VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ----- ----- NGUYỄN THỊ MINH HÀ ENHANCING THIRD-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING LESSONS THROUGH COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITIES AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY (Tăng cường sự tham gia của sinh viên năm thứ ba không chuyên trong các giờ học nói thông qua các hoạt động cộng tác tại trường Đại học Kinh doanh và Công nghệ Hà Nội) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 HA NOI – 2010 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ----- ----- NGUYỄN THỊ MINH HÀ ENHANCING THIRD-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING LESSONS THROUGH COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITIES AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY (Tăng cường sự tham gia của sinh viên năm thứ ba không chuyên trong các giờ học nói thông qua các hoạt động cộng tác tại trường Đại học Kinh doanh và Công nghệ Hà Nội) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Đỗ Bá Quý, MEd. HA NOI - 2010 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A: INTRODUCTION.
Rational and statement of the problem for the study. Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Research questions/ hypothesis.
Method of the study. Organization of the thesis. 6 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Theoretical backgrounds of speaking.
Nature of speaking. Characteristics of a successful speaking activity. Problems with speaking and speaking activities. Theoretical backgrounds of collaborative learning (CL).
Definitions of CL. Collaborative learning versus competitive learning. Collaborative learning versus cooperative learning. Key factors of successful CL.
Benefits of CL. Types of grouping. 14 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Role of instructional materials.
Previous studies on the topic. 16 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Background of the study. The teaching and learning conditions.
The description of the material used. Teaching practice at HUBT. Data collection instruments. Data collection procedures.
23 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Students’ attitude towards speaking practice in class and pair and group work activities. Students’ attitude towards speaking practice in class. Students’ attitude towards pair and group work in speaking activities.
Factors affect their involvement in speaking activities. 27 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Topic of the discussion. Conflicts during discussion.
Students’ distribution of participation in CA. In “Case Study” lessons. In presentation project. Students’ nature of participation in CA.
43 APPENDIX TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS HUBT: Hanoi University of Business and Technology ESL/ EFL: English as a second or foreign language CL: Cooperative learning/ Collaborative learning CLL: Collaborative language learning CA: Collaborative activities LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Some matters related to grouping before and after the application of CA Table 2: Conflicts during discussion before and after the application of CA Table 3: Students’ distribution of participation- class 1 Table 4: Students’ distribution of participation- class 2 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Cooperative learning outcomes Figure 2: Students’ attitude towards speaking practice in class before the application of CA Figure 3: Students’ attitude towards speaking practice before and after the application of CA Figure 4: Students’ attitude towards pair or group work before and after the application of CA Figure 5: Students’ desire for leadership in pair or group work Figure 6: Students’ distribution of participation- class 1&2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 1 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale and statement of the problem for the study In the globalization age today, English is considered as a means of international communication and an important instrument to link many countries all over the world. The demand for teaching and learning English in the world as well as in Vietnam is increasing. Among four main skills, speaking skill plays an important role in English teaching in the context of Vietnam.
For many students, speaking is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language in general and in English in particular. However, many EFL students find this skill most difficult to obtain. Through working together in speaking class, students have opportunities to strengthen both their academic language proficiency and basic interpersonal communication skills. However, through my own teaching experience and my class observation, there are some problems in building up well-functioning groups or pairs in speaking class such as students‟ unwillingness to involve activities, inequality in students‟ participation in speaking group work, overwhelming Vietnamese use in English discussion, students‟ attitudes to repeated or boring activities in class, students‟ lack of cooperative skills, etc.
Therefore, for such a young teacher as the author of this research, to create and control pair work or group work effectively in speaking lessons for the third-year non-English major students is really a challenging work. To my surprise, even though all of my students in two classes got accustomed to group work in second language learning, most of them still suppose that working in pairs or groups in speaking lessons is merely the action of putting all participants in groups, then each member try to complete their task mainly individually and competitively then they combine the results of each individual‟s to make the final one. After the first lessons with each class, I found out that the most problematic issue of getting efficient speaking lessons is students‟ participation and their working attitude towards team work. Furthermore, this situation was obviously serious when I discovered that in all four classes of third-year students I taught, about half of the groups (often with four to six members) felt disappointed with their group work effectiveness and found this kind of learning activity so tough to deal with smoothly and productively; one-third of the groups were quite happy with the common work they achieved together; and only one-sixth of them were truly satisfied with their mutual team work TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 2 efficiency and found a little difficulty in practicing speaking English together.
Nevertheless, all of the learners complained their peers‟ participation in group work. Most of the complaints focused on team members‟ laziness, „hijacking‟ attitudes, lower English proficiency and the bad working habits due to the lack of collaborative skills. Especially, the team leaders criticized the ineffective collaboration among teams in which every member competed against each other to get the easy tasks, so most of the hard ones would fall on the heads of the groups. Meanwhile, many teammates felt annoyed as other members (often the higher proficiency learners) overwhelmed them.
Consequently, there was less time for them to practice speaking English and they had not many opportunities to raise their voices. Besides, to some extent, the students‟ attitudes on the way the institute, particularly the English department assess their achievement in acquiring a second language, have great influence on their effort in participating in group work. It means that there are not a few learners consider practicing English just a compulsory on-task activity and just take part in group work more enthusiastically if they are going to be marked what they do in the group. Additionally, as a matter of fact, marks for speaking skill only occupy a small percentage of the total mark at the end of each module (7.5%); thus, the motivation to be more involved in practicing English in group is still questionable with very practical English learners.
For such reasons, I pick up collaborative activities and tried to apply them in my own EFL speaking lessons in hope of bringing students better study environment and opportunities to take part in speaking lessons as well. However, it is still very challenging for both teachers and students. To build up such environment is an essential part of teacher‟s role in class so that good team players can become more willing helpers and prompters for weaker ones in the groups. Also, there are good opportunities for not very good members to participate in-group discussion with more confidence, enthusiasm and creativeness.
Accordingly, the author of this study takes it into consideration and conduct an action research titled “Enhancing third-year non-English major students’ participation in speaking lessons through collaborative activities at Hanoi University of Business and Technology”. Aims of the study This is an action research project. It is aimed at, firstly, investigating the effectiveness of using collaborative activities in teaching speaking to the third- year students at HUBT. Secondly, TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 3 based on the results of the study, the research aims to provide some practical suggestions for better use of collaborative activities in speaking classes.
Theoretically, the study supplies the English language teachers with the understanding of collaborative activities in terms of their types, advantages and disadvantages. The study also suggests some ways to successfully exploit collaborative activities during the stages of teaching speaking. Pedagogically, the findings and comments of this study are believed to be relevant to improving the teaching of speaking skill to students at HUBT. The study may help teachers to make their speaking classroom more active and effective so that they can help their students develop speaking skill as well as other language skills.
Scope of the study In terms of collaborative activities, the researcher just applied some of them according to Kagan (1986, 1995) such as Numbered Heads Together, Jigsaw, Peer Tutoring, Cooperative Projects, Think – Pair – Share in speaking lessons. In terms of language skills and participants, the author of this study only focused on speaking skill integrated with other language skills. Apart from the first speaking lesson, the five other ones (in the section Case Study of the current course book) were implemented at HUBT for two classes of third-year non-English major students in the second semester (school year 2009 – 2010). Research questions/ hypothesis The study aims to test the effectiveness of collaborative activities as a teaching technique to motivate students to participate in speaking lessons.
Thus, the hypothesis is that collaborative activities can be used to enhance students‟ participation in speaking lessons. To test the hypothesis, there are three research questions: 1. How are the students usually involved in speaking activities? 2. What are the factors affecting their involvement in speaking activities? 3.
To what extent do collaborative activities increase students‟ involvement in speaking activities? TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Methods of the study The research is conducted basing on both qualitative and quantitative methods. Firstly, quantitative approach was utilized to investigate fully the participants‟ performance in collaborative activities in speaking lessons. The data collected will go through analysis and yield conclusion about the subjects of the study.
In each speaking lesson, group discussion is observed directly by group leaders and mainly by the researcher. The checklists and field notes are carefully noted down to show what really happens in group discussion using collaborative activities. The observation forms are based on the model initiated by Wallace (2001) and Hopkins (1993). In addition, questionnaires which aim at investigating students‟ attitudes towards speaking lessons, their learning habits in previous lessons and their opinions of the effects of collaborative activities on their involvement in speaking lessons.
Closed questions and rating scale responses are used to help the researcher have detailed countable data. Besides, qualitative approach is also involved in the process of data collection. The learners‟ ideas in their reports after each lesson or in the semi-unstructured interviews with their teacher (either face-to-face interviews or online chatting) contribute much to the data analysis. Then the researcher can process the data and draw conclusions on that matter that to what extent CA can help students enhance their participation in class.
Organization of the thesis This paper is designed with three main parts namely Introduction, Development, and Conclusion.