AN ACTION RESEARCH ON THE APPLICATION OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING TO TEACHING SPEAKING TO THE SECOND YEAR SUDENTS AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, GIA LAI TEACHERS' TRAINING COLLEGE

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:

Experiential model:

Behaviorism
Constructivism
1. View of learning

Transmission of Knowledge

Transformation of Knowledge

2. Power relation

Emphasis on teacher’s authority

Teacher as a learner among
learners

3. Teacher’s role

Providing
instruction;

mainly

professionalism

individual autonomy
4. Learner’s role

frontal Facilitating learning (largely in
as small

groups);

collaborative

professionalism

Relatively passive recipient of Active participation, largely in
information;
work

mainly

individual cooperative small groups

5. View of knowledge

Presented as ‘certain’ application, Construction
problem-solving

knowledge;

of

personal

identification

of

problems
6. View of curriculum

Static; hierarchical grading of Dynamic; looser organization of
subject matter, predefined contents

subject matter, including open
parts and integration

7. Learning experiences Knowledge of facts, concepts and Emphasis on process: learning
skills;

focus

on

content

and skills, self inquiry, social and

product
8. Control of process

communication skills

Mainly teacher-centered learning

Emphasis

on

learner:

self-

directed learning
9. Motivation

10. Evaluation

Mainly intrinsic

Mainly extrinsic

Product-oriented:

achievement

testing; Criterion-referencing (and
norm- referencing)

Process-oriented: reflection on
process,

self-assessment;

criterion-referencing

(Nunan (1993): Collaborative Language Leaning and Teaching)

Generally, in experiential learning, the schools are made more effective by ensuring that
learners’ basic needs for love, belongingness, power, freedom and fun are satisfied from their
early classes onwards. As Glasser (1986:54) points out that, there is no sense in telling learners
how valuable classes are and how much they need them unless we can structure classes so that
they are more satisfying to them. CL seems to provide a classroom environment in which such
needs can be met in a way that is beneficial for both academic achievement and the development
of the learners’ social and learning skills.
It is certain that any more discussion of CL should originate from CL definitions, which
will be dealt with in the next section.


II. What is cooperative learning?
Cooperative learning (CL) is by no means a new idea. For thousands of years, humans have
recognized the value of cooperation in a broad range of endeavors, including education. However,

the term cooperative learning seems to date back to the 1970s when a great deal of research and
practical work began on discovering how best to harness peer power for the benefit of learning. This
work continues to this day.
Over the past twenty years, different approaches to cooperative learning have been
developed by different individuals. Thus, CL takes many forms and definitions. Following are
some of the definitions by the most famous scholars:
Johnson (1989) defines: “Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that
students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning.” He describes the idea of
cooperative learning in a very simple way like this: Class members are organized into small groups
after receiving instructions from the teacher. They then work through the assignment until all the
group members successfully understand and complete it. Cooperative efforts result in participants
striving for mutual benefit so that all group member gain from each other’s efforts (your success
benefits me and my success benefits you), recognizing that all the group members share a common
fate (We all sink or swim together here), knowing that one’s performance is mutually caused by
oneself and one’s colleagues (We can not do it without you), and feeling proud and jointly
celebrating when one group member is recognized for achievement (We all congratulate you on
your accomplishment!) because a group member’s success depends on both individual effort and the
efforts of the other group members who contribute needed knowledge, skills, and resources. No one
group member will possess all the information, skills, or resources necessary for the highest possible
quality result. Dr. Spencer Kargan (1992) proposes another definition on CL as “group learning
activity organized so that learning is dependent on socially structured exchange of information
between learners in group and in which each learner is held accountable for his or her own leaning
and is motivated to increase learning of others.”
Macaulay and Gonzalez (1996) characterize CL as: “The instructional of small groups so that
learners are able to work together in a manner that enhances both group and individual learning.”


Tang (1998,p.116) offers an international perspective on CL, emphasizing the practices and effects
of CL.: Cooperative learning provides a non-threatening learning context for interaction between
students. During CL, students are exposed to other perspectives and alternatives, the share and

exchange ideas, criticize and provide feedback. Peer feedback can help students increase their
awareness of their learning aims, and of the strategies to employ to achieve those aims. Cooperation
provides “scaffolding” for mutual support and enables students to learn from each other. The
function is teaching function, although the major interaction is student-student, rather than teacherstudent.
It can be clearly seen from these definitions that the key to CL is the careful structuring of
learning groups. And generally, cooperative learning methods share the following five
characteristics:
•

Student work together on common tasks or learning activities that are best handled through
group work.

•

Students work together in small groups containing two to five members.

•

Students use cooperative, pro-social behavior to accomplish their common tasks or learning
activities.

•

Students are positively interdependent. Activities are structured so that students need each
other to accomplish their common tasks or learning activities.

•

Students are individually accountable or responsible for their work or learning.
Moreover, the reason why we use cooperative learning is that cooperative learning

enhances student learning by:
•

providing a shared cognitive set of information between students,

•

motivating students to learn the material,

•

ensuring that students construct their own knowledge,

•

providing formative feedback,

•

developing social and group skills necessary for success outside the classroom

•

promoting positive interaction between members of different cultural groups

And cooperative learning small groups provide a place where:


•

learners actively participate;

•

teachers become learners at times, and learners sometimes teach;

•

respect is given to every member;

•

projects and questions interest and challenge students;

•

diversity is celebrated, and all contributions are valued;

•

students learn skills for resolving conflicts when they arise;

•

members draw upon their past experience and knowledge;

•

goals are clearly identified and used as a guide;

•

research tools such as Internet access are made available;

•

students are invested in their own learning.
The process depicted below shows how group goals might operate to enhance the learning

outcomes of cooperative learning:

As presented, provision of group goals based on the individual learning of all group
members might affect cognitive processes directly, by motivating students to engage in peer
modelling, cognitive elaboration, and/or practice with one another. Group goals may also lead to
group cohesiveness, increasing caring and concern among group members, making them feel
responsible for one another's achievement, thereby motivating students to engage in cognitive
processes which enhance learning. Finally, group goals may motivate students to take
responsibility for one another independently of the teacher, thereby solving important classroom
organization problems and providing increased opportunities for cognitively appropriate learning


activities. Actually, there exists no one generally accepted version of CL. Indeed, disparate
theoretical perspectives on learning, including behaviourism, sociocultural theory, humanist
psychology, cognitive psychology, social psychology and Piagetian developmental psychology
have informed the development of different approaches to CL. Thus, various principles have
been put forward in the CL literature (e.g., Baloche, 1998, Jacobs, Power, & Loh, 2002, Johnson
& Johnson, 1999, Kagan, 1994 and Slavin, 1995). In the next section, eight CL principles and
how they can inform teaching practice will be discussed.
III. Principles of cooperative learning

III.1. Heterogeneous Grouping:
This principle means that the groups in which students do CL tasks are mixed on one or
more of a number of variables including sex, ethnicity, social class, religion, personality, age,
language proficiency and diligence. Heterogeneous grouping is believed to have a number of
benefits in comparison with homogeneous grouping, such as encouraging peer tutoring,
providing a variety of perspectives, helping students come to know and like others different from
themselves and fostering appreciation of the value of diversity.
In CL, groups often stay together for five weeks or more. To achieve heterogeneous
groups for speaking activities, teachers might want to look at their class and make conscious
decisions about which students should work together, rather than leaving the matter to chance or
to students’ choice. The latter option often results in groups with low levels of heterogeneity.
Furthermore, when we opt for heterogeneous groups, we may want to spend some time on ice
breaking (also known as teambuilding) activities, because as Slavin (1995) notes, the
combination of students that results from teacher-selected groups is likely to be one that would
never have been created had it not been for our intervention.
III.2. Collaborative Skills: Collaborative skills are those needed to work with others. Students
may lack these skills, the language involved in using the skills or the inclination to apply the
skills during a reading aloud session. Most books and websites on cooperative learning urge that
collaborative skills be explicitly taught one at a time. Which collaborative skill to teach will
depend on the particular students and the particular task they are undertaking? Just a few of the


many skills important to successful collaboration are: checking that others understand, asking for
and giving reasons; disagreeing politely and responding politely to disagreement and encouraging
others to participate and responding to encouragement to participate. Collaborative skills often
overlap with thinking skills, e.g., asking for and giving reasons pushes students to think more
deeply, and disagreement when handled properly encourages students to explain what they have
said.
III. 3. Group Autonomy:
This principle encourages students to look to themselves for resources rather than relying

solely on the teacher. When student groups are having difficulty, it is very tempting for teachers
to intervene either in a particular group or with the entire class. We may sometimes want to resist
this temptation, because as Roger Johnson writes, “Teachers must trust the peer interaction to do
many of the things they have felt responsible for themselves”. Yes, teachers will sometimes
intervene, but perhaps intervention should not always be the first option.
III.4. Simultaneous Interaction (Kagan, 1994):
In classrooms in which group activities are not used, including in the typical reading
aloud by teachers session, the normal interaction pattern is that of sequential interaction, in which
one person at a time – usually the teacher – speaks. For example, the teacher stops at some point
while reading aloud, asks a question to check students’ comprehension, calls on a student to
answer the question and evaluates that student’s response.
In contrast, when group activities are used, one student per group is, hopefully, speaking.
In a class of 40 divided into groups of four, ten students are speaking simultaneously, i.e., 40
students divided by 4 students per group = 10 students (1 per group) speaking at the same time.
Thus, this CL principal is called simultaneous interaction. If the same class is working in groups
of two (pairs are also groups), we may have 20 students speaking simultaneously.
Even when teachers use groups, it is common at the end of a group activity for each
group, one at a time, to report to the class and the teacher. When this takes place, we are back to
sequential interaction. In order to maintain the simultaneous interaction that existed during the
group activity, many alternatives exist to this one-at-a-time reporting. For instance, one person


from each group can go to another group. These representatives explain (not just show or tell)
their group’s ideas. Of course, simultaneous and sequential interaction may be usefully
combined.
III.5. Equal Participation (Kagan, 1994):
A frequent problem in groups is that one or two group members dominate the group and,
for whatever reason, impede the participation of others. CL offers many ways of promoting equal
participation in groups. Two of these are the use of rotating roles in a group, such as facilitator,
checker (who checks to see that everyone understands what the group is doing/has done),

questioner, praiser, encourager and paraphraser, and the use of multiple ability tasks (Cohen,
1994; Gardner, 1999), i.e., tasks that require a range of abilities, such as drawing, singing, acting
and categorizing, rather than only language abilities.
III. 6. Individual Accountability:
Individual accountability is, in some ways, the flip side of equal participation. When we
encourage equal participation in groups, we want everyone to feel they have opportunities to take
part in the group. When we try to encourage individual accountability in groups, we hope that no
one will attempt to avoid using those opportunities. Techniques for encouraging individual
accountability seek to avoid the problem of groups known variously as social loafing, sleeping
partners or free riding.
These techniques, not surprisingly, overlap with those for encouraging equal
participation. They include giving each group member a designated turn to participate, keeping
group size small, calling on students at random to share their group’s ideas and having a task to
be done individually after the group activity is finished.
III.7. Positive Interdependence:
This principle lies at the heart of CL. When positive interdependence exists among
members of a group, they feel that what helps one member of the group helps the other members
and that what hurts one member of the group hurts the other members. It is the “All for one, one
for all” feeling that leads group members to want to help each other, to see that they share a
common goal.


Johnson & Johnson (1999) describe nine ways to promote positive interdependence. Six
of these are discussed below.
a. Goal positive interdependence: The group has a common goal that they work together to
achieve.
b. Environmental positive interdependence: Group members sit close together so that they can
easily see each other’s work and hear each other without using loud voices. This may seem
trivial, but it can be important.
c. Role positive interdependence: In addition to the roles mentioned above, there are also

housekeeping types of roles, such as timekeeper who reminds the group of time limits and ‘sound
hound’ who tells the group if they are being too loud in their deliberations.
d. Resource positive interdependence: Each group member has unique resources. These resources
can be information or equipment, such as paper or a particular color marker.
e. External Challenge positive interdependence: When the same group stays together over a
period of time – this is recommended by most books and websites on cooperative learning partly
as a means of allowing groups to work to improve their group dynamics – students can aim to
improve on past performance.
f. Reward positive interdependence: If groups meet a pre-set goal, they receive some kind of
reward. Rewards can take many forms: grades, sweets, certificates, praise, and the choice of a
future activity the class does, the chance to do their team cheer or handshake or just a feeling of
satisfaction. If extrinsic rewards are used, Lynda Baloche (personal communication, May 14,
2001) recommends that teachers never begin an extrinsic reward program without having a plan
for how to end it.
III. 8. Cooperation as a Value:
This principle means that rather than cooperation being only a way to learn, i.e., the how
of learning, cooperation also becomes part of the content to be learned, i.e., the what of learning.
This flows naturally from the most crucial CL principle, positive interdependence. Cooperation
as a value involves taking the feeling of “All for one, one for all” and expanding it beyond the
small classroom group to encompass the whole class, the whole school, on and on, bringing in


increasingly greater numbers of people and other beings into students’ circle of ones with whom
to cooperate.
One way of expanding the scope of the positive interdependence felt by students is to read
aloud books and other materials on the themes related to cooperation and global issues. Global
issues include such areas of education as peace education, environmental education, human rights
education, multicultural education, and development education (Smallwood, 1991; TESOLers for
Social Responsibility Wood, Roser, & Martinez, 2001).
We have just look at the definitions as well as principles of CL, in the next section, some

common cooperative learning structures and techniques will be presented with the aim of setting
the clear and helpful reference for the CL training and implementing program in the next chapter.
IV. Cooperative Learning Structures and Techniques
What are cooperative learning structures?
Structures are very specific cooperative learning strategies that teachers can use to organize
interaction between students. Most structures can be used with almost any academic content, but
some structures are better than others for certain tasks. Some structures regulate interaction
between pairs, some are better for group work, and others involve the entire class. The key is
learning structures is best-suited for a particular instructional purpose. Following are some of the
structures developed by Dr. Spencer Kagan most commonly used in language class.
1. Round robin

Students in teams take turns orally responding to a question or prompt. You can have
questions on slips of paper in the middle of the team, or you can call the question aloud. For
example, you could have team members Round robin their predictions for a science experiment
before you do the activity.
2. Roundtable

Students in teams take turns passing a paper around and writing on it or completing
another task. This structure can also be used with sorting activities. For example, you could have
the names of various organs of the body on slips of paper, and the kids could take turns sorting
them into categories according to body system.


3. Rallytable

This is like Roundtable, but the kids work in pairs instead of in teams of 4. They pass a
worksheet back and forth as they write answers or complete a task. Very simple and very
effective! If you haven't used this one, you need to do so!
4. Think-Pair-Share

Students are divided into pairs. The teacher calls out a discussion topic and students THINK
of their own answer. Then students PAIR to discuss their ideas. Finally, the teacher calls on one
student to SHARE their ideas with the class. Works especially well for me in science, health, and
social studies. Also works well in math when explaining how to solve a problem. In reading, you
can use it for discussing a story or making predictions and inferences.
5. Mix-Freeze-Pair
Similar to Think-Pair-Share, but students are up and moving about the class. Ask students
to MIX and then FREEZE. Ask a question, and have students PAIR with a partner to discuss it.
Then call on a few kids to share their ideas with the class.
6.Team Interview
Students take turns standing and being interviewed by their team. They can be interviewed
about a favorite book or about a current event article they have read. They can be interviewed
about a topic they have researched or a section of the textbook they were assigned to read.
Students can even assume roles, like famous scientists and historical figures.
7. Showdown

One student on each team turns over a task card and reads the question aloud. Everyone
writes the answer on their chalkboard. Next, the leader asks students to show their answers to the
team. Team members discuss the correct answer and the leader records the answer for the team.
8.Line Ups Students line up in order according to a topic named by the teacher. For example,
you could have students line up by their birthdays or first names. You can also give students
task cards with numbers or words and have them line up in order.


9.Teammates Consult
Students all have the same worksheet. They place their pencils in a cup while discussing
each question. Then they take their pencils out to silently write the answer.
10.

Numbered Heads Together

The teacher calls out a question and students put their heads together in teams to discuss the
answer. Then a number is called, and one person from each team responds (without help from the
team.)
11. Jigsaw

Students are on "base teams" of four. Each student is assigned a different role as an
"expert." All experts with the same topic meet in a corner of the classroom to learn about their
topic. Then they prepare a brief presentation on the material and return to their base teams. They
teach their base team members the new material they learned.
12. Corners

The teacher calls out a question or a prompt and names 4 possible answers or responses.
The teacher designates a corner of the room for each response. Students write down their
personal answer and move to the corner of the room that represents their choice. They pair up
with another student to discuss why they chose that answer or response.
13. Mix-N-Match

A great classroom review structure that also serves as a classbuilder. Each student is given a
problem or answer card, and they move around the room searching for their "match." This
structure is a great activity for those times when students are restless after a long period of an
activity.
14. Three-step Interview
Three-step interviews can be used as an ice breaker for team members to get to know one
another or can be used to get to know concepts in depth, by assigning roles to students.


•

Teacher assigns roles or students can "play" themselves. teacher may also give interview

questions or information that should be "found."

•

A interviews B for the specified number of minutes, listening attentively and asking probing
questions.

•

At a signal, students reverse roles and B interviews A for the same number of minutes.

At another signal, each pair turns to another pair, forming a group of four. Each member of the
group introduces his or her partner, highlighting the most interesting points.
This concludes the introduction to CL as an overall approach to teaching that can be used
with any subject area. The next section looks more specifically at CL in regard to language
pedagogy.
V. Cooperative Learning and Language Pedagogy
As stated earlier, great deals of researches have been done on cooperative learning (CL).
However, first language pedagogy is probably not the subject area in which the most CL research
has been done, with even less having been done in the area of second language instruction.
Nonetheless, these areas have not been neglected. A great deal of practical and theoretical work
of relevance to the interface between CL and language learning has been done, and group
activities are certainly a prominent feature of language teaching in many classrooms (Jacobs,
Crookall, & Thiyaragarajali, 1997). The next section briefly examines eight hypotheses, theories
and perspectives on language pedagogy in terms of their overlap with CL.
V.1. The input hypothesis
The input hypothesis (Krashen & Terrell, 1983) states that we acquire a language as we
comprehend meaning in that language in the form of written or spoken words. Thus, reading and
listening provide input which our brains utilize to build language competence. Our knowledge
advances as we understand input at the i+1 level, i.e., input that is slightly above our current level of

competence.
Three ways that CL helps increase the quantity of comprehensible input are:
a) Peers can provide each other with comprehensible input.
b) Input from fellow learners is likely to be comprehensible.


c) Peer groups may provide a more motivating, less anxiety-producing environment for language
use, thus, increasing the chances that students will take in more input.
V.2. The interaction hypothesis
A second hypothesis about language learning that overlaps with CL is the Interaction
Hypothesis which states that language learners increase the quantity of comprehensible input they
receive by interacting with their interlocutors (the people with whom they are speaking). This
interaction is called negotiating for meaning. Pica (1994: 494) defines negotiation for meaning as
"the modification and restructuring of interaction that occurs when learners and their interlocutors
anticipate, perceive, or experience difficulties in message comprehensibility." Students negotiate for
meaning by such means as requesting repetition, explanation and clarification. Reid (1993) states
that negotiating for meaning can also take place during peer feedback on student writing.
Two ways that CL may promote interaction are:
a) Group activities, especially those in which members feel positively interdependent and
individually accountable, provide a context in which students may be more likely to interact than in
a whole class setting.
b) Long (1996) proposes that group activities can encourage students to interact with each other in a
way that promotes a focus on form, i.e., "to attend to language as object during a generally meaningoriented activity" (p. 429). Such a focus on form can be encouraged when grammar constitutes at
least one aspect of group tasks.
V.3. The output hypothesis
The Output Hypothesis (Swain, 1985) proposes that in order for learners to increase their
language proficiency, they need to generate output, i.e., produce language via speech or writing and
receive feedback on the comprehensibility of their output. Input is necessary, but not sufficient for
language learning. Output is seen to be essential as it promotes fluency; pushes students to engage in
syntactic processing of language, rather than only attending to meaning; gives students opportunities

to test their hypotheses about what works and is acceptable in a particular language and affords
students opportunities to receive feedback from others.


The main way that CL overlaps with the Output Hypothesis is illustrated in the CL principle
simultaneous interaction, because CL greatly increases students’ opportunities to create output, as
many students are talking simultaneously, instead of one person, normally the teacher, doing all the
talking (Long & Porter, 1985). The CL principle equal participation attempts to balance the
opportunities that each student has for creating output.
V.4. Sociocultural theory
The ideas of Vygotsky (1978) and related scholars have found many applications in
language pedagogy. Vygostky’s sociocultural theory views humans as culturally and historically
situated - not as isolated individuals. A key emphasis lies in the ways that we help each other
learn, rather than learning on our own. This help can be called scaffolding (the support provided
as buildings are being constructed). Scaffolding can be provided to a student by teachers, more
capable peers and even by students at or below that student’s current level. When teachers use
CL, they seek to enable students to work towards groups in which scaffolding takes place
because the members care about each other, have the skills to help one another (see the CL
principle collaborative skills) and are involved in tasks they find meaningful (see the CL
principal cooperation as a value).
CL overlaps with Sociocultural Theory by attempting to build an environment that fosters
mutual aid. As Newman and Holtzman (1993, p. 77) note:
Vygotsky’s strategy was essentially a cooperative learning strategy. He created heterogeneous
groups of … children (he called them a collective), providing them not only with the opportunity
but the need for cooperation and joint activity by giving them tasks that were beyond the
developmental level of some, if not all, of them.
V.5. Content-based instruction
The key concept underlying content-based instruction is that language is best learned
while focusing on meaning rather than focusing on the form of language. Thus, an overall
inductive approach is followed in which students learn content from anywhere in the curriculum,

e.g., science or social studies, but at the same time, they are learning grammar and vocabulary as
they receive input and produce output while learning that content.


Content-based language instruction fits well with CL (Chamot & O'Malley, 1994) as:
a) Research suggests that CL promotes learning regardless of the subject area, making it useful
for teaching any subject, not just for teaching language.
b) The CL principle cooperation as a value provides a rich vein of content that may also enhance
students’ understanding of the benefits of cooperation. Examples of such content include how
insects cooperate among each other, how environmental destruction in one part of the world
impacts plants and animals elsewhere, how people throughout history have collaborated and how
we depend on so many people in various parts of the world for so many of the things we do and
use everyday.
V.6. Individual differences
In the past, there was a tendency in education towards an assembly line model of education
in which all students were to learn in the same way. Today, the pendulum has swung somewhat, and
there is a great appreciation of the many differences that exist between students and a belief that
teaching needs to take these differences into account. Kagan and Kagan (1998) capture this new
perspective in the slogan “The more ways we teach, the more pupils we reach” (Cohen. 2, p. 6).
The individual differences perspective on learning fits well with CL as:
a) group activities provide a different mode of learning rather than a steady diet of teacher-fronted
instruction
b) within groups, students can develop more fully as they can play a wider range of roles than are
normally available via teacher-fronted instruction
c) the CL principle heterogeneous grouping encourages students to interact with peers different from
themselves, providing students opportunities to benefit from this diversity and to learn to work with
people different from themselves
d) When groups are working on their own (see the CL principle group autonomy), teachers have
more time to spend with students who may need individual attention.
V.7. Learner autonomy

The concept of learner autonomy implies that students should take an important role in
choosing what and how they learn and in monitoring their own learning. This fits with the belief that


education should be a self-directed, life-long process. Learner autonomy does not necessarily mean
that students are learning alone, rather it is a matter of moving away from a situation in which
control rests solely in the hands of teachers and, instead, of moving towards students playing the
greatest possible role given the learning context.
Learner autonomy fits well with CL as:
a) Groupmates can learn to depend on each other rather than always on the teacher
b) In line with the CL principle group autonomy, teachers seek to devolve authority to the groups,
while still playing a guiding role
c) students provide feedback to and receive feedback from each other, thereby developing their
evaluation ability (which can then be used for self-assessment) and the proclivity to look beyond
authority figures for feedback.
V.8. Affective factors
Success in learning depends not just on cognitive factors, such as the way that information is
presented, but also on the environment in which instruction takes place and students’ own perception
of the educational context they find themselves in. Therefore, affective factors, such as anxiety,
motivation and attitudes, demand attention in any approach to pedagogy.
Two examples of how CL might improve the affective climate and, thus, promote language
learning are:
a) when working in supportive CL groups, students may feel less anxious and more willing to take
risks
b) when students feel that groupmates are relying on them (see CL principle positive
interdependence), they may feel more motivated to make the effort needed to maximize learning
(Dornyei, 1997).
In the previous sections, we have looked at the interface between CL and language
learning. In the next section, we will present theory of CL in second language teaching which
will server as a reference for us in the implementation of CL in teaching speaking.