Sử dụng các hoạt động nhóm bù đắp cho những hạn chế của lớp học đông một trường hợp nghiên cứu lớp tiếng anh đông sinh viên tại trường đại học công nghiệp quảng ninh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

******

NÔNG THỊ LEN

USING SMALL-GROUP ACTIVITIES TO COMPENSATE FOR THE
LIMITATION OF LARGE CLASSES: THE CASE OF EFL CLASSES
IN QUANGNINH UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY
Sử dụng các hoạt động nhóm bù đắp cho những hạn chế của lớp học
đông: Một trường hợp nghiên cứu lớp tiếng Anh đông sinh viên tại
trường Đại học Công nghiệp Quảng Ninh

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

Hanoi - 2015


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

******

NÔNG THỊ LEN

USING SMALL-GROUP ACTIVITIES TO COMPENSATE FOR THE
LIMITATION OF LARGE CLASSES: THE CASE OF EFL CLASSES
IN QUANGNINH UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY
Sử dụng các hoạt động nhóm bù đắp cho những hạn chế của lớp học
đông: Một trường hợp nghiên cứu lớp tiếng Anh đông sinh viên tại
trường Đại học Công nghiệp Quảng Ninh

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Minh Tâm, PhD

Hanoi - 2015


DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the paper is my own original work and is neither copied
from another source without proper acknowledgement, nor written for me by
another person, in whole or in part, though I may have discussed the paper with
others and used advice and suggestions from others in writing it. This minor thesis
is the fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of
Post-Graduate Studies - University of Languages and International Studies, VNU,
Hanoi and it has not been submitted for any degrees at any other universities or
institutions.

Nông Thị Len
Hanoi, October 2015

1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Nguyễn Thị Minh Tâm, for her invaluable guidance, critical feedback, and
especially, her enormous encouragement, without which my thesis would be far
from completion.
My sincere thanks also go to all the lecturers and the staffs of the Faculty of
Post-Graduate Studies for their useful lessons and precious helps.
Moreover, I am greatly thankful to all my colleagues and students at
Quangninh University of Industry for their assistance during the process of data
collection.
In addition, my high appreciation extends to all the authors whose materials
have been used in the study. Thanks to them, I could accomplish my study.
Last but not least, the whole-hearted thanks and debt gratitude are reserved for
my dear family, friends and relatives who have supported and helped me to
overcome the difficulties during my study.

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ABSTRACT
It is never easy to teach English as a Second / Foreign Language (ESL/ EFL)
effectively because of so many common reasons. Among them, one of the objective
reasons causing ESL/ EFL teaching a lot of difficulties is large classes.
In Vietnam, large ESL/ EFL classes are unavoidable, especially in higher
education, because of the increasing English-learning needs associated with the
limitations of class facilities (limited number of classrooms), limited number of
teachers and so on. In order to overcome the disadvantages of large classes, this
study makes clear on how properly the small-group activities can compensate for

the limitations of big size EFL classes.
In other words, this minor thesis examines students’ perceptions regarding the
effectiveness of small-group work in large EFL classes. More specified, it considers
and illustrates how small-group activities could reduce students’ anonymity
connected with large classes and promote students’ accountability. In addition,
strategies to use these types of activities to compensate for the limitations of a big
size EFL class are worked out.

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the study
Touching upon EFL teaching, it can be seen that large class nowadays is
becoming a global issue. In Vietnam, EFL teachers and learners also have to face
with this problem. According to Van (2010), after 1986, the teaching of English has
grown and expanded rapidly in Vietnam. There has emerged a boom of learning
English as foreign language in the whole country. The number of English learners
in Vietnam has increased at an overwhelming speed with Vietnam’s entry into the
WTO along with the rapid development of globalization and communication among
all countries in the world. Thereafter, due to the lack of quality teachers and
resources, the size of language class at any educational level tends to be larger and
larger. It is very common for Vietnamese teachers to teach a class with more than
50 students and even not rare to have a college class with over 100 students
especially after the expansion of college enrollment. Teachers face many challenges
in teaching in large classes which cannot be easily avoided in Vietnam context. So
much research has been conducted in such environment in order to facilitate
teachers to cope with the problems arisen by the increase of the students in the
classroom.
With the experience of four-year teaching EFL at Quangninh University of

Industry (QUI), I can see that QUI also cannot avoid the current real situation of
Vietnam’s EFL teaching. It is usual to have an EFL class of over 50 students, even
120 students at QUI. Our students come from all over the country, with different
background and learning habits. It is really difficult for me, as well as other EFL
teachers at QUI, to manage these large classes from the very easiest thing namely
checking students’ attendance. Therefore, I would like to do the research in order to
find out a better solution for the problem of large class in QUI. More specifically,
this research was carried out to make clear to what extent the small-group activities
can compensate for the limitation of large EFL classes. The pedagogical
implications withdrawn from this study are definitely beneficial for QUI teachers
4


and students. I sincerely hope that thanks to the findings of this action study EFL
teachers at QUI can better manage large classes, improve teaching quality, and help
students in large EFL classes to significantly improve the effectiveness of their
English learning.
2. Aim of the study
The aim of this study is to find out the extent to which the use of small-group
activities can compensate for the limitations of the large EFL classes. For more
detail, this study is aimed to promote the students’ participation through the
employment of small-group activities in a big size EFL class. A big size EFL class
truly has some limitations in which the most undesirable one is discouraging the
participation of students. In this action research it is hoped that small-group
activities can be effectively used to compensate for that limitation of large EFL
classes at QUI.
3. Research question
This study is conducted to find the answers for the following question:
To what extent do small-group activities promote students’ participation in
large class?

4. The significance of the study
For the teachers of English division, this study is hoped to bring them the
detailed and full view on the reality of big size classes at QUI and the necessary use
of group activities to compensate for some of large class’s limitation. As a result,
they can apply the proper teaching methods to their large classes. For the students in
the large EFL classes, this action research can help them to realize their strengths
and their abilities to learn, develop their language skills and contribute in a large
class.
5. Methods of the study
Action research is employed in this study. Both qualitative and quantitative
methods are used in this research. The data were collected by means of:

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-

Questionnaires

-

Classroom observations

-

Interviews.
These three research instruments are used in three phases of the action

research for preliminary investigation, exploration of the effects that the action
created, and reflection on the action phase.

6. Scope of the study
To promote students’ participation in large classes, EFL teachers can use
varieties of techniques. However, this study merely focused on studying how
effective small-group activities, that are considered well-matched to the
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach – a learner-centered approach,
can be used to reduce students’ anonymity connected with large classes and
promote students’ accountability. Small-group activities seem to be the most
suitable to the context of large classes. Among so many different useful small-group
activities, only two activities are employed in this thesis: Small-group discussion
and Role play.
This action research is applied in six consecutive speaking lectures. Speaking
skill is chosen because it is the best in expressing the students’ participation among
four performance indicators for language skills (reading, speaking, writing and
listening). The action is carried out for the first-year students of all majors in a class
of 50 at QUI. The collected data are analyzed and discussed to figure out how
small-group activities contribute to encourage students to participate in their
oversize class. Then some solutions were proposed to improve the quality of
teaching and learning in large classes.
7. Design of the study
The study is organized into three main parts: Introduction, Development and
Conclusion.

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In part A – Introduction, the rationale, aims, research question, significance,
methods, scope and the organization of the study are presented.
In the second part, part B - Development, there are four chapters.
Chapter I, Literature Review, mentions some main points about the theoretical
background for the field of the study. This is the review of literature on small-group

activities and large classes.
Chapter II describes the methodology, or the overall picture of how the
research was carried out from the first step of determining the research design to the
last step of gathering the results.
Chapter III presents data analysis and findings. This chapter attempts to
provide answers to the posed research question: To what extent do the small-group
activities promote students’ participation in large class? Then there are some
discussions on the findings of the study.
Part C is Conclusion. This part gives the conclusion of the study and also
accesses some pedagogical implications which suggest some ideas for teacher so
that they can maximize the benefits of small-group activities in their large classes.
In addition to that, this part points out the limitations of this study and offers some
suggestions for further study.

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