THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT

HAM RONG HIGH SCHOOL
-----TEACHING INITIATIVE

TECHNIQUES FOR ORGANIZING
COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES
IN PAIR WORK AND GROUP WORK
FOR STUDENTS OF GRADE 10 AT HAM RONG
HIGH SCHOOL
(Những thủ thuật tổ chức các hoạt động giao tiếp theo cặp, nhóm
cho học sinh lớp 10 trường THPT Hàm Rồng )

Conductor: Luu Thi Thanh Tu
Teacher of English
Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

THANH HOA, 2019

BOOK MAP


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the 10 grade students at Ham Rong High School?
2.4.2. What are useful techniques of pair work and group work to the 10 grade

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students in learning speaking English?
2.4.3. The use of suggested activities at Ham Rong High School
3. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
3.1. Conclusions
3.2. Limitations of the study
3.3. Suggestions for further research
REFERENCES:


1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
In Vietnam, English is taught not only at all colleges and universities, but also almost
every high school and it is considered as a compulsory subject at secondary school. To meet
the demand of learners, the teaching English in Vietnam has been changing. By applying
various new approaches, methods, and techniques, English teaching has shift from the
traditional grammar translation approach to the communicative approach. According to
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), the purpose of language teaching and learning
is to develop communicative competence in the target language.
In learner-centered approach, the choice of teaching methods are often more
complicated than the construction of many teaching objectives. Some authors suggest that

teachers can make use of various techniques and a number of things should be done.
However, within the framework of a teaching experience, the author only intends to draw a
brief overview of how are the pair work and group work used at Ham Rong High School.
Also, due to the time constraints, this study only involves a small number of English
teachers and students at Ham Rong School.
1.4. Methods of the study:
In order to find out the answers to the research questions, both quantitative and
qualitative methods were employed to carry out the study. The data were collected by means
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of questionnaires and interviews for English teachers and the the 10 grade students at Ham
Rong High School.
Besides that, reviewing the related documents from many published books written by
different authors and collecting information from others previous studies are methods to
establish the theoretical background of the study.
1.5. Significance of the study:
This study is hoped to be used to both teachers and the 10 grade students at Ham
Rong High School. This study has been able to contribute to teachers’ knowledge of
communicative language teaching, communicative activities in general and pair work,
group work in particular. Besides that, from the finding of the study, teachers can be
provided with important information which may be valuable for their future lesson
planning. On the other hand, the teachers’ transformation in pair work and group work
implementation will be beneficial to the students.
2. CONTENTS OF THE TEACHING INITIATIVE
2.1. Theoretical Background
* Interactions in speaking classes
- Definition of Classroom Interaction
Classroom interaction involves two main aspects, which are the negotiation of
meaning and feedback, if these two elements are not available in the classroom, then we

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- Definition of group work
Doff (1988: 137) also defines group work as a process that “the teacher divides the
class into small groups to work together usually four or five students in each group, as in
pair work, all the groups work at the same time”.
Like pair work, group work also gives students more opportunities to practice the
target language in the whole class. In addition, students can work independently and freely
under the teacher’s control without the pressure of the whole class watching what they are
doing.
- Advantages of pair work and group work
Pair work and group work gives the students far more chances to speak English in
the classroom. According to Michael Long and his colleagues (1985) who investigated
differences in the quantity and quality of student language in group work versus teacher
centered activities the language produced by students working in groups is more varied and
greater in quantity. Learners take the initiative to express themselves, they are more
spontaneous. Asking questions and responding they use more language functions.
(Lightbown and Spada, 1993:85)
Working in pairs and groups is less stressful and more effective for students,
especially introverts who needn't perform in the front of the whole class. They feel more
confident working with the friend they like and are more likely to accept his/her correction
or criticism. There are always more and less gifted pupils in the process of language
learning and these methods prevent them from not being laughed at by the whole class if
they say something wrong. "It is generally easier to show that you do not know, or do not
understand something, in a smaller group than in a large one”. (Norman, Levihn and
Hedenquist, 1986:8)
- Some common activities for pair work and group work
There are a variety of activities which can be applied in communicative English
classes through the use of pair work and group work. Some common activities are:

Our current material of teaching English is the text-book Tieng Anh 10, 11, 12 by
Education Publishing House. This text-book is divided into sixteen units, each of them has
been divided into five parts in which “listening and speaking” part aims at providing
students the different topics and structures through listening and reading and requires them
to practice speaking skills. In each semester, students have to learn English in 3 periods per
week.
It can be seen that communication is the goal of English language learning. Its
purpose is to help students develop their communicative competence. This makes teaching
and learning to improve students’ speaking skills to be an important part in any English
course. Like in many other schools, English teachers at Ham Rong High School find out the
benefits of using pair and group work and spend much time to apply these techniques to
develop students’ speaking skills. However, we have some problems such as: large classes;
noises; lazy and passive students. The major concerns of this research are find out the useful
techniques for organizing pair work and group work to help teachers and students in
teaching and learning speaking English.
2.2.2. Methodology
Participants
The subjects of the study are 4 teachers of English who teach English for the grade
10 students of Ham Rong High School. They range from 35 to 45 years of age. The grade
10 students were randomly chosen from over 500 students of 12 classes.
Research instruments
The instruments used to collect data was questionnaire and interview for the teachers
and the students to get information about using pair work, group work in speaking classes.
The first are the questionnaires for the students including 10 questions written in
Vietnamese, was administered to 110 students.
2.2.3. Data analysis
The data of the study was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. As for
quantitative analysis, we used descriptive statistics to quantify the data in form of charts and
figures. The qualitative data were obtained from the interview.
Table 1: Students’ opinions on speaking skill


81,8

20
19
81

18,2
17,3
73,6
4


c. not very interested
d. no interested

10
0

9,1
0

The statistics in table 1 shows the students’ opinions on speaking skill. It can clearly
be seen that most of the students asked (81,8 %) say that speaking is necessary for their
future job and 73,6 % of them are interested in speaking skill while little of them (14,5 %)
says they learn Speaking skill because English is compulsory at their school. Some students
find English really interesting while there are 56 out of 110 students (62,8 %) who want to
learn speaking skill just to communicate. About 18,2% of them stated that English is their
interest. It means that speaking English is so important for most of the students.
Table 2: Students’ opinions on the way to learn speaking skill

answering the teacher’ questions and 40,9% liked listening and taking note . From this, it
can be understood that most of the students see the importance of working in pair and group
for the better speaking skill. This also means that pair work and group work are surely the
most suitable activities for the speaking skill.
The pie chart below shows the students’ opinions on the use of pair work, group work
in speaking class

Not very surprising information from table is that the students (85 %) affirm that the
teachers in their school often use the pair work and group work in the speaking lesson very
often because it is compulsory that the teachers implement this to follow the book activities
planned in the teacher’s book and may be for the students’ future language competence.
This is of great use in helping the students to communicate with each other.
Table 3: Students’ opinions on the impact of pair and group work

Questions
5

Options
a. It increases the students’ speaking
time.
b. It promotes students’ independence
and cooperation.

Numbers of
students

Percent
%

82

As can be seen in Chart 3, all of the students (100%) chose role-playing, games,
information gap, discussing, interviewing and opinion exchange to be their favorite
activities. Problem solving was the choice of 75% of the students. And Drama and projects
received only 10% and 20% of the students respectively.
Table 4: Students’ wishes about the partners in pair and group work
Questions
Numbers
Percent
Options/
of students
%
a. Students of the same English proficiency
35
31,8
level.
b. Students of higher English proficiency
40
36,4
level
c. Students of lower English proficiency
7
10
9,1
level.
d. Students sitting next or near to each other.
13
11,8
e. Students of the same interest.

12

100

45

40,9

34

30,9

8
d. Minimize teacher’s talking time
110
100
e. not to interrupt when students’
67
60,9
talking time
f. Always provide feedback, praise
110
100
One
and encourage the students.
very
g. Others
6
5,4
important thing which helps to improve group work activities is to get the students ideas
about what the teachers should do about that. It is quite clear that all of them (100 %)
wanted their teachers to minimize his/her talking time, to create a competitive atmosphere,

For the benefit of pair and group work activities, 100% of them claimed that pair and
group work were very beneficial and helped students to increase the students’ speaking
time, to promote students’ independence and cooperation, to improves students’ motivation,
to decrease the teacher speaking time and helps shy and passive students have more chance
of expressing themselves and learn from each other. They also gave some more benefits
such as: to creates exciting atmosphere as it lends itself to game-like activities which frees
the teacher from his/her hard role of “an expert who always lectures”, This proved that these
two techniques could increase students’ participation and interest in the class.
2.3. Teachers’ implementation of pair work, group work in current classes as teaching
experience
Regarding the activities the teachers chose for pair and group work, Role playing,
Games, Interview, Information gap, Discussing, Opinion exchange are the most frequently
in which discussing helps to elicit the students’ ideas, background knowledge, role play
helps to make the students understand the nature of English and games help them to do the
group work activities without any pressure and stress. The students may think that they are
playing not just learning. 75 % of the teachers used Projects, problem- solving and only
25% of teachers used drama because they thought that those activities was only suitable for
the high level of English proficiency and took much time to prepare.
Question 7 deals with the way the teacher created the students in pair and group. The
teachers shared with the students the same opinions which didn’t like to group students of
low proficiency. However, they didn’t share the opinions of grouping students sitting next to
or near each other, 100 % of the teachers responded that they always grouped their students
sitting next to or near each other into pairs and groups as they explained that it can save
time, while only few of students likes that. Most of students liked working with the partners
of the same English proficiency level and higher English proficiency level, but only half of
teachers often grouped their students on that way.
Table 7: Things the teachers often do during pair and group work
Number of
Questions
Options

e. not to interrupt when students’
talking time

8


f. Always provide feedback, praise
and encourage the students.
g. Do nothing

4

100

0

0

h. Others
2
50
In this table, question 8 looks into other things the teachers used during group work
activities. The things like giving clear instructions, going round the class and giving help if
necessary, providing vocabulary and functional language and providing feedback, praise
and encourage the students received 100% ideas from the teachers. From the interview, they
said that those activities were helpful to students when working in pairs and groups. Of
course, none of teacher do nothing at the time students working. Half of them chose
minimize teacher’s talking time and not to interrupt when students’ talking time. Some
others ideas are standing in front of the class and observe or remaining in the teacher’s seat
and observe or sometimes can work in pair or group as a member.

I. AIMS: Training Ss to improve speaking skill.
II. OBJECTIVES: By the end of this lesson, students will be able to work in pairs to ask
and answer about one's daily activities using a timetable or pictures and they can talk about
their daily routines.
III. TEACHING AIDS: textbooks and handouts…
IV. PROCEDURE:
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Stages & Content
A.WARM – UP:
A
B
1. Civic education
a. hóa học
2. Technology
b. Vật lí
3. Maths
c. Tin học
4. Literature
d. văn học
5. Physics
e. Địa lí
6. Biology
f. Giáo dục CD
7. Chemistry
g. giáo dục thể chất
8. Physical education h. Lịch sử
9. Geography
i. Công nghệ

- Introduce briefly what sts are
going to do in this lesson.
- Ask sts about the verb tense
to use in talking about daily
routines.
- Remind sts of some rules of
the present simple tense.
- Recall the way of telling
time.
- Write some more examples
and ask sts to read aloud.
C. WHILE – SPEAKING:
- Ask sts to open their books.
+ Task 1: Quan is a tenth-grade student. He - Introduce the requirement of
goes to school every morning. Now, look at the task.
his weekly timetable ask and answer
- Ask sts to look at the
questions by using the information from the timetable in the textbook and
timetable.
read through it.
T: What time does Quan have a Civic
- Do the first example with a
Education lesson on Monday?
student.
S: He has a Civic Education lesson at
- Ask the whole class to read
7.15a.m
these sentences again.
T: What lesson does Quan have at 7.15 a.m - Ask two pairs to read again.
on Monday?

work. Firstly, pair work and group work activities gave students more opportunities to
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practice speaking English. In other words, students would get more involved in the lesson.
In addition, students could help each other and learn from each other in pairs or in groups. A
large number of students revealed that they preferred working in pairs and groups as they
were able to learn a lot from their partners especially the ones who were at higher level of
proficiency. Therefore, pair work and group work activities could get almost all students in
the class to contribute to the lesson. Their participation in speaking lesson would be
increased.
The research results also showed that most of students were interested in working in
pairs and in groups. This indicated that students’ interest was increased when they took part
in pair work and group work activities. They often felt active and free as they were put in
pairs and groups to work together. They became self-centered in their learning while their
teacher worked as a consultant or a supervisor. Working in pairs and groups, the students
could express their opinions without being afraid of losing their face. Thus, they felt
comfortable in the class. Therefore, their desire to learn the target language would be raised.
However, teachers should try to organize pair work and group work activities more
effective. Teachers should provide the students with necessary vocabulary and clear
instruction. Also, the group size should include from 3 to 5 students who were at different
level of proficiency. Sometimes, teachers could give students a chance to choose their
partners, which might increase their participation and interest in the task given.
2.4.2. What are useful techniques of pair work and group work to the 10 grade
students in learning speaking English?
The first common activity is using games. Games have been shown to have
advantages and effectiveness in learning English in various ways. First, games bring in
relaxation and fun for students, thus help them learn and retain new words and new
structures more easily. Second, games usually involve friendly competition and they keep
learners interested. These create the motivation for learners of English to get involved and

T’s activities
Ss’ activities
A.WARM – UP:
Brainstorming
- Ask sts to close their books. - Individually
What information will tell you about
- Ask them to brainstorm all
work
somebody’s background?
sorts of information which tell
* Answer: family, education,
about somebody’s
experience…
background.
B. PRE – SPEAKING:
Work in pairs and find out the questions
that you can ask when you want to know
about somebody’s background.
Answers
Family:
How many people are there in your
family?
What does your father do?
Education:
Where did you study at high school?
What subjects do you like best?
What degree do you have?
Experience:
How long have you worked as a doctor/
teacher..?

parents?
Brother(s): How many brothers/ sisters
do you have?
Primary school: Which primary school
did you go?
Schoolwork: Were you a member of any
clubs?
Favourite subject: What subject do you
like best?
Thanking: Thank you very much
D. POST – SPEAKING:
+ Task 3:
Tell your classmates about your daily
routine.

E. HOMEWORK:
- Write a paragraph ( about 80 words)
about your daily routines in workbook.
- Prepare the new lesson: LISTENING
- FOR BETTER SS: SEE APPENDIX

- Introduce the task
- Give questions for the
information items
- Ask Ss to draw a form by
themselves.
- Ask Ss to carry out the
interview in pairs.
- Go around the class and
offer help if necessary and to


- Work in
groups
- Think about
theit daily
activities and
talk to their
friends.
- Try to use
English to talk.

- Give homework

- Listen & take
notes

The third activity both of teachers and students of Ham Rong High School choose
are Interview. Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people. It is a
good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of
questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own
interview questions. Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to practice
their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them becoming socialized.
After interviews, each student can present his or her study to the class. Moreover, students
can interview each other and "introduce" his or her partner to the class.
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For example:

Unit 4: SPECIAL EDUCATION

(n) : giờ học
meanings, stress and
- oral test
(n) : kiểm tra miệng
pronunciation.
- Copy down
- semester [si'mestə](n) : học kì
- honest ['onist] (a) : thật thà, thành thật
-Ask ss to choose the best
- break
(n) : giờ ra chơi
questions in Task 1 to fill - Listen.
* Task 1: (page 47)
in the blanks in the
Fill the blanks with the right questions:
conversation below.
- Ask ss to work in pairs,
Key: A - 4
B-1
C-2 D-6
practicing the dialogue.
E–3
F-5
G–7
- Ask some pairs to
practice before class.
- Work in pairs.
- Ask some good ss to
practice the dialogue
without looking at the

secondary
school
Subjects

Batri
Maths, Physics,
History…

- Listen.
- Feedback.
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Timetable
Test and
examinations
Homework
Breaks between
classes
Like/ dislike

In the morning, five
classes.
Oral test, fifteen –
minute tests, forty –
five – minute tests &
final exam.
A lot of homework
Too short


actively when the teachers give them an interesting topic or games. These things are factors
which help to encourage students to use English to communicate with their partner. In
addition, basing on the result of interview, the researcher also finds out that during
information-gap activities, there is an increase in students’ talking time when they are
required to work in pairs or groups.
Discussing and Opinion exchange activities attract the same amount of interest of
most of students at Ham Rong High School, because they can talk freely and actively in
pairs or groups. In these activities, the teacher can form students in pairs or groups. Then
each group works on their topic for a given time period, and presents their opinions to the
class. It is essential that the speaking should be equally divided among group members. At
the end, the class decides on the winning group who defended the idea in the best way. This
activity fosters critical thinking and quick decision making, and students learn how to
express and justify themselves in polite ways while disagreeing with the others. On the
other hand, some teachers show the opinions that these activities can makes noises as game
activity. And if teachers form a large group of 6-7 students or more, the quiet students may
avoid contributing in speaking or students may use mother tongue rather than English.
However, in conclusion, Discussing and Opinion exchange are still the appropriate activities
for students at Ham Rong High School.
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The last three activities which common used in speaking classes are problemsolving, Drama, and Projects. But because of the student’s low level of English proficiency
and time-consuming, both of teachers and the students at Ham Rong High School do not
choose these activities as the most suitable ones.
2.4.3. The use of suggested activities at Ham Rong High School
As stated in the reality of the study, Tieng Anh 10 by Education Publishing House is
used as the course book to teach English. This book is designed to help students developing
all types of communicative skills which includes grammar, vocabulary, reading, listening,
writing and speaking. All of teachers spend one period each unit for teaching speaking. And
because of that time for speaking, the activities as role-play, game, interview, informationgap, discussing, opinion exchange are often organized for students during pair and group

confident, especially with shy and weak students as they were given time to prepare, to
check mistakes with friends before speaking. Secondly, students also have more chance to
speak English, to get closer to their friends and they can learn each other. Pair and group
work helped them to be more independent from their teacher, so their motivation of learning
was increased. This is really the better way compared with the way they learnt from their
teacher. The teachers also had some advantages from this. The first is the teacher freed
herself/ himself from being “an expert who always lectures”. The teacher had more time for
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each small group to get closer to the students. Therefore, the students’ mistakes were
corrected and their weaknesses were limited too.
Because of many advantages, both the teachers and the students confirmed the
frequency of the use of these two techniques in their English classes. They shared the same
opinions on the way of organizing and managing pair work and group work. Some most
favorite activities teachers and students often use in pair work and group work are Games,
Role - play, Discussing, Interview, Information gap… For the main aim of this research, the
author found out that the learning speaking English of students was improved after the 1 st
semester of learning through pair and group work. To be specific, the students felt more
confident, comfortable and relaxed in working in pairs and in small groups. Besides,
working in pairs or in groups, the interaction between students were better as they could
discuss freely, and learn from each other as well . Therefore, their desire to learn and their
interest in the lesson were really increased.
However, there were some factors which needed considering when pair work and
group work activities took place. First of all, before asking students to work in pairs and in
groups, teachers should have given clear instructions, and provided students with necessary
vocabulary. Moreover, to get the whole class involved in the lesson, the teacher should have
moved around the class and helped the students if necessary. Also, if the teacher had praised
students properly, they would have worked more effectively. In addition, the way of
grouping students should be suitable for the task given and might encourage students to


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1.
2.
3.
4.

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the speaking class of 1st year students at Hanoi Open University, Faculty of Tourism.
5. Ellis, R. & Fotos, S. (1999). Learning a Second Language through interation .
Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. Hammer, J. (1991). The Practice of English Language Teaching New York:
Longman Publishing.
7. Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford:
Oxford University Press
8. Hymes, D. (1972). On Communicative Competence. Harmondsworth: penguin
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language. The Internet TESL Journal, 12 (11). Retrieved April 20,2011from
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