VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES ANS INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THU THỦY EFFECTIVENESS OF JIGSAW, THINK-PAIR-SHARE AND
NUMBERED HEADS TOGETHER ON STUDENTS’ ORAL
PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING LESSONS

NGHIÊN CỨU HIỆU QUẢ CỦA CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG JIGSAW,
THINK-PAIR-SHARE VÀ NUMBERED HEADS TOGETHER ĐỐI
VỚI SỰ THAM GIA CỦA SINH VIÊN TRONG GIỜ HỌC NÓI

M.A. MINOR THESIS MAJOR: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 601410
v

1.2.2. Factors affecting students‟ participation in class 9
1.2.3. What can be done to get students to speak more in speaking classes? 9
1.3. Cooperative learning 9
1.3.1. Cooperative learning and its techniques 9
1.3.2. Key components of cooperative learning 11
1.3.3. Advantages of cooperative learning 12
1.4. Previous studies 12

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 14
2.0. Research question 14
2.1. Research method 14
2.2. Research context 16
2.3. Participants 17
2.4. Instruments 18
2.4.1. Survey questionnaire 18
2.4.2. Classroom observation 18
2.4.3. Students‟ self-reports 19
2.5. Action research procedure 20
2.5.1. Phase 1 20
2.5.1.1. Problem identification 20
2.5.1.2. Initial data collection 20
2.5.1.3. Generating hypothesis 21
3.5.2. Phase 2 21
2.5.2.1. Planning action 21

vi

2.5.2.2. Intervention 22

Appendix 1: Questionnaire 1 I
Appendix 2: Questionnaire 2 III
Appendix 3: Class observation sheet IV
Appendix 4: Students‟ self-report V
Appendix 5: Speaking lesson plan (Pre-action stage) – Lesson 3 VI
Appendix 6: Speaking lesson plan (Action stage) – Lesson 7 XXII
Appendix 7: Speaking lesson plan (Action stage) – Lesson 8 XIX
Appendix 8: Speaking lesson plan (Action stage) – Lesson 10 XXVII viii

LIST OF ABBRIVIATION
EFL: English as a foreign language
ESL: English as a second language
CLT: Communicative Language Teaching
CL: Cooperative Learning
HPU2: Hanoi Pedagogical University No.2

Table 7: Students‟ interaction in lesson 11 32
Table 8: Students‟ interaction in lesson 12 32
Graph 1: Students‟ on-task behavior 37
Graph 2: Students‟ interaction in CL group-work 38
1

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale and statement of the problem
In learning any foreign languages, speaking is a vital tool for students to express
their thoughts, ideas and feelings, and to have successful social communication.
Unlike ESL learners who have more frequent use of the target language, EFL
learners have few opportunities to use English in daily life. In some big cities in
Vietnam, EFL learners may enjoy more favorable learning conditions with the
support of modern technology, online classes, and more chance to communicate in

students‟ poor participation, then base on that to find out ways to treat the problem.
It can be considered the most feasible solution in her current teaching situation
while other problems related to materials, syllabus, students‟ personality, learning
and teaching equipments are almost time-consuming and beyond the teacher‟s
power of control.
Regarding how to have an effective speaking lesson, Kayi (2006) pointed out that
teachers should:
- maximum opportunity to students to speak the target language by providing a
rich environment that contains collaborative work, authentic materials and
tasks, and shared knowledge.
- try to involve each student in every speaking activity; for this aim, practice
different ways of student participation.
- reduce teacher speaking time in class while increasing student speaking time.
CL can be considered as an ideal tool for teacher to follow the above listed
recommendations. Richards & Rodger (2001) stated that CL “has been embraced as
a way of promoting communicative interaction in the classroom and is seen as an
extension of the principles of CLT”. As cited in Richards & Rodger (2001, p.195),
one of the advantages of CL for ESL students is that it can enhance frequency of
second language practice through different types of interaction (Mac Groarty,
1989). It can be implicated that CL creates maximum and equal chance for students
to interact because they have to work together, cooperate, and depend on each other

3

to complete certain task. CL offers teachers a wide range of cooperative structures
or techniques. However, the researcher would just like to focus on three cooperative
techniques which are among the most suitable to her teaching context and this
small-scale study. Accordingly, she decides to conduct an action research on the
effectiveness of three cooperative techniques: Jigsaw, Numbered heads together
and Think-pair-share on students‟ participation in speaking class with further desire

(Sayadi, 2007), asking for help/advice, taking a stand, group management (Lotfy,
2012), and contributing ideas during group discussion. Other forms of participation
like responding with nods and shakes of the head, showing interest or paying
attention through listening, reading or speaking in Vietnamese were not examined
in this study.

5. Research method
To conduct the study, an action research was used with the support of
questionnaires, class observation and students‟ self-reports as the main data
collection instruments. The aim of the study was to solve the problem the teacher
has to face in her real teaching context, so the choice of an action research appears
to meet the researcher‟s desire to know and understand more about her real practice,
then outline a specific plan for action to improve the situation.

6. Design of the study
The study is divided in to three partsfive chapters as followed:
Part one, Introduction, provides an overview of the study including statement of
the problem, the aims, scope of the study, research questions, and brief introduction
to research method.
Part two, Development, consists of the following four chapters:

5

- Chapter 1, Literature review, presents the theoretical background of the
studies with key relevant concepts clarified and previous related studies
reviewed.
- Chapter 2, Methodology, describes the methods of the study. The research
context, participants, data collection instruments, research procedure and
data analysis are all mentioned in this chapter.
- Chapter 3, Results, presents the findings of the study.

(Chaney, 1998, p. 13 as cited in Kayi, 2006). According to Bailey (2005) “speaking
consist of producing systematic verbal utterance to convey meaning”. Speaking skill
requires so many micro-skills for a learner to become a good speaker such as:
producing the sounds, stress patterns, rhythmic structures and intonations of the
language; using grammar structures accurately; using body languages; selecting
understandable and appropriate vocabulary, paying attention to the success of the
interaction and adjusting components of speech, etc. (Brown, 1994).
1.1.1. English speaking teaching
Teaching English speaking means teaching students how to organize their idea and
adapt their speeches and informal talks so as to communicate information and
correspond to the intended audience in English. Teaching students how to speak is
not an easy job, but a complicated process which requires teachers to wisely involve
all of other micro-skills to help students develops communicative competence
linguistic competence, fluency, and accuracy (Bailey, 2005).
There has developed a variety of methods of teaching speaking in the past sixty
years, including Grammar-Translation method, Direct method and Audiolingualism,
CLT and CL (sometimes subsumed under CLT). The appearance of CLT and CL as
an approach of teaching has provided students more opportunity to learn language
by interacting and communicating in the target language, English in most cases.
These methods are typically featured by such activities as information gap task,
pair-work and group-work. Then teachers‟ teaching techniques are also very
important in gaining the lesson‟s objectives as well as creating opportunities for
students to practice speaking English.

7

1.1.2. English speaking learning
Spoken language involves a number of issues that students need to master to speak
fluently such as: clustering, reduced forms, colloquial language, stress, rhythm and
intonation, affective factors and interactions. (Brown (1994:256). The fact is that

“Participation involves taking the roles of both speaker and listener at some points
during the conversation” (Hudson & Bruckman, 2004). Then in class it can be
referred to as class discussion. However, participation can also include short
exchanges or interaction between teacher and students, or within small groups of
students. To show their participation students can do many things like giving
opinion, asking question, responding to teacher or other students, contributing ideas
in group discussion, listening, taking notes, showing interest etc. (Sayadi, 2007).
According to Lotfy (2012), students‟ participation falls into two main categories:
on-task and off-task participation. On-task participation includes: (1) Asking other
for help/advice; (2) Offering opinion/expert advice; (3) Taking a stand; (4) Group
management; (5) silent on-task participation (reading material, writing, looking up
new words). Whereas off-task participation includes: (1) Chatting with friends on
topic not related to the activity; (2) Doing things not contributing to class (using
cell-phone for example).
Among discussed forms of participation, oral participation has been proved in
previous studies as an important factor affecting students‟ achievement. It is also
seen as part of the learning process and the key for evaluating students‟ involvement
in class. Obviously, the more they participate, the more they learn, and the better the
class discussion is done (Davis, 1993). It is emphasized in Sayadi (2007) that
“classroom participation provides the opportunity for students to use and practice
their linguistics and communicative skills. By having oral participation in class,
students can quickly improve their language competence, gain fluency (Swan,
1993) and promote accuracy (Swan, 1997), thus improve their speaking skill
(Khadija, 2010). For EFL learners who learn English in a non-English speaking
setting, oral participation in class is necessary and useful in improving their learning
(Khadidja, 2010). 9


10

(2001), the idea of CL began with John Dewey's ideas of group activities. Then it
was developed and popularized by many authors like Slavin, David and Johnson,
Kagan and so on. Slavin (1987) considered cooperative learning as “set of
instructional methods in which students work in small, mix-ability learning groups”
to accomplish shared goal. As cited in Garfield (1993), it is the instructional use of
small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other‟s
learning” (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1991). CL is closely related to group-work,
but it does not stop there because Ledlow, S. (1999) affirmed that “CL is more than
simply asking student to get in a group and work on an assignment together”.
Accordingly, a heavy responsibility rests upon teachers who are expected to
carefully design suitable lessons and activities so that CL lessons can work
effectively. To sum up, CL is an interactive procedure in which students work and
interact together in small groups to complete a certain task, usually academic tasks.
There are a number of different structures/techniques of CL and their variations
which serve in different situation with different purposes and functions. The
following are some common structures of cooperative learning adapted from Kagan
S. (1989: 14).
Jigsaw: Each students on the team become an “expert” on one topic by working
with members from other teams assigned the corresponding expert topic. Upon
returning to their teams, each one in turn teaches the group; and students are all
assessed on all aspects of the topic. It is implicated from Kagan (1989) that Jigsaw
is a good way to deal with new knowledge which is one of the main reasons for
students‟ poor oral participation in class and provide equal chance to students to
speak. The nature of Jigsaw is giving each team member something to learn to
become an expert on, so each will be equipped with necessary knowledge related to
the topics which are advanced or strange to them. With this technique, students not
only have something to speak but also must speak as a mission.
Numbered Heads Together: The teacher asks a question, students consult to make

and structure them well in each lesson is considered the key step for it to become
successful. According to Johnson and Johnson (1989), “Real expertise in using CL

12

is gained by learning how to structure the five essential components into
instructional activities” (as cited in Johnson, Johnson & Holubec 1994).

1.3.3. Advantages of Cooperative Learning
The use of CL in teaching language over the past 40 years has proved its importance
and effectiveness. It has gained considerable achievements including academic
achievements, skill communication and psychological health which were examined
in a great number of researches such as Macpherson (2000), Slavin (1990), and
Davis (1999). Closely-related to students‟ oral participation, CL has been proved
extremely beneficial in providing students with equal and maximum opportunity to
speak, enhancing students‟ interaction skill and improving students‟ confidence and
autonomy which are among very essential affective factors which could motivate or
demotivate students to speak in classes.

1.4. Previous studies
Over the past 20 years hundreds of researches have conducted to find out how to
improve students‟ participation namely Davis (1999), Snell (1999), Lacina (2001),
Huson & Bruckman (2004), Sayadi (2007), Green (2008) etc. Tsou (2005) looks
into the use of PI (Instruction about classroom participation) to increase students‟
oral participation. Nguyen Minh Hue (2010) suggested a number of strategies to
change students‟ attitudes, so they can feel free to speak. They can be “changing
students‟ negative beliefs and attitudes towards mistakes”, “boost students‟ self-
confidence, lower students‟ anxiety in the classroom”, etc. Other techniques
recommended in Kayi (2006) include Role play, discussion, information gap,
brainstorming, picture describing, etc. Nguyen Thi Phuong Lan (2007) looked into


14

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
2.0. Research questions
The study attempts to answer two questions:
1. What are the factors causing students‟ poor oral participation in speaking
lessons?
2. To what extent can the use of Jigsaw, Numbered heads together and Think-
pair-share increase students‟ oral participation in speaking activities?
2.1. Research method
Action research is concerned with trying to improve one specific point in a teacher's
technique in a particular classroom using empirical measurement. Action research is
different from other kinds of research in that “it nearly always arises from some
specific problem or issue arising out of our professional practice” (Wallace,1998).
Snell (1999) claims that “it typically involves small-scale investigate projects in the
teacher‟s own classroom”. According to Mettetal (2002-2003), classroom action
research “is designed to help a teacher find out what is happening in his or her
classroom, and to use that information to make wise decisions for the future”.
Action research involves a number of phases which are commonly structured in
routines: Identification of problem area – Collection and organization of data –
Interpretation of data – Action based on data – Reflection (Ferrance, 2000).
According to McBride and Schostak (2002), the process of action research involves
the following steps:

She then suggests the solution based on literature review and preference from
students, and put them into practice to investigate whether they can help her
improve the current problem.
2.2. Research context
The study was conducted in classrooms within the second semester of the first
academic year on 30 first year English major students in Group 1, course 37 at
Foreign Languages Faculty, HPU2. Students of English are trained with a
curriculum emphasizing on four basic language skills including listening, speaking,
reading, and writing and other subjects related to English theoretical background.
They have to complete total 12 credits of speaking over the 6 semesters, each of
which lasts 15 weeks. The current materials used to teach speaking skill to the first
year students of English called Speaking 1 and Speaking 2. Speaking 2 is for the
second semester, consisting of total 11 topics, each of which is covered in one 90-
minute period per week. The following table presents specific syllabus of speaking
term 2:

17

Table 1: Speaking term 2
Week
Content
Topics
Week 1
Lesson 1

Climate and weather
Week 12
Lesson 11
Job interview
Week 13
Lesson 12
Sharing feeling
Week 14, 15
Review lessons 2.3. Participants
The study was conducted on 30 first year English major students who were directly
taught by the researcher at the time of conducting the research. The majority was
female (29 out of 30). They were all at the same age of 18, and their English
proficiency is not much different. Their average speaking score at the previous
semester is 6.5/10. Besides it is worth mentioning that 90% of the students come
from the countryside and mountainous areas. Their English speaking ability is

18

accordingly quite limited. According to the researcher‟s observation during the first
semester of teaching them, they are very shy and rarely speak in speaking lessons.
When she asks them to answer questions or invites them to say something, they
often keep silent and have no response.
2.4. Instruments
The study used survey questionnaires, students‟ self-report, and observations to
collect both qualitative and quantitative data. The combination of methods for data
collection allows us to gather data through multiple sources, and thus enhances the
data‟s validity.