VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE A CASE STUDY OF IMPLEMENTING PROJECT- BASED LEARNING IN A LISTENING-SPEAKING CLASS OF UNDERGRADUATE ENGLISH MAJORS AT THE HCMUSSH A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master‟s degree in TESOL By NGUYEN THI THAO Supervised by NGUYEN THI HONG THAM, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, JUNE 2019 STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I certify that this thesis which entitled “A case study of Implementing Project- based Learning in a Listening-Speaking class of Undergraduate English Majors at the HCMUSSH” is my work. Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this paper does not contain materials published elsewhere or extracted on whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma. No other person‟s work has been used without acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis.
The thesis has not been submitted for any degree in any other tertiary institution. Ho Chi Minh, June 2019 NGUYEN THI THAO ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my appreciation and deep thank to all who have supported and stood by me during the time I conducted my thesis. Firstly, I would like to sing out my supervisor, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong Tham, PhD, with my greatest gratitude for her valuable guidance, advice, and encouragement.
She gave me great encouragement and inspiration when I was pregnant and gave a birth to my son, as well as when I got stuck in finding solutions for my thesis. Undoubtedly, without her support, this thesis is far from being completed. I need to emphasize that words fail me in expressing my indebtedness to her. Next, I would like to send my deep thank to all the lecturers, who have laid my background knowledge at the Master program in Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities.
This background equips me with intensive knowledge in the scientific area as well as improve my personal skills to conduct research papers. Then, my particular gratefulness is sent to all of the instructor and students of the class Language Skill 3B who have participated in the PBL implementation. They were eager to join the course and answer the interview questions. Last but not least, my words of appreciation are sent to my family for their endless love and care, and for being always supportive so that I could get the thesis done.
ABSTRACT Although project-based learning (PBL) approach has been illustrated to have considerable impacts on students‟ skill development, Vietnamese students‟ awareness on this approach seems to be still limited. Therefore, this case study was conducted on an intact class of 33 English major students in the Vietnam National University Hochiminh City – University of Social Sciences and Humanities (hereafter HCMUSSH). It aimed at discovering the procedure to implement PBL in a class, the impacts of PBL on the development of the students‟ language skills and transferable skills, and their advantages and disadvantages while doing the projects. The study employed semi-structured interviews with nine students and the instructor, six classroom observations, and document analysis basing on the students‟ end-products, such as posters, multimedia presentations, and the instructor‟s and peers‟ evaluation forms to collect data before conducting thematic analysis.
The findings of the study showed that the implementation of the projects into the course was conducted successfully following 10-step-procedure and five main features of PBL. With the success of the implementation, the students‟ listening- speaking skills improved after the projects. The majority of them developed their thinking skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, and social skills, such as communication, teamwork, and time management skills. Meanwhile, some of them achieved improvement in their IT, leadership, and filmmaking skills, or finding information skills.
They also benefited from the instructor‟s assistance, accessibility of information, the school‟s facilities, and their peers‟ supports. However, they encountered some challenges, such as time pressure, unfamiliar topics, competitiveness, and personal weaknesses. Alternatively, the study also found that these difficulties bolstered the students‟ time management skills, problem solving, and critical thinking skills. It then concluded that PBL is a fruitful method that provides students with a variety of benefits to develop their language and transferable skills.
Therefore, it is suggested that projects should be widely incorporated in curriculum. Table of Contents STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ABSTRACT LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF TABLES LIST OF ABBREVIATION CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .1 Background of the study .2 Aims of the study .4 Significance of the study.5 Scope of the study. 5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Approaches to English Language Teaching .2 Language skill integration.2 Typical transferable skills .4 Project-Based learning approach (PBL) .3 Key features of PBL.4 PBL in developing learners‟ skills .5 PBL in the Vietnamese contexts .6 Steps to develop a project in English language teaching and learning .7 Challenges in implementing PBL .2 Research settings and participants .3 Methods of data collection .1 Semi-structured interviews .4 Data collection procedure .5 Data analysis procedure. 46 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 The implementation of the projects in the listening-speaking class .2 PBL and its impacts on the students‟ listening-speaking skills .1 PBL and its impacts on the students‟ listening skills .2 PBL and its impacts on the students‟ speaking skills .3 PBL and its impacts on the students‟ transferable skills.1 PBL and its impacts on the students‟ critical thinking skill.2 PBL and its impacts on the students‟ problem-solving skills .3 PBL and it impacts on the students‟ creativity .4 PBL and its impacts on the students‟ teamwork skills .5 PBL and its impacts on the students‟ communication skills.6 PBL and its impacts on the students‟ time management skills .7 PBL and its impacts on the students‟ other skills .4 The advantages and disadvantages the students encountered .1 The students‟ advantages .2 The students‟ disadvantages and their solutions .5 Summary of main findings.3 Limitations of the study .4 Suggestions for further research.
113 REFERENCES APPENDICES LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: 10 steps to implement a project, advocated by Stoller (1997)…….1 Thematic Network for Data analysis…………………….………………………47 LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Summary of the Research Methodology ………………………………….2 The Procedure of Data Collection of the Study ………………………………….3: Data coding ………………………………………………………………………46 LIST OF ABBREVIATION HCMUSSH: Vietnam National University Hochiminh City – University of Social Sciences and Humanities PBL: Project-based Learning CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Project-based learning (PBL) is regarded as one of the most promising teaching approaches for preparing students with necessary skills for the 21st century (Boss, Larmer, & Mergendoller, 2013). In the field of English language teaching and learning, for example, PBL has considerable impacts on students‟ language skills development. Moreover, it promotes students‟ transferable skills. However, it may also cause many challenges for both students and teachers (Hsieh, 2012).
Therefore, this study was conducted in order to investigate impacts of PBL on students‟ language and transferable skills. The first chapter will introduce the background leading to the study, the aims, significances, and the scope of the study.1 Background of the study The role of English has become more important than ever. It is an essential tool for the integrating process (Kirkpatrick, 2015), a “lingua franca” for Asia, an official language for the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Kirkpatrick, 2012, p. It is also considered a “visa” for Vietnamese people to integrate into the world (Le, H.
Therefore, to acquire and become fluent in English language is a must for Vietnamese people. Many attempts have been made to improve Vietnamese learners‟ command of English language. In 2008, The Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam launched a project, so-called the National Foreign Language Project 2020, aiming at improving foreign language competence for Vietnamese people. As a part of the project, a lot of training has been provided to improve the quality of English language teachers around the country.
It also encouraged educators to actively renovate curriculum, update teaching approaches, and apply technology in their teaching. However, in order to develop English language competence for Vietnamese learners, to qualify current teachers seems not to be adequate. It is also important to instruct future English language educators who are currently being trained in tertiary institutions, “not only to model an approach that teachers in training may 1 subsequently use with language learners later in their careers, but also to reinforce the content of the teacher-training curriculum” (F. Therefore, the most effective and practical teaching methodology should be employed to develop both their language and transferable skills.
Among several types of foreign language teaching approaches, Project-based learning is considered to benefit learners‟ language skills and essential transferable skills development such as critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, and so on (Hsieh, 2012; Maulany, 2013). The approach is student-centered and underscores the constructivism where students learn new skills and knowledge by doing projects. It promotes students‟ active roles while studying, as they play key roles in learning process. On the one hand, students take responsibility of what they want to learn, and what is necessary for their future job.
On the other hand, it bolsters students‟ independence in when and how to do tasks to achieve results under teachers‟ instructions. Therefore, the approach equips students with skills to meet high demands of future workforce. In other words, students develop working skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, time management skills when learning by doing projects. However, there are still some barriers preventing PBL from being popularly implemented in Vietnam.
Firstly, the exam-oriented teaching system is still widely used. Standardised tests are often used at the end of each course to evaluate students‟ achievement instead of eveluating their progress. In higher education institutions, although students now have more opportunities to be assessed during learning course, final exams at the end of each course is still popular. Moreover, most of teachers have not been well trained in using project-based learning to teach in class.
Many of them are not willing to apply new method in their teaching practice partially because “less teacher talk requires more teacher time” Cornell and Clarke (1999, p. In terms of students, as their challenges and advantages have not been well clarified in the literature, they do not have enough prior experience to be ready for the project-based learning class. Besides, the lack of agreement in the teachers‟ and students‟ attitude 2 toward this approach still exists (Beckett, 2002). Some still show dissatisfaction with PBL though “most project-work proponents assert that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages” (Alan & Stoller, 2005).
In addition, using English to communicate orally effectively seems to be a question to generations of educators and learners in Vietnam. Although a number of Vietnamese students achieve high scores in written tests in local and international examinations, most of learners are still encountering considerable difficulties to speak English fluently. Also, in spite of extrinsic pressure of using spoken English in studying and working, learners are easy to lose their learning motivation. The reasons come from inappropriate or ineffective teaching methods, students‟ inadequate background knowledge, and students‟ unawareness of the importance of English language (Tran & Baldauf Jr, 2007).
Therefore, there comes an urgent need to train prospective teachers with approaches which inspire learners to talk, appeal to learners‟ interests, and raise their awareness about the importance of English in future workforce. For these reasons, this study chose PBL – one of the promising practical teaching approach to apply for a Listening-Speaking class with the hope of filling the said gaps and to provide a better understanding of using PBL in teaching language in higher education in Vietnam.2 Aims of the study As mentioned earlier, many studies have been conducted on PBL (Alan & Stoller, 2005; Felipe, Amouroux, Pham, & Stojcevski, 2016; Hsieh, 2012; Maulany, 2013; F.