VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************** NGUYỄN THỊ PHÚC THE USE OF TEAMWORK ACTIVITIES IN THE
ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONS AT INTERNATIONAL
STANDARD PROGRAM, VIETNAM NATIONAL
UNIVERSITY, HANOI
(SỬ DỤNG CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG NHÓM TRONG GIỜ HỌC NÓI
TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN NHIỆM VỤ CHIẾN LƯỢC, ĐẠI
HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10 Hanoi, 2013
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************** NGUYỄN THỊ PHÚC

presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. As required
in the rules, I fully cited all the sources of the results that were not original to
this work. Signature

Nguyen Thi Phuc
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis could not be completed without the help, full support and
encouragement of all the people who deserve my deepest gratitude.
First and foremost, I would like to send my special thanks to my supervisor,
Dr. To Thi Thu Huong, a senior lecturer at HULIS for giving me precious
comments and suggestions right from the beginning of my research.
Second, I would like to thank my former lecturer, Ms. Nguyen Thanh Ha,
who has provided me with the useful references for my study.
Third, my sincere thanks also go to the students and teachers of English at
International Standard Program (ISP), Vietnam National University, Hanoi
for their full support in completing the questionnaires for my survey.
Last but not least, I wish to thank my friends who have encouraged me to
carry out this thesis and shared with me their materials, ideas as well as useful
comments on my research.

gifts. The teachers also controlled the troublesome noise during the students’
teamwork by punishment.
From the main findings of the study, some recommendations were given to
the ISP students and teachers for using teamwork activities more effectively
in the English speaking lessons.
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ABBREVIATIONS CLT: Communicative Language Teaching
ELT: English Language Teaching
T(s): Teacher(s)
Ss: Students
ISP: International Standard Program
HULIS: Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies
VNU: Vietnam National University
2.3.3. Teachers' and students' roles in teamwork activities 22
Chapter 3. Methodology 25
1. Participants 25
2. Data collecting instruments 25
3. Data analysis 27

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Chapter 4. Results and discussions 28
1. The use of teamwork activities in speaking lessons at ISP 28
1.1. The frequency 28
1.2. The students' attitude towards different teamwork activities 29
2. Working in teams 32
2.1. Grouping students 34
2.2. The problems in using teamwork activities 36
2.3. Ways to motivate and control the class 39
3. Conclusion 39
Chapter 5. Recommendations 40
1. For the ISP teachers 40
1.1. Choosing appropriate teamwork activities 40
1.2. Grouping students to form a team 44
1.3. Solving the problems in using teamwork 44
1.4. Motivating students 45
2. For the students 47
2.1. Improving English speaking skill 47
2.2. Cooperating in a team 48
3. Summary 50
Chapter 6. Conclusion 51
1. Summary of the study 51
2. Contributions and limitations of the study 52
3. Suggestions for further studies 52

the techniques used in CLT is group work or teamwork which is regarded as
an effective way to enhance students’ communicative competence.

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As can be observed, at ISP division of VNU, the students’ communicative
competence has been considered to be the core of learning and teaching in
this environment and it can be best revealed through their speaking ability. In
this division, one of the common techniques being used to foster students’
speaking ability is organizing teamwork activities in class. In fact, the
frequency, organization and effectiveness of these activities have not been
clarified. Hence, this study focuses on investigating the current situation of
using teamwork activities in teaching English speaking at ISP.
2. Aims of the study
This study was carried out with three aims. Firstly, it was expected to find
out different teamwork activities currently being used in English speaking
lessons at ISP. Secondly, the frequency of these activities and the teachers’
ways to use them were also identified. Next, this study aimed to identify
students’ attitudes towards each kind of activities in their lessons. Last but
not least, the problems of using these activities for both the teachers and
students in carrying out this technique were carefully analyzed to reveal the
findings. In a nutshell, all the objectives of this study could be summarized
into these three following research questions:
1. What kinds of teamwork activities are currently used in English
speaking lessons at ISP?
2. What are the students’ attitudes towards these activities?
3. What are the problems in using these teamwork activities?
3. Scope of the study
As mentioned in the title, this study focused on the use of teamwork
activities as a means to improve the students’ oral skill in their English
speaking lessons. The researcher spent time and effort investigating how they

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter discusses the theories related to speaking lessons and the
technique of using teamwork in the light of cooperative learning.
1. Teaching English speaking for communication
1.1. Activities in a speaking lesson
It is undeniable that designing and organizing activities for speaking
plays a leading role in fostering student’s use of English in real
communication. With the aim of enhancing the effectiveness of a speaking
lesson, Harmer (1991, pp.36-37) suggested these following activities, all of
which were organized for small groups of students.
Discussions
This activity is followed by a content-based lesson. More specifically,
students study their reading or listening comprehension in each unit of their
textbook under teacher’s control to gain the general knowledge of the topic.
After that, the whole class will be divided into small teams of four or five to
get involved in the discussion. Teachers should provide their students with
controversial situations so that they can freely express their different ideas, for
instance, “Parents should allow their children to play video games. Do you
agree or disagree? Why?” Teachers should notice that they should master the
time excellently so that as many students have a chance to present their
teams’ opinions as possible by giving them a limited time to finish their task,
to share their ideas before the class as well as to get comments from their
teacher. “This activity fosters critical thinking and quick decision making”,
Harmer affirmed the strength of discussion in his book. In this activity,
students also learn how to negotiate with the others by justifying themselves
in a polite way when their idea is different from the other groups. Also

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according to Harmer, students should always be encouraged to ask questions,
support their partners or check for clarification.

an opportunity to practice English speaking, particularly improve their
vocabulary and pronunciation. Familiar situations could be assigned in class
in the form of teamwork. However, for complicated ones, it is better to give
the students enough time to do their rehearsal, probably at home to save time.
Stimulations
Stimulations are somewhat similar to role-play; however, the realistic
environment created in these activities makes stimulations different from role-
play. In stimulations, students bring their prepared items to class to create
their own situation, i.e., a student who is going to act as a singer can bring a
microphone and music player, or even put on their make-ups to perform
before the whole class. It was stated in Harmer’s book that these activities
increase the hesitant students’ self-confidence and entertain the whole class.
In fact, the more natural the students’ performances are, the more successful
the speaking lesson is.
Information Gaps
In this activity, it is suggested that students should work in pairs. To
make it clearer, one student owns the information that the other does not have
and two members in each pair will share or exchange their information.
However, teachers should promote their students to use the target language
when they exchange information. If so, everyone has the opportunity to talk
extensively in English when they try to negotiate with each other.
Brainstormings
With the aim of activating students’ critical thinking, teachers give a
topic or a situation for small groups of students to produce ideas in a limited

7
time. In this activity, students can freely share their new ideas with one
another and then they negotiate to give out the best ideas to present before the
class.
Storytelling (picture narrating)

Presentations and reports are ways of communicating ideas and
information to the others. However, unlike a report, a presentation carries the
speaker’s personality better and allows the immediate interactions among the
participants. Additionally, a presentation is longer and requires more
preparations for the content before it is delivered to the audience. In order to
make a good presentation, the students need time to prepare and rehearse at
home before the class time. What is more, the teacher should ask their
students to work in teams so that they can support each other in their
preparations as well as their performance before the class.
Picture describing
In this activity, each team is expected to describe what is in the picture
which is given by the teacher. After finishing teamwork, some representatives
from each will report their shared work to the class. It is undoubted that this
activity fosters "the creativity and imagination" of the learners as well as their
public speaking skills (Harmer, 1991, p.37).
Finding the differences
This activity requires students to work in pairs. Each pair is given two
pictures which are somehow similar. The students themselves are supposed to
work together to find out all the differences between their two provided
pictures and tell the whole class afterwards.
1.2. Requirements of a good English speaking lesson
Researchers have shared the same idea that CLT is the most effective
approach to teaching English skills including speaking. In the light of CLT,

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the student is the center of the lesson and the teacher is the instructor, a
facilitator in the classroom. The aim of using CLT is to develop students’
communicative competence so that they can communicate in the target
language in the real world. According to Harmer (2001, p.57), a good
speaking lesson depends on both teachers and students. In fact, the teacher’s

real situations.
What makes a good English speaking lesson?
In the light of CLT, learners are trained to achieve their communicative
competence; thus, the ability of using the target language in the real world is
the very first criterion to assess the process of learning and teaching. To
acquire the goal of CLT, each lesson should create a meaningful and realistic
environment, in other words, the topics and situations given to the learners
should be connected with their everyday life so that they can communicate
easily and naturally. Besides, the activities designed for each lesson must
involve the whole class in communication so that after the lesson they can use
the target language fluently and accurately. In fact, it is common that teachers
try to use teamwork activities to motivate and involve their students; however,
it does not work if the students use their mother tongue so much during their
discussion and presentation before the whole class. According to the CLT
theory, such the case to exploit teamwork activities is counter-productive. To
achieve the communicative competence, students are expected to use the
target language as much fluently and accurately as possible; hence, teachers
should encourage their students to use and practice speaking English any time
and anywhere they can, especially in the speaking lessons.

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2. Teamwork in English learning and teaching
2.1. Definition
In English Teaching Methodology (ELT), the terms "pair work" and
"group work" become so common nowadays among language teachers and
learners since it is one of the features of CLT and also proved to contribute to
the great effectiveness of a speaking lesson. However, this study does not

individual learning. Competitive learning environment refers to a student who
works against each other to attain his/her own success of being the winner.
Therefore, there is a negative interdependence among goal achievements.
Another learning environment is called individual learning. In this type of
learning, students work alone to accomplish the goals regardless of their
peers' goals, hence, their achievements are independent.
In complete contrast with the two learning situations mentioned above,
cooperative learning brings out the benefits for every learner.
Cooperative learning
David and Johnson Rodger (2001) pointed out that cooperation
typically results in higher achievement and greater productivity; more caring,
supportive, and committed relationships; and greater psychological health,
social competence, and self-esteem. It is true that the goal achievement in
cooperative learning is shared among students, which means that the success
or failure of this member is the others’.
Below is the summary of cooperative learning given by David and
Johnson Rodger:
Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams,
each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to
improve their understanding of a subject. Each member of a team is responsible not
only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus creating an
atmosphere of achievement. Students work through the assignment until all group
members successfully understand and complete it.

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Cooperative learning efforts result in participants striving for mutual benefit so
that all group members:
 Gain from each other’s efforts. (Your success benefits me and my success
benefits you)
 Recognize that all group members share a common fate (We all sink or

- Discussing concepts being learned 14
- Connecting present with past
learning

3. Individual & Group
Accountability
(No hitchhiking, no social loafing)
- Keeping the size of the group
small. The smaller the size of the
group, the greater the individual
accountability may be.
- Giving an individual test to each
student
- Randomly examining students
orally by calling on one student to
present his/her group’s work to the
teacher (in the presence of the group)
or to the entire class
- Observing each group and
recording the frequency with which
each member contributes to the group’s
work
- Assigning one student in each
group with the role of checker. The (Chart summarized by David & Johnson Rodger, 2001, pp. 385-389)

In brief, it is proved that cooperative learning environment promotes
the learners to develop their communicative competence easily and quickly in
the light of CLT.
2.2. Organization of a team
 Ways to divide the whole class into small teams
Groupinging students by interests
Teachers can allow those who are interested in the same topic to work
together. By working in this way, do they easily motivate their students to
show their real interest in the chosen topic. It is vital that teachers give out a
list of different topics related to the lesson so that the students have more

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chances to choose and then form a team of the same interest. However, the
teachers should notice that in some cases, there are so many students sharing
the same interest, which makes it difficult to group them. To solve this
problem, the teachers should ask their students to form small teams of three or
four or even five, there can be different ones of the same interest.
Grouping students by different abilities
The fact that students can assist each other to achieve their learning
goals is the aim of this method. A team of different abilities involves excellent
students, good ones as well as slow ones. In each activity, these students work
together to complete their task, hence, students of advanced level will help
those of the lower one to improve their English speaking. For example, when
this one does not know how to express his or her idea in English, the other

teams of 2 or 3 (as for classes of odd numbers of students, there must be a
team of three).
Likewise, according to Jaques (2000, pp.52-53), doing a small team
activity is one way to “change the pace” in the classroom. The aim of this
division is to generate ideas, increase students’ confidence in their answers,
and encourage broad participation in a plenary session. By using this strategy,
the students have a chance to “validate” their ideas in pairs before sharing the
ideas with the whole class (Jaques, 2000). Hence, shy students will feel more
confident to participate in activities.
Teams of three, four or five
When students face a challenging task, it is necessary that they need
more help from others. In this case, pair work is not a good idea; instead, the
size of teams should be bigger with three, four or five members. The team
leader will be responsible for dividing tasks for each member, at the same