Luận văn Tổ chức hoạt động tổ và hoạt động nhóm trong lớp học THPT tại trường PTTH Phạm Văn Nghị tỉnh Nam Định: một nghiên cứu cá biệt

rk .Observation is done in classes of different aims and purposes : teaching speaking, teaching reading, teaching listening, teaching grammar and teaching writing, the researcher has to design the Classroom Observation Sheet before observing classes.The classes observed must be from grade 10 to 12 and with all eight teachers of English in PVN upper secondary school.The classes observed must not be prepared especially for being obseved. 2.2.3. Data analysis Data analysis is not simply a single description of the collected data. In fact, it is the process by which the researcher interprets the data collected from the survey questionnaires. The scheme and coding catergories in this research emerged from an examination of data rather than being pre- determined and imposed on the data. 2.3. Presentation of statistical results 2.3.1. Questionnaires 2.3.1.1. The result of language teaching survey questionnaires Table 1 : The results of the language teaching survey No Questions Options Number of teachers Percent (%) 1 How long do you usually spend on pair work and group work? a. 5 minutes per period 0 0 b. 10 minutes per period 2 25 c. 15 minutes per period 2 25 d. More than 15 minutes per period 3 37,5 e. Other Options : from 5 to 15 minutes per period 1 11,3 2 In your opinion, What are the main benefits of the pair work and group work ? a. To make students more motivative 2 25 b. To make the class more interesting 4 50 c. To help the learning process 2 25 d. To help the teaching process 0 0 e. To kill the time 0 0 f. Other option 0 0 3 Which activities do you often use pair work and group work ? a. Speaking 8 100 b. Writing 4 50 c. Reading 3 37,5 d. Listening 3 37,5 e. Other option : 0 0 4 How do you create pairwork and group work ? a. Students at the same tables 2 25 b. Students from different tables 1 11,3 c. Students sitting next to each other 4 50 d. Students sitting far from each other 0 0 e. Students in different rows 1 11,3 f. Good students with good ones. Weak students with the weak ones 0 0 g. Good students with the weak ones 0 0 h. Other options 0 0 5 In your opinion, pair work and groupwork are most useful for teaching ... a. Grammar 8 100 b. Pronunciation 3 37,5 c. Vocabulary 1 11,3 d. Translation 1 11,3 e. Reading 4 50 f. Writing 3 37,5 g. Speaking 8 100 h. Listening 2 25 i. Other options 0 0 6 To use pair work and group work successfully in a secondary school, the teacher has to…. a. Have awareness of the work 3 37,5 b. Good preparation 6 75 c. Make the work suitable to the students 5 62,5 d. Give clear instruction with examples 4 50 e. Control the work 3 37,5 f. Create the competitive sense 1 11,3 g. Other option 0 0 7 How do you often prepare materials for pair work and group work in your classes ? a. Use the information given in the textbook 7 87,5 b. Use the same topics as in the textbook but not the same copies 4 50% c. Take an extract or information from another reference books 1 11,3 d. Self- Design 2 25 e. Collaborate with your coleagues or get their opinions 2 25 f. Other option 0 0 8 How useful do you think pair work and group work are to improve learning at your school ? a. It is a vital activity in language teaching 2 25 b. It is one of the important and useful activities in language teaching 5 62,5 c. It is a good activity to be applied 2 25 d. It is neither good nor bad 0 0 e. Its usefulness is not clear 0 0 f. It has no use 0 0 9 Is it easy to use pair work and group work in language teaching ? a.Very easy 0 0 b. Not very easy 5 62,5 c. Easy 3 37,5 d. Difficult 1 11,3 e. Very difficult 0 0 f. Other option 0 0 10 The factors which effect most on the success of a pair work and group work are… ? a.Teaching experience 3 37,5 b. The age of the teacher 1 11,3 c. The language proficiency of the teacher 1 11,3 d. The teacher’s ability of organizing 1 11,3 e. The hardship of the students 4 21,1 f. The cooperation of the students 6 75 g. The language proficiency of the students 5 62,5 h. Other options 0 0 The questionaires results help the author know the attitude, the knowledge and the understanding of pairwork and groupwork of the teachers in PVN high school. For the question about the time amount for pair work and group work in a class, none of them chose 5 minutes, most of the teachers (87,5%) consider 10 minutes or more is suitable time for working in pairs or groups. One person chose from 5 to 15 minutes. Question 2 is about the benefit of pair work and group work in language classes. 50% of them saw the benefits of these activities in making class more interesting and 50% consider pairwork and groupwork helping in motivating students and learning process. The teachers seemed not to find the benefits of pair work and group work in teaching process. In question 3, all teachers use pairwork and group work for teaching speaking in every lesson. Some of them use pair work and group work for another skills depending on the features of each lesson. Question 4 mentions about the way to organize pair work and group work. Most teachers (75%) choose students sitting next to each others (students sitting at the same tables, at the tables next to each others). The teachers seem not to notice grouping students depending on abilities, hobies. They only focus on seats. With the same view as in option 3, the teachers in this school thought that pair work and group work is the most useful for teaching grammar and speaking (100%), and then reading, writing, listening… In the next question, 75% of the teachers saya that in order to make pair work and group work successful, the teachers’ preparation is the most important factor. 62,5% of the teachers consider making the work suitable to the students important and the next, less important is the teacher’s awareness of the work, clear instruction with examples and controlling the work. They paid little attention to create the competitive sense. To prepare for pair work and group work, most of the teachers (87,5%) use the information given in the textbook. Half of the teachers (50%) use the same topics as in the textbook but not the same copies. Some of them take an extract or information from another commercial books, design by themselves, or collaborate with their colleagues or get their opinions. With the same point of view of question 2, in question 8, most of the teachers considered pair work and group work as one of the most important and useful activities in language classes. Some of them think it as a vital activity in language teaching. After answering all questions about the time, the benefits, the usefulness… of pair work and group work, all teachers see that pair work and group work are neither easy nor difficult to be applied in language classes. The cooperation of the students, the hardship of the students and the language proficiency of the students are main factors affecting the success of pair work and group work The other factors have little influence on it 2.3.1.2. The result of language learning survey questionnaires 120 sheets of language learning survey questionnaires were delivered for students in all three grades 10, 11, 12. Forty students were chosen from each grade, twenty of them from level A and another twenty from level B. The students were from eight classes taught by different teachers. Students were choosen freely in order to have different abilities of English study with different attitudes to English learning. They are of course both sexes. Table 2 : Characteristics of the students participating in the language learning survey Grade Number Sex English study result of the previous term Male Female Excellent Good Fare Bad 10 A 20 10 10 2 8 8 2 B 20 6 14 1 9 9 1 11 A 20 8 12 3 7 6 4 B 20 9 11 1 12 6 1 12 A 20 5 15 0 15 5 0 B 20 4 16 0 12 5 3 Table 3 : The result of the language learning survey No Questions Options Number of students Percent % 1 What do you think it is an appropriate time for pair work and group work ? 1. 5 minutes per period 5 4,2 2. 10 minutes per period 39 32,5 3. 15 minutes per period 45 37,5 4. More than 15 minutes period 20 16,7 5. Other options 11 9,2 2 What are the main benefits of the pair work and group work ? 1. To make students more motivative 21 17,5 2. To make the class more interesting 60 50 3. To help the learning process 35 29,2 4. To help the teaching process 4 3,4 5. To kill the time 0 0 6. Other options 0 0 3 Which activities do you often work in pairs and groups ? 1. Speaking 100 83,3 2. Writing 90 75 3. Reading 120 100 4. Listening 73 60,8 5. Other options 0 0 4 How are you often grouped for pair work and group work ? 1. Students at the same table. 90 75 2. Students from different tables. 5 4,2 3. Students sitting next to each other. 10 8,3 4. Students sitting far from each other 2 1,6 5. Students in different rows 3 2,5 6. Good students with good students, weak students with weak students 0 0 7. Good students with the weak ones 10 8,3 5 In your opinion which ones are pair work and group work are most useful for ? 1. Grammar 60 50 2. Pronunciation 6 15,5 3. Vocabulary 2 1,6 4. Translation 1 0,8 5. Reading 3 2,5 6. Writing 3 2,5 7. Speaking 40 33,3 8. Listening 2 1,6 9. Other options 3 2,5 6 According to you, in order to use pair work and group work successfully in a secondary school, the teacher has to... 1. Have awareness of the work 10 8,3 2. Good Preparation 15 12,5 3. Make the work suitable to the students 35 29,2 4. Give clear instruction with examples 20 16,7 5. Control the work 20 16,7 6. Create competitive sense 15 12,5 7. Other options 5 4,2 7 How do you often prepare for pair work and group work in your classes ? 1. Use the information given in the textbook 35 29,2 2. Use the same topics as in the textbook but not the exact copies. 60 50 3. Take an extract or information from another reference book. 10 8,3 4. Self- Design 15 12,5 5. Collaborate with your colleagues or get their opinions. 0 0 6. Other options 0 0 8 How useful do you think pair work and group work are to improve learning at your school ? 1. It is a vital activity in language teaching 27 22,5 2. It is one of the most important and useful 74 61,7 3. It is a good activity to be applied 11 9,2 4. It is neither good nor bad 0 0 5. Its usefulness is not clear 8 6,7 6. It has no use 0 0 7. Other options 0 0 9 How appropriate do you think are pair work and group work at your school ? 1. Very appropriate 73 60,8 2. Appropriate 30 25 3. Not very appropriate 17 14,2 4. Not appropriate at all 0 0 5. Other options 0 0 10 Which factors, do you think can most effect the success of a pair work and group work ? 1. Teaching experience 11 9,2 2. The age of the teacher 2 1,5 3. The language proficiency of the teacher 4 3,3 4. The teacher’s ability of organizing 14 11,7 5. The hardship of the students 41 34,2 6. The cooperation of the students 33 27,5 7. The language proficiency of the students 13 10,8 8. Other option 2 1,5 From the above table with 10 questions and answers by the students, the author has some comments : In question 1, Quite a number of students who asked (70%) chose 10 or 15 minutes. Only 4,2% considered that 5 minutes was enough and about 20% wanted to have more than 15 minutes for pair work and group work in a language class. Other options occupy 9,2%. Question 2 is the same as teacher’s question. Both teachers and students found pair work and group work useful for making the class more interesting, helping the learning process and motivating students (96,7% students and 100% teachers). Only 4% of students thought it is useful for teaching process. In the next question, all four language skills were chosen, but the percentages for each are not the same.All students (100%) chose speaking skill for working in pair and group, next is reading (83,3%) and then writing (75%), listening (60,8%). It shows that when practising four language skills in every class pairwork and groupwork are used very often In question 4, the students answer that they are often grouped with the others at the same table (75%). They rarely worked with partners from different tables (4,2%), in different rows (2,5%), good students with the weak one (8,3%). The answers of question 5 show that grammar is the most useful for working in pairs and groups (50%), the next is speaking (33,3%), and then other ones. For question 7, the answers of the students did not agree with the answers of the teachers. They liked using the same topics as in the textbook but not the exact copies (50%). 29,2% of students use the information in the textbook. Some students design the work by themselves and use information from another reference book. Like the teachers here, the students also found pair work and group work useful in language classes. Most of them (93,4%) considered pair work and group work important and useful activities in language classes. However, there were few students (6,7%) did not see the usefulness of pair work and group work in their learning process. 85,8% of the students said pairwork and groupwork are suitable and appropriate in their school. Only 14,2% thought they are not appropriate in school because they did not see the usefulness of these activities. Surprisingly, most of the students (72,5%) here thought that their hardship, their cooperation and their language proficiency are the decisive factors of success of pair work and group work in language classes.The other factors affected little about the success of pair work and group work. 2.3.2. Classroom observation The researcher observed 15 classes taught by all eight teachers. The classes were of all three grades 10, 11 and 12 and at both levels A and B. This part describes the detail procedure of the classes observation and then some evaluations are given by the researcher. They are described at the order they were observed as follow : Basing on the classroom observation sheets (see Appendix 3 and 4), pairwork and group work activities take place in language classes in PVN upper- secondary school quite often. They were used in all the classes observed (100%). This means that the teachers here usually organized pair and group work in their language classes but not all the teachers used them effectively. Moreover, the different teachers spent the various time on pairwork and groupwork activities, the total for these activities were about 50% of the total time amount, and in average, pair and group work activities took 20 minutes each period. The maximum time amount for pairwork and groupwork activities in a class was 30 minutes and the minimum time amount was 10 minutes. And the average time amount for pair and group work in a class with in this school was 20 minutes. This number is also shown in the language teaching survey questionnaires, in which they chose 10 minutes and more for the appropriate time amount. The table 4 describes the use of pair work and group work in PVN upper secodary school in details. The table shows that the teachers at PVN upper secondary school prefer pair work to group work. There were only 4 groupworks among 30 organized. And most of pair work and group work they organized were for teaching speaking (13/30), and the rest 17 were for teaching grammar, reading, writing, vocabulary and listening ; 5 for teaching grammar, 5 for teaching reading, 4 for teaching writing, and only 1 for teaching vocabulary, and 2 for teaching listening. Each pair and group work organized took at least 5 minutes and at most 15 minutes. The teachers usually group students at the same table in pair work and group work (25/30). And the information the teachers used in organizing pair and group work was mainly taken from the textbook (23/30), among them in 9 cases the teachers used the exact copies from the textbook and in 12 cases they used the information in the textbook with adaptation and extension, 9 cases the teachers designed the work by themselves. Notes : for more details, please look at the table in Appendix In conclusion, after analyzing data from survey questionnaires and observation, the author has a brief overview of organizing pairwork and group work in PVN upper secondary school. The author wants to give examples of pair and group work in order to make readers know clearly about how pair work and group work were organized in this school 2.3.3. Examples of pair and group work These examples below shows how to organize pair work and group work in PVN upper secondary school. They will be described in details in order to show the way the teachers in this school often organize pair and group work. 2.3.3.1. Pairwork This pair work was organized to teach speaking through making a dialogue in Task 1 in lesson 16 «  historical places »- 10th form ; twelve- year course textbook. In the first half of the lesson, the teacher asks students to close the book and give some information about President Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. Then teacher asks students to open the book and look at the situation in Task 1 : A foreign visitor has taken some notes about President Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. Ask and answer questions with a partner, using his notes. The teacher explains some possible new words, pronunciation first. Then the teacher asked the students to do this task in pairs of two students sitting at the same tables, next to each other. The purpose of this pair work was to practise speaking and remind students about one of historical places by using the simple past tense and passive voice Here is the copy of the exercise for this activity from the textbook B. SPEAKING Task 1. A foreign visitor has taken some notes about President Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. Ask and answer questions with a partner, using his notes. Example : A : Where is President Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum situated ? B : It is situated in Ba Dinh District in HaNoi. A : When did the construction of the Mausoleum start ? B : It started in September 1973. PRESIDENT HO CHI MINH’ S MAUSOLEUM . Place : Ba Dinh District, Hanoi . Built in September 1973, completed in August 1975 . 1st floor : a stand for important meetings organised at Ba Dinh Square, 2nd floor : Where the late president is lying, 3rd floor : the roof . Visiting hours : 7 :30- 10 : 30 a.m. in summer and 8 :00-11 :00 a.m. in winter. Every day except Monday and Friday. . Usually closed September 5- December 10 for maintenance. . No photograpraphy allowed inside. After forming pairs, the teacher gave some explanation of the exercise : in this exercise students have to make the questions and answer the questions basing on the given information The students worked in pairs in 10 minutes, during that period of time one student makes questions, the other answers those questions. While the students were working in pairs, the teacher went round and helped with pronunciation and the words to be used. After 10 minutes, the teacher requests some pairs to speak loudly for all class to hear. The other students in the class were asked to listen to them, give comments and correct the mistakes. In some cases, the teacher gave the correct word(s) or some further explanation. As an observer I found that the pair work had followed all the steps needed ; presentation, process, ending and feedback. At the first step- presentation- the teacher had given clear instruction before the work and that made students understand what they had to do with the excercise. And the way of forming pairs was sufficient, it was suitable and convenient for students to work together. Then at process step, the role of both the teacher and the students is suitable. The students worked together smoothly and it was not too difficult for them to do this exercise. The teacher went round and offered some help only when it was needed. 10 minutes was a suitable time for this exercise and all the students seemed to finish their task on time.At the last step, the whole class was involved in evaluating the work. The exercise was corrected clearly to all students. The teacher corrected not only the mistakes in using grammar structures, but the mistakes in pronunciation and the tone as well. 2.3.3.2. Groupwork The group work was in class 10A1, lesson 16, task 3 « historical places »- 10th twelve year course textbook. The main purpose of lesson 16 was to revise the use of simple past tense- one of the main grammar structures and it was taught in primary school and now students have known quite well. Here is the copy of the exercise for this activity from the textbook. TASK 3. Work in groups. Ask other members of the group questions about a historical place they have been to or know about, note down the main information, and then report to the class what you have learnt about that place. The teacher asked the students to work in groups after they had finished task 1 and task 2 in the textbook.The purpose of the group was to teach speaking and to practice the simple past tense. The activity lasted 20 minutes. First, the teacher requests students to choose one of historical places then ask and answer about that place. One of students in the group writes information about that place. The teacher goes round the class, listen and correct. Then, one student of a group present for all class to hear. It is more interesting if the class do not know that place and guess. Sometimes, teacher prepares some information about one historical place and request students to guess about the name of that place. As observed, I found the work of the students in group of three was ineffective. In the time of five minutes they only discuss some information about that place.They must collect information from the other groups and from the teacher. The class is very noisy because the class is very large. In this task, It is better for students to work in larger group of five. One student speaks his idea, the other ones hear and take notes. The teacher should give a more suitable feedback. CHAPTER 3 : FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS This chapter presents the ways the teachers in PVN school organized pairwork and groupwork, the major problems that teachers and students at PVN encounter during the process of organizing pairwork and groupwork. These difficulties have been drawn from the results of the two survey questionnaires and observation.The author’s suggestion which help improve the quality of the organizing pairwork and groupwork are also presented in this chapter. 3.1. FINDINGS The results of the two questionnaires and observation clearly show the way to organize pairwork or group work, and some factors that make organization of pairwork and groupwork at PVN school less effective. 3.1.1. How did teachers at PVN school organize pairwork and groupwork ? After collecting the information by using two kinds of questionnaires and observation sheets, I have an overview of how pair and group work are used in my school 3.1.1.1. Steps of organizing pair and group work In theory, there are three steps in organizing pair work and group work which were mentioned in chapter I- Literature Review. The teachers in this school followed all three steps but the ways they organized pair and group work were different Firstly, the teacher presents what the students have to do, what structures they have to practise and whom they have to work with. Some vocabulary was given before the activities.The teachers explain the task both in English and in Vietnamese. Some teachers gave a sample product as an example, others did the task with a student immediately in class. In spite of different ways of presenting, they all did this step well and did not make students misunderstand.The teachers here preferred to make students sitting at the same table work with each other, they rarely formed groups of students sitting far from each other. Because the classroom furniture is fixed and the class is too crowded with students, they will make much noise that affects to other class. Sometimes they ask the students to form large groups of more than ten, this also caused some noise and took much more time but it made students more excited about the work. Next, the teachers worked as a guide or an observer. The students speak freely with the partners and they only help when it was necessary. However, the teachers must keep the students using the target language and participating in pairs and in groups. The students rarely finished on time in spite of the time limit. That was because the difficulty of the work was not