the author's class only. It w as hoped that the study would identify the causes o f low level o f interaction between students in practice sessions and appropriate suggestions based on the findings could be m ade to solve the problem. 1.3. A i m s o f th e s tu d y The study was aimed at improving the level o f student verbal interaction in oral practice sessions o f New Headway Pre-Intermediate (Soars, J and Soars, L. 2000) for the students at UNETI. To achieve this aim, the answers to the following research questions were sought: 1. W h at are the causes o f low verbal interaction between students in practice sessions o f New Headway Pre-intermediate ? 2. H ow will the interaction change once the action plan has been implemented? 1.4. O u t l i n e o f th e th e sis C h apter 1, Introduction, provides information about the background to the study, the aims as well as the scope o f the study, the research questions and the outline o f the thesis. C hapter 2, Literature Review, reviews literature related to the study: Definition o f interaction, the types and roles o f interaction in language learning and teaching; factors affecting verbal students-student interaction; groupwork in com m unicative language teaching and the principles and procedure to apply groupwork activity in com m unicative language teaching. C h apter 3, Methodology, describes the research method, research procedure, data collection instruments as well as the subjects o f the study. C hapter 4, Results, first analyses and discusses the initial data as well as presents the hypothesis; then an action plan is worked out and implemented; next, the data to 4 monitor changes is collected and analyzed to make an evaluation o f the action research . The chapter concludes with major findings o f the study and discussion about the results. Chapter 5, Conclusion, summarizes the action research which is hoped to be o f some help to the improvement o f students' interaction in Practice sessions at the University o f Economic and Technical Industries. Limitations o f the study and suggestions for further research are also given in this chapter. 5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter, Literature Review, will discuss two main issues: interaction in language learning, and groupwork in teaching and learning a foreign language. In the first section, different authors' definition o f interaction, interaction types, the role o f interaction in L2 learning and the factors affecting interaction in L2 learning will be reviewed. In the second section, answers to the question why groupw'ork should be used to increase interaction and the principles and procedure to use groupwork to increase studentstudent interaction in the foreign language classroom will be presented. 2.1. I n te r a c tio n in c o m m u n ic a t iv e la n g u a g e t e a c h in g 2 .1 .1. D efinition an d types o f interaction In the era o f communicative language teaching (CLT), students learn to communicate through interaction in the target language. Interaction is the heart o f communication and it is what comm unication is all about (Brown, 1994). So far, it has been defined in a number o f different ways. Interaction, first o f all, is the process o f collaborative exchange o f thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people resulting in a reciprocal effect on each other. It is the process o f “ getting one idea out o f your head and into the head o f another person and vice versa” (Brown, 1994, p. 159). It is reciprocal events that require at least two objects and two actions (Sutton, 1999). In other words, interaction is a collaborative activity involving the establishment o f a triangular relationship between the sender, the receiver and the context o f situation (Wells, 1981 ). Studying classroom activities in more details, Rivers (1987) proposes a more comprehensive view o f interaction that it is the process in which students use language to convey and receive authentic massages that contain information o f interest to speaker and listener in a situation o f importance to both. Sharing the same view, Hudson (1980) believes that interaction is the process o f “ face to face communication when one person talks to another whom he can see and who is near enough to hear him and vice versa” (p 106). Furthermore, Ellis (1994) claims that interaction is the process in which opportunities are created for learners to practice the L2 to produce output. 6 Considering the types o f interaction, Moore (1989) reports that interaction comes in many shapes and tactions. They include learner-learner interaction, learner-content interaction and learner-instructor interaction. While learner-learner interaction is defined as interaction between one learner and other learners alone or in groups with or without the real time presence o f an instructor, learner-content interaction is referred to as interaction between the learner and the content o f the subject o f the study. Learnerinstructor interaction is defined as the interaction between the learner and the teacher. Looking at interaction from another perspective, Thom as (1987) believes that there are two kinds o f interaction: verbal interaction and pedagogic interaction. Verbal interaction is a continuous, shifting process in which the context is its constituent factors changing from second to second. It is the process o f speech act, social action performed through language by addresser, and intended to have some sort o f effect upon the addressee. Pedagogic interaction parallels verbal interaction but the difference is that pedagogic interaction is the interaction between teaching and learning Com bining all the above ideas, it can be concluded that these interactionists to some extent have the same ideas about interaction. In this study, interaction is understood as a process in which students use target language to exchange thoughts, feelings or ideas orally to convey and receive authentic massages that contain information o f interest to both speaker and listener. The study is planned to carry out in the classroom and the focus is the verbal interaction between students in the classroom. In other words, the interaction studied in this project is learner-learner oral interaction or student-student verbal interaction shortened as student interaction. In this paper, all the three terms will be used interchangeably. During interaction process, the learners usually carry out different interactive behaviors such as saying something to another student; asking and answering question(s) or listening to other(s). These activities, theoretically, may be performed through different collaborative activities such as information gap, role play, conversation grid, problem-solving, discussions, which in turn foster interaction. 2.1.2. R oles o f interaction in L2 learning Interaction is the key to L2 learning and it is very necessary for second language acquisition (Ellis, 1994). The interactionists’ view o f language learning is that language 7 acquisition is the result o f an interaction between the learner's mental abilities and the linguistic environment. To acquire a second or a foreign language, it does not require extensive use o f conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drill, but m eaningful interaction (Krashen, 1988). lie (ibid.) believed that acquisition requires m eaningful interaction in the target language - natural comm unication - in which speakers are concerned not with the form o f their utterances but with the massages they are conveying and understanding (1988). There have been a num ber o f other studies about the role o f interaction in L2, Brown (1994) finds that interaction is an important word for language teachers; it is the heart o f language teaching and learning. Through interaction, learners can understand each o th e r's thoughts, feelings and ideas. Sharing the same viewpoint, Rivers (1987) insisted the importance o f interaction as follows Through interaction, students can increase their language store as they listen to or read authentic linguistic material or even the output of their fellow students in discussions, skits, joint problem-solving tasks, or dialogue journals. In interaction students can use all they possess of the language - all they have learnt or casually absorbed - in real life exchanges... Even at an elementary stage, they learn in this way to exploit the elasticity of language (pp. 4-5) Studying the role o f interaction in L2 learning in more detail, Consolo (2006), believed that interaction contributes to learners’ language developm ent and interaction plays a very important role in learners’ L2 learning. He (ibid.) stresses that it is in the interaction with each other that the students work together to create the intellectual and practical activities that shape both the form and the content o f the target language as well as the processes and outcomes o f the individual development. A nother role o f interaction in L2 learning has also been admitted by Johnson (1995) when he reported that student-student interaction influences students’ educational aspirations and achievement, develops social competencies and encourages talking on the perspectives o f others. Besides, student-student interaction can also foster the use o f more exploratory language and encourage informal learning styles and strategies among students, enhance students’ abilities to work collaboratively, foster positive attitude toward school. Furthermore, discussing the role o f interaction in L2 acquisition, he (ibid.) believes that student-student interaction in the language classroom can create opportunities for students to participate in language use, negotiate meaning, self-select w hen to participate, control the topic o f discussion. Interaction with other students provides learners opportunities to learn from others, which enlightens students to differences in and similarities among individuals in an informal atmosphere, the opportunities to practice learnt materials (McNeill et al 1996). Through interaction by discussing, elaborating, questioning, listening and responding to each other, learners can improve not only their language skills but also language knowledge. W hat is more, interaction is believed to be essential for language learning which occurs in and through participation in speech events that is, talking to others, or making conversations (Lier, 1988). Besides, when studying the relationship between interaction and L2 acquisition, Ellis (1985, p. 160) found that classroom interaction affects the rate o f L2 learning. Students will learn most successfully when they are given ample opportunities to interact in conversation. So in this sense, it may be understood that how a lesson progresses and whether it is successful largely depend on the interaction between the students. O ne more important role o f interaction in L2 learning is that interaction can widen learners’ knowledge o f L2 by providing learners with an opportunity for vertical construction o f utterance, that is utterance made possible through the process o f building discourse and that interaction with different interlocutors was beneficial because it expanded the range o f input made available to learners (Hatch et al, 1979). Interaction specifically concerns the dynamic and integrated verbal or non-verbal actions and reactions o f all participants in a communicative event (Thomas 1987). It is interaction that forms the basis o f an effective pedagogy for L2 instruction. Interaction itself fosters the acquisition o f communicative linguistic skills - the major objective in the L2 curriculum. He (ibid.) stresses that interaction in language classroom will lead the learners to better learning and will activate their competence; an increase in the amount o f classroom interaction will help foreign language learners learn the target language easily and quickly. Ellis (1999) within the framework o f the Interactive Hypothesis, states that conversational interaction "facilitates language acquisition because it connects input [what learners hear and read]; internal learner capacities, particularly selective attention; 9 and output [what learners produce] in productive ways". He (ibid.) believes that interaction provides learners with opportunities to receive comprehensible input and feedback as well as to make changes in their own linguistic output. This allows learners to "notice the gap" (Schmidt & Frota, 1986, p. 311) between their comm and o f the language and correct, or target-like, use o f the language. Com bining all different view about roles o f interaction in L2 learning presented above, it could be concluded that student-student interaction plays an important role not only in shaping the patterns o f communication in L2 classroom but also in creating opportunities for students to use language for classroom learning and second language acquisition. 2.1.3. F actors affecting student interaction There is generally no single reason why some students are uninterested and unwilling to participate in the classroom interaction. In fact, there are many factors affecting studentstudent classroom interaction. They include linguistic factor, personality factor, physical setting factor and teaching technique-related factor. 2.1.3.1. Linguistic factor Linguistic factor refers to the students’ linguistic competence. The level o f interaction between students in the language classroom through groupwork activities will reduce due to the students’ poor linguistic competence in vocabulary or pronunciation and the lack o f appropriate ideas and vice versa. Mentioning students' linguistic problem, Byrne (1992) and Davies (2000) confirm that students do not participate in the classroom interaction because they do not know enough o f the language to express themselves that means they have a lack o f necessary structures or vocabulary to speak. In my class, students with high linguistic proficiency usually initiate more interactions than the low ones. They actively and confidently participate in classroom interaction. They share ideas, exchange feelings freely not only with their friends but also with their teacher. On the other hand, the students with low linguistic proficiency are often very passive, they are reluctant to participate or initiate the interaction because they feel embarrassed, are afraid o f being wrong, uncertain o f the answer or lack o f knowledge. Byrne (ibid.) points out that teachers could help students overcom e this problem by giving them 10 opportunities “to try out language for themselves and to make the best use o f what they know in a variety o f situations” and also by choosing activities carefully. 2.1.3.2. Personality factor The second factor relates to the learners' characteristics is learners' personality factors. Students' personality factors such as preference learning style, psychological state, and shyness may stimulate or discourage the level o f classroom student-student interaction. Nunan (1989) and Howarth (2005) asserted that observable classroom interaction could be affected by individual learning styles, learners’ psychological state and other personal factors. Individual learning styles should be considered carefully because some may learn better by actively participating while others may learn better by listening and internalizing the input. At the UNETI where the researcher works, some learners do not like working in group because they believe they might learn mistakes from their partners whereas some learners like learning through participating in groupwork and pairwork because they are usually more confident when they speak with their friends and they could learn some new words or something new from their partners. Besides, some learners find it difficult to take part in the oral discussions because they are very nervous and embarrassed when asked to speak. They are afraid o f “ losing face” when they make mistakes. Furthermore, some students do not want to be paired or grouped with the partners who are different from them in terms o f language ability and proficiency. In this case, the support from classmates and from teachers is o f great importance. When students find it easy to share experiences in learning English, to compare the answer or ju st ask the meaning o f the new words, interaction could be fostered. 2.1.3.3. Physical setting factor The third factor affecting the level o f classroom student-student interaction is the physical factor under which the learning process is performed. Classroom physical settings can influence the way learners communicate or interact with one another (Killen, 1995). Classroom setting, according to Moss (2005), could ruin or motivate classroom student-student interaction. Classrooms with desks in neat row where every one is facing the chalk board and the teacher are more suitable with teacher-fronted approach. Under this setting, learner to learner interactions are more difficult to initiate 11