LUẬN VĂN THẠC SỸ TIÊNG ANH "SPEAKING"

DECLARATION
I certify that the minor thesis titled “Enhancing third-year non-English major students’
participation in speaking lessons through collaborative activities at Hanoi University of
Business and Technology” is the result of my own work and that this thesis has not been
published or submitted for a degree to any other universities or institutions.
Signature
Nguyễn Thị Minh Hà
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ACKOWLEDGEMENTS
To complete the task, I have received a great deal of useful and practical support from many
people.
First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Mr. Đỗ Bá Quý. for
his scholarly knowledge, wholehearted supervision, insightful invaluable guidance and
constructive critical feedback. He has inspired and encouraged me during the steps of the
thesis.
Also, my special thanks are sent to my colleagues and my beloved third-year students in two
classes, KT1210 and KT1218, of Hanoi University of Business and Technology (HUBT) for
their participation in as well as their strong support for the research with comments, useful
materials and classroom observation opportunities without which my work would have not
been completed.
Last but not least, I would like to convey my heartfelt thanks to my family and all of my close
friends for their love, care, encouragement and financial as well as spiritual support for me to
fulfill this thesis.
Hanoi, August 2010
Nguyễn Thị Minh Hà
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ABSTRACT
Cooperative learning has been widely accepted and used in international English language
classes for years, but in Vietnam, this approach seems to be a fairly new issue and yet to be
applied nationwide. Taking the advantages of collaborative learning, the author of this study
attempted to apply some collaborative activities to 58 third-year non-English major students in

speaking lessons in hope that they can solve some in-class speaking problems such as boring
and quiet atmosphere, team members’ laziness, ‘hijacking’ attitudes, ineffective collaboration,
too much competitiveness, etc. This action research is conducted in two classes of
Accountancy at Hanoi University of Business and Technology with the focus on the
effectiveness of the cooperative activities in enhancing students’ participation in speaking
lessons, to some extent. In this paper, the researcher uses four data collection instruments:
questionnaires, follow-up semi-structured interviews with students, observation in each lesson
and students’ reports on their pair or group work after the lessons. The researcher reviews
some theories regarding speaking skill, cooperative learning, and then analyzes the
informant’s feedback on the effectiveness of cooperative learning. The research shows that
collaborative activities are effective in helping students to change their attitudes towards
speaking skill, as well as pair or group work, and enhance their participation in speaking
lessons.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
HUBT: Hanoi University of Business and Technology
ESL/ EFL: English as a second or foreign language
CL: Cooperative learning/ Collaborative learning
CLL: Collaborative language learning
CA: Collaborative activities
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Some matters related to grouping before and after the application of CA
Table 2: Conflicts during discussion before and after the application of CA
Table 3: Students’ distribution of participation- class 1
Table 4: Students’ distribution of participation- class 2
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Cooperative learning outcomes
Figure 2: Students’ attitude towards speaking practice in class before the application of CA

Figure 3: Students’ attitude towards speaking practice before and after the application of CA
Figure 4: Students’ attitude towards pair or group work before and after the application of CA
Figure 5: Students’ desire for leadership in pair or group work
Figure 6: Students’ distribution of participation- class 1&2
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