VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** VŨ THỊ ÁNH PHƯỢNG COOPERATIVE LEARNING AND EFL STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCE: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT IN A UNIVERSITY IN HANOI (Phương pháp học hợp tác với khả năng nói và quan điểm của sinh viên: Một nghiên cứu hành động tại một trường đại học tại Hà Nội) M. MINOR THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231.01 HÀ NỘI – 2022 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** VŨ THỊ ÁNH PHƯỢNG COOPERATIVE LEARNING AND EFL STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCE: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT IN A UNIVERSITY IN HANOI (Phương pháp học hợp tác với khả năng nói và quan điểm của sinh viên: Một nghiên cứu hành động tại một trường đại học tại Hà Nội) M. MINOR THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231. Phạm Lan Anh HÀ NỘI – 2022 DECLARATION I – Vu Thi Anh Phuong, hereby certify that the thesis entitled „Cooperative Learning and EFL student‟s speaking performance: An action research project in a university in Hanoi‟ is the result of my own work and effort.
This thesis was conducted and submitted in partial fulfillment for the Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University of Hanoi. I also certify that my thesis has not been submitted anywhere for any award. Documented preferences have been full provided. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This graduation thesis could not have been completed without the valuable encouragement and support from many people who all deserve my gratitude and appreciation.
First, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Doctor Pham Lan Anh for her valuable guidance throughout this study. Her support has enabled me to develop an understanding of the subject and contributed to the fulfillment of the study. This thesis would not have been completed without the encouragement, support and love from my beloved family who have strongly and consistently motivated me. My sincere thanks also go to my dear friends in University of Languages and International Studies, who assisted me with many useful ideas and advice as well as encouraged me a lot when I felt confused.
Last but not least, I am also thankful to all non-English majored students in class 61NK who were also very friendly and enthusiastic to help me conduct my research. ii ABSTRACT Speaking is one productive skill that is stressed in the foreign language learning. However, there are several difficulties that both teachers and students have to confront to achieve their goals, namely the lack of interaction among students in class and students‟ hesitation caused by their low level of proficiency and lack of confidence. This action research attempted to find out the effectiveness of Cooperative Learning activities in solving the existing problems in the speaking class of EFL non-English majored freshmen of Advanced Program in a technical university in Hanoi, as well as exploring their attitudes towards this implementation.
17 students with their language proficiency ranging from A2 to B1 participated in the speaking course. Throughout the course, teacher‟s teaching diaries and questionnaires answered by participants were also collected for descriptive statistics. The findings revealed that using Cooperative Learning is an effective approach to boost students‟ speaking ability and students showed positive views towards the employed activities, which directly decides their level of participation in speaking practices and also their speaking performances in general. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION.
iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .vii LIST OF FIGURES. Rationale for the research. Aims and objectives of the research. Scope of the research.
Methods of the research. Significance of the research. Organization of the thesis. Definition of Speaking skill.
Definitions of attitude. Components of attitude. Definition of „Cooperative Learning‟. Models of Cooperative Learning instruction and Cooperative Learning activities.
Review of previous studies. Summary of the chapter. Setting of the study. Learning and teaching context.
Data collection instruments. Data collection procedure. Data analysis methods. Data from the teaching diaries.
Data from the questionnaires. Summary of the chapter. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. The effects of Cooperative Learning on students‟ speaking performances.
Results from teacher‟s diaries. Results from questionnaires. Students‟ attitudes toward Cooperative Learning activities. Results from teacher‟s diaries.
Results from questionnaires. Summary of the chapter and discussion. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further study.
XXIX vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CL: Cooperative Learning EFL: English as a foreign language ESL: English as a second language CEFR: The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. IELTS: International English Language Testing System vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Indicators of students‟ speaking components used in this research. Indicators of attitude components towards attitude objects (Ajzen, 1988).
Some Cooperative Learning activities. The simplified schedule with. 29 employed Cooperative Learning activities in the course. Gain score in using new words from the given materials.
Gain score in using new words learned from other group members. Gain score in the frequency of incorrect pronunciation. Gain score in the frequency of noticeable pauses. Mean scores of the questions on Linguistic Competence.
51 in terms of Sociolinguistic competence. Mean scores of the questions on Sociolinguistic competence. 52 in terms of Pragmatic competence. Mean scores of the questions on Pragmatic Competence.
Mean scores of the items on Cognitive component. Mean scores of the questions on Affective components. Mean scores of the questions on Affective component –. 58 students‟ preference in grouping.
Mean scores of the questions on Affective component – students‟ preference in CL activities. Mean scores of the questions on Behavioral component. 60 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Action Research Cycles (Kemmis and McTaggart, 1988).
Mean score and Gain Score in terms of Grammar. Mean and Gain score of turn-taking. Mean and Gain score of using cohesive devices. Mean score and Gain Score in the frequency of giving long answer.
Students‟ evaluation on the effectiveness of CL activities. 50 in terms of Linguistic Competence. Students‟ evaluation on the effectiveness of CL activities. Students‟ evaluation on the effectiveness of CL activities.
Students‟ attitudes towards CL activities in terms of cognitive component. Students‟ attitude towards CL activitiesin terms of affective components – students‟ feelings. Students‟ attitudes towards CL activities. 59 in terms of affective components – students‟ preference in grouping.
Students‟ attitude towards CL activities in terms of Behavioral component. Rationale for the research The popularity of English nowadays is becoming undeniably widespread and this massive growth has also been witnessed in Vietnam as this language is expected to be considered as second language in Vietnam education in the near future. These days, learners no longer look at English as grammar solely as in the last few decades, but they consider English as a medium to serve different purposes such as studying abroad or applying for a desirable job. Since then, the language is treated as a communicative tool and speaking is given emphasis in foreign language learning.
In this technical university, developing students‟ speaking ability is also an important component in the teaching objectives. For Advanced programs in particular, the mastery of the speaking skills is crucial not only for the above- mentioned reasons. Students attending this program of this technical university are required to prepare themselves with sufficient English skills in order to comprehend their following specialized disciplines which are delivered in English, and to communicate with not only their peers and lecturers in the classroom environment but also their future jobs. This situation leads to the fact that fostering students‟ speaking ability is becoming a priority.
However, there are certain obstacles that hinder both teachers and students from achieving this aim. Firstly, in the circumstance of limited course duration which lasts 30 class hours (equivalent to 10 lessons), the teacher decided to organize pair work and group work activities because if lectures fill most of the time frame like in traditional classrooms, there is not much chance and time for students to speak when “teachers do approximately 50 to 80 percent of the talking in the classroom” (Nunan, 2003) and students will become the passive recipients. However, when the teacher arranged the pair work or group work activities, many of them did not raise their 1 voice or ended up chatting in their mother tongue. When this lack of interaction between students happened, many students put little effort to join the discussion or practice their speaking, which disabled them to improve their speaking skills.
Apart from the shortage of interaction among students, another problem that can be noted includes students‟ hesitance to speak which is caused by their low level of fluency, limited range of vocabulary and frequent inaccuracy in pronunciation. Their lack of confidence when speaking is also an issue which directly affects their attitudes and speaking performance as traditional teaching methods might cause anxiety because students do not practice language with their peers (Razak & Yassin, 2017) As Clark and Clark (1997) shares that the frequency of using the target language will determine the success in speaking skill, there is a need for teachers to adopt and adapt various methods in the language classrooms to provide opportunities for students to practice speaking along with other language skills and then, enhance their speaking achievement. Dealing with the time problem, Nunan (2003) also suggests that pair work and group work activities can be beneficial in the way that they can increase the amount of time that students can use to practice speaking during the lessons. The learners, in this case, should take the active roles; meanwhile, teachers should only join with clarification and other facilitation activities.
Among a great deal of learner-centered approaches and techniques that comprise pair work and group work, Cooperative learning is one of the approaches for teaching which show positive results in boosting the students‟ academic achievement, including language competence. A number of studies and research have been conducted to prove Cooperative learning‟s positive influences in teaching EFL learners. Throughout the development of this approach, several models and methods have been built and are considered applicable to diverse language classroom conditions and show progressive effects on students‟ speaking skills. However, whether applying Cooperative Learning has a positive effect on EFL freshmen who are non-English majors in a technical school in Hanoi is not yet 2 defined.
Therefore, the impacts of Cooperative Learning activities and methods on students‟ speaking performance are brought to the discussion in this paper. Aims and objectives of the research With all of these premises, the aim of this paper is to: 1) investigate how Cooperative Learning can enhance the speaking performances of EFL non-English majored freshmen in this technical university, and 2) explore students‟ attitudes towards the CL activities conducted in their speaking classes. Research questions The research questions are: - How do Cooperative Learning activities improve students‟ speaking performance? - What are students‟ attitudes toward Cooperative Learning activities in their learning progress? 1. Scope of the research In this study, the researcher focused on the impacts of cooperative learning activities on students‟ speaking performance and their attitudes toward these activities.
The researcher aimed at investigating the matter with 17 participants from only one EFL class in this technical university, where the researcher was teaching. There are only two tools being employed for the action research, namely questionnaire and teacher diary. Moreover, the researcher limited her focus on a mere speaking skill. Therefore, the research only emphasized speaking as a sole component and did not consider the other factors from the other three skills even when students also participated in other courses in writing, listening and reading.
In other words, the development of students‟ speaking was taken into account regardless of the knowledge they obtained from other skills.
