Sở Giáo dục & Đào tạo Đồng Nai

I.

1

Trường THPT Tân Phú

THÔNG TIN CHUNG VỀ CÁ NHÂN

1.

Họ và tên:

Đỗ Duy Dương

2.

Ngày tháng năm sinh:

3.

Nam, nữ:

4.

Địa chỉ:

5.

Điện thoại:


Chuyên ngành đào tạo: Cử nhân Tiếng Anh sư phạm

III.

KINH NGHIỆM KHOA HỌC

-

Lĩnh vực chuyên môn có kinh nghiệm: Sư phạm tiếng anh

-

Số năm có kinh nghiệm:

-

Các sáng kiến kinh nghiệm đã có trong 5 năm gần đây:

01-1-1973

Nam
Trường THPT Tân Phú
0944410696
E-mail:
Giáo viên
Dạy môn Tiếng Anh lớp 10.
Trường THPT Tân Phú

14 năm

4. Nơi công tác: Trường THPT TAN PHU
5. Đơn vị áp dụng sáng kiến: Lớp 10 thuộc Trường THPT
6. Giải pháp:

Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

Tổ Ngoại ngữ


Sở Giáo dục & Đào tạo Đồng Nai

3

Trường THPT Tân Phú

I. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the innovation
Speaking has always been regarded as the most critical element in the communication
process (Boonkit, 2010). As Nunan (1991) has proved it, success in communication is
measured basing on the ability to conduct a conversation in the target language. This ability,
in this sense, refers to the speaking skill. Furthermore, speaking can function as a bridge to
assist other skills (Ur, 1996). Speaking is said to be able to facilitate learners to become more
proficient readers, more efficient listeners and more accurate writers. Given its significance in
the language teaching and learning, it is advised that speaking be given priority in the
language classroom.
Important as it is, the teaching of speaking skill at many Vietnamese high schools in general
and particularly at Tan Phu high school seems to receive insufficient attention and is
implemented not effectively enough. Reasons are varied. First, the majority of English tests at
Vietnamese high school are currently grammar-oriented. Teachers and students are largely
concerned about the academic results rather than the actual practice and knowledge.

effects of implementing group work in speaking lessons at Tan Phu high school has been
carried out with the hope that this technique will help teachers and students overcome the
obstacles in teaching and learning speaking skill.
2. Context of the innovation
The innovation took place at Tan Phu high school, which is situated in the remote area of
Dong Nai province, Vietnam. As most other high schools in Vietnam, English is a
compulsory subject in the curriculum approved by Ministry of Education and Training
(MOET). Students in Vietnam are supposed to study English over their three years at high
school. Students often have three class hours per week. The teaching of English subject must
follow the syllabus and the course book released by MOET. Teachers have to make sure that
all content in the course book is covered so that students can have sufficient knowledge to
take the final examination for the subject. As for the teaching approach or techniques, it is
optional for teachers to adopt the approach that they think is the most effective to students.
Therefore, with the innovation of applying group work to teaching speaking skills to students,
it is teachers’ right to choose any teaching method to implement, provided that the content of
the lessons in the course book is not skipped.
Students at Tan Phu high school mostly come from the rural areas, where the chances to meet
and talk to foreigners are rare. As already mentioned, speaking skill is often neglected during
the teaching of a foreign language at high school as speaking is not tested in the final
examination. In addition, the few chances of communicating with foreigners of students here
result in a variety of problems in teaching speaking to students. Although students in Vietnam

Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

Tổ Ngoại ngữ


Sở Giáo dục & Đào tạo Đồng Nai

5

secondary school.
2. The research procedure

Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

Tổ Ngoại ngữ


Sở Giáo dục & Đào tạo Đồng Nai

6

Trường THPT Tân Phú

The research was carried out in 12 weeks from the 5 th of September to the 25th of November
(School year 2016 – 2017). Students were divided into 7 groups, each of which consisted of 4
members. As suggested by I-Jung (2004) and Le (2008), the most appropriate number of
members in a group should be from three to five. That number can ensure the opportunity for
each member to participate in group work and interact with each other. In addition, a large
number of people in the group may reduce the chances of members to express and contribute
their ideas (Le, 2008).
The first and the second week were spent to introduce students with the emphasis on the
changes in the English lessons. Students did not use to have a separate lesson for learning
speaking skills but speaking if often embedded with other skills. Therefore, the practice used
to be very limited. Within this research, one class hour for each unit was spent on learning
speaking skills; the other four class hours were spent on reading, listening, writing and
language focus.
The group work activities were introduced to students from week 3 of the innovation until
week 11. As I-Jung (2004) proposed, there are three most popular grouping strategies namely
random grouping, which is often based on the seating arrangement; student-selected

group work activities took place in a similar way during the other 9 weeks.
3. The research methodology
A qualitative study was conducted. As suggested by Patton (2002), a qualitative approach can
help the researcher to gather rich and detailed data from various social phenomena, cases and
event that cannot be obtained from a quantitative one. Hinchey (2008) shared a similar
viewpoint when advising that qualitative studies emphasize more on the on-going process
rather than the product with the aims to investigating deeper information and meaning of
social issues. With regard to this research, the aims of the research was to find out the benefit
of the actual process of implementing group work activities to teach speaking skill and find
out the best way to apply group work in speaking lessons; therefore, the focus on the ongoing process was emphasized more than on the final product. All things considered,
adopting a qualitative study is the most appropriate choice to implement this research.
4. The research methods
The research aimed at two purposes, which were examining the benefits of group work
activities on students’ speaking skills and exploring the best way to implement the group
work. Thus, three data collection methods were conducted to gather information for the
research, namely questionnaire, observation and interview.

Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

Tổ Ngoại ngữ


Sở Giáo dục & Đào tạo Đồng Nai

8

Trường THPT Tân Phú

- Questionnaire: Questionnaire was selected as the first data collection method, which
aimed to gather information about students’ views on the use of group work activities.


Sở Giáo dục & Đào tạo Đồng Nai

9

Trường THPT Tân Phú

observing, an observation sheet was designed with detailed criteria to observe and evaluate.
The teacher had to take note of the class setting basing on the given criteria (See appendix B).
Similar to the content of the questionnaire, the observation also focused on three aspects of
the lessons, which were students’ participation and interaction in group work, their attitudes
towards the group work activities and the quality of the group work activity implementation.
Observation was conducted in each lesson. Data was coded basing on the given criteria,
analyzed and compared to findings from questionnaires.
- Interview: Interviews served as the last source of data for this research. If questionnaires
were distributed to each individual who participated in the research, interviews were made in
groups. Students worked in groups and discussed the given interview questions. The group
leader spoke on behalf of the group members and presented their ideas. Sensitive questions
that may not receive the frank answers from students were avoided in the interview such as
whether students liked the group work or not, how they felt about the group work activities –
interesting or boring, how they participated in the group work – actively or passively as with
such questions, it was likely that only positive answers were demonstrated. The interview
mainly focused on eliciting students’ evaluation on the group work activities such as what
benefits they gained from group work, what difficulties they faced while working in groups
with other members and finally what they expected the group work activities to be conducted.
As students’ language level was limited, Vietnamese language was used in the interviews.
Students using their mother language felt more confident and comfortable to express their
viewpoints. In addition, using Vietnamese could avoid the ambiguity and confusion of
students when expressing ideas.
The use of three different research methods to collect data helped the researcher gather a

were more enthusiastic and active in group working. With regard to the interaction, similarly
to some first weeks, students also demonstrated limited interaction. However, it was noticed
that in groups where the group leader worked effectively in controlling and actively inviting
their partners to speak, the interaction was much improved. Furthermore, the teacher also
stayed close to each group and reminded the quiet students to raise their voice, which could
also enhance the interaction. Observation also showed that the lack of participation and
interaction was often found in students of low language level or students with introvert
personality. It was also found out that the interaction also varied according to the grouping
techniques. From week 3 to 9, when students were randomly selected (often students sitting
in the same table) and students self-selected partners to work with, the interaction was better.
On the contrary, in week 10 and 11 when group partners were assigned by the teacher, the
interaction was not as good. This was probably because when students worked with the
partners that they knew well or they liked, they would interact more with each other than

Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

Tổ Ngoại ngữ


Sở Giáo dục & Đào tạo Đồng Nai

11

Trường THPT Tân Phú

when working with those they did not know well. Participation and interaction, accordingly,
depended largely on the grouping technique and students’ language level, together with the
control of a group leader or the teacher.
With regard to the findings from questionnaire and interview about students’ participation and
interaction, from questions 3 to 8 in the questionnaire would reflect this. When asked how


12

Vietnamese to brainstorm ideas first and then trying to find ways to express these ideas in
English.
In short, findings from three data sources showed that students’ participation and interaction
in the group work activities were fairly good and experienced an improvement after time.
Group work, accordingly, can be said to help improve students’ participation and interaction
in speaking lessons. However, the participation and interaction varied from week to week
basing on different factors such as grouping techniques, speaking topics, students’ language
level, the control of group work activities from group leaders or teachers and partly on
students’ personality.
2. Students’ attitudes towards the group work activities
The second aspect of this research was findings about students’ attitudes towards the use of
group work in teaching speaking.
It was found out from the class observation that students had the tendency to show their
interest and enthusiasm in speaking activities towards the end of the innovation. The level of
interest of students was also not equal after each week and might vary according to different
factors. For example, in week 9 of the innovation, the topic of the speaking was about
technology, which was considered a difficult and unappealing topic. In the speaking lesson of
week 11, the group work was organized following the teacher’s assigning group members.
Thus, the level of interest of students in the lesson as well as in the group activities was quite
low. However, in week 8, when students were assigned to talk about education, they had
more ideas, vocabulary and also interest in such familiar topics. In this week, they were also
allowed to choose their own partners; thus, it was observed that they showed high level of
interest. Week 6 also experienced students’ high level of enthusiasm and enjoyment when
their group activity was the role-play. They acted in different role to organize a party for the
whole class. This group work activity brought much interest and involvement to students.

Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

mainly chatted or spoke Vietnamese all the time. They also complained that when they have
to work with better students, they did not have many chances to speak much. However, in the
interview, when teachers raised questions of the possible problems during group working,
students also admitted that these abovementioned problems could occur. However, if the
group leader and the teacher had good control of how the members in groups worked and
invited group members to speak equally, these problems could possibly be solved.

Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

Tổ Ngoại ngữ


Sở Giáo dục & Đào tạo Đồng Nai

Trường THPT Tân Phú

14

In a word, it was concluded that the attitudes of students’ towards the use of group work in
speaking lessons were overall positive. Students showed their preferences of the use of group
work over the use of the traditional teaching methods. However, it is worth noticing that the
interest of students in the group work activities, similar to the participation and interaction,
depends largely on some factors such as the topics of speaking, the grouping techniques, the
activities used in group work, etc.
3. Quality of the group work activities
The quality of the group work activities was also judged basing on data from the observation,
questionnaires and interview. It was noticed that group work activities were conducted with
certain success. First of all, group activities used in speaking lessons were diversified,
ranging from group discussion, debate to role-play. The group work, in general, received
good control from the teacher and also the group leader, which assisted the group members

students’ hobbies to decide. Often it took quite much time for the teacher to ask for students’
personal information. Spending too much time on grouping meant that time for the main
activities in the lessons were shortened. Therefore, there should be a more appropriate way in
grouping students that could save more time. The second problem existed in the speaking
lessons was the topics used for group work. Some of the topics were attention-catching and
familiar to students, which could raise their interest and participation in the group work.
However, some other topics were out of date and unfamiliar to students, which resulted in
their low interest and involvement. The topics, however, were all taken from the course book
and could not be changed; therefore, the teacher was supposed to think of ways to make use
of interesting topics and assist students in dealing with unfamiliar and difficult topics.
IV.

DISCUSSION

Data was collected from three different sources, which aimed to answer the two research
questions namely what the effects of group work activities on students’ speaking skills at
grade 10 in Tan Phu high school are and what the most appropriate ways to conduct the group
work activities in this context are.
Findings from three data collection instruments pointed out that in general, the use of group
work in teaching speaking to students of grade 10 was beneficial in different aspects.
Firstly, it was reported that the participation of students in speaking lessons was increased
considerably. If students used to sit quietly, wait for teachers to raise questions and wait for
their turn to be invited to speak (many even did not have a single chance to raise their voice
during the lessons), now with group work activities, students could almost participate equally
in the lessons. The chance of raising voices increased to a great extent. The findings were

Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

Tổ Ngoại ngữ


previous teaching method. Last but not least, they were provided with chances to raise their
voice during the lessons.

Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

Tổ Ngoại ngữ


Sở Giáo dục & Đào tạo Đồng Nai

17

Trường THPT Tân Phú

Obviously, it cannot be denied that the extent to which students’ participation, interaction and
interest as well as other effects from group work were not always the same in every lesson.
These benefits were developed depending largely on a variety of factors such as the grouping
techniques, group work activities, students’ language level, topics used for speaking and
finally students’ personality or habit. It is suggested that teacher should consider these factors
carefully before implementing the group work activities in order to obtain best results. For
example, it was found out in the study that different grouping techniques had unlike impact
on students’ performance. The most preferable technique was probably students’ selfgrouping, in which students could choose their own partners. However, sometimes conflicts
might occur when students could not decide who to work with on their own. Thus, when
assigning students with the right to choose the group members, the teacher should anticipate
some possible problems and prepare to interfere when necessary. Another example, students’
language level was also an important factor that worth considering when implementing group
work activities. There were often two ways of grouping basing on students’ level, which were
students of similar level working together and students of mixed-ability. As students
suggested from the interview, when students of the same level working together, it was easy
for the group with high language level; however, for the group with all members of lower

helped the coding and analyzing of data more easily. However, as the researcher also
functioned as the researcher, who had to deliver the lesson together with doing the notetaking during the lessons, the workload was fairly much for one person. The teacher
sometimes concentrated too much on giving lessons that the note-taking in the observation
checklist was not fully filled. If implemented again, it is suggested that the researcher can ask
for help from other teacher in the school to do the observation. Observation from an outsider,
to some extent, can reflect an objective viewpoint towards the lessons’ evaluation.
With regards to the use of interview and questionnaire, it was clear that data from these two
sources of data were detailed and plentiful. It reflected the perspectives of students about the
use of group work in speaking lessons. Findings from the questionnaire and interviews were
double-checked with that from the observation, which reflected the different aspects of the
group work activities use from two different angles, the viewpoints of the teachers and those
of the students. However, as the subjects of the questionnaire and interview were students
participating in this research, some contents were inevitably overlapped. It is suggested that
either questionnaire or interview should be used to gather information from the students.
Instead, diaries or journals can be selected as the third source of data. At that time, the
observation will be conducted by another teacher in the school, data from which will reflect

Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

Tổ Ngoại ngữ


Sở Giáo dục & Đào tạo Đồng Nai

19

Trường THPT Tân Phú

the perspective of an independent observer. On the contrary, diary and journal will be written
by the teacher herself, finding from which will show the perspectives of an insider.

Tổ Ngoại ngữ


Sở Giáo dục & Đào tạo Đồng Nai

20

Trường THPT Tân Phú

REFERENCES
Boonkit, K. (2010). Enhancing the Development of Speaking Skills for Nnon-native Speakers
of English.Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2. 1305-1309.
Hilmi, H. & Lu, E. T. (2010).Teaching speaking skill through group work activities: A case
study in SMK Jayamore. FakultiPendidikan. University Teknologi Malaysia.
Hinchey, H. P. (2008). “Action research primer”.New York, NY 10006: Peter Lang
Publishing, Inc.
I-Jung, C. (2004).Utilizing Group Work Effectively in English Language Classroom.TESL
Reporter, 37(1), 1-7.
Jiang, Y. (2009). Applying Group Work to Improve College Students’ Oral
English.International Education Study, 2(3).
Le, H. M. L (2008).A study on improving speaking skill of the 1st year students of preintermediate level at FPT University through group work.ULIS.
Meng, F. (2009). Encourage learners in the large class to speak English in group work.
English Language Teaching, 3, 219-224.
Nunan , D. (1991). Language Teaching Methodology, UK: prentice-hall International.
Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rde.d.). Thousand Oaks,
CA: SAGE Publications.
Temerová, L. (2007). How to improve students’ communicative skills.Bachelor
Thesis.Retrieved March 22nd, 2014 at
http://is.muni.cz/th/104306/pedf_b/HOW_TO_IMPROVE_STUDENTS_COMMUNICAT
IVE_SKILLS.doc

C. Encouraged
D. Confident

Others (please specify): ________________________
3.
A.
4.
A.
5.
A.
6.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
7.
A.
B.
C.
D.
8.
A.
B.
C.
9.

How often do you speak in groups?
Rarely B. Sometimes
C. Very often

Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

Tổ Ngoại ngữ


Sở Giáo dục & Đào tạo Đồng Nai

Trường THPT Tân Phú

22

APPENDIX B
OBSERVATION
Teacher’s name: ……………..

Observation date: …………….

Number of participants: ……..

Class: …………………………

Observation sheet:
Grouping techniques:
Group

Group

Group

Group


Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

Tổ Ngoại ngữ

6

7


Sở Giáo dục & Đào tạo Đồng Nai

23

Trường THPT Tân Phú

a. evaluation of the topic
b. evaluation of the activities
c. evaluation of the grouping
technique
Overall comments:
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________

Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

Tổ Ngoại ngữ


2.

How effectively do you think the group work activities are carried out?

We work in different groups each week and some groups are effective, some are not really.
When the topics are interesting and we have ideas to talk, we talk and discuss very much.
Sometimes the topics are boring and we don’t have much vocabulary, for example, talking
about history, we mainly speak Vietnamese, or talk off the topic. The teacher has to ask us to
concentrate.
3.

How do you and your group members participate in the group work activities?

Everybody is very attentive and work effectively. In most groups, everybody has to talk. Often
we take turn to raise our voice. Sometimes if anyone is lack of ideas or vocabulary, we’ll help
him/her. He can explain his ideas in Vietnamese and we help him to find words to express.
The group leader often works more. He has to invite, encourage others to speak, take notes of
people’ ideas and give presentation in the class; so none of us wants to be a group leader,
hihi.
4.

What benefits can you gain from the group work speaking?

Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

Tổ Ngoại ngữ


Sở Giáo dục & Đào tạo Đồng Nai


sometimes boring and sleepy. We also want to choose our own partners to work with because
we’ll feel more relaxed working with people we know well.
Ah, we like to teacher to give presents to us, for example snacks and candies, when we do the
work well. For example, the teacher can vote or select the best group to give presents.

Giáo viên thực hiện: Đỗ Duy Dương

Tổ Ngoại ngữ