iv TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Table of contents
PART I: INTRODUCTION………………………… ………………….… ………… 1
1. Rationale 1
2. The purposes of the study…… 2
3. Research questions 2
4.Methods of the study 2
5. Scopes of the study 3
6. Design of the study 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Communicative language teaching 5
1.2. Group work 6
1.2.1. Definitions of group work 6
1.2.2. Advantages and disadvantages of group work 7
1.2.2.1. Advantages of group work 7
1.2.2.2 Disadvantages of group work 8
1.2.3. Teacher’s roles in carrying out group work 8
1.2.4. How to organize group work in speaking lessons 8
1.2.5. Group formation 10
1.2.6. Group Size. 11
1.3. Perception and behavior 11
1.3.1. Definition of perception 11
1.3.2. Definition of behavior…………………………………………………………12

instructor before activity………………………………… ………………………… … 25
3.1.8. The teachers’ and the students’ perceptions of the things should be done by
the instructor during activity 25
3.1.9. The teachers’ and the students’ perceptions of what the teachers should do
after activity ………………………………………………………………… ……… 26
3.1.10. The teachers’ and the students’ perceptions of the difficulties when carrying
out group work 26
3.2. Class observation 27
CHAPTER 4: MAJOR FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS…………………… 32
4.1. Major findings …………………………………………………………………….32
vi

4.2. Recommendations ……………………………………………………………… 36

PART III. CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………… 43
References
Apendix A- Teacher questionaire
Apendix B- Student questionaire
Apendix C- Observation sheet
Apendix D- Collected data

iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ESL: English as a Second Language
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
FFL: Faculty of Foreign Languages

1. Rationale
English has been widely used in many areas such as politics, economics, tourism,
electronics, telecommunication, culture and science and technology. English is not only a
means but also a key to accessing the latest achievements of science and technology.
Therefore, it is necessary for many Vietnamese to have a good command of English to
satisfy the growing needs in a developing country like Vietnam.
Speaking is an essential skill for English as a second or foreign language
(ESL/EFL). For many, speaking is the most important to master. With strengthened
speaking skills, ESL/EFL speaker will make greater progress and attain greater
development in all academic areas.
Being a teacher of English at Faculty of Foreign Language – Ho Chi Minh
University of Industry (FFL-HUI), the researcher is well aware of the importance of using
group work to help energize the speaking class. Like many other teachers working here,
however, the researcher has also faced many challenges in organizing and managing group
work during English speaking lessons. For instance, the noise created by students when
they work in groups, student‟s laziness, students‟ use of their mother tongue, etc.
In fact, there is a close relationship between one‟s perception and his/her behaviors.
Yu (2004) stated that teachers' perceptions "construct" their practices, which in turn, lead
to whatever progress both the learners and the teachers achieve. Practice and progress in
language learning and teaching will re-construct teachers' perceptions of L2 development.
Teachers need to reflect upon their own ideas and practices to be better informed. Dewey
(1933) argued that teachers should be reflective-practitioners through questioning the
beliefs and methods in their own experimental approach to schooling - psychology and
sociology being tools or resources for the construction of new educational hypotheses to be
tested against experience.
To meet the increased needs of teachers and students, at FFL- HUI, the author of
this study is determined to choose this area to do research on. This study is intended to
make a modest contribution to investigating what the teachers‟ and students‟ points of
views about group work activities and what they really do before, during and after this
activity. The results of the study, hopefully, enhance the flexibility of using group work to

HUI?
4. Methods of the study
To achieve the aims of the study, a mixed method combining both qualitative and
quantitative styles was used.
The data for the research was collected from the third- year students and the teachers
who have experienced in teaching speaking at FFL-HUI by survey questionnaires, oral
interviews and classroom observations.
3 Both qualitative and quantitative analysis methods were used to deal with the collected
data. Data from questionnaires were processed quantitatively for descriptive statistics. On
the basis of those statistics, the researcher can give comments, recommendation,
conclusions about the perceptions of the teachers and the students of group work in
speaking lessons at FFL-HUI, thus answering research questions 1.a and 1b. To answer
research questions 2.a, 2.b, and 3, a qualitative method using an “interpretive model”
(Hatch 2002: 179) was employed to analyze data collected from the researcher‟s interviews
and observations of the speaking English classes in the setting to find out the participants‟
actual behaviors when they work in groups in the classrooms and recommendations for
further improvement.
5. Scope of the study
Group work can be applied to improve all of the four skills in learning language,
speaking, listening, writing and reading, but the study only focuses on speaking skill.
Moreover, it is not the researcher‟s intention to investigate the perceptions and behaviors
of all the teachers and the learners in the FFL-HUI about this activity. Instead, the
researcher only intends to draw a brief overview of the point of view and actual behaviors
of the teachers who have experienced in teaching speaking and of the third-year students in
the FLL-HUI about group work. The reasons for this choice were that the teachers having
experiences in teaching speaking can give clearer opinions about this activity as they have
used it to teach speaking, so that they can understand what should be done to improve the


5 PART II DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter consists of 3 sections which review major theoretical background that the
researcher based on when carrying out the thesis. Section one deals with the issues of
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) which is intended to be discussed in terms of
CLT charateristics and communicative activities. Section 2 concerns some concepts related
to the study of factors that affect the effectiveness of group working such as definition of
group work, advantages and disadvantages of using group work in English speaking
lessons, students and teachers‟ roles, how to organise groups, form groups. The last section
in chapter one focuses on reviewing scholars‟ ideas of perception and behavior as well as
their relationship in language teaching and learning.
1.1. Communicative language teaching
The Communicative Approach emerged in the early 1970s as a result of the work
of the Council of Europe experts (Al-Mutawa and Kailani, 1989). However, it can be
traced back to the work of Chomsky in the 1960s, when he advanced the two notions of
'competence' and 'performance' as a reaction against the prevalent audio-lingual method
and its views. These two concepts were developed later on by Hymes, into a
„communicative competence' which refers to the psychological, cultural and social rules
which discipline the use of speech (Hedge, 2000).
Dimensions of communicative competence which are identified in the literature

According to Doff (1988:137), in group work, the teacher divides the class into small
groups working together (usually four to five students in each group) and all the groups
work at the same time. Nolasco and Arthur (1998) defines that group work is a number of
people (usually more than two) assigned a task together and they will work on it
cooperatively. Richards and Platt (2010; 163 - 164) considers group work in language
teaching is a learning activity which involves a small group of learners working together.
The group may work on a single task, or on different parts of a larger task. Richards also
discusses that this teaching activity has three characteristics: first, a small number of
students (two to twelve) meet together; second, they choose, or are given, a common topic
of problem and a goal or objective; third, they exchange and evaluate information or ideas
about the topic.
In short, group work is a cooperative learning activity which involves from more
than two students up to twelve students. The group-members work together to carry out an
activity given by the instructor or chosen themselves. In a language lesson, the students are
more comfortable when sitting in groups; however, they have certain linguistic targets to
reach. There are a lot of activities for them to get the target. More importantly, although
they work cooperatively, each member in the groups has their own responsibilities and
targets.
7 1.2.2. Advantages and disadvantages of group work
1.2.2.1. Advantages of group work
Martine (2005) states that there are four main advantages of small group work in
language classes:
- Group work increases students’ talking time
Long and Porter (1985) estimated that in a 50 minute lesson with 30 students, if
the students talked only to the teacher, they would get 30 seconds of talking time
per lesson. They calculate that this equals “just one hour per student per year” (p. 208).
Therefore, using group work quite simply substantially increases the opportunities the

- Students will speak only in their L1
Some students may be lazy to speak L2 because they are not afraid of being
punished.
- Teachers are often concerned that students will pick up incorrect English from other
student.
In small groups the teacher is not always on hand to correct errors and
mistakes. Therefore, students will use incorrect or pick up unusual English from other
students.
Although there are still some weaknesses of using group work in teaching
language, the benefits far outweigh them. Instead of being dependent on the teacher,
students get used to helping and learning from each other in a non-threatening
environment. Meanwhile, the teacher is left free to discreetly monitor progress and give
help, advice and encouragement where and when is needed.
1.2.3. Teacher’s roles in carrying out group work
Harmer (1991) says that the teacher plays such different roles in group work as an
organizer, a controller, an assessor, a prompter, and a participant. According to Kay &
Christison (1987), important teacher‟s role in carrying out group work is as an instructor,
a consultant, a supervisor, a co-communicatior, and a controller, giving instructions for
the job duties, encouraging them actively to participate in learning process and to interact
with each other, helping them with their difficulties in linguistics matters as well as
background knowledge. The teacher is active, marking, remaining sensitive to the
atmosphere and the pace of the groups and noting persistent for remedial teaching. If the
task is seen to be going drastically wrong, they will stop it and revert to some form of
practice before starting group work again.
1.2.4. How to organize a group work activity
Ur. (1996:234) suggested four main steps to organize group work, namely presentation,
process, ending and feedback.
- Presentation
Ur. (1996) appreciates the role of presentation of group work. In his opinion, the
instructions given at the beginning are crucial; if the students do not understand exactly

could, for instance, stand at the front or the side of the class (or at the back or anywhere else
in the room) and keep an eye on what is happening, noting who appears to be stuck or
disengaged, or about to finish. In this position, we can „turn in‟ to a particular group from
some distance away. The teachers can then decide whether to go over or help that group.
- After activity
10 It is vital that constructive feedback on the content of student work can greatly
enhance students‟ future motivation. The feedback that teachers give on language mistakes
is only one part of that process.
1.2.5. Group formation
Optiz (1998) suggests that we can put the learners in equal ability groups since this
will be more effective than asking the good and bad learners to work together. Groups may
also be formed randomly (Dunne & Bennett, 1990) and this is useful when groups are
formed regularly and the teacher wants the learners to work with different individuals each
time. Pollard (2002) suggests that groups can be formed on the basis of age, attainment,
interest, and friendship.
I-Jung (2004) suggests three major methods to form groups in class namely:
random, student – selected and teacher – selected groupings.
- Random grouping
Random grouping is often used for in-class activities because of its readiness and
convenience. Randomly assigned groups ignore the differences among students, such as
their language level, learning styles and abilities.
- Student – selected grouping
Student – selected grouping is probably the most preferred option by learners.
Students often cluster with good friends; Students are more likely to participate in activities
if they feel they are among friends. When engaging in group work, learners feel more
comfortable taking risks, making mistakes, and enjoying themselves.
- Teacher – formed grouping

1.3. Perception and behavior
1.3.1. Definition of perception
Perception may be defined from physical, psychological and physiological
perspectives. But for the purpose of this study, it shall be limited to its scope as postulated
by Allport (1966), which is the way we judge or evaluate others. Eggen and Kauchak
(2001) gave cognitive dimension of perception; they see perception as the process by
which people attach meaning to experiences. They explained that after people attend to
certain stimuli in their sensory memories, processing continues with perception. Perception
is critical because it influences the information that enters working memory. Background
knowledge in the form of schemas affects perception and subsequent learning.
Teacher effectiveness is impeded if the teacher is unfamiliar with the body of
knowledge taught and that teachers‟ effectiveness is subject specific. The implication of
this for teachers is that they must thoroughly understand the content of what they teach.
The teacher whose understanding of topic is thorough use clearer language, their discourse
is more connected, and they provide better explanation than those whose background is
weaker. The way the students perceive the teachers in terms of their (teachers) knowledge
12 of content of subject matter may significantly affect the students‟ academic performance.
Pedagogical content knowledge depends on an understanding of a particular topic and how
to explain it in away that it will make sense to the students.
Pedagogical content knowledge implies, an understanding of ways of representing
the subject that make it comprehensive to others and an understanding of what makes the
learning of specific topics easy or difficult. Eggen and Kauchak (2001) declared that where
pedagogical content knowledge is lacking “teachers commonly paraphrase information in
learners‟ textbooks or provide abstract explanations that are not meaningful to their
students”. From evidences available in literatures it is being established why teachers‟
knowledge of subject matter is highly essential for effective teaching. Ehindero (1990)
confirmed that a teachers‟ teaching is influenced by the level of his pedagogical

viewpoints in order to make the language classroom a more welcoming environment
encompassing dignity and respect for both students and teachers alike (Williams &
Burden, 1997).
Teachers' perceptions "construct" their practices which in turn lead to whatever
progress both the learners and the teachers achieve. Practice and progress in language
learning and teaching will re-construct teachers' perceptions of L2 development.
Figure 1. Inter-relationships among perception, practice and progress (Yu: 2004)
In summary, we have reviewed the theoretical background for the study of neccessarity
and techniques to increase the effectiveness of using group work in English speaking
classes. We also have emphasized the main points in CLT. In addition, the theory of
perception, behavior and the close relationship between them are also discussed carefully
in this chapter. The discussion of various issues related to st in the students‟ participation
as well as factors affecting the effectiveness of group work in English speaking classes are
also presesented carefully in the chapter. In the next chapter, we will discuss the
methodology of the study.
14
university level (4 years long); college level (3 years long); and vocational college (3 years
long). The different levels require the flexibility in the ways to organize the lessons, teach
as well as evaluate their works.
The teachers at FFL - HUI
FFL-HUI consists of over 40 teachers of different ages. The female teachers take
80% and the male ones take 20%. The youngest teachers are about 23 years old and the
oldest are about 55. At present, about 90% of the teachers at the FFL-HUI are the Masters
of Art. The rest numbers are still Bachelors or Art. They have from 3 to 30 years of
teaching experience. A lot of them have studied overseas and got the M.A. certificates
there. The teachers at FFL-HUI are from many different areas in the country, thus, their
accents and behaviors are quite different.
The physical setting
At FFL - HUI, English teaching and learning activities are mostly carried out inside
the classrooms which are specially designed for the faculty. There are about 12 classrooms
with 16 desks in each. Every classroom is equipped with a board, a teacher‟s table, an LCD
plasma TV which can be easily used as a projector or a TV, a modern system of
loudspeakers. The desks are about 1.5 meters long and put in two parallel rows. In term of
class size, the average number of students in each class is from 30 to 35. This number is
still large in a language class.
16 The materials for reference and self-study are available for both teachers and
students. In the school library, there are a number of language books which are quite
helpful for teachers and students, it takes quite a long time to find and get the materials
though. The small library at the faculty office is also available for readers in the
department. There are not many books here but it is being improved. There is a lab room at
the faculty which is really modern for the language lessons. There are about 35 computers
which are connected to Internet. The teacher‟s computer and the students‟ ones are linked
closely.

questions. The questions in the two questionnaires are mainly used to explore the teachers‟
and students‟ perceptions, or the way they think about, of using group work to teach
speaking efficiently. In order to make sure that the participants give necessary and relevant
information as well as not misunderstand the questions, the questionnaires were designed
in Vietnamese and then results translated into English by the researcher.
Oral interviews were given after the researcher had analyzed the results of the
questionnaires for triangulation. The researcher carried out the interviews with 10 students
and 5 teachers. All of them are the members who did the questionnaires and randomly
chosen. The purposes of interviewing are to get clearer explanations for the choices in the
questionnaires.

2.2.4. Procedure
Data were collected and analyzed in the following steps:
- Delivering questionnaires to the 10 teachers and 60 third-year students at the FFL-
HUI.
- Analyzing the questionnaires data by looking for and grouping the common and
recurrent themes in the data with the use of descriptive statistics.
- Interviewing the teachers and the students to get further information for the data in
the questionnaires.
- Basing on the interviews and the questionnaires, identifying the contents to observe
in the teachers‟ and the students‟ actual classroom practice.
- Collecting the data on the teachers‟ and the students‟ practices via class
observations. Observation of 10 speaking lessons was made according to designed
criteria.
- Analyzing observation data based on the observation scheme.
- Comparing the results of actual class observation with the teachers‟ and the
students‟ perceptions reported in the questionnaires and interviews.
In short, necessary issues relating to how to carry out the thesis were illustrated clearly in
the chapter 2. We have decribed specifically the real situations of the context, participants
as well as the method of collecting, analyzing the data. The following chapter will present

Percentage
A. individually
B. with a partner
C. in a small group
D. with the whole class

Figure 1: The students’ perception of the way they learn speaking effectively
(by percent)
The majority of the students (54 %) want to work in groups to learn speaking. They
want to learn with their friends when practicing speaking. They explained that it is very
effective for them to work in groups when learning speaking because the better partners
can give them good advices to improve this oral skill, especially they do not feel stressed
when talking with their classmates. Working with a partner is the second interest of the
students. 38% of the participants like this way of practicing speaking. Fewer students
(22%) want to practice with the whole class because it makes they feel safer and more
secure. There are only 7.5% of the students want to practice speaking alone. They gave the
20 reason for this choice is that because they are not very confident and sociable so they are
afraid of making mistakes and being stupid. Similarly, the investigated teachers share the
same perception about the effective ways of teaching speaking.

Very effective
(%)
Effective
(%)
Normal
(%)
Not effective

in class.
3.1.2. The students’ feelings when they work in groups

The students' feelings when working in groups (by percentage)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
stressed comfortable relaxed bored excited safe Others
The feelings
Percentage

Figure 2: The students’ feelings when working in groups (by percentage)
21 There are two types of feelings detected from the questionnaires: positive feelings
and negative feelings. Relaxed, excited, comfortable belong to the former type, whereas,
stressed, bored and safe belong to the later. In the first group, the numbers of the students
who are excited and comfortable take the highest proportion, 51% and 50% respectively.
About 22% of the learners feel relaxed when they are in groups with their friends. These
positive are crucially important for the learners to learn speaking because it makes them
easier to be involved into the given activities. In contrast, the proportion of students who
have negative feelings about the group work is very low. That is to say, 8.3% feel stressed,
14% are bored and 4.2% feel safe.
3.1.3. The teachers’ perceptions of the appropriate time for each group work activity
6.70%

Notes:
1. About 5 minutes
2. About 10 minutes
3. About 15 minutes
4. more than 15 minutes