ABSTRACT
Learning language well depends on many factors such as personal characteristics, the
structure of the native and target languages, opportunities for communicating with other
people and with native speakers For students at schools, these factors can only work well
with the help of the teachers using different techniques, and approaches in language
teaching.
In communicative language teaching, students have more chances practicing in the
target language through different classroom activities, among them pair work and group
work appear to be the most appropriate application.
In my school, PHAM VAN NGHI upper secondary school in Y YEN district, NAM
DINH province, pairwork and group work are used widely in foreign language classes.
However, it seems that the using of these activities in the school is not very effective. This
research focuses on pointing out how to organize pair work and groupwork more effectively
after investigating how these activities are used in our school by collecting data through class
observation, and analyzing the questionanaire data .Some evaluation will be drawn and some
suggestions for the future use of these activities will be made.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Candidate’s statement…………………………………………………… …………… i
Acknowledgement……………………………………… …………………………… ii
Abstract………………………………………………… ……………….………… iii
Table of contents………………………………………… …………………………… iv
Appendix……………………………………………………… …………………… vi
List of abbreviations and tables………………………………… …………………… vii
CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT 3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 4
ABSTRACT 5
Part A: INTRODUCTION 8
1. Rationale 8
2. Aims of study 8
3. Scope of the study 8
4. Research questions of the study 9
5. Methods of study 9
6. Design of study 9
Part B: DEVELOPMENT 11
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 11
1.1. Communicative approach to language teaching 11
1.1.1. What is meant by Communication? 11
1.1.2. Communicative Language Teaching 12
1.1.2.1. Nature of Communicative Language Teaching 12
1.1.2.2. The Techniques of Communicative Language Teaching 12
1.2. Definition of pair and group work 13
1.3. Advantages and disadvantages of pair and group work 14
1.3.2. Disadvantages 14
1.4. How to organize pair and group work : 15
1.4.1. Preparation for group work: 15
1.4.2. Steps of organizing pair and group work: 18
1.5. Difficulties in organizing pair and group work and suggested solutions 19
1.5.1. Difficulties : 19
1.5.2. Solution : 19
CHAPTER 2 : PRACTICAL RESEARCH 20
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2.1. Background of the study 20
2.1.1. Description of the English syllabus in PVN school 20
2.1.2. Description of the students at PVN school 21
2.1.3. Description of the teachers at the PVN 22
2.1.4. Description of physical setting 22
2.2. Design and methodology 22
2.2.1. The participants 22
2.2.2. Research instruments 23
2.2.3. Data analysis 23
2.3. Presentation of statistical results 24
2.3.1. Questionnaires 24
2.3.2. Classroom observation 31
2.3.3. Examples of pair and group work 32
CHAPTER 3 : FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS 35
3.1. FINDINGS 35
3.1.1. How did teachers at PVN school organize pairwork and groupwork ? 35
3.1.2. Difficulties from teachers 37
3.1.3. Difficulties from students 37
3.1.3. Objective factors 38
3.2. SUGGESTIONS 38
3.2.1. General suggestions 38
3.2.2. Some suggested exercises in working in pair and group 40
Part C : CONCLUSION 43
1. Summary of the study 43
2. Limitations of the study 43
3. Suggestions for further study 44
REFERENCES 45
APPENDIX 1 : 46
APPENDIX 2 : 50
APPENDIX 3 : 55
APPENDIX 4: 58
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Part A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
English, nowadays, is widely taught from primary school to university, even at
English centers through out the country. People learn English for their work or for their
higher study. However, the results of the English courses are not very good. Vietnamese
teachers of English have not known how to apply the teaching method in effective ways.
They are lack of knowledge, teaching aid, time, and money to teach four language skills:
listening skill, speaking skill, reading skill and writing skill. Like many teachers in the
schools of Vietnam, teachers of English at PVN upper secondary school are faced with a
common problem: students’ poor participation in activities in the classroom. In fact, there are
a variety of reasons for this poor participation, and therefore finding appropriate techniques
and methods for teaching English effectively to students at PVN upper secondary school
requires a long serious research. This led me the choice of the study “organizing pair work
and groupwork in the context of high school classrooms at PVN upper secondary school”
with the hope of investigating into ways to organize pairwork and groupwork more
effectively in English classes. My study only focuses on how to organize pairwork and
groupwork more effectively for students at PVN upper secondary school in NAM DINH.
2. Aims of study
The study is aimed at:
+ Understanding the theoretical background of classroom activities: pairwork and
groupwork to improve students’ language skills.
+ Investigating the use of pair and group work in PVN upper secondary school- a school
located in Y Yen district, Nam Dinh province.
+ Helping teachers at PVN upper secondary school to find out effective technique to
organize pairwork and groupwork with the hope of helping them in teaching English.
3. Scope of the study
To improve four skills for students at PVN upper secondary school, the teachers can
make use of various techniques and a number of things should be done. However, the
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researcher only intends to draw a brief overview of pairwork and groupwork in classes at
PVN upper secondary school and to find out the ways to organize pairwork and groupwork
more effectively.
4. Research questions of the study
This study was aimed to answer the following research questions:
1. How do the teachers in PVN high school use pair and group work? And how often?
2. Is that a suitable way of teaching in PVN school? Why?
3.How to organize pairwork and groupwork in English class more effectively for improving
four skills to students at PVN upper secondary school?
5. Methods of study
To realize the aims of the study, a case study was used.The theoretical background of
the study comes from many published books written by different authors on language
teaching and language acquisition. The data collected for the study came from two sources:
the students and the English teachers at PVN upper secondary school (8 English teachers and
120 students) by making survey questionnaires and observation.
In this research, quantitative method is used, too. All comments, remarks,
recommendations assumption and conclusion provided in the study based on the analysis of
the statistics from the survey questionnaires conducted with students and teachers of PVN
upper secondary school. The study is also based on a qualitative method with the author’s
own experience and observation during 6 years of teaching English.
6. Design of study
This study consists of 3 parts:
Part A: Introduction which presents the rationale, the aims, scope, the method and
design of the study. The research questions are also mentioned in this part.
Part B: Development which consists of 3 chapters:
Chapter 1: Literature Review - reviews the theory about CLT, and pairwork and
groupwork.
Chapter 2: Practical Research –provides an analysis on the current situation of using
pairwork and groupwork in teaching and learning English at PVN upper secondary school.
Data collection and analysis are also presented in this chapter.
Chapter 3: Findings and Suggestions - focuses on how the teachers at PVN upper
secondary school organized pairwork and groupwork and difficulties facing them and their
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students in carrying out these activities and some suggestions for the teachers to organize
pair work and groupwork more effectively.
Part C: Conclusion summarizes all the key issues as well as the limitations of the study
and some suggestions for further study.
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Part B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter briefly covers the theories related to the study : Communicative approach
to language teaching, and pairwork and groupwork in language teaching and learning.
1.1. Communicative approach to language teaching
1.1.1. What is meant by Communication?
In Thompson’s book (2003: 9) “Communication and Language”, he considers that
“Communication is such a well-integrated part of our day- to- day existence that we tend to
take it for granted rarely pausing to consider what it involves or just how important it is to
us”. Before he expressed to his own ideas about communication, he mentioned some of
Fiske’s ideas:
“Communication is one of those human activities that everyone recognizes but few can
definite satisfactorily”
(Fiske 1990:1)
“Communication is too often taken for granted when it should be taken to pieces”
(Fiske 1994:8)
Thompson noticed “I quickly recognized that communication is used in a number of
senses and at a number of levels to indicate the transmission of information or even, as in the
transport networks example, the transmission of goods and people” (Thompson, N.2003:10).
However he completely agreed with Fiske’s ideas that “the most relevant definition
of communication for present purposes is social interaction through messages” (Thompson,
N.2003:10). There are two related aspects that we should consider when talking about
definition of communication is “social” and “interaction”.
According to Dwyer (2000:8), communication is very important in daily life:
“For those working in our changing social and economic environment, effective
communication is as important as it has always been. Now, however, we must grasp the fact
that we are dealing with more layers of communication than ever before. The exchange of
information and ideas becomes more complex daily, as management structures flatten, work
teams emerge and interact with other teams and as globalization requires us to link up with
individuals and organizations at regional, national and international levels. Increasingly
sophisticated technology enables us to achieve a scope and range of communication
unimaginable even 20 years ago”.
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1.1.2. Communicative Language Teaching
1.1.2.1. Nature of Communicative Language Teaching
Communicative Language Teaching means little more than an integration of
grammatical and functional teaching. Littlewood (1981:1) states, “One of the most
characteristic features of communicative language teaching is that it pays systematic
attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language”.
Communicative Language Teaching means using procedures where the learners mainly
work in pairs or groups employing available language resources in problem- solving tasks.
CLT stresses the importance of providing the learners with opportunities to use English for
communicative purposes and attempts to integrate such activities in to a wider program of
language teaching
1.1.2.2. The Techniques of Communicative Language Teaching
The techniques of Communicative Language Teaching are described by features.
Nunan (1991a:279) gives five features to characterize CLT:
+ An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language.
+ The introduction of authentic texts in to the learning situation
+ The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on the
learning process itself.
+ 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 activation outside the
classroom.
According to Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers (1986:170), because
communicative principles can be applied to the teaching of any skill, at any level, and
because of the wide variety of classroom activities and exercise types discussed in the
literature on Communicative Language Teaching, description of typical classroom
procedures used in a lesson based on CLT principle is not feasible. Savignon (1983)
discusses techniques and class management procedures associated with a number of CLT
classroom procedure (e.g., group activities, language games, role plays), but neither these
activities nor the ways in which they are used are exclusive to CLT classrooms.
Johnson and Johnson (1998) offer five core characteristics that underlie current
applications of communicative methodology:
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+ Appropriateness: Language use reflects the situations of its use and must be appropriate to
that situation depending on the setting, the roles of the participants and the purpose of the
communication, for example. Thus learners may need to be able to use formal as well as
casual styles of speaking.
+ Message focus: Learners need to be able to create and understand messages, that is, real
meanings. Hence the focus on information sharing and information transfer in CLT
activities.
+ Psycholinguistic processing: CLT activities seek to engage learners in the use of cognitive
and other processes that are important factors in second language acquisition.
+ Risk taking: Learners are encouraged to make guesses and learn from their errors. By
going beyond what they have been taught, they are encouraged to employ a variety of
communication strategies.
+ Free practice: CLT encourages the use of “holistic practice” involving the simultaneous
use of a variety of sub-skills, rather than practising individual skills one piece at a time
To sum up, Communicative Language Teaching is best considered an approach rather
than a method. It refers to a diverse set of principles that reflect a communicative view of
language and language learning and that can be used to support a wide variety of classroom
procedures.
1.2. Definition of pair and group work
There are many definitions of pairwork and group work :
Students may be organized to do work in pairs or small groups in the classroom. The
advantage of small group work is that it promotes maximum participation from all students.
In a small group situation, ideally all students are involved in both "thinking and
doing."Small group work also promotes cooperative skills, such as listening and
communication skills, problem solving and sharing of tasks.
Research has shown that group work enhances the learning of all group members,
regardless of how skilled or unskilled individual members are.
The small group approach is most commonly used with children through the ages of
12, although it has shown to be beneficial for older children as well.
(Felisa Tibbitts)
According to Adrian Doff (1988 :137), the whole class is divided in to pairs by the
teacher. Every students works with his or her partner in pairs and all the pairs work at the
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same time (It is sometimes called simultaneous pair work). This is not the same as ‘public’
or ‘open’, pairwork, with pairs of students speaking in turn in front of the class. In fact, A
pairwork consists of two students working together at the same time.
Groupwork is a group of students working together. A class can be divided in to small
groups to work together (usually four or five students in each group), as in pairwork, all the
groups work at the same time.
1.3. Advantages and disadvantages of pair and group work
According to Hubert Skrzynski, pair work and group work have both advantages and
disadvantages. These are mentioned below :
1.3.1. The advantages of pairwork and groupwork
1.3.1.1. To increase the amount of student practice : When students work in pairs or
groups they have more chance to practise. Working in pair and group, students often feel more
willing to talk among themselves in a small group than with a teacher in a large group, so that
it dramatically increases the amount of talking for individual students.
1.3.1.2. To increase the learner’s confidence : The students feel much more comfortable to
speak foreign language with one or two other students rather than with the whole class and
the teacher. Especially shy students, or ones who are not good at speaking language yet feel
more relaxed and self- confident trying to put their language abilities to a test during the
activity and seeing how they use them.This encourages students to cooperate with one
another.
1.3.1.3. To develop students’ fluency : while working in pair or group abilities, the students
can use the language freely and express their opinions and thoughts without any restrictions. It
is difficult not to get the impression that fluency can be improved only during constant
speaking practice in the atmosphere of independence and in the state of relaxation.
1.3.1.4. To increase students’ motivation : While working in pairs and groups the activities
are available. As you know a huge variety of activities influences the course of a lesson and its
success. The more different the activities the teacher uses in the lessons, the bigger their
motivation is. In fact, students’ motivation increases because they are active and feel important
during these activities. In keeping with this, the teacher is going to experience success in his/
her work because motivated students are usually good languages learners and they always
make progress.
1.3.2. Disadvantages
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