VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐINH THỊ THÚY

USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO REDUCE
STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ANXIETY- AN ACTION
RESEARCH

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của học sinh trong giờ học nói

M.A. MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 601410


HANOI - 2012
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐINH THỊ THÚY

USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO REDUCE
STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ANXIETY- AN ACTION
RESEARCH

1.1.2 Elements of speaking skills .................................................................. 6
1.2 Group work in a speaking lesson .................................................................... 7
1.2.1 Definition and description of group work ............................................. 7
1.2.2 Advantages and disadvantages of group work ...................................... 7
1.2.3 Teacher‟s role in carrying out group work ............................................ 9
1.3 Definitions of anxiety in Speaking English in classroom (SEC) .................... 9
1.3.1 Definitions of anxiety .......................................................................... 9
1.3.2 Anxiety in second language (L2) and in SEC ....................................... 9
1.4 Main factors causing students’ anxiety in SEC ............................................ 10
1.5 Effects of anxiety on students of SEC ........................................................... 10
1.6 Teacher’s role to students’ anxiety in SEC................................................... 11
1.7 Teaching techniques to reduce students anxiety in SEC .............................. 11

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2 Practical grouping strategies ............................................................................ 12
2.1 Group formation ................................................................................... 12
2.1.1 Random grouping .................................................................... 12
2.1.2 Student- selected grouping ...................................................... 13
2.1.3 Teacher- formed grouping ....................................................... 13
2.2 Procedures of group work .................................................................... 14
2.3 Common oral activities for group work ................................................. 15
2.3.1 Opening- circle discussion ...................................................... 15
2.3.2 Role play ................................................................................ 15
2.3.3 Information Gap Activity (IGA) ............................................. 15
2.3.4 Problem- solving .................................................................... 16
2.3.5 Other picture card activities .................................................... 16
2.4 Problems and solutions in using class group work ................................. 17
3. Summary ......................................................................................................... 19

3.4 Discussion ....................................................................................................... 34
3.5 Summary ....................................................................................................... .36
PART C: CONCLUSION ................................................................................... 38
1. Summary of main findings................................................................................. 38
2 Limitation and recommendation for further research .......................................... 40
REFERENCES
APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1:

QUESTIONNAIRE 1

APPENDIX 2:

QUESTIONNAIRE 2

Appendix 3:

LESSON PLANS FOR 3 SPEAKING GROUP-WORK
ACTIVITIES OF THE STUDY

Appendix 4:

The description of the second lesson during the intervention:

Task 2- Unit 13: FILMS AND CINEMA –(English 10), page 134

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LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS


MAM

Making a mistake

BCM

Being corrected mistakes as soon as they are made

BAS

Being asked to speak without preparation

ADT

A difficult topic

SFW

Speaking in front of the whole class

AO

Another one

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale of the study

by the teacher to acquire skills in the four language art skills, namely: speaking,

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listening, writing, and reading. Of the four skills mentioned above, speaking is the
skills secondary school students need great support.
Recently, teachers in my school have introduced activities through which
they can help students go beyond the mastery of structures to the points and use
them to communicate more meaningfully in real situations. Also, group work
approach has also been applied in all kinds of lessons and has shown its
effectiveness. It is said that using group work is one of good ways to motivate
students in learning English. By grouping students, teachers enables students to help
one another study. Using group work has many advantages such as more language
practice in classroom, more purposeful communication, more students‟ involvement
and motivation, more chances for students to help each other, more chances for
students to foster responsibility, autonomy and independence. (Underwood, 1987;
Hyland, 1991; Ur, 1996)
Therefore, simply putting students together in a group is no guarantee that it
is beneficial. Without careful planning and facilitation, group work can frustrate
students and instructors and will be a waste of time.
In DHHS during the group work there, the better students contribute a lot
whereas some weaker ones become passive. I realized that there were much more
students who were anxious than those confident in speaking English in class.
Moreover, the anxious students have differently certain manifestations, for example
giving frequent communicative feedback such as (uh- huh) and playing with the
hair, clothes, or other manipulability objects. It seemed that studying on students‟
anxiety was really meaningfully important. As we all see “Anxiety is the rust of life,
destroying its brightness and weakening its power.” --- said by Tyron Edwards, a
famous American theologian of “New Dictionary of Thoughts”.

speaking anxiety. On the basis of the analysis of the factors the students, who were
in one grade-10th form, stated, the researcher experiemented with some
interventions to address the problem.

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IV. Methods of the study
- A quantitative method was used in this study with the questionnaire being
used as the only instrument of data collection. To be more specific, a pre-action
questionnaire and a post-action questionnaire were employed.
V. Design of the study
The thesis consists of three parts:
Part A – INTRODUCTION- presents the rationale, the aim, scope,
significance, methods, design of the study.
Part B – DEVELOPMENT- consists of three chapters.
Chapter one- Literature Review- deals with the theories related to the study:
speaking skill and its related concepts, concept of students‟ participation, group
works in a speaking lesson. definitions of anxiety in speaking English in classroom
(SEC), main factors causing students‟ anxiety in SEC, teacher‟s role to students‟
anxiety in SEC.
Chapter two- Research methodologies- presents the methodology performed
in the study. It provides information about the participants, the instrumentation.
Data collection and findings are also presented in this chapter.
Chapter three- Results and discussion- discuss the data of the study and
propose discussion for using group work activities to reduce grade ten students‟
anxiety in speaking lessons at Dong Hy High School.
Part C: CONCLUSION- summarizes all the key issues as well as the
limitations of the study and suggestions for further study.


communication.

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According to Harmer (1998: 8) also says that whatever kind of motivation
students have, it is clear that highly motivated students do better than ones without
any motivation at all. Another reason to say speaking is a huge source of motivation
is that it can help students express their ideas naturally and rapidly. In addition,
through speaking students may realize how much language they have mastered and
how they have used it. From that, they will study harder to improve their language
competence.
Thirdly, thanks to students speaking, teacher can get feedback from students
fast and exactly. Through students‟ speaking activities in class and outside class, the
teacher can know how much students understand the lesson, Therefore, she can
know what their weak and strong points are in language to have suitable solutions
and plans.
In conclusion, speaking skill plays a significant in teaching and learning a
foreign language. That is the reason why speaking skill should be taught and
practiced in the language classroom..
1.1.2 Elements of speaking skills
Harmer (1999:269-270), presents three elements for oral production as the
following:
Connected speed: effective speakers of English need to be able not only to
produce the individual phonemes of English but also to use fluent “connected
speed”. In connected speed, sounds are modified (assimilation), omitted (elision),
added (linking), and weakened (through contractions and stress patterning)
Expressive devices: The use of these devices contributes to the ability to
convey meanings. They allow the extra expression of emotion and intensity.
Students should be able to deploy at least some of such suprasegmental features and

points of view. They participate more confident and in most cases, they feel free to
experiment and use the language.
1.2.2 Advantages and disadvantages of group work
Using group work in teaching and learning languages has some advantages
as follows:

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To promote interaction among students themselves, teachers of large classes
agree that a good first step is to create smaller groups. Some students are reluctant
to participate in a class of 50 will be ready to interact if the group size reduces to six
or eight. In spite of the fact that teacher has to invest much time and energy in
preparing teaching materials, this technique is likely to bring a positive effect on
teaching and learning process. The strong evidence is that, if teacher‟s talk in
traditional language classes is dominant and each student might get a few second of
class period to talk, then in group work students have greater opportunities to talk,
to practice in negotiation of meaning, to extend conversational exchanges, in
general, to develop communicative competence which is the goal of CLT. That is
the reason why group work is selected among other techniques for increasing
students‟ participation in communicative activities in large classes.
Group work has some disadvantages. Below are their common problems:
Brown (1994:106) foresawsome problems when group work is conducted,
such as: the teacher is no longer in control of the class; students will use their
mother tongue; students‟ errors will be reinforced in small group; teachers cannot
monitor all groups at once; and some learners may prefer to work alone. However,
according to Brown, group work can be conducted successfully if an appropriate
task is selected. Typical group work tasks include: games, role-play and simulation,
drama, project, interview brainstorming, information gap, jig saw, problems
solving, decision making, and opinion exchange. These activities will be more

English, “anxiety is troubled state of mind; worry”. Additionally, Longman
dictionary of Contemporary English defines anxiety as „the feeling of being very
worried about something” (http:// www. Ldoceonline.com/ dictionary/ anxiety) this
definition is also quite broad. Moreover, as defined by Oxford Dictionary, anxiety is
“a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain
outcome” (http://oxforddictionarries.com/?attempted= true). The third one gives a
specific and easy to understand definition of anxiety.
1.3.2 Anxiety in second language (L2) and in SEC
At first, Citing Horwitz et al., ElKhafaifi (2005: 207) defined L2 anxiety as
a „a distinct complex of self- perceptions, beliefs, feelings and behaviors related to
classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning
process”. What is more, Tanveer, M. (2007:11) found the centre of L2 anxiety was

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anxiety (feelings of tension or nervousness) in speaking and listening. That means
studying on reducing students‟ anxiety in SEC is a great idea.
Though there is no definition of anxiety in SEC found, though ones of L2
anxiety, anxiety in SEC can be understood as a felling of worry, nervousness, or
unease in SEC.
1.4 Main factors causing students’ anxiety in SEC
According to Horwitz et al. (1986: 128, cited by Tan veer, M. (2007:11),
“communication apprehension is a type of shyness characterized by fear or anxiety
about communicating with people‟, “test anxiety refers to a type of performance
anxiety stemming from a fear of failure”, and fear of negative evaluation was
defined as “apprehension about other‟ evaluations, avoidance of evaluative
situations, and the expectation that others would evaluate oneself negatively.”
Furthermore, this great author gave more details about these definitions and relation
between them as well. Accordingly, firstly, troubles in speaking the language in

1.6 Teacher’s role to students’ anxiety in SEC
Kurihara, N. (2006) revealed that “teacher attitudes in EFL classroom effect
student attitudes in the classroom, and teachers play an important role to change
students‟ attitudes and behavior to be more motivated”.
Moreover, Tanveer M. (2007:71) stated in his recommendation that if
students were provided friendly, informal and learning- supportive environments,
they would be active in speaking English and these environments could be done by
teachers friendly, helpful and co- operative behavior, making students feel
comfortable when speaking in the class. Indeed, these are very meaningful
conclusion and recommendation.
1.7 Teaching techniques to reduce students anxiety in SEC
One study which was conducted by Worde (2003) suggests many meaningful
measures as following:
- create a low stress, friendly and supportive learning environment;
- foster a proactive role on the part of the students themselves to create an
atmosphere of group solidarity and support;
- be sensitive to students‟ fears and insecurities and help them to confront
those fears;

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- use gentle or non-threatening methods of error correction and offer words
of encouragement;
- make judicious use of purposeful group work or collaborative activities;
- use relevant and interesting topics for class discussions and exercises;
- consider ways to layer and reinforce the material in an attempt to aid
acquisition and retention;
- give written directions for homework assignments;
- speak more slowly or consider using English to clarify key points or give

they have to use a language over which they have limited control. When engaging
in group work, learners feel more comfortable taking risks, making mistakes, and
enjoying themselves while using the target language among friends.
2.1.3 Teacher-formed grouping
Teacher-formed grouping is acknowledged by most teachers as requiring the
most amount of careful planning. When forming groups teachers take into account
students‟ prior achievements, level of preparation, work habits, learning
preferences… and so forth. Teacher- selected groups usually aim to achieve a
heterogeneous mix. Such a mix promotes peer tutoring, helps to break down
barriers among different types of students, and encourages on- task behavior.

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Table 2.2 Procedures of group work
STAGE
Preparation

EXPLANATION

Planning

The teacher maps out the specific objectives of the

stage

lesson, the task used

In the


to achieve the task, the teacher monitors, strolls
around the class and gives helps when necessary

Reporting

Group representatives report their group product to

stage

the whole class

Post

GW The teacher assigns a related task to reinforce learning

stage

and self- evaluates what have been done in the group
work

Ending stage

The teacher assesses the work of groups, corrects
errors, makes amendments to future group work.

(Ngoh, 2001:22; Brown, 1994: 183, Cross, 1991: 50)

2.3. Common oral activities for group work
2.3.1 Opening-circle discussion:
Students work in small group, do tasks or discuss certain topics, then the

provided in the materials;
Step 2: Exchanging ideas and information, students work with follow
partners, share the knowledge and information they have just perceived, try their

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best to make themselves comprehensible to the partners and they then have further
discussion on them.

2.3.4 Problem –solving
According to Burne (1990: 58) (Cited in English Now- The magazine of
Vietnam‟s English Teacher and trainer net work- Issue 11- Winter 2005) problemsolving has been used to group together a wide range of activities that require
students to find “solutions” to problems of different kinds.
Many of these problems involve processes that we commonly use in real life
as follows: We frequently hypothesize links between two things (events, actions,
people, etc). We detect differences (real or imaginary).We grade things according to
criteria (subjective or objective) Clearly, problem solving is believed to be
necessary and suited to students of all levels.
2.3.5 Picture card activities
The use of the picture cards inevitably involves the use of group work.
Below are some among the activities that are useful for group work:
Kim’s Game: the students in groups look at the items on the table for about
thirty second. Next, the items are covered with a cloth and the groups have to
describe and locate the items. Then the group leaders report to the class what the
group had discussed
What is my line: The students in groups have to ask questions of another
member within a limited time span and discover his /her occupation
Twenty questions: One student is asked to write the name of an object or
select a picture of an object and place it face downwards. The others have to

response to experiences in past courses. Then outline how
the tasks are different.

2. Student talks too Teacher should explain privately that while you are pleased
much or dominates he or she has a lot to contribute, you would be like other
the group

learners to have more opportunity to think for themselves.

3, Students talk too Teacher should speak to the student privately to determine
little

or

are the reason for lack of participation,

“freeloading”

Teacher should remind students that the content of the group
work will be tested on a quiz or test. The teacher could
design a test question in which students must summarize
their group‟s results.

4, Students are not Teacher can gives comment on the issue in the general class
listening to fellow setting and then tell students that in the plenary session. The
group members.

teacher should call a time out, and restructure the activity so
that all students must connect what they say to what the
previous person just said.

relating to the ways to reduce the anxiety. These are really meaningful to the present
research. Although a lot of measures were recommended, it seem that no researcher
did an experiment on a teaching plot which aimed to use of group work to reduce
students‟ anxiety in speaking lessons. The current researcher is keen on
supplementing this point.
3. Summary
In summary, this chapter is the review of the principal theoretical basis for
the study. The definitions of implementing group work have been introduced with
its possible benefits and challenges facing teachers. In order to be effective, the size,
duration, and composition of the group work must match the task. In addition, the
group work activity must be carefully planned and communicated to the students.
Group must be properly directed and supervised during learning activities. The
main stages in implementing group work activities in language class are presented
in this chapter. In addition, teachers play a vital role in the successful

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