A study on group discussion and its impacts on speaking ability of the non-Major students at the post-elementary level in Military Science Academy

Viet nam national unversity, Ha noi College of foreign language Post – graduate studies **************** pham thanh mai A study on group discussion and its impacts on speaking ability of the non-major students at the post-elementary level in Military Science Academy Nghiên cứu về thảo luận nhóm và ảnh hưởng của nó đến khả năng nói của học sinh không chuyên ngữ trình độ sau A tại Học viện Khoa học Quân Sự M.A minor Thesis Field: Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Ha noi 7-2007 DECLARATION To the best of my knowledge and belief, this minor thesis contains no material which has previously been submitted and accepted for any other degree in any university. The thesis is my own work and based on my own research. It involves no material previously published or written by any other person, except where due reference is acknowledged in the paper. Signature: ___________________________ ABSTRACTS The study presents an attempt to investigate group work and its impacts on the subsequent individual presentations in the EFL classroom-based context. Oral data from a range of sources including group planning and individual presentations were collected from 16 non-major students at the post elementary level at MSA over a period of ten weeks. The students worked in small groups preparing for oral presentations. For each topic, two students from two groups were randomly selected to give presentations. Eight group discussions and sixteen individual presentations were selected and analyzed based on language related episodes (LREs) as well as typical features of group interaction and error free clause (EFC). The aims of the study were to explore what actually happens in group planning and whether the students in pre-planning groups perform more accurately and better than those in unplanning groups in terms of tenses, subject-verb agreement and pronouncing morpheme-s in plurality. The results showed that in group discussions students tended to focus on the content of the task, and assisted each other in preparing for the individual presentations. The findings also showed that students in pre-planning groups produced better presentations than those in unplanning groups in terms of tenses, subject-verb agreement and pronouncing morpheme-s in plurality. Since the two activities, group work and individual presentations, are routine tasks at the college where the research had been conducted, the impacts of group planning have important pedagogical implications in organizing group and individual activities in the EFL classroom context. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the debt of gratitude to my supervisor Duong Thi Thuc, M.A for her guiding and indispensable comments on my drafts. If it had not been for her supervision, the thesis would not have been completed. My sincere thanks are due to Mr. Truong Anh Tuan, M.A, whose generous advices and materials have encouraged and inspired me during steps of the thesis. I would also like to express my deep sense of gratitude to my dear students of group 21T in Military Science Accademy, whose participation in and dedication to the research remain invaluable and have been acknowledged. Without their precious support, the thesis would not have taken shaped. I am indebted to my colleagues at the English Department of Military Science Academy for their enthusiastic assistance and co-operation. Finally, the support extended to me by the members of my family has been immeasurable. I would like to express my thanks to my parents, my husband Do Van Tuyen, and my daughters, Do Hai Yen and Do Thu Ha, for their whole hearted encouragement. Ha Noi, July 8th 2007 Pham Thanh Mai. LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Principal types of task planning Table 2: The implementation of the study Table 3a: Summary of the number of LREs in PTP3 group talks Table 3b: Summary of the number of LREs in PTP4 group talks Table 4a. Summary of the number of turns in PTP3 group interaction. Table 4b. Summary of the number of turns in PTP4 group interaction. Table 5a. Summary of the leadership moves in group PTP3. Table 5b. Summary of the leadership moves in group PTP4. Table 6: Summary of EFVC and EFNC Abbreviations and conventions E: English EFL: English as Foreign Language ESL: English as Second Language EFC: Error Free Clause EFNF: Error Free Noun Forms EFVF: Error Free Verb Forms F-LREs: Form-Based Language Related Episodes L1: Mother tongue/ first language L2: Second language/ Foreign language L-LREs: Lexis-Based Language Related Episodes LREs: Language Related Episodes M-LREs: Mechanic-Based Language Related Episodes MSA: Military Science Academy NNS: Non Native Speaker NS: Native Speaker NP: No Planning PTP: Pre Task Planning TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration ….i Abstracts ………………………………………………………………………….. ii Acknowledgements iii List of tables . iv Abbreviations and conventions …………………………………………………….... v References …….……………………………………………………………..…47 Appendix Observers’ sheet ……………………………………………………………………….. Questionnaire No. 1 ………………………………………………..…….……………… Questionnaire No. 2 ……………………………………………….……………………. Transcripts of group planning …………………………………………..………………. Transcripts of individual presentations …………….…………………………………… Chapter one: Introduction I. Background and Rationale For many years, the traditional teaching method of English language such as Grammar Translation has dominated the teaching and learning environment in Vietnam. This method does not focus on communicative skills, but much on grammar points in order to help learners pass Grammar Tests at secondary schools and universities. As a result, many Vietnamese learners are excellent at grammar, but they can not communicate with each other in English. In classroom, teachers always explain grammatical points such as tenses, articles, prepositions and so on, and give students a great deal of exercises to practice in order to master grammar rules. Therefore, learners rarely have opportunities to speak and express their own ideas. In the teacher-centered class the teacher tends to explain and students take notes and practice; they rarely work in pairs or in groups to discuss a topic with each other. This seems to be very absurd for many educators in the world as the purpose of learning a second language is to communicate with each other in society. This is a reason why the Ministry of Education and Training needs to innovate the way of the second language teaching by applying the communicative approach in teaching English in Vietnamese classrooms. In addition, the text books and curriculums for both schools and universities should be designed for the communication-oriented and learner-centered approach. Almost all teachers are required to improve their teaching skills and try out new methods to be successful in classrooms. Group work is one of the most effective communicative approach that teachers often take into practice. A number of researches have been conducted in the field in order to realize the influences of group discussion as a frequent class activity on students’ linguistic performance and communicative competence. Participating in group discussion helps students develop “reproductive thinking” into “productive thinking”; and discussion method results in effective learning outcomes in terms of : (a) the mastery of general subject, (b) the ability of problem-solving, (c) the development of morality, (d) the development of attitude and (e) the development of communication skills (Wilen, 1990). Alvermann and Hayes (1989) believed that active and thoughtful participation in class discussion is an “outward sign of learning”. Besides, in group participants learn to talk better, i.e. they know how to retrieve ideas, organize them coherently and speak them out fluently, and therefore communicative competence is developed. Discussion also shapes “moral culture” as participants act together in a special way with regard to truthfulness, responsiveness, openness, respect, self-awareness, self-confidence and so on (Bridges, 1979). However, Jones (1999) raised a question why a number of non-native English speaking background students, particularly those who come from Asian countries, encounter difficulties in academic group discussion. They stay silent and reticent whilst their counterparts from Europe, for example, actively participate in the group work. In Viet Nam National University, Ha Noi some studies related to group work have been done, but they only focus on applying cooperative learning to improve speaking skills. (Phan Thi Hong Anh, 2003; Vo van Thanh, 2004; Tran Thi Ngoc Bac, 2005; Hoang Thi Lan, 2005; Le Tuan Ngoc, 2005; Le Thi Bich Thuy, 2006; Nguyen Thu Huong, 2006; To Thi Thanh Ha, 2006.) In sum, group discussion is regarded as a fruitful topic for researchers, particularly for those who are interested in Second Language Acquisition in the sense that it relates to how L2 learners approach a new language and how interactions among them contribute to that process. A number of researchers have shed light onto the field and seemed to agree on the point that group discussion productively promotes interactions among its participants. Though many of the researchers did investigate the issue, few have drawn the conclusion about what truly happens during group discussion and whether there are the relationships between group discussion and its influence on the participants’ speaking skill in terms of accuracy. Moreover, the most important reason why I pursue the study on groupwork is that teachers at the Military Science Academy (MSA) have been using group discussions very so often, however, they do not truly recognize how much their students may benefit from this dynamic activity. A minority of them even show doubts on group discussion’s advantages. Being inspired by the teaching and learning situation in the MSA, the researcher comes up with the project with clear purposes in mind: to go deeply into the essence of group discussion to explore what the students actually do during group discussion and its impacts on students’ acquisition of communicative competence in terms of accuracy, to determine if there is any possibility that participating into group discussion for academic purposes can help students gain better at their interactions within the classroom, inside the college campus and later on in a learning environment of other higher educational institutions. II. Scope, Objectives and Research Questions for the study Within the MA thesis, the present study involves in the investigation of what the students truly do during academic group discussion and its impacts on the communicative competence of 16 post-elementary non- major English students who are in the forth year of the Chinese Department. Group discussion is experimented as an intensive methodology in speaking lessons in one class during a ten-week-study. The project is conducted in the hope that it can contribute to the advancement of teaching and learning quality at the MSA, especially in the course of educational modernization of the country. The first and foremost, it will help: contribute more theory to the current understandings of academic group discussion and exploring the relationships between group discussion within the classroom and the advancement of communicative skills of 16 post-elementary non-major English students at the MSA. realize the essentials and potentials of group discussion as a means to accelerate EFL students’ communicative competence. legalize group discussion, provide the teachers with the basic framework to conduct academic discussion in speaking lessons at the MSA. build a stepping-stone toward the generalization of the findings into other classes, with different linguistic level students at the MSA. provide EFL students with more chances to interact in small groups, develop speaking skill to communicate more effectively within the group, for academic purposes, and latter on, beyond the fence of the college. Above all, the focal point of the project is to get a better insight into group discussion as a method of improving communicative competence of EFL students for the sake of enhancing teaching and learning quality at the MSA. The findings of the study may be generalized in a broader scale, with higher level students, in larger contexts; students will enjoy greater chances of being more dynamic and active in group work and their further studies. The research is going to cast light onto the following questions: What truly happens during group discussion in classroom? 2. Do the students in pre-planning groups perform more accurately and better than those in unplanning groups in terms of tenses, subject-verb agreement and pronouncing morpheme-s in plurality? III. Methods of the study The research is conducted basing on both qualitative and quantitative methodology. Qualitative approach is utilized to investigate fully the issue during group discussion and participants’ performance. Each speaking lesson in which group discussion is experimented will be observed directly by the researcher. The researcher may use field notes, carefully note down what happens in groups during the discussion, how students interact to one another, and how, for instance, the so-called silent students accommodate themselves into the group work, etc. The observation forms are based on the model initiated by Brilhart and Galanes (1992). Besides, a questionnaire aiming at investigating students’ experience of learning a foreign language and students’ opinions on the effectiveness of group discussion in terms of communication advancement is also conducted as the further confirmation of the collected results from the experiment. The questionnaire includes closed questions, rating scale and free responses. This kind of questionnaire is chosen because student questionnaires are the most widely used as a method of evaluating teaching and the quickest way to collect information from every student (Bligh, 1986). Finally, quantitative analysis is also involved in the process of data collection. The data collected will be coded and analyzed to synthesize what truly happens during the discussion and to what extent students interact with one another. IV. The design of the study This thesis is organized into six chapters. Chapter One has briefly introduced the general background information, the scope, objectives and methods dealt with in the study. Research questions will also be raised in this chapter. Chapter Two will start with some definitions of group discussion, then review a number of studies on pre-task strategic individual planning and its consequences on task performance in terms of fluency, complexity and accuracy. The chapter ends with the criteria to assess fluency, complexity and accuracy. Chapter Three, the methodology chapter, will make it clear how the present study was implemented, including information about context, participants, and procedures, instrumentation and data collection. Methods of analysis will be addressed in Chapter Four. Analysis of a range of data collected from various sources (oral data from group planning and individual presentations, questionnaires, teacher’s observation notes) for the study will be clarified in this chapter. Chapter Five will present findings from the present study. These results will be discussed and interpreted in Chapter Six, which is also the concluding chapter of the study. Chapter Two: Literature Review This chapter is composed of three areas of research related to this study: research on group/pair work, research on task-based planning and research on criteria of fluency, complexity and accuracy. The general review about group discussion and how it advantages students in the classroom are reviewed first. Then, the nature of task-based planning and its impacts on subsequent task performance in terms of fluency, complexity and accuracy is discussed. The chapter ends with the criteria to assess fluency, complexity and accuracy. 2.1. Group discussion and its advantages 2.1.1. Definition of group discussion First, let us examine the different definitions of group discussion. “Group discussion is an activity in which students usually interact with one another (often face-to-face) with the goal of increasing understanding, and achieving shared solutions to a particular problem” (Brilhart & Galanes, 1992). This definition is similar to Henry’s: “Group work is a number of people interacting in a face-to-face situation” (Henry,W.1997). According to Dillon, group discussion is also defined as “a form of back-and-forth interactions, give-and-take dialogues in which participants enrich, refine and exchange their understandings, facts, opinions, experiences and the like” (Dillon, 1994). Another definition of group work is given by Brown, D: “It [group work] is a generic term covering a multiplicity of techniques in which two or more students are assigned a task that involves collaboration and self initiated language. It implies small group work, that is, students in groups of perhaps six or fewer” (Brown, 2001, p.177). Thus, three important aspects should be highlighted in these definitions. The first one is collaboration, in other word, cooperation. Students have to work together to complete the task. All the members of the group are like the pieces of a machine. If one does not work well, a trouble may occur. In group work, of course, all the members discuss together, come out with new ideas, change certain things, but if one does not comply with his/ her role, the work will be paralized. Also, roles are changed within the group every time when a new task is assigned. This is what Kagan (1994) called “interdependency”. “The success of every team member depends on the success of each member (if one fails, all do), then a very strong form of positive interdependency is created and team members are very motivated to make sure each student does well” (p.7). The second and the third aspects are very related. Self initiated language refers to students using what they have known and learnt to communicate in the classroom. In order to do this, the groups have to be small, as Brown (2001) previously suggests six students or fewer. In a very big group, shy or passive students tend to fall in silence and let the most talkative ones do the talking. Nunan (1999) also points out that one of the classroom variables that have had a marked effect on student participation in oral activities has been group size. Students who remain silent in groups of ten or more will contribute actively to discussions when group size is reduced into five or three (p.157). 2.1.2. Group work and its benefits from different points of view For decades, group discussion as a teaching tool has drawn substantial attention from researchers. Studies of how language is learnt in groups stemmed from different perspectives. Group work has been investigated from the psycho-linguistic theoretical perspective (e.g. Gass and Varonis, 1994; Loschky, 1994; Ellis et al, 1994), with researchers focusing on the kind of negotiations that group work encourages. Research guided by socio-cultural theories of learning (e.g. Donato, 1994; Storch, 2001, 2002) has focused on how language knowledge is co-instructed in group or pair interactions. However, regardless of the theoretical perspective adopted, it has been widely agreed that group discussion is a worthwhile and beneficial activity in the classroom, and therefore should be encouraged. In addition to theoretical arguments, pedagogical arguments for the practice of group work in the classroom can be found in the work of Long and Porter (1985). 2.1.2.1. From the psycho - linguistic point of view Researchers (Long, 1985; Gass and Varonis, 1994; Loschky, 1994; Swain and Lapin, 1995; Fuente, 2002) have shed more light on the negotiation of meaning and