QUANG NAM UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES. GRADUATION PAPER A STUDY ON PROBLEMS IN CONDUCTING GROUP WORK OF FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AT QUANG NAM UNIVERSITY Student: NGUYEN THI THANH THUY Student code: 11170056 3 MAJOR: ENGLISH Academic Course: 2007 - 2011 Supervisor: NGUYEN THI TINH THAO, M.ed Quang Nam, May 2011 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In my first words, I wish to express the deepest gratitude and warmest appreciation to my beloved teacher and supervisor-Ms Nguyen Thi Tinh Thao for her valuable advice, whole-hearted guidance, correction as well as the encouragement during the development of this research paper. I am sincerely grateful to the teachers of the Department of Foreign Languages, Quangnam University who took time to help me complete the questionnaire and gave me valuable suggestions. 1 would like to send my special thanks to the first-year students of English at Quangnam University for their enthusiastic cooperation for my data collection.
Last but not least, I especially wish to thank my family and Jriends for their never-ended encouragement, understanding and support during the process of doing this paper. Quang Nam, May 2011. Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy ii ABSTRACT This paper is designed to research the problems encountered by first year students of English at Quang Nam University when conducting group work. On the basis of the data collected, at first, the study focuses on pointing out the students’ attitudes toward working on groups.
Then, it mainly stresses to analyze and discuss the problems in conducting group work. Suggestions for students and teachers are also looked into and given so that students can minimize as well as overcome their own problems and work in group more effectively. iii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 4.1 Students’ Attitudes toward Group work and Their Involvement.2 The importance of group work.3 Students’ problems related to group formation.4 Students’ problems related to group task.5 Students’ problems related to group skills Table 4.6 Others Students’ problems .7 Frequency of group work in your classes .8 Teachers’ experience in arranging group work.9 The teachers’ opinion on their students’ problems in conducting group work Table 4.10 Suggestion for students to overcome the problem. 11 Suggestion for teachers to minimize the problems.
Figure 1 A Survey Result oƒ The importance ofgroup work. Figure 2 A Survey Result of Students’ problems related to group formation Figure 3 A Survey Result ofStudents’ problems related to group task. Figure 4 A Survey Result of Students’ problems related to group skills. Figure 5 A Survey Result of other problems students encounter in conducting group work.
Figure 6 A Survey Result of Frequency of group work in your classes. Figure 7 A Survey Result of Suggestion for students to overcome the problems.27 Figure 8 A Survey Result of Suggestion for teachers to minimize the problem.28 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT. LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.
2 Statement of the problem.3 Objectives, Significance, Scope of the study and Research Questions 1.1 Objectives of the Study .2 Significance of the Study.3 Scope of the Study.4 Organization of the study 1. CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW AND. 1 A Review of Previous Related Studies 2.1 The definitions of the Group Work 2 2 Group work typ 2.3 The Importance of the Group work in Learning 2.4 The procedure of the group work CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY 3.2 Population and Sample 3.2 Description of Samples 3.1 Questionnaires for students 3.2 Questionnaires for teachers .3 Reading relevant materials. CHAPTER FOUR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Students’ Attitudes toward Group work and Their Involvement.2 Problems of students in conducting group work.1 Problems related to group formation.2 Problems related to group task .3 Problems related to group skills.3 Teachers’ experience in arranging group work.4 The teachers’ opinion on their students’ problems in conducting group work.5 Teachers’ opinion and students” opinion on suggestions to overcome problems in group work.1 Suggestion for student 4.2 Suggestion for Teachers.
CHAPTER FIVE SUGGESTIONS- IMPLICATION- LIMITATION- CONCLUSION 5.1 Limitation of the study .2 Recommendation for the further study. REFERENCE APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS INTERVIEW QUESTIONS CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationales The late twentieth century has been called “the age of communication” and as the pressure to communicate increases, the language is felt ever more keenly. In parallel with this, nowadays the requirements of economic, political, cultural cooperation among countries in the world also increase. Human beings need to find an international communication channel to communicate with each other and to adapt the job requirement.
English has been chosen as an international language which is used in many fields of life. As a result, English becomes a compulsory subject at school in countries where English is not used as a mother language, Viet Nam included. Many researchers and teachers realized that second language learners acquire their language abilities through interacting with others. Regarding to the lack of language environment and the attempt to provide communicative experience, the resolution change in foreign language teaching has been carried out for many years.
Methodologically, the activities aiming to enhance the communicative skill become more popular in foreign language classes. Among them, Group work ‘brings many benefits for learners ch as enhancing student's understanding ofa language by learning from the others, testing their knowledge. improving many skills, dividing the workload, enhancing communication and cooperation. Quang Nam University is one of the universities in Vietnam which applics the learner-centered approach.
The its mission is to provide the best possible learning environment for students. The University as well as the Department of Foreign Languages stimulates lecturers to use communicative activities in the teaching method, and Group work is used as the most popular activities. However, in the process of conducting this useful activity, students encounter many problems. This is the reason why problems in conducting Group work are chosen in the study.
In addition, first- year students have many differences with the others. They begin to access the new academic environment, new learning-teaching methods. At semester two of this year, first year students are fully integrated into the academic environment at University. They also have basic skills to respond to the requirement of teachers and activities.
It will be wonderful at the first year, students are prepared for conducting group work activities effectively. With the benefit from this activity, first year students will be provided a stable background for the later years. This is another important reason leading to the decision of the study, For these reasons, the researcher decides to choose the topic for the study “A study on problems in conducting group work of first year students of English at Quang Nam University”. The researcher hopes to make a small contribution to identify the problems of first year students in conducting group work.
It would be helpful when this study can help first students of English at Quang Nam University overcome problems and use this activity effectively. 2 Statement of the problem x “First year students of English at Quangnam University encounter many problems in doing group work activities including problems related to the forming of groups, the assigning of tasks to groups, group work skills, and other factors such as students’ boarding house location, time arrangement”. Group work is a usual activity in foreign language classes. It helps learner motivate, enhance their knowledge, ete.
In classes, it often takes 10 to 15 minutes for student to discuss the given issues. Group work is also an outside class activity to prepare large exercises or presentation. Fi st - year students of English at Quang Nam University encounter many problems in conducting group work activities which are sometimes objective problems and sometimes subjective ones. Problems have effect to group work productivity in particularly and study result in generally.
Finding out difficulties in conducting group activities is necessary. It helps first - year students of English at Quang Nam University take advantage of the activities and achicve higher language performance in the course of time.3 Objectives, Significance, Scope of the study and Research Questions 1.1 Objectives of the Study The study aims at : - Provide an overview of the group work. - Examine the attitude of first-year students of English at Quang Nam University when conducting group work. - Find out the problems first - year students of English at Quang Nam University encounter in conducting group work.
5 Give recommendations to overcome problems.2 Significance of the Study The significance of the study will be to: - Improve understanding of the importance of group work for first - year students of English at Quang Nam University. - lelp students overeome problems in conducting group work and make a good use of it. “ Create an interest in learning and learn English well.3 Scope of the Study With the limited time, the study doesn’t cover all activities in foreign language classes. The study intends to focus on the group work activities, the attitude of first year students at Quang Nam University toward group work, their problems in conducting group work and some suggestions for them to overcome problems.4 Research Questions ‘To achieve the objectives and significances mentioned above, the study will answer the following questions: 1.
What attitudes do first - year students of English at Quangnam University have toward group work? 2. What are problems first - year students of English at Quang Nam University encounter when conducting group work? 3. In what way can first - year students of English at Quang Nam University overcome problems in conducting group work? 1.4 Organization of the study Chapter I“/ntroduction” describes the Rationales, Objectives, Significance of the Study, Scope of the Study, Research questions which the study must examine. It also includes the organization and hypotheses.
Chapter 2 “Literature review and Theoretical Background” discussing the definitions of some terms. In this part, the researcher also provides theoretically and methodologically current knowledge to the topic of group work. Chapter 3 “Methodology” details the methods and procedure the researcher conducted the study. It consists of the Research Design, Population and Sample, Data collection, Analysis plan.
Chapter 4 “Results and discussion” summaries the results of the analyses conducted to explore the status of group work activities among first - year students of English at Quang Nam University , the common problems first - year students of English at Quang Nam University encounter. Chapter 5 “Conclusion- implications- limitation- recommendation” it presents suggestions for students and teachers to overcome the students’ problems in conducting group work. This chapter also mentions limitation of the study and give some suggestions for further studies and ends with the conclusion 1.5 Hypotheses Students use English during the group work activities. The problems on language are not paid attention in the reseach.
CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 A Review of Previous Related Studies ‘The topic of group work has been mentioned by researchers in the world as well as in Viet Nam, especially with the application to the student — centered approaches. Group work is considered as a useful tool in enhancing the communicative skill and cognitive skill for learners. There are various reasons why the university believes group work is good for students. The main one is that in the work place you will be asked to work with colleagues.
Also, academically, working in a group allows students to investigate academic subjects in depth and to produce work which is more detailed. [Staffordshire University, Information Services Study Skills, n.d], Kenneth C, Petress (2004) stated that group study requires students to articulate what they know to fellow group members. It also requires students to listen to fellow members’ ideas. These group activities sharpen members’ communication skills as well as enhancing their cognitive skills.
Well-prepared group members likely will have read, observed, or thought about assignments in variant ways. Such diversity of awareness, tolerance, and acceptance are other group study benefits.