AN ACTION RESEARCH ON THE APPLICATION OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING TO TEACHING SPEAKING TO THE SECOND

Part A: INTRODUCTION

I. Background to the study

“Better English, more opportunities” is the answer of most university students when they

are asked about their goal of learning English. English can help them prepare well for future

career as it can not only equip them with a useful source of personal, linguistic, social and

cultural knowledge but also provide them with access to modern technology, information

concerning a variety of issues in modern society. Especially, our country’s recent regional and

global participation has been increasing the demand for English speaking people who are

expected to communicate verbally with the outside world and access modern technology. For

these reasons, at the tertiary level where the source of English teachers for the whole country is

provided, English teaching has been granted special supports from educational authorities. The

most important issue in this field, which has presented various complicated problems for

generations of English teachers in Vietnam is the adoption of an appropriate English teaching

method which can satisfy the need of the society.

With this orientation, in recent years, the teaching and learning English in Vietnam has

been considerably changing. With the efforts of several international projects and organizations

such as VAT (Vietnam Australia Training), VSO (Voluntary Service Oversea), … and groups of

teachers who attended TESL, TEFL or TESOL courses, various new approaches, methods and

techniques on the teaching of English have been introduced and applied in schools, colleges and

universities nationwide. Generally, English teaching has shift from the traditional grammar

translation approach to the communicative approach. New textbooks and syllabus that are

communication-oriented and learner-centered are designed and implemented, which all required

teachers of English to improve their teaching skills to be successful in the classroom. Every year,

many teachers training courses are hold and after attending the training courses, almost all

teachers are eager and enthusiastic to try out the new methods and teaching techniques to their

real classroom contexts.

However, how can we incorporate the new approaches and methods (structures,

techniques, activities, ect.)? How can we implement them in our real classroom contexts with our

particular students? are questions of great concern. The recognition of the fact that there is a

missing linking between the training and the reality of the classroom practice has promoted

interest in the classroom research. Every school year, from primary to tertiary level, hundreds of

researches on various issues relating to teaching language methodology are carried out for the

purpose of professional development.

II. Statement of the problem

Groupwork is one of the most popular structures of learner-centered approach applied in

most language classrooms. Over the past few years, groupwork has especially received more and

more emphasis in language classrooms and groupwork activities are used in many aspects of the

second language instructions, particularly in encouraging student’s oral practice. “Groupwork is

any classroom activity in which students perform collaborative tasks with one or more partners. It

has been considered one of the major changes to the dynamics of classroom interaction wrought

by students-centered teaching. Groupwork can greatly increase the amount of active speaking and

listening undertaken by all the students in the language class” (Nunan and Lamb,p.142). In

groups, students are not passively sitting and listening to the teachers, but joining actively in the

learning process. In other word, groupwork enhances the gradual shift from teacher-centered

classroom to student-centered classroom. The benefits of groupwork pointed out in Davies and

Pearse are “variety and dynamism, enormous increase in individual practice, low stress private

practice, opportunity to develop learner autonomy and interaction among peers.” However,

simply putting students together in a group is no guarantee that cooperation will occur. Because

the lack of understanding the dynamics of group activities, it is not uncommon to hear teachers

say “I have tried putting my students in groups and telling them to cooperate, but it did not

work.” A frequent problem in group is some of the group members dominate the group and, for

whatever reason, impede the participation on others. For this reason, how to organize groupwork

successfully in the classrooms is a question of great concern for many language teachers and

language researchers.

The most important reason why we purse this study on groupwork derived from our own

experience of being a teacher who failed to organize students to work successfully in group

activities. At Gialai teacher’s training college, the unique college in a mountainous town, Pleiku,

the students have very little chance to use the language, so most of them are very shy to speak.

Moreover, the students have mixed levels of speaking competence (some of them are minority

people). During speaking activities, the strong ones speak a lot, the average speak some and the

weak students seem to keep silent all the time. Some strategies have been carried out such as

talking to them to find their problems, choosing interesting topics, monitoring frequently to help

and encouraging the weak one to speak and ask the strong one help their friends by assigning the

roles for them and keep asking questions to force them to speak. This however can not help

much. They speak just a little and the keep silent again. We kept on finding the ways to get all

our students involved in the class speaking activities. During the search, we found some articles

about implementing cooperative learning structures to improve group activities in which

cooperative structures can be used as a mean to improve students’ cooperation, participation and

even their language proficiency. What it meant to us was that the way we organize and structure

groupwork affected students’ involvement in group activities.

There are sound reasons to take CL into implementation. First of all, CL is highly

appreciated for their usefulness to students’ achievement. “CL seems to provide an environment

in which students’ needs of love, belongingness, power, freedom and fun can be met in a way

that is beneficial for both academic achievement and the development of the learners’ social and

learning skills” (D.W. Johnson el al.1990; Slavin 1987; Kagan 1989). It is undeniable that CL is

the most flexible and powerful grouping strategies because in CL, learners work together to

accomplish a shared goal. Therefore, they are motivated to work together for mutual benefit in

order to meet their own and each other’ learning. Additionally, CL has a strong foundation on

research. Many hundreds of studies across a wide range of subjects areas and age groups have

been conducted (Cohen, 1994b; Johnson, Johnson and Stanne, 2002; Sharan, 1980; Slavin, 1995)

and the overall findings of these studies suggested that, when compared to other instructional

approaches, group activities structured along CL lines are associated with gains on a hot of key

variables: achievement, higher thinking level, self-esteem, liking for the subject matter and for

school and intergroup relations. Meanwhile, with regards to the successes of CL implementing

programs by thousands of teachers from many countries all over the world, I would like to carry

out such a program in my department with a view to experiment a new strategy to structuring

groups in teaching speaking with hope of improving my students’ oral communication skills.

Moreover, the application of CL, considered one of educational innovations, has not been popular

in Vietnam. There have been few or no studies on CL application in teaching English generally,

or in teaching speaking particularly. Also, it is worth mentioning that I have conducted a small

simple scale action research on implementing jigsaw, a CL structure, in teaching speaking, which

resulted in some achievement. This investigation in to CL will hopefully serves as an advisable

supplementation to my knowledge on CL theory and CL application to English teaching.

For all the above reasons, it is strongly desirable for me to propose “ An action research on

the application of cooperative learning structures to teaching speaking to the second- year

students in the Department of English, Gialai Teachers’ Training College ” to be the subject on

this thesis.

III. Scope, objectives and research questions for the study

This study is aimed to investigate how well CL can improve the participation and

achievement of the second year students of the department of English at Gialai College in oral

communication activities. The data collection and data analysis therefore are based on the

information provided by classroom observation, test scores and the journals written by the

students of the department of English during the second semester from February to June 2005.

The subjects of the study are the second year students of Department of English. Materials

involved in the CL training and implementing program which are topic- and task- based are

developed during the course progression. The topics are suggested by the students and selected in

open class, the tasks and activities structured along CL are designed and developed with the aims

of improving students’ participation and achievement in oral communication skills. Thus, the first

and foremost objective of the study is for the sake of the students. Besides, the study is expected

to serve as a source of reference for teachers of English on the teaching of speaking skills,

especially for those who concern CL, one of the educational innovations which has the best and

largest empirical base.

To be more specific, in realizing the study, the main objectives are:

To investigate the effects of CL on Students’ participation in oral communication

activities

To investigate the effects of CL on the students’ achievement in speaking skills

To give some pedagogical implications and suggestions for further development.

With those aims, my research questions with sub-questions are:

1. What are the effects of CL on students’ participation in the group activities?

- Are the students motivated to participate?

- Is the amount of the students’ participation increased and divided equally?

- Is the nature of the students’ participation improved?

2. What are the effects of CL on students’ achievement?

- Do the students get higher achievement in oral examinations?

- What oral communication skills do the students develop?

3. What are the students’ attitudes towards CL?

IV. Methods of the study

This research is realized with regards to both qualitative and quantitative analysis.

On the one hand, quantitative analysis is involved in the process of data collection and

analysis, which are carried out at the Department of English, GTTC. The data collected will go

through analysis and yield conclusion about the subjects of the study. The instruments for this

process conclude two observation schedules filled by colleague observers, and records of

students’ four semester final test scores.

On the other hand, qualitatively analyzed, the students’ opinions of CL (the learning, attitude,

and achievement) reflected through their journals have been subjectively analysed basing on the

knowledge that the researcher has acquired from the abundant resources of materials on CL

developed by famous scholars in the field.

Thus, three main instruments for data collection are used in this study, including observation

schedules, students’ speaking test scores and students’ journals. 23 second -year students have

undertaken the data provision process over a semester. Hopefully, the study will yield beneficial

results which support the learning and teaching speaking in the future.

V. The design of the study:

The study is divided into three parts, which are presented as follows.

Part A is the introduction, which states the background to the study, the statement of the problem,

the scope, objectives and research questions as well as the methods and design of the study.

Part B, including three chapters, reports on the main contents of the study. Chapter one presents

all necessary literature related to the study. Then, in chapter 2, how we have carried out the study

at the Department of English, GTTC is described. Sub steps in this process consist of observing

the learning situation, collecting data, analyzing data and summarizing findings. The last chapter

deals with the summary, the findings as well as the application and suggestions for further

studies.

Part C is the conclusion where we summarized all the main contents of the study.

Besides, there are also nine appendixes in which supplementary materials and list of references

are provided.

PATR B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter is concerned with some of the most important issues in theory of cooperative

learning in general and in language teaching in particular. The main features will be taken into

consideration, namely, theoretical background of CL and CLL and theoretical background of

speaking, the language skill to which CL is intended to be applied.

I. Experimental language learning as cooperative learning

Two models of teaching

As a result of developments in society and educational theory, the pedagogical thinking

has been shifting away from the traditional behavioristic model of teaching as transmission of

knowledge towards an experiential model whereby teaching is seen as transformation of existing

or partly understood knowledge, based on constructivist view of learning.

Nunan (1988) assumed that in the transmission model of teaching, the teacher is the

person in authority in the class whose job is to impart knowledge and skills to the learners.

Knowledge is seen as deniable in terms of right and wrong answers. Students tend to see their

role as relatively passive recipients of the knowledge, expecting the teacher to be in charge of

their learning. Or, Glasser (1986) gave an example of this model the traditional structure of a

secondary school with a teacher in front of the room facing thirty to forty students. The

underlying behavioristic model involves various rewards and sanctions to ensure learning. But

there are limits to what we pressure the students to learn if they do not experience satisfaction in

their work. Sanction will cause discipline problems and underlying tensions in class in which

teacher has the final word and the power to reward, punish and evaluate. Students learn as

individuals, and the cooperation is limited by competition for grades.

The experiential model, on the other hand, would seem to offer potential for a learning

atmosphere of shared partnership, a common purpose and a joint management of learning. Class

behavior is owned by the whole group, of which the teacher is one member. As the rules of

conduct are agreed upon jointly, all share the responsibility for decisions and discipline. Learning

can become a discovery of understandings. As there are fewer underlying tensions, energy can be

channeled into more creative pursuits ( Brandes and Ginnis 1986; Salmon 1988).

The degree of self-directed (as against other-directed) learning can be clarified by examining the

degree of learner involvement at the different stages of instructional process. This can be done by

asking the following questions (Riley 1984:127-30):

• who analyses the need?

• Who defines the objective?

• Who decide where and how often learning take place?

• Who chooses the material?

• Who chooses the work techniques?

• Who decides on levels and criteria of acceptable outcomes?

• Who monitors the learning program and process?

• Who evaluates the results of learning?

Following is the description of the two models of teaching:

Table 1: Traditional and experiential models of education: a comparison

Dimension Traditional model:

Behaviorism

Experiential model:

Constructivism

1. View of learning

2. Power relation

3. Teacher’s role

4. Learner’s role

Transmission of Knowledge

Emphasis on teacher’s authority

Providing mainly frontal

instruction; professionalism as

individual autonomy

Relatively passive recipient of

information; mainly individual

work

Transformation of Knowledge

Teacher as a learner among

learners

Facilitating learning (largely in

small groups); collaborative

professionalism

Active participation, largely in

cooperative small groups