VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ------ PHẠM TUYẾT MINH TEACHER AND STUDENTS’ FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN PAIR WORK AND GROUP WORK – A CASE STUDY AT LUONG VAN TUY GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL IN NINH BINH (Yếu tố giáo viên và học sinh ảnh hưởng đến việc tham gia hoạt động cặp và nhóm của học sinh chuyên Anh - Một nghiên cứu cá biệt tại trường THPT Chuyên Lương Văn Tuỵ - Ninh Bình) M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60.10 Hanoi, 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ------ PHẠM TUYẾT MINH TEACHER AND STUDENTS’ FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN PAIR WORK AND GROUP WORK – A CASE STUDY AT LUONG VAN TUY GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL IN NINH BINH (Yếu tố giáo viên và học sinh ảnh hưởng đến việc tham gia hoạt động cặp và nhóm của học sinh chuyên Anh - Một nghiên cứu cá biệt tại trường THPT Chuyên Lương Văn Tuỵ - Ninh Bình) M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60.A NGUYỄN THU LỆ HẰNG Hanoi, 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CHARTS 1. Abbreviations: PW: Pair work GW: Group work CLT: Communicative Language Teaching T: Teacher SS: Students 2.
Charts: Chart 1: Students’ opinion when being asked about the advantages of PW and GW Chart 2: What the students often do when being asked to work in pairs and in groups. Chart 3: The students’ self – evaluation when taking part in PW and GW. Chart 4: Teacher’s opinion on the importance of PW and GW Chart 5: How often the PW and GW are implemented in the speaking class? Chart 6: The most important factors that come from teachers which affect students’ participation when working in pairs and in groups. Chart 7: The most important factors came from students that affect students’ participation in pairs and in groups.
(Students’ questionnaire) Chart 8: Factors from teacher affecting students’ participation in PW and GW Chart 9: Factors from students affecting their participation in PW and GW Chart 10: Students’ desire about what teachers should do to facilitate PW and GW Chart 11: What the students should do to motivate themselves in PW and GW. Chart 12: What the teacher do to overcome the difficulties when organizing PW and GW. Chart 13: What the teacher should do when the students are working in pairs and in groups. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DECLARATION…………………………………………………………………………….iii LIST OF CHARTS……………………………………………………….iv TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………………….
Rationale of the study………. Aims of the study. Scope of the study………………………………………………………. Methodology of the study……………………………………………….
Significance of the study…………………………………………………. Design of the study…………………………………………………….6 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) ………………………………. An overview of Communicative Language Teaching………………….
Classroom work arrangements: Pair work and Group work……………………………. Definition and description of Pair Work and Group Work…………………. Advantages and disadvantages of Pair work and Group work………………. Organization of Pair Work and Group Work………………………………….
Procedures for Pair Work and Group Work…………………. Seating arrangement in Pair Work and Group Work…………….10 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vi III. Students’ participation and factors affecting their participation in Pair Work and Group work……………………………………………………………………………. Concept of students’ participation in PW and GW…….
Human factors affecting their participation in Pair work and Group work………………………………………………………………………………………. Students’ learning style……………………………. Students’ attitude and motivation…………………. Students’ language level……………………….
Students’ learning habit…………………………………………12 III. Teacher’s teaching methods…………………………. Teacher’s knowledge……………………………………………13 III. Teacher’s role in Pair work and Group work………………….14 CHAPTER II: THE STUDY……………………………………………….
English learning situation at Luong Van Tuy Gifted High School………. Using pair work and Group work in speaking lesson…………. Methodology and design of the study………………………………………. Subjects of the study……………………………………….
Data collection procedures………………………………………….21 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii III.………………19 CHAPTER III: PRESENTATION OF STATISICAL RESULTS……………………20 I. Presentation of statistical results………………………………………………………. How are PW and GW applied in English speaking class at Luong Van Tuy Gifted High school? How do students participate in Pair work and group work?. What are the human factors affecting students’ participation in Pair work and Group work? ………………………………………………………………………………….
What are the feasible solutions to improve students’ participation in pair work and in group work, as recommended by the teachers and students? .32 CHAPTER IV: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Research question 1: How are Pair work and Group work used in speaking lesson at Luong Van Tuy Gifted High School? How do students participate in Pair work and group work? …………………………………………………………………………. Research question 2: What are the human factors affecting students’ participation in Pair work and Group work? ……………………………………………. Research question 3: What are the feasible solutions to improve students’ participation in pair work and in group work, as recommended by the teachers and students?.
Some main recommendations: …………………………………………………………41 II. To teachers……………………………………………………………………41 II. To students……………………………………………………………………42 PART C: CONCLUSION……………………………………………………. Limitation of the study …………………………………………………………………44 III.
Suggestions for further studies ……………………………………………………….……………46 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com viii APPENDICES………………………………………….I Appendix 1: Survey questionnaire for students………….…………………………………I Appendix 2: Survey questionnaire for teacher ………….V Appendix 3: Class observation sheet 1 - Students’ on – task behavior………….IX Appendix 4: Class observation sheet 2 - Overall class participation ………….XII Appendix 5: Class observation sheet 3………….XIV Factors from teacher which affect students’ participation in Pair work and group work Appendix 6: Class observation sheet 4………….XVI Factors from students which affect students’ participation in Pair work and group work Appendix 7: Questions for students’ interview………….……………………………XVIII Appendix 8: Questions for teacher’s interview………….XIX Appendix 9: Transcript from students’ interviews…………………………………….XX Appendix 10: Transcript from teachers’ interviews………………………………….XXIV LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART A: INTRODUCTION I. Rationale of the study In recent decades, English has been more and more important in Vietnam. The importance of English is not only in how many people speak it but also in what it is used for. Besides the native language is popularly used in all fields of the society, English is now widely known as the major language of intercommunication, international commerce, business, science and technology and so on.
As a result, there has been a positive trend of teaching and learning English across the country. People, from children to adults, learn English with different purposes. In general, despite deriving from different purposes, every one wants to turn English to become their own instrument in their lives. Over the past few years, the application of the communicative language teaching method has been widely adopted.
This marked the beginning of a major change in the language teaching and learning at Luong Van Tuy Gifted High School in Ninh Binh. And the students‟ speaking skill as well as their communicative abilities has been improved remarkably. In the speaking class of English major students, there are many speaking activities. Among them, Pair work and Group work, key features of learner – centered orientation – have received more emphasis because of a number of advantages they bring about.
Being a teacher of English at Luong Van Tuy Gifted High School, the researcher is well aware of the importance of using pair work and group work during speaking lesson. However, like many other teachers of English here, the researcher see that the students in general and the English proficiency students have also faced many challenges coming from teacher, students, classroom condition, and different culture between two languages when organizing and managing pair work and group work. This lead me the choice of the study “Teacher and students’ factors affecting students’ participation in pair work and group work – A case study at Luong Van Tuy Gifted High School” with the hope of investigating the teacher and students‟ factors which come from teacher and students themselves affecting the students‟ participation in pair work and group work. With regard to the factors affecting the students‟ participation in pairs and in groups, the study focused on the students‟ factors including learning styles, attitudes and motivation, language levels, learning habits and gender differences; teacher factors including teacher methods, LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 knowledge, characteristics and roles in oral activities.
This research is also aimed at discovering the application of pair work and group work during speaking lesson in English major classes and then some feasible suggestions for both teacher and students to organize the pair work and group work successfully. Thus, pair work and group work can be used in flexible way to create variety, freshness in the classroom atmosphere and most importantly, to enhance students‟ oral practice of English. Aims of the study The aims of the study are to investigate the factors affecting students‟ participation in pair work and group work of English major students at Luong Van Tuy Gifted High School in Ninh Binh. Some mains purposes covering the study are summarized as follows: - To identify the application of pair work and group work in speaking lesson at Luong Van Tuy Gifted High School.
- To point out some teacher and students‟ factors affecting students‟ participation in pair work and group work. - To give some suggestions for teachers to stimulate students and to improve their participation when working in pairs and in groups. Scope of the study Concerning the scope of the study, some of the following things should be taken into consideration. First, the subjects of the study are the 99 English major students at Luong Van Tuy Gifted High School.
We chose the major students of English because they had basic knowledge about English and began to learn English as their proficiency so in speaking lesson, they will be more participated in speaking activities, especially in pair work and group work. Second, the study only focuses on oral activities because speaking skill is considered the most important and needs developing for their future employment aspect. Third, the study concentrates to find out the human factors including teacher factors and student factors. Finally, the two techniques chosen to be investigated are pair work and group work.
Research questions of the study This study was aimed to answer the three following research questions: LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. How often are pair work and group work applied in English speaking class in Luong Van Tuy Gifted High School? How actively are the students involved in pair work and group work? 2. Which are the teacher and students‟ factors affecting their participation in pair work and group work? 3. What are the feasible solutions to improve students‟ participation in pair work and in group work, as recommended by the teachers and students? V.
Methodology of the study To realize the aims of the study, a case study was used. The theoretical background of the study comes from many published books written by different authors on language teaching and language acquisition. The data collected for the study come from two sources: The students and the teachers of English at Luong Van Tuy Gifted High School (99 students of three English proficiency classes and 10 teachers of English) by making survey questionnaires, class observation and interview. In this research, quantitative method is used, too.
All comments, remarks, recommendations assumption and conclusion provided in the study based on the analysis of the statistics from the survey questionnaires conducted with students and teachers of Luong Van Tuy Gifted High School. The study is also based on a qualitative method with the author‟s own experience and observation during 6 years of teaching English. Significance of the study The study is of great values by the following reasons: First, the information about the self – evaluation of the participation in pair work and group work of the students is believed to be useful for the teachers of English in general and teachers of English at Luong Van Tuy Gifted High School in Ninh Binh in particular.