Co-operative learning as an approach to improving speaking skills for the second-year non-major students of English at Hanoi University of Business and Technolo

Vietnam national university, Hanoi
University of language and international studies
Department of post graduate studies





Co-operative learning as an approach to
improving speaking skills for the second-year
non-major students of English at
Hanoi University of business and technology

CÁCH THỨC HỌC TẬP HỢP TÁC NHƯ MỘT ĐƯỜNG HƯỚNG
CẢI THIỆN KỸ NĂNG NÓI CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI
KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH TẠI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH DOANH VÀ CÔNG NGHỆ HÀ NỘI

M.A. THESIS
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410





By : Vu Thi Bich Thuy

Supervisor : Le Van Canh, M.A.




Hanoi, 12 – 2008



Vietnam national university, Hanoi
University of language and international studies
Department of post graduate studies




Co-operative learning as an approach to
improving speaking skills for the second-year
non-major students of English at
Hanoi University of business and technology

CÁCH THỨC HỌC TẬP HỢP TÁC NHƯ MỘT ĐƯỜNG HƯỚNG
CẢI THIỆN KỸ NĂNG NÓI CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI
KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH TẠI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH DOANH VÀ CÔNG NGHỆ HÀ NỘI

M.A. THESIS
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410

By : Vu Thi Bich Thuy
Supervisor : Le Van Canh, M.A.




Hanoi, 12 – 2008


TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABSTRACT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LISTS OF APPENDIXES
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1
1. 1. Introduction 1
1. 2. Rationale 1
1. 3. Identification of the problem 2
1. 4. Scopes, objective and research questions for the study 4
1. 5. Methods of the study 5
1. 6. Design of the study 5
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE 7
2.1. Introduction 7
2. 2. Concepts related to the study 7
2. 2. 1. Communicative language teaching and the teaching of
speaking skills 7

2. 2. 2. Speaking skills in General Business English 9
2. 2. 3. Cooperative learning 11
2. 2. 3. 1. Definitions of cooperative learning 11
2. 2. 3. 2. Cooperative learning structures 12
2. 2. 3. 3. Benefits of cooperative learning in language teaching 14
2.2.3.4. Previous studies on cooperative learning with reference
to the enhancement of students’ speaking skills 17


2. 3. Conclusion 18
CHAPER 3: THE STUDY 19
3. 1. Introduction 19
3. 2. Context of the study 19
3. 2. 1. The learning context 19
3. 2. 2. The learning materials 19
3. 3. Methods of data collection 20
3. 4. The participants 22
3. 4. 1. The students 22
3. 4. 2. The teachers 23
3. 5. The procedures of the study 23
3. 5. 1. Problem identification 23
3. 5. 2. Plan of action 24
3.5.2.1. Determine the students’ need in continuous classroom
interaction 24
3. 5. 2. 2. Organize groups 24
3. 5.2. 3. Implement cooperative learning structured activities
basing on the course book and start the observation
schedule and journals 25
3. 5. 2. 4. Evaluate students’ speaking proficiency 25
3. 5. 2. 5. Analyze the data 26

3. 5. 2. 6. Findings 26
3. 6. Conclusion 26
CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS 27
4. 1. The effects on the students’ participation 27
4. 1. 1. Frequency of students’ participation in pre- and post- activities 27


4. 1. 2. Comparison of the students’ participation 29
4. 2. The effects on the students’ speaking performance 31
4. 3. Students’ attitudes towards cooperative learning 32
4. 4. Discussion of the findings 34
4. 4. 1. What are the effects of cooperative learning on students’
participation on group activities and their progress in
speaking skills? 34
4. 4. 2. What are the students’ attitudes towards cooperative learning? 35
4. 5. Conclusion 36
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 37
5. 1. Summary of the major findings 37
5. 2. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies 38
5. 3. Pedagogical implications of the study 39
5. 4. Conclusion 40
LIST OF REFERENCES
LIST OF APPENDIXES

LISTS OF APPENDIXES
Appendix 1: Lists of tables
Table 1: Speaking criteria and marking scales i
Table 2: Record of students‟ scores in the pre-test ii
Table 3: Frequency of students‟ participation in pre- and post- activities – gr. 1 iii
Table 4: Frequency of students‟ participation in pre- and post- activities – gr. 2 iii
Table 5: Frequency of students‟ participation in pre- and post- activities – gr. 3 iv
Table 6: Frequency of students‟ participation in pre- and post- activities – gr. 4 iv
Table 7: Frequency of students‟ participation in pre- and post- activities – gr. 5 v
Table 8: Frequency of students‟ participation in pre- and post- activities – gr. 6 v
Table 9: Record of students‟ scores in the pre-and post tests vi
Appendix 2: Lists of charts
Chart 1: Comparison of the students’ participation – GROUP 1 vii
Chart 2: Comparison of the students’ participation – GROUP 2 vii
Chart 3: Comparison of the students’ participation – GROUP 3 viii
Chart 4: Comparison of the students’ participation – GROUP 4 ix
Chart 5: Comparison of the students’ participation – GROUP 5 ix
Chart 6: Comparison of the students’ participation – GROUP 6 x
Appendix 3: Observation schedules xi
Appendix 4: Sample oral tests of 4 modules xii
Appendix 5: Sample cooperative learning lessons xx
Appendix 6: Optional prompts for students’ journals xxviii
Appendix 7: Some typical students’ journals xxix
Appendix 8: The multiple intelligent test xxx
1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1. 1. Introduction
This chapter is concerned with the rationale behind the researcher‟s decision of choosing
the thesis subject, and the way she identified the problem facing her students‟ English
speaking skills. Besides, the scope, the objectives, and the research questions as well as the
methods and design of the study are also stated clearly.
1. 2. Rationale
Never before has English become so pervasive as nowadays, and English has formally
been an important subject in our educational system. “Better English, more opportunities”
is the answer given by most Vietnamese university students when asked about their goal of
learning English. English can help students prepare well for their future careers 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 and 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. Vietnamese students, who are intelligent and hard working, no doubt, have no
difficulties in mastering English grammar and vocabulary. Most of them, however, have
difficulties in English communicating. 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 support from educational authorities. However, finding out the most
appropriate English teaching method that can satisfy the need of the society is still a big
problem for generations of teachers in Vietnam.
Thanks to the efforts of several international projects and organizations, the teaching and
learning English in Vietnam has been considerably changing in the past years. Various new
approaches, methods and techniques on the teaching of English have been introduced and
applied in colleges and universities nationwide. Generally, English teaching has shifted
from the traditional grammar translation approach to the communicative approach. To be
successful in their real classroom‟s contexts, which are communication-oriented and
learner-centered, teachers of English are doing their best to improve their teaching skills.
2

1. 3. Identification of the problem
It is undeniable that it is very important for teachers to analyze, to reflect on and to make
use of their own situations. To some extent, learner-centered teaching is only rhetorical in
Vietnam at present. Theoretically, learner-centered teaching requires learners to play the
role as negotiators and interactors while teachers as facilitators, analysts, counselors and
managers. In the real classroom, many people, including the researcher herself, have
misunderstood this approach before this research. When this method was first introduced
to Vietnamese education, most teachers just assigned worksheets to students and then left
them to work by themselves without observing, analyzing, and reflecting on them while
they participated in the task. That is a dangerous idea because some students do not have
the maturity to do the task by themselves. They may need some help to finish the task. If
they do not receive help from anybody, especially their teacher, they might develop
negative attitudes towards language learning which are very difficult to change. If teachers
are not clear about this approach, they may create dangerous gaps unconsciously.
Gradually, if they are concerned about what this approach means exactly, they may
promote students‟ confidence in language learning, especially speaking skills.
Speaking English is one of the most important skills for students and will help them find a
good job in the future. For over several years, the researcher herself has found that students
would like to speak but they feel they lack confidence in speaking. As a result, they think
that English is very difficult for them and they become bored with learning the skills. The
action research study of how to promote students speaking English through co-operative
learning is very important because it may also help them to develop other skills. Moreover,
Richards (2004: 3) states, “Employers too insist their employees have good English
language skills and fluency in English is a prerequisite for success and advancement in
many fields of employment in today‟s world.”
In order to help English learners make progress in speaking, it is a good idea to focus on
their communication skills. Edge (1993: 17) identified the importance of communication
that communication is at the heart of modern English Language Teaching (ELT), the goal
of language teaching and part of the learning process. Luoma (2004: ix) added that “the

ability to speak in a foreign language is at the very heart of what it means to be able to use
a foreign language.” Wongsuwana (2006: 44) also stated that speech can be trained and it
does not depend on talent.
3

However, one main reason why English speaking learning in Vietnam is not very
successful is that most learners lack the opportunity to learn, and to speak English in an
English environment; and for interaction in daily life. Therefore, it is essential to find out
the solution to the problem so that English learners have more opportunities to
communicated, as well as to interact with one another in a so-called close-to-real English
speaking environment. One of the teaching strategies that reflects the principle of learner-
centeredness is groupwork, which is designed by Nunan and Lamb (1996: 142) as 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 student-centered teaching. Groupwork can greatly increase the amount of
active speaking and listening undertaken by all the students in the language class.
Groupwork has especially received more and more emphasis in language classroom and
groupwork activities are used in many aspects of the second language instructions,
particularly in encouraging students‟ oral practice. Working in groups, students are not
passively sitting and listening to the teachers, but joining actively in the learning process.
However, it is not always true that whenever students are asked to work in groups, the
cooperation will occur. Generally, there are problems such as some group members
dominate the group and impede the participation of others. Therefore, how to organize
groupwork successfully in the classrooms is the question of great concern for many
language researchers as well as language teachers.
In learner-centered approach, group work is the most effective way to reach success; and
cooperative learning is undeniably the most flexible and powerful grouping strategies as in
cooperative learning, 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‟s learning. Cooperative learning can create an environment in which students‟ need

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.
Cooperative learning implementing programs have been applied successfully by thousands
of teachers from all over the world. However, the application of cooperative learning has
not been popular in Vietnam. There have been few studies on cooperative learning
application in teaching English, particularly in teaching speaking.
4

As teaching English at Hanoi University of Business and Technology, the researcher
sometimes failed to organize her second year students, who were non-major students of
English, to work successfully in group activities. The students came from different regions
all over Vietnam, and even though their acquisition of English grammar and vocabulary
was quite good, most of them got difficulties in speaking because of many reasons. The
students mostly had very little chance to use English in communication, so they were very
shy to speak. Moreover, some students who came from urban areas often had better
speaking skills than those who came from rural areas. During speaking activities, the
strong ones talked a lot, the average spoke some, and the weak students seemed to keep
silent all the time. The researcher had carried some strategies such as talking to them to
find out their problems, choosing the interesting topics, monitoring frequently to help,
encouraging the weak ones to speak and asking the strong ones to help their friends by
assigning the roles for them and keep asking questions to force them to speak. This did not
help a lot. Therefore, the fundamental reasons causing this problem was really a big
question for her. She kept on finding the ways to get all her students equally involved in
the class speaking activities. During the search, the researcher had found some articles and
books about implementing cooperative learning strategies to improve group activities in
which cooperative learning can be used as a mean to improve students‟ cooperation,
participation and even their language proficiency. According to these articles and books,
the benefit of cooperative learning had been explored in Vietnam and should be taken into
account.
For all the above reasons, it is strongly desirable for the researcher to propose “Co-

operative learning as an approach to improving speaking skills for the second-year non-
major students of English at Hanoi University of Business and Technology” as the
subject of this study.
1. 4. Scopes, objective and research questions for the study
This study was a kind of action research which was designed and conducted by the
researcher herself. The study was limited to the investigation of students‟ attitudes towards
cooperative learning, the level of their participation in groupwork, which was a dimension
of cooperative learning, in classroom speaking activities as well as the effect of
cooperative learning on the students‟ speaking performance. The study was conducted on
the second-year students who were studying English as a minor subject at Hanoi
5

University of Business and Technology. Thus, the first and foremost objective of the study
is for the sake of the students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology, where the
researcher worked as a teacher of English. Although any generalization of the findings
should be made with caution, it is expected that this study will serve as a source of
references for teachers of English on the teaching of speaking skills, especially for those
who consider cooperative learning as one of the best educational innovations.
To be more specific, in realizing this study, the main objective is:
- To investigate the effects of cooperative learning on students‟ participation and
achievement in speaking skills.
With this objective, the research questions are:
- What are the students‟ attitudes towards cooperative learning?
- What are the effects of cooperative learning on students‟ participation on group
activities and their progress in speaking skills?
1. 5. Methods of the study
This research is realized with both qualitative and quantitative analysis.
Quantitative analysis is involved in the process of data collection and analysis, which was
carried out at Hanoi University of Business and Technology. The instruments for this
process included two observation schedules fulfilled by the researcher herself, and the

researcher‟s three colleagues and two M.A. classmates, who were working as the
classroom observers during the research; and the records of the students‟ oral progress test
scores.
On the other hand, qualitatively analyzed, the research was based on the students‟ attitudes
to cooperative learning through their written journals after each cooperative-learning-
oriented speaking lesson.
1. 6. Design of the study
The study is divided into six main chapters:
Chapter one is the Introduction, which states the rationale, the scope, the objective, and the
research questions as well as the methods and design of the study.
Chapter two presents all necessary literature review that relates to the study.
6

In chapter three, the study - an action research on the improvement of the non-major,
second year students‟ speaking skills at Hanoi University of Business and Technology - is
described.
One of the main contents of the study, the data analysis is reported in chapter four. In this
chapter, the researcher analyzes the data collected quantitatively and qualitatively to reach
the findings of the study.
In chapter five, the discussion of the findings related to the research questions with
reference to the literature review is mentioned.
Chapter six is the conclusion where the main contents of the study are summarized. In
addition, the pedagogical implications of the study as well as the limitations of the study
and the suggestions for further studies are discussed in this chapter.
Besides, the list of references and the appendixes are also parts of this study.

7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Introduction
This chapter presents some of the most important issues in theory of cooperative learning
in general and in language teaching in particular. The main features are taken into
consideration, namely, the concepts related to the study including the communicative
language teaching and the teaching of speaking skills, the definitions of cooperative
learning, and cooperative learning structures. Moreover, this is the study conducted on the
second year, non-major student of English at Hanoi University of Business and
Technology, where the course book Market Leader (Pre-intermediate) - a book for
business English - is exploited, so the speaking skills in General Business English as well
as the task-based learning and how it is exploited in business English are also introduced in
this part. Before reaching the minor conclusion of the chapter, it is the researcher‟s wish to
mention the benefits of cooperative learning and some of the previous studies on
cooperative learning with reference to the enhancement of students‟ speaking skills.
2.2. Concepts related to the study
2. 2. 1. Communicative language teaching and the teaching of speaking skills
The latest influence on language teaching in Vietnam is communicative language teaching.
Communicative language teaching is a broad approach to teach, which results from a focus

on communication as the organizing principle for the teaching rather than a focus on
mastering of grammatical system of the language. So far, there have been many definitions
of communicative language teaching, but it is not easy to show which a standard one is.
According to Byrne (1981: 71), the communicative approach allows a lot of interactive
oral activities in the classroom. Students learn to use the English language, not English
usages, to utter fluently in communication. Students works in groups (consisting of two
people upwards), take their own roles to communicate with others who also have their
roles, so each of them produce intentional utterances that help them reach their goals in
shortest time. Teachers give students clear targets, create communicative conditions, then
go round to help students by participate themselves in the activities.
Nunan (1989: 94) overviews the approach which contains aspects common to many
definitions of communicative language teaching:
8

Communicative language teaching views language as a system for the expression of
meaning. Activities involve oral communication, carrying out meaning tasks and
using language, which is meaningful to the learners. Objectives reflect the needs of
the learners; they include functional skills as well as linguistic objectives. The
learner‟s role is as a negotiator and integrator. The teacher‟s role is as a facilitator of
the communication process. Materials promote communicative language use; they
are task-based and authentic.
The definition above represents a particular view of understanding and explaining
language acquisition. It is socially constructed, and, as such, must be effective if exploited
to teach language speaking.
Speaking plays a vital role in communication. Many famous linguists and scholars have
discussed to examine the nature of speaking, from the elements of pronunciation to the
connected speech, and the pragmatic aspects. Brown (1994: 256) points out some of the
characteristics that can make oral performance difficult such as the clustering, the reduced
forms, the colloquialism, the stress, rhythm and intonation, the interaction, and the
affective factors.

Brown and Yule (1993) suggest that, in contrast with teaching of written language,
teachers concern with teaching the spoken language must confront such the following
types of questions as how important pronunciation is, and whether students should be
expected to produce the structures in standard grammar when they speak English.
Ur (1996) considers speaking intuitively the most important of the four skills: people who
knows a language are referred to as „speakers‟ of that language as if speaking included all
other kinds knowing, and many if not most foreign language learners are primarily
interested in learning to speak. As a matter of fact, it is difficult to help learners to express
themselves articulately and more importantly, to develop competent speaking skills. The
different uses of the spoken language, which learners have to master as fluent speakers of
English, therefore are necessary to consider. She also lists out some problems facing
teachers as designing and administering speaking activities that include the inhibition of
trying to say something in English in the classroom; the mother-tongue use; the uneven or
low participation; and the lack of motivation.
All of the above authors support the ideas that the success of oral communication involves
a number of the features such as the ability to articulate phonological ones of the language
9

comprehensibly; the mastery of stress, rhythm, intonation patterns; the acceptable degree
of fluency; the management of interaction and negotiation; the conversational listening
skills, etc. of which the interacting and negotiating skills are more important for
communication in general Business English.
Conclusively, the ability to speak a second language well is a very complex task. Speaking
is used for many different purposes and each purpose involves a different skill. In general
Business English, we may use speaking to describe things, to complain about people‟s
behaviour, to make request, to negotiate something in our business, or to entertain people
with joke, etc. Each of these different purposes for speaking implies knowledge of the rules
that account for how spoken language reflects the context or situation in which speech
occur, the participants involved and their specific roles relationships, and the kinds of
activities the speakers are involved in.

2. 2. 2. Speaking skills in General Business English
Speaking skills in Business English are related to business performance areas. Although
the purpose of this study is to improve the speaking skills of a particular objective through
cooperative learning application, it should be noticed that the students, who severed as the
participants of this action research, were pre-experienced in business, and they were
studying General English for business at university (the course book Market Leader Pre –
Intermediate). Therefore, the business General English speaking skills are considered a
matter of discussion in this part. According to Dudley-Evans and John (1998), English for
General business purposes courses are usually for pre-experience learners or those at the
very early stage of their career. They are similar to general English as a foreign language
courses with the materials set in business context. As for Ellis and Johnson (1994), the
typical performance areas for General Business English include meetings and discussions,
oral presentation, telephoning and socializing.
Meetings and discussions is a very broad performance area ranging from small, informal
meetings to large, formal ones, and discussions of all kinds. There are three different kinds
of behaviour that can be identified in this area: controlling, participating, and co-operating.
The languages functions required for each kind is different, too. For meetings, it is
necessary to acquire the language skills of opening the meeting, nominating the topics for
discussion, rejecting topics, asking people to speak, summarizing, restating (or rephrasing),
concluding and closing the meeting. The language functions relating to participating in
10

meetings are negotiating, setting out facts and figures, expressing opinions, supporting an
argument, agreeing and disagreeing, making suggestions, balancing points of view,
interrupting, promising, etc. Therefore, it is very important that teachers should provide
their students with clear structures for certain skills, then give students chance to co-
operatively practice holding meetings inside as well as outside classroom.
Oral presentation is built on language and good oral skills, which also relates to co-
operative skills. In order to give oral presentations, the language functions required are
describing process, expressing possibility and certainty, describing structures, giving

reasons, expressing causes and effects, describing trends, comparing and contrasting,
expressing conditions, expressing intention, etc. Oral presentation work concentrates on
the stand-up, prepared talks accompanied by visual aids as well. In addition, the confidence
factor is worth mentioning as it has an effect on the handling of feedback in teaching oral
presentations.
Telephoning in English business covers a wide range of situations and types of interaction.
The language used in telephone conversations is highly conventional and formalized.
Telephoning also requires well-developed skills in exchanging information, clarifying, and
explaining. Pair work is the most popular technique exploited in teaching business
telephoning skills in English.
Socializing means the spoken interactions that surround the actual discussion of business
matters. According to Dudley-Evans and John (1998), in socializing, the social aspect of
interaction is just for establishing a good relationship in order to increase the conduct of
business. Therefore, a large variety of language structures is required here, depending on
specific types of situation and behaviour, such as greeting and saying goodbye,
complimenting and responding to thanks and complements, modality for expressing
possibility or politeness, raising topics, changing topics, accepting or rejecting new topics,
conditionals in negotiating, etc.
In summary, General Business English courses provide learners a board range of English
through business settings, and like General English courses, the design of these courses
should be task-based. According to Ellis and Johnson (1994), the basic fabric of a Business
English course should be tasks that are close to those of students‟ real situations. It is
important that these tasks should have specific objectives and be clearly instructed at the
beginning so that students are able to follow and achieve their overall objectives. Practice
11

tasks may be long or short; and the selection of appropriate tasks should depend on the
need of the students in relation to their (future) jobs – what business situations they have to
deal with, for instance. They may include: asking a student to describe a (or his/her)
company‟s products or to compare different products; asking two group members to

imagine they are business associates meeting for the first time; setting up a telephone role
play or a simulated meeting; getting the student to prepare a short presentation defending a
certain point of view, etc. It is also essential that students should get helpful and
constructive feedback on their performance. The students should know whether their
mistakes actually affected the success or failure of the task: Did they communicate
effectively? Were they easy to understand? Did they manage to clarify misunderstanding?
Did they use appropriate politeness form? Only after that feedback has been given is it
valuable to draw attention to specific language errors that may have contributed to lack of
overall clarity or precision.
2. 2. 3. Cooperative learning
2. 2. 3. 1. Definitions of cooperative learning
Cooperative learning is one of the main factors to promote students‟ communication. It is
by no means a new idea. Humans, for thousands of years, 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. Over the past twenty years, different approaches to cooperative learning have
been developed by different individuals. Thus, cooperative learning takes many forms and
definitions.
Cooperative learning is defined by Johnson and Johnson (2001) as “a successful teaching
strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety
of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each member of a team is
responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus
creating an atmosphere of achievement. Students work through the assignment until all
group members successfully understand and complete it”. This is one of the most
satisfactory and comprehensive definitions about cooperative learning in general situations
and contexts.
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Millis (1999) brings a relatively adequate definition into open that “Cooperative learning

refers to the act of various interactive instructional small groups. Students who employ
cooperative learning approach work in groups of two to five to fulfill specific targets. They
need to be cooperative, pro-social, and positively interdependent. They also need to be
responsible for their own work”.
Johnson (1991) also gives a definition about cooperative learning as “the instructional use
of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other‟s
learning”. According to the author, 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 members gain from each other‟s
efforts, recognizing that all the group members share a common fate, knowing that one‟s
performance is mutually caused by oneself and one‟s colleagues, and feeling proud and
jointly celebrating when one group member is recognized for achievement, 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 in the
group can possess all the information, skills, or resources necessary for the highest possible
quality result.
It can be clearly seen from these definitions that the key to cooperative learning is the
careful structuring of learning groups. Generally, cooperative learning methods share the
following characteristics:
- Students work together on common tasks or learning activities that are best handled
through group work.
- Students work together in small groups consisting of two to five members.
- Students use cooperative, pro-social behaviors 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, responsible for their work, or learning.
2. 2. 3. 2. Cooperative learning structures
The specific cooperative learning strategies that teachers can use to organize interaction

between students are called cooperative learning structures. Most structures can be used
13

with almost any academic contents, but some structures are better than others for certain
tasks. Some structures regulate interactions between pairs, some are better for group work,
and others involve the entire class. The important thing is that we must choose the most
suitable one for a particular instructional purpose. According to Dr. Spencer Kagan (2003),
there are many structures commonly used in a language class, and in this study, some of
the most common ones were used to organize students‟ speaking practice in the light of
general business English such as round robin, rally table, think-pair-share, team interview,
teammate consult, jigsaw.
In round robin structure (also called round table), students in teams take turns orally
responding to a question or prompt. The question(s) can be written on slips of paper in the
middle of the team, or it (they) can be called aloud. This structure aimed at giving every
team member equal opportunities to say out their ideas. For example, the teacher can have
team members in a group round robin their suggestions for finding out the best way to
market a company‟s new range of products (a topic in Market Leader Pre- Intermediate).
The structure rally table works the same way as round robin, but the students work in pairs
instead of in teams. They pass a worksheet back and forth as they discuss, write answers or
complete a task. This structure is very simple and effective in a speaking lesson. In their
groups, students are divided to work in pairs, (or the teacher can have two groups work
together, each member of a group works with a member of another group to share their
ideas, then the group members can gather again after their discussion, etc). The purpose of
using this structure is to create more chances for students to speak and enhance their
responsibility for the task because as working in pairs, participants have to work in turns,
so if one participant does not work, the task may fail. This really helps in organizing
telephone conversation practice, one of the performance areas in general business English.
The aims to structure students in think-pair-share are similar to what of rally table. There
is only a slight difference in the way it is conducted. In this structure, students are divided
into pairs. The teacher calls out a discussion topic and students think of their own answers.

Then students pair to discuss their ideas. Finally, the teacher asks the students to share
their ideas in their groups, and then the teacher can call one student to share their ideas
with the class. This works well in discussion to find out how to solve a business problem.
In team interview, students take turns standing and being interview by their teams. They
can be interviewed about a company or a product they have read about. This can be done
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after students‟ presentation time as well. By using this structure, the teacher can help
students feel more confident as presenting in front of many people.
Teammate consult also works well in general business English. Students have the same
worksheet. They discuss the questions, and then silently write down the answers. This
really helps in a cooperative learning group, as students can exchange their ideas with one
another to find out what they themselves think the best answers for the questions given.
Students are on „base teams‟ of five in a jigsaw practice. 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 topics. Then they prepare a brief presentation on the material
and return to their base teams. They tell their base team members about the new material
they have learned. In a speaking lesson of general business English, the teacher can use
this type to create a close-to-everyday-life atmosphere, in which students move around,
discuss their topics, try to learn new things, and then exchange the knowledge they have
gained with their friends. By doing so, students‟ speaking ability can be improved.
In summary, there are many strategies used in cooperative learning, all have common
characteristics of learning activities that are suitable for group work, and small group based
tasks. The strategies mentioned above, which were chosen carefully by the researcher of
this study, encouraged students‟ cooperative behaviors, positive interdependence,
individual accountability and responsibility for task completion, and so on. Thus, the
application of cooperative learning strategies is very effective in solving the problems of
speaking activities.
2. 2. 3. 3. Benefits of cooperative learning in language teaching
Since springing to life around the seventeenth century, cooperative learning approach has

exposed a lot of its strengths rather than its weak points. The source of benefits for
cooperative learning can be seen in different fields, including the teaching of English
language as a foreign language. In the best cooperative learning speaking lesson in a
language classroom, the members of a learning group can benefit in several ways.
Typically, a teacher who chooses to use this method may not only have a learning goal that
is domain-specific for the course, but also hopes that in the process of trying to attain this
goal, the students will acquire new strategies and knowledge. By dividing the class into
groups, a new social context is created whereby students have the opportunity to share
individual cognitions with their peers and come to a conclusion based on the sum of these
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cognitions. A group that contains diverse members has the benefit of exposure to different
ideas and the challenge of incorporating these ideas into the cognitive process of the group
communicatively. The benefits of cooperative learning have been discussed by several
famous scholars all over the world.
According to Johnson and Johnson (1987), cooperative learning approach is the “ideal”
educational target: the “power of self-control”. Students‟ ability can be developed and they
become confident to do interdependent assignments. At first, they try to find out the way to
authorize and believe in one another in their own team, then in a larger one such as their
class. Gradually, they can be confident enough to enter a much larger community where
the teacher plays the role as the presenter, supervisor, and supporter. This is a very good
way of building up students‟ confidence in cooperative learning, so that they are not
reluctant to speak out their ideas.
Prasongporn (2004: 72) notes the advantages of cooperative learning as promoting
members‟ relationships and providing equal opportunity to all members to think, speak and
act while working together. It also helps members listen to other ideas and to brainstorm to
make decisions in doing something, adjust to living and working together and promote
communication among members.
As for Johnson & Holubec (1991), “Cooperative learning is the most important of the three
types of learning situations … what we know about effective instruction indicates that

cooperative learning should be used when we want students to learn more. Like school
better, like themselves better, and learn more effective social skills. It is clear that
classrooms should be dominated by cooperation among students”. This idea about the use
of cooperative learning is worth considering for the trend towards the increasing of
cooperative learning application in speaking lessons for Vietnamese students.
Millis (1996-2001) points out that students studying cooperatively in oriented groups are
strongly believed to be successful. He also emphasizes that “Working in well-instructed
groups permanently or semi-permanently gives students more opportunities to interact with
one another. Structural expressions also help a lot in everyday classroom practice.
Roundtable, for instance, is a technique of brainstorming applied in many kinds of practice
for various targets. Students choose correct and appropriate structures first, and then use
the structures to produce their own meaningful sentences. By doing that, they put
themselves in a particular practice, but when particular practices are connected, they turn
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to be a cooperative lesson or activity”. Obviously, it is a beneficial for students to do so,
even it may take a plenty of time, and teachers should carefully think of the allocation of
time for other language skills, especially in the Vietnamese classroom context, where the
traditional approach is still dominated.
Dahley (1994) thinks that in cooperative learning, students work interdependently in their
groups to fulfill a special target. Effective cooperative learning should include five vital
elements: positive interdependence, face-to-face interaction, individual accountability,
social skills, and group processing. Positive interdependence refers to the peer support in
groups to reach the goal. By face-to-face interacting, students can help one another more
easily. Students also need to account their work individually, so that they can get rid of
being plagiarized by others. Acquiring social skills can help students strengthen personal
relationships among members of their group. Finally, group processing is necessary to
evaluate each member‟s work, their success or problems, their attitudes towards the job.
Teachers themselves benefit from collaborative learning. According to Bruffee (1993), by
applying this approach, they help students form groups or societies in which students get

assistance from one another to make progresses, and to overcome problems facing them in
their new knowledge environment.
In conclusion, the reason why cooperative learning is used is that cooperative learning
enhances students‟ learning by:
- providing a shared cognitive set of information between students,
- motivating students to learn the materials,
- 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.
Cooperative learning small groups also 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,
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- 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.
2. 2. 3. 4. Previous studies on cooperative learning with reference to the enhancement
of students’ speaking skills
Cooperative learning is one of the main factors to promote students‟ communication. In
this study, cooperative development is not only for language teaching but also language
learning, particularly the learning of English speaking skills. It provided a way of students
working together with their friends in order to become a better learner who learned best at
his/ her own pace. There have been a large amount of studies on cooperative learning,

especially with reference to the enhancement of students‟ speaking skills. In this part, only
some famous ones are noted.
In their study, Tavella and Artusi (2006: 11) did research on the application of cooperative
learning to enhance speaking skills. Their study was carried out with the participation of
two groups of secondary school students. The study shows that cooperative learning is
extremely useful in mixed-ability classes because it takes into account individual learning
styles, learning speeds, personality differences, language levels and affective issues. The
characteristics of cooperative learning were positive interdependence, individual
accountability, social skills, especially speaking skills, and there was a need for the
monitoring of behavioral criteria for grouping so that students could orally perform better.
Group compositions and interaction patterns could change with goals. They conclude that
cooperative learning is more than just an approach to learning a language, or language
skills; it is a way of working, behaving and even reflecting society and life itself.
Holmes (2003: 254 - 257) conducted an empirical study in a Malaysian university to
investigate students‟ language skill development via cooperative learning application. The
study compared students working in pairs and students working alone. He found that
students who worked together produced better results and had more positive attitudes.
Moreover, the data analysis in his study revealed that while working in groups, student‟s
speaking skills were improved, especially the ability of expressing their ideas. However,
there were some shortcomings about conflict manipulation or deception. The overall
results of the research indicated that most students regarded pair work positively. Fifty-five
18

(80%) of the pairs reported that they had had a good experience working with a partner and
38 (57%) said they enjoyed doing the project.
Johnson, Johnson and Holubec (1991: 21) observed that college students, especially
freshmen, often feel hopeless and discouraged when facing a difficult class, therefore
cooperative learning should be provided. After their research, they noted that the most
important aspect of college faculty life is empowering students by organizing them into a
cooperative team. They also had another conclusion that by studying in teams, students‟

language competence became better, namely speaking and listening skills.
Cooperative learning models have been demonstrated

to have a markedly positive impact
on student achievement (Johnson & Johnson, 1991).

In a paper available on the CLC
website and presented in 2001,

Johnson and Johnson conducted a meta-analysis of only
that literature that

specifically analyzed the impact of cooperative learning on

students‟
speaking skill achievement. In their estimate, students in cooperative

learning situations
score, on average across many studies, almost

two thirds of a standard deviation higher
than their peers in

competitive or individualistic learning situations.
2. 3. Conclusion
In short, the chapter has so far presented the issues and aspects concerning the topic of the
study. As a learner (learning from students‟ feedback), teacher (providing students
materials and activities) and researcher (analyzing and reflecting on data) at the same time,
the language teacher should realize that theories and strategies of teaching second language
speaking skills need to be understood. In the process of developing this study, using

theories relating such as the communicative language teaching and the teaching of
speaking skills, the speaking skills in General Business English, cooperative learning, and
cooperative learning structures, the benefits of cooperative learning, etc. as background
knowledge to plan the activities and materials were a good way to enhance students to
learn most. The thorough action research – the most important part of this study – will be
presented in the next chapter.


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CHAPTER 3: THE STUDY
3. 1. Introduction
In this section, besides the minor introduction and conclusion, four main categories are
addressed. The first one is the context of the study, which houses the description of the
students‟ learning context and learning materials in their second year at Hanoi University
of Business and Technology. In the second category, the methods of data collection are
presented carefully. The introduction of the action research participants lies in the next
part. The most important part of the chapter, which is the procedures of the study,
describes in details the problem identification and the plan of action.
3. 2. Context of the study
3. 2. 1. The learning context
The students were in their first semester of the second university year, with 90 class hours
of English study. They studied in a small-sized class of 30 ones; each class has one private
room to study. They had just finished the elementary level of English and attend 10 class
hours of English every week. The students, after one year learning English at Hanoi
University of Business and Technology, were expected to communicate appropriately in
various, simple situations in everyday life as well as in business life.
In general, the students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology attend 3 modules
of English in their first year, 4 ones in their second year, and 4 others in their third year. At
the end of each module, they have to take part in an oral progress test which accounts for

20% of the general module score. (The written test takes 10%, the on-going assessments
get 10%, and the final on-computer-test takes 60%).
3. 2. 2. The learning materials
The course book is Market Leader (Pre-intermediate) by David Cotton, David Falvey, and
Simon Kent (2000). The book is clearly laid out with plenty of authentic models of spoken
language, communicative activities, pair work, and group work to help students practice
using the language in the classroom. The book is divided into 12 or 14 topic-based units
depending on the level. The topics have been chosen following research among teachers to
establish which areas are of the widest possible interest to the majority of their students.
Besides speaking, the book provides input in reading, and listening, with guidance for