VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Department of Post-graduate Studies

BUI THI BICH LIEN

AN INVESTIGATION ON DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY THE
TEACHERS AND THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT NAM TIEN HAI HIGH
SCHOOL IN IMPLEMENTING PAIR WORK AND GROUP WORK IN
SPEAKING LESSONS

NGHIÊN CỨU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN MÀ GIÁO VIÊN VÀ HỌC SINH KHỐI
MƯỜI TRƯỜNG THPT NAM TIỀN HẢI GẶP PHẢI KHI TRIỂN KHAI CÁC
HOẠT ĐÔNG THEO CẶP VÀ NHÓM TRONG GIỜ HỌC NÓI.

M.A. Thesis

Field

: English Teaching Methodology

Code

: 601410

Supervisor : Tran Hien Lan, M.A.


iii

TABLE OF CONTENT

1. Communicative language teaching

4

1.1. What is CLT?

4

1.2. Features of CLT

4

1.3. Communicative techniques and activities

6

2. Speaking skill
2.1. What is speaking

7

2.2. What are the characteristics of speaking

7

3. Pair work and group work
3.1. What is the definition of pair work and group work

8



14

3.4.4. Feedback

14

3.5. What are the good points and bad points of using pair work and group work


iv
3.5.1. The good points

14

3.5.2. The bad points

15

3.6. The roles of the teachers and the students in pair work and groups work
3.6.1. The role of the learners

17

3.6.2. The role of the teachers

17

Summary



2.3.3. The interviews

21

CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
1. The questionnaire for the teachers.................................................................................. 22
1.1. The teachers’ attitude towards using pair work and group work ................................ 22
1.2. The procedure of implementing pair work and group work ....................................... 23
1.3. The difficulties in implementing pair work and group work ...................................... 25
2. The questionnaire for the students.................................................................................. 29
2.1. The students’ attitude towards working in pair or in group ........................................ 29
2.2. The students’ preferable ways of implementing pair work and group work ............... 31
2.3. The difficulties encountered by the students in working in pair or in group ............... 33
CONCLUSION
1. Summary of the study ............................................................................................ 35
2. Recommendations.................................................................................................. 36
3. Limitations ............................................................................................................ 42
4. Suggestion for further study ................................................................................... 42


1

INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Nowadays, English is very important in all fields such as trade, tourist, science,
technology and etc.... Therefore, the proficiency in English is not measured based on the
knowledge of grammar but on the abilities to communicate in real life. Speaking skill,
therefore, plays a very important role in the communicative process. According to Bygate
(1995), “it is this very skill that” language learners “are most frequently judged for their

discussing with the colleague and observing the classroom environment will be also used
for this research.
6. Design of the study
The thesis consists of three main parts: Introduction; Development and
Conclusion
In the first part, some brief information about the reasons for choosing the topic,
the method, the aims, the scope as well as the design of the thesis.
The second part is divided into 4 chapters such as literature review, methodology,
data analysis and findings. In chapter I, Literature review, it deals with the basic
theoretical background knowledge from the literature on communicative language
teaching (CLT), speaking skill as well as the knowledge involving pair work and group
work activities. Chapter II presents the methods which are used to carry out the thesis.
Chapter III describes and analyses the data collected from the questionnaires. From the
result of the analysis, the difficulties of implementing pair work and group work in
teaching and learning Speaking skill at Nam Tien Hai High school are found out.
The last part reviews the main content of the entire thesis and gives some
suggestions.


4

DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Communicative language teaching (CLT)
1.1. What is CLT
Communicative language teaching began in Britain in the 1960s as a replacement
to the earlier structural method, called Situational Language Teaching. This was partly in
response to Chomsky's criticisms of structural theories of language and partly based on
the theories of British functional linguistics, such as Firth and Halliday, as well as
American sociolinguists, such as Hymes , Gumperz and Labov and the writings of Austin

knowledge of both formal and sociolinguistic aspects of a language with adequate
proficiency to communicate.
CLT is usually characterized as a broad approach to teaching, rather than as a
teaching method with a clearly defined set of classroom practices. As such, it is most often
defined as a list of general principles or features. One of the most recognized of these lists
is David Nunan’s (1991) five features of CLT:
 An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target
language.
 The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation.
 The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but
also on the Learning Management process.
 An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important
contributing elements to classroom learning.
 An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activities outside
the classroom.
These five features are claimed by practitioners of CLT to show that they are very
interested in the needs and desires of their learners as well as the connection between the
language as it is taught in their class and as it used outside the classroom. Under this broad
umbrella definition, any teaching practice that helps students develop their communicative
competence in an authentic context is deemed an acceptable and beneficial form of
instruction. Thus, in the classroom CLT often takes the form of pair and group work
requiring negotiation and cooperation between learners, fluency-based activities that


6
encourage learners to develop their confidence, role-plays in which students practice and
develop language functions, as well as judicious use of grammar and pronunciation
focused activities.
1.3 Communicative techniques and activities
A communicative activity, which was defined by Littlewood (1981), is those that



Language exchange



Surveys



Pair work



Learning by teaching


7
However, not all courses that utilize the communicative language approach will
restrict their activities solely to these. Some courses will have the students take occasional
grammar quizzes, or prepare at home using non-communicative drills, for instance.
2. Speaking skill
2.1. What is speaking?
Speaking is the productive skill in the oral mode. It, like the other skills, is more
complicated than it seems at first and involves more than just pronouncing words.
According to Bygate (1987: 3), speaking is a skill which deserves attention very bit as
much literacy, in both first and second language.
2.1. What are the characteristics of speaking?
In most cases, speaking is the interaction between at least two people and in that
course of interaction; the listener can give immediate reaction to what is spoken. The

exposed to standard language in textbook, they will find it sometimes very difficult to
understand or to produce words, idioms or phrase of colloquial language.
o Speaking depends much on language’s stress, rhythm and intonation.

This is a very important characteristic of speaking because in speech, different
stress or intonation use can convey different messages. Moreover, each language has their
own pattern of stress, rhythm and intonation, so the learners often find difficult to make
familiar with a strange pattern of stress and intonation from their mother tongue.
o Speaking is interaction process.

This feature is said to be the most difficult one to learners, because in speech,
speakers have to be engaged in process of negotiation of meaning with many discourse
constraints, so they have to do the complex task of choosing what and how to say in what
situation. According to Brown, H. D. ( 1994: 93) “ The greatest difficulties that learners
have in learning to speak is not in multiplicity of sounds, words, phrases and discourse
forms that characterize any language, but rather in the interactive nature of most
communication.”
3. Pair work and Group work
3.1. What is the definition of pair work and group work?
Pair work is a process in which "the teacher divides the whole class in pairs.
Every student works with his or her partner in pairs, and all the pairs work at the same
time (It sometimes called "simultaneous pair work and group work"). This is not the same


9
as "public" or "open" pair work, with pairs of students speaking in turn in front of the
class" (Doff, 1988:137)
There are two main types of pair work: fixed pairs and flexible pairs, given by
Byrne (1983: 85). In the former, students work with the same partner to practice the target
language. In the later, students keep changing their partners they like. This may make the

chances for the students to chat with each other in Vietnamese or do other private things.
Table 2: The effectiveness of working in pairs or in groups at Nam Tien Hai

A. Feel more confident

very much

much

0%

15.7%

Not very
much
83.3%

Not at all
0%