The application of group work activities to improve speaking skills for 10th grade students at a bac ninh high school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
-----O0O----NGUYEN THI TRANG

THE APPLICATION OF GROUP WORK ACTIVITES
TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILLS FOR 10TH GRADE STUDENTS AT
A BAC NINH HIGH SCHOOL

Sử dụng hoạt động nhóm để cải thiện kĩ năng nói của học sinh lớp 10 tại
trường trung học phổ thông tỉnh Bắc Ninh

M.A. MINOR PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 8140231.01
Supervisor: Dr. Vu Thi Thanh Nha

Hanoi, 2019


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
-----O0O-----

NGUYEN THI TRANG

THE APPLICATION OF GROUP WORK ACTIVITES
TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILLS FOR 10TH GRADE STUDENTS AT
A BAC NINH HIGH SCHOOL

Sử dụng hoạt động nhóm để cải thiện kĩ năng nói của học sinh lớp 10 tại
trường trung học phổ thông tỉnh Bắc Ninh

M.A. MINOR PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 8140231.01
Supervisor: Dr. Vu Thi Thanh Nha

Hanoi, 2019


DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this thesis represents my own work for the Degree of Master in
TESOL at the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and
International Studies - Vietnam National University, and that it has not been
previously submitted to this University or any other institution in application for
admission to a degree, diploma or other qualifications.
Bac Ninh, May 29th 2019

Nguyen Thi Trang

ii


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to acknowledge the debt of gratitude to my
supervisor, Dr.Vu Thi Thanh Nha for her helpful suggestions, invaluable critical

feedback and encouragement in the writing of this study. Without her guidance and
help, this work would not have been completed.
My sincere thanks go to all the staff at the Department of Post-graduate
Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies for giving me
assistance and the lecturers who conducted the Master's course for providing me
with valuable knowledge.
I would also like to express my deep sense of gratitude to my dear students,
whose participation in and dedication to the research remain invaluable have been
acknowledged. Without their precious support, the thesis would not have taken
shaped.
Finally, the support extended to me by the members of my family has been
immeasurable. I would also like to express my thanks to my parents and my
husband for their wholehearted encouragement.

Bac Ninh, May 29th 2019

Nguyen Thi Trang

ii


ABSTRACT

The study was carried out with an attempt to investigate the application of
group work towards enhancing grade 10 students’ speaking skill. The subjects
participating in the research were 40 EFL students studying in the same class at a
high school in Bac Ninh province. To achieve the desired aims of the study, an
action research was carried out. Survey questionnaires for students and learning
logs were used as the major instruments to collect data about students’ challenges in
developing their speaking skill and the impacts of group work implementation on

students’ speaking ability. The results of the study showed that group work has
positive influence on the development of students’ speaking skill and has the
potential to help students deal with some challenges that they may encounter in
speaking lessons.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION ...................................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. iii
LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES ................................................................... vii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................1
1.1 Rationale of the study .........................................................................................1
1.2 Aims of the study .................................................................................................3
1.3 Scope of the study ................................................................................................3
1.4 Organization of the thesis ...................................................................................4
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW...............................................................5
2.1 Theoretical background of speaking .................................................................5
2.1.1 Definitions of speaking skill ..............................................................................5
2.1.2 Aspects of speaking skill ....................................................................................5
2.1.3 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity ...............................................6
2.1.4 Problems with speaking classes .........................................................................8
2.1.5 Relating categories of oral production ...............................................................9
2.1.6 The roles of the teacher in different stages of teaching speaking ....................10
2.2 Group work in speaking lessons ......................................................................11
2.2.1 Definition of group work .................................................................................11
2.2.2 Benefits of group work.....................................................................................12

2.2.3. Some problems in using group work. .............................................................13
2.2.4 Group formation ...............................................................................................14

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2.2.5 Teacher’s role in carrying out group work.......................................................16
2.2.6 Steps of organizing group activities .................................................................17
2.3. Previous studies ................................................................................................18
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ......................................................................22
3.1 Participants and context of the study ..............................................................22
3.2 Reasons to choose action research method .....................................................22
3.3 Phases of action research ..................................................................................24
3.4 Weekly schedules and research procedures ...................................................26
3.4.1 Weekly schedules .............................................................................................26
3.4.2 Research procedures.........................................................................................29
3.5 Data collection instruments ..............................................................................31
3.5.1 Questionnaires ..................................................................................................31
3.5.2 Learning logs ....................................................................................................31
CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ..............................................34
4.1 Information collected from the survey questionnaires ..................................34
4.1.1 Students’ opinions on the importance of speaking skill ..................................34
4.1.2 Students’ challenges in developing speaking skill ...........................................34
4.1.3 Students’ preference of group work in speaking lessons .................................35
4.1.4 Reasons for students’ preference of group work .............................................36
4.1.5 Students’ opinions on the effectiveness of group work in speaking lessons ...37
4.1.6 Students’ opinions on the advantages of group work in speaking lessons ......38
4.1.7 Students’ opinions about the impact of group work on their speaking ability 39
4.1.8 Students’ self-evaluation regarding speaking aspects before and after the
application of group work .........................................................................................40

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4.2 Data collected from students’ learning logs ....................................................43
4.2.1 Things students can do .....................................................................................43
4.2.2 Things students learnt ......................................................................................46
4.3 Summary ............................................................................................................48
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ..............................................................................49
5.1. Summary of major findings ............................................................................49
5.2 Recommendations .............................................................................................50
5.3 Limitations .........................................................................................................51
5.4 Recommendations for further research ..........................................................52
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................53
APPENDICES.……………………………………………………..……………….I
APPENDIX 1 PRE-ACTION QUESTIONNAIRE ................................................ I
APPENDIX 2 POST-ACTION QUESTIONNAIRE ............................................ II
APPENDIX 3 LEARNING LOG: SPEAKING SKILL ..................................... IV

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LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

TABLES
Table 3.1. The timetable of the action implementation………………..…………....27
Table 4.1 The importance of speaking skill ---------------------------------------------- 34
Table 4.2 Students’ preference of group work ------------------------------------------- 36
Table 4.3: Reasons for students’ preference of group work --------------------------- 36
Table 4.4 Students’ opinions on the effectiveness of group work -------------------- 37

Table 4.6 Use of new lexical items and grammar structures -------------------------- 43
Table 4.6 Use of new lexical items and grammar structures -------------------------- 43
Table 4.7 Students’ report on new lexical items and grammar structures learnt ---- 47
Table 4.8 Types of mistakes and ways to correct --------------------------------------- 47

FIGURES

Figure 4.2. Students’ opinions on the improvement of speaking ability ------------- 39
Figure 4.3. Students’ self-evaluation of the vocabulary aspect ------------------------ 40
Figure 4.4. Students’ self-evaluation of grammar aspect------------------------------- 41
Figure 4.5. Students’ self-evaluation of fluency aspect -------------------------------- 42
Figure 4.6. Students’ self-evaluation of pronunciation aspect ------------------------- 42
Figure 4.7. Students’ changes in styles of answers ------------------------------------- 44
Figure 4.8. Students’ opinions on the level of hesitation ------------------------------- 45

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
This chapter mentions the background and rationale to conduct the study, states the
aims, scope, and organization of the graduation thesis.
1.1 Rationale of the study
English has received growing recognition as the preferred foreign language
in Vietnam nowadays (Do, 2006) and is considered an “unquestionable asset”
(Shapiro, 1995: 4) for the Vietnamese people due to its role as a key to Vietnam’s
regional and global integration under the impact of the so-called open-door policy
or Doi Moi since the last decade of the 20th century (Nguyen, N. 2012). This global
integration trend has directly led to a spectacular increase in demand for English
training (Nguyen, N. 2012) in order to facilitate the communication ability, increase
interactions and develop international relations between the local enterprises,

labours and those from foreign countries. Since then, English has become one major
subject at schools and continuously receives significant attention of the government,
with a number of national projects which aim at promoting the quality of teachers
and that of the English teaching and learning process.
Among the four English skills (speaking, listening, writing, and reading),
speaking has been perceived as the most important one (Flohr & Paesler, 2006).
According to Nunan (1993), the importance of speaking skill is obvious as human
depend themselves more on speaking rather than writing when interacting with
others. As defined by Brown (2001), speaking is an interactive process to conduct
meaning which involves producing, receiving and processing information. Speaking
can also be considered as an indicator for students’ success in mastering a language.
By speaking students may realize how much language they have mastered ad how
they can use it. Besides, through students’ speaking, teachers can get feedback from
students faster and more exactly. Thanks to students speaking activities in class and
outside class, the teacher can find out how much students understand the lesson.

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Hence, she can know what their weak and strong points are in language to have
appreciated solutions and plans.
It is clear that speaking skill plays a significant role in teaching and learning
a foreign language. Therefore, it is necessary that speaking be paid enough attention
from those English language learners who aim to master the language. This also
leads to the need for English teachers to create more opportunities for their students
to practice this oral skill during class time.
As a teacher of High School in Bac Ninh for ten years, I has been familiar
with the fact that my students of different generations may have rather good
understanding of grammar knowledge and good control of in written language;
however, encouraging them to speak remains a challenging job as most of them find

it really hard to express themselves in oral language. Students often show their
passive learning during speaking lessons. Many of them feel extremely nervous
when being called to present orally in front of their classes, some even cannot say
any words when they have to stand up and speak while when I write the questions
or topics for discussion on the board and tell them to write their answers, the
majority of them can perform the task though at different levels of success.
Obviously, their unwillingness and refusal to practice indispensably lead to their
poor speaking performance in all speaking lessons, which is supposed to also reduce
their confidence and demotivate them to speak. Unfortunately, this is not the
problem of students in my classes only but is the shared problems of all other
English teachers in my school. However, little has been done to improve the
situation due to a number of constraints.
For a number of decades, many researchers have investigated the impacts of
group-work on language learning process and reported its various positive effects.
For speaking, group-work is proved to help reduce anxiety, create interaction
among students (Long & Porte, 1985), provide safer language learning environment
(Richard & Rodgers, 2001), increase speaking opportunities, encourage learners to

2


share their opinions, enhance cooperation and negotiation skills and promote learner
autonomy (Harmer, 2007). Being aware of the benefits of group work in promoting
speaking skill, English teachers in my school, including me, decided to apply it in
our speaking lessons with a view to helping our students improve their skills. To
formally investigate the application of group work and its impacts on students’
speaking skill, I therefore conduct this study, entitled “The application of group
work activities to improve speaking skills for 10th grade students at a Bac Ninh
High School”.
1.2 Aims of the study

The study is conducted to investigate how group work activities can be used
to improve high school students’ speaking skill.
To achieve the mentioned goal, the two research questions are proposed:
 What are the challenges for grade 10 students in developing their
speaking skill?
 How does group work help improve their speaking skill?
1.3 Scope of the study
The researcher intends to start with an overview of the current situations of
students’ learning English speaking skill, then analyze the effects of group work
activities on students’ speaking and make some recommendations on the effective
use of group work to motivate students to practice speaking English more. As an
action research project, the study was conducted with the researcher’s own students
in her own class with the participation of 40 students. The action research
framework employed in this study is the framework proposed by Kemmis &
McTaggart (2000) with four phases including plan, action, observation and
reflection. The three major data collection instruments for the study are
questionnaires, classroom observation and students’ diary in the form of learning

3


logs. It is hoped that the information collected will be able to fully answer the two
research questions. Detailed information on the research procedures is presented in
chapter 3.
1.4 Organization of the thesis
The graduation thesis consists of five chapters, organized as follows:
Chapter I- Introduction. This chapter mentions the background and rationale to
conduct the study, states the aims, scope, and organization of the graduation thesis.
Chapter II- Literature Review. This chapter represents theoretical background
knowledge related to speaking skill, and a brief review of the previous studies on

group work and its impacts on students’ speaking ability.
Chapter III- Methodology. This chapter states the subjects of the study, research
instruments, and data collection procedures employed in this research.
Chapter IV- Findings and discussions. This chapter analyzes and discusses the
results collected from survey questionnaire, learning logs. Besides, the limitations
of the study are introduced.
Chapter V- Conclusion. This chapter summarizes the main points discussed in the
previous parts, presents the limitations of the thesis and provides some suggestions
for further research.

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CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter represents theoretical background knowledge related to speaking skill,
and a brief review of the previous studies on group work and its impacts on
students’ speaking ability.
2.1 Theoretical background of speaking
2.1.1 Definitions of speaking skill
Bygate (1987) defines speaking as oral expression that involves the use of
the right sounds in the patterns of rhythm and intonation as well as the word choice
and inflections in the right order to convey the right meaning. According to the
author, it is a means for building social relationships, ranking, a vehicle of
professional advancement and of business, also a medium through which much
language is learned. According to Chaney (1998), speaking is the process of making
and sharing meaning by using verbal and non-verbal symbols in different contexts.
Brown (1994) and Burns and Joyce (1997) defined speaking as an interactive
process of making meaning that includes producing, receiving, and processing
information. Those different authors defined speaking ability in different ways, their
definitions all share one feature which is the ability to use a language as a means to

achieve some communicative purpose.
2.1.2 Aspects of speaking skill
According to Gower (1995), speaking involves accuracy and fluency. The
author’s explanation of the two mentioned aspects can be found below.
Accuracy
As for Gower (1995), “accuracy” involves “the correct use of vocabulary,
grammar and pronunciation” (Gower, 1995:99) and suggests teacher make students
clear about the importance role of accuracy in their feedback for controlled and
guided activities. However, teachers should not be too focused on accuracy at the

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beginning because this may make students afraid of making mistakes and prevent
them from improving their fluency.
Fluency
The term “fluency” refers to the ability to keep the conversation going on
Gower (1995). Richards (1993) defines fluency as the level of communication
proficiency involving the ability to produce oral and written language with ease, the
ability to control intonation, vocabulary and grammar; and the ability to make
oneself understood in communication. Both fluency and accuracy are important
elements of communicative approach, therefore, learners’ activities should be
designed based on equivalence between fluency and accuracy achievement
(Mazouzi, 2013).
The Council of Europe (2017) provides a more detailed description of the
qualitative aspects of spoken language use, which includes “vocabulary range”,
“(grammar) accuracy”, “fluency”, “interaction”, “coherence” and “phonology” (The
Council of Europe, 2017:156). Also according to this guidebook, in a number of
analytic scales for assessing speaking performance, Range, Accuracy, Fluency and
Pronunciation are common regards.

It is easy to recognize that according to both descriptions, speaking ability is
supposed to involve such aspects as vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and
fluency. Therefore, in this study, the researcher makes plans to investigate the
impacts of group work on these four common aspects.
2.1.3 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity
According to Nunan (1999:39) “success (in speaking) is measured in terms
of the ability to carry out a conversation in the (target) language”. A successful
speaking activity is therefore supposed to fulfill a number of characteristics that
helps students achieve this goal. Ur (1996) explains some characteristics of
successful speaking activities which include creating as many opportunities for

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leaners to speak as possible, distributing fairly even chances for participants,
making them feel highly motivated, and assuring that language is of an acceptable
level. More detailed description of these characteristics is presented below.
Learners talk a lot
As much as possible period of time allotted to the activity which is occupied
by learners talk. This is obvious, but often most time is taken up with teacher talks
or pauses. It can be understood that the learners must be active to talk with their
friends as much as possible. It is very clear that the learners are busy, but they
seldom spent their time to talk with their teacher.
Participation is even
Classroom discussion is not dominated by a monitory of talkative
participants. It means that all learners have a chance to speak, and contributions are
fairly evenly distributed. The classroom discussion is not dominated by one
participant only, but all of participants get a same chance to speak.
Motivation is high
Students are eager to speak because they are fascinated by the topic and have

something new to say about it, or because they want to make contribution to achieve
an objective task. It means that the students have high motivation to speak English.
By having a high motivation, the students will feel interested in learning English,
especially in speaking.
Language is of an acceptable level
Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easily
comprehensible to each other, and of an acceptable level of language accuracy. It
means that they use the components of speaking which are relevant with the
acceptable level of language such as, pronunciation, grammar, fluency, and

7


comprehensible. So, the students often try to speaking English correctly in real
communication.
In practice, however, not many classroom activities satisfy all the above
mentioned criteria. This requires language teachers to make efforts in finding out
and conducting activities that work best in their teaching context.
2.1.4 Problems with speaking classes
According to Ur (1996) there are four main problems in speaking, which are
presented below.
The first problem is called “Inhibition” (Ur, 1996:121). Unlike reading,
writing or listening activities, speaking requires some degree of real-time exposure
to an audience. EFL students are often inhibited about trying to say things using a
foreign language in the classroom due to their worry about making mistakes or the
feeling of shyness for the attention that their speech attracts, the fear of being
criticized or losing face in front of the rest of the class. Many prefer to be silent
rather than being criticized in front of a large number of people (Brown, 2000).
The second problem is “Nothing to say”. Ur (1996:121) reported that even not
being inhibited, his students often complained that they could not think of anything to

say. In reality, they may feel bored or think that the topic surpasses what they know.
Thus, students often lack confidence about their speaking ability and believe that they
have insufficient language skills to express exactly what they want to express.
Also pointed out by Ur (1996), low or uneven participation is another problem.
He explained that only one participant can talk at a time if he or she is to be heard;
and in large groups, this means each one will have little talking time. This problem is
compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate, while other speaks very
little. Therefore, in English class, timid students are quite happy to sit back and watch
the lesson unfolding instead of participating.

8


Last but not least, “Mother tongue use” (Ur, 1996:121) is also supposed to be
one of problem for speaking classes because students with the same mother tongue
normally prefer to use their first language to exchange information and express their
thoughts rather than using the target language (Tuan & Mai, 2015). This may result
from the lack of topical and language knowledge, as well as motivation (Harmer,
1991). Therefore, most of the students are not disciplined in using the target language
in the learning process even when the task is too easy.
Large class size is also an important affecting factor. If the classroom is
crowded with more than 40 students, it is a fact that the students has fewer chances to
practice the language and it is also much more difficult for students to pay enough
attention to each of them, to keeping good disciplines, as well as to organize dynamic
and creative teaching and learning sessions (Febriyanti, 2011).
To sum up, speaking is believed to be one of the most challenging skills which
require learners’ time and effort to make a success. Therefore, it is necessary that both
teachers and students pay enough attention to the learning and teaching process to
help students overcome these obstacles and make progress in their speaking skill.
2.1.5 Relating categories of oral production

According to Brown (1994), there are six categories relating to oral
production which are:
- Imitative: accounts for very small portion of speaking time in the speaking
time when learners are practicing an intonation contour trying to pinpoint a certain
vowel sound.
- Intensive: includes any speaking performance that is designed to practice
some phonological or grammar aspects of language.
- Responsive: is short replies to the teacher or student initiated questions or
comments. These replies are usually sufficient and do not extend into dialogue.

9


- Transactional (dialogue): is carried out for the purpose of conveying or
exchanging specific information. Conversations, for example, may have more of a
negative nature to them than merely responsive speech. Such conversation could
readily be the part of group work activity as well.
- Interpersonal (dialogue): this type of dialogue is often carried out more for
the purpose of maintaining social relationship than the transmission of facts and
information. These conversations are a little trickier for learners because they can
involve some or all the following factors: a casual register, colloquial language,
emotionally changed language, and slang etc.
- Extensive (monologue): Finally, students at intermediate or advanced levels
are called on to give extended monologues in the form of oral report, summaries, or
perhaps short speeches. Here the register is more formal and deliberative.
As can be seen, the six categories proposed by Brown (1994) illustrate
different forms of speaking practice with different levels of difficulties that can be
organized during the speaking lessons. Teachers can base on these categories to
design the practice activities for their own students to help them step by step improve
their speaking skill. In this research, the categories that I used with my students were

mainly but not limited to responsive, transactional, interpersonal and extensive which
I found suitable for the content planned to teach.
2.1.6 The roles of the teacher in different stages of teaching speaking
Byrne (1986) introduced three stages of teaching speaking: the presentation
stage, the practice stage and the production one. In each stage, the role of the
teacher is different.
At the presentation stage, the teacher is considered an informant role. The
teacher introduces something new to be learned and present it in such a way that the
meaning of the new language is as clear and memorable as possible. The students
listen and try to understand. It means that the teacher is at the centre of the stage.

10


Therefore, teacher’s time spending should be sensible so that the students get
enough time to practice themselves.
At the practice stage, it is the students’ role to do most of the talking while
teacher’s main task is to devise and provide the maximum amount of practice,
which must the same time be both meaningful and memorable. The teacher’s role,
then, is completely different from that at the presentation one. The teacher is like
the skillful conductor of an orchestra, giving each of the performers a chance to
participate, observing and monitoring their performance to see that it is satisfactory.
At the final stage- the production one, the teacher takes on the role of
manager and guide. Students are given opportunities to use language freely.
Sometimes students can make mistakes at this stage, but mistakes are unimportant.
What is more important is that students have chance to use language as they wish,
to try to express their own ideas. Moreover, they become aware that they have
learnt something useful to them personally, and are encouraged to go on learning. It
will not be so easy for the teacher to measure students’ performance as it was at the
practice stage, nor is there any easy recipe for success. So, what is needed is

flexibility, tolerance, patience on teacher’s part- and, above all, an understanding of
the learners’ difficulties.
To sum up, the teacher through speaking lesson should work as an instructor.
His/ her roles closely relate to the three stages of learning. Whatever the teacher is
doing in the classroom, his/ her ability to enhance the students’ interest, to create
motivation and involve them in what they are doing, will be crucial.
2.2 Group work in speaking lessons
2.2.1 Definition of group work
Group work is not a new technique in teaching and has been similarly
defined by a number of authors. Nolasco and Arthur (1998) states that group work
is a number of people assigned a task together and they will work on it

11


cooperatively. According to Doff (1998), in group work the teacher divides the
class into small groups to work together and similar to pair work, all the groups
work at the same time.
Group sizes can vary from pairs to large groups of students, each group may
consist of three members, four or up to six members or sometimes only two like
pair work (Doff, 1998). In fact, there are not any fixed rules on the number of group
members so this largely depends on teacher’s belief and decision.
2.2.2 Benefits of group work
As previously mentioned, group work is proved to bring a number of
potential benefits to speaking classes such as providing more opportunities for
students to practice, increasing classroom interaction (Long & Porte 1985),
enhancing cooperation and promoting learner autonomy (Harmer, 2007).When
working in groups, students can exchange, share their knowledge and understanding
with other members in their group, thereby improve the effectiveness of lesson
acquisition.

Group work also requires members to work collaboratively with the rest of
the team to create an output, so the mutual understanding also increases. Group
work is a cooperative activity in which the students work at the same time, sharing
ideas and responsibility and independently have their own ideas which contribute to
the group work’s success without every minute observation from the teacher and
other students. Joining groups can also help students develop a host of skills that are
increasingly important in the professional world (Caruso & Woolley, 2008; Mannix
& Neale, 2005). Positive group experiences, moreover, have been shown to
contribute to student learning, retention and overall college success (Astin, 1997;
Tinto, 1998; National Survey of Student Engagement, 2006).
Group work has also been proven to be an effective way of promoting
learning motivation, enhancing performance and lessening learners’ language

12


anxiety (Dumas, 2002); Kahle, 1993; Stahl, 1994). It is an effective way to offer an
interactive environment, which is crucial to communicative language learning.
Harmer (1999) also presented a number of advantages of group work, which
include the possibility to increase the student talking time, enhancing problem
solving, teamworking and interpersonal skills. This may be explained by the fact
that in group work, normally a number of people involved, each with different
experience, knowledge, points of view and values, a larger number and variety of
ideas can be given. Moreover, the exchange of the ideas in the group can act as a
stimulus which will encourage individuals to give more ideas, more opinions and
therefore contribute more to group work activities. Thanks to this, students probably
become more active in their learning process.
Also according to Harmer (1999), another advantage of group work is that it
helps reduce bias. This is because the shared responsibility in a group in coming to
decisions can encourage individuals to explore seemingly realistic ideas and to

challenge accepted ways of doing things. Therefore, individual biases and
prejudices can be challenged by the group, forcing the individual to recognize them.
Group pressure can also encourage individuals to accept that change is need.
Finally, students’ group work frees the teacher from the usual role of “an
expert who always lectures” and allows him/her to walk to each group, to guide, to
answer questions from students or to encourage students to work actively (Harmer,
1999).
To sum up, group work has proved to be beneficial to students in helping
them improve their speaking skill.
2.2.3. Some problems in using group work.
Despite a number of benefits, group work also has several disadvantages.
Haines (1995) claims that “being forced to speak a second language to someone
who shares your first language is artificial” (Haines, 1995:57). This partly explains

13


why one major problem of group work among students of the same first language is
their frequent use of the mother tongue.
The amount of noise is also a big challenge which is not always easy for
teachers to control. Conducting group work is somehow time-consuming as teachers
often need more time to organize groups and instruct students on what to do.
Another problem is the different levels of responsibility of the group members
(Harmer, 1999). It is common that among members of a group, some may be highly
responsible while some others may be quite passive and even lazy so their
contribution and participation in group work may not be equal. Moreover, in a
mixed-level group, better students are sometimes dominant. As consequence, less
proficient students often have fewer opportunities to participate. According to
Harmer (1999), working in group can also cause competitions as some
unconsciously perceive the situations as a competition, which probably leads to the

generation of a destructive behavior and therefore drains the creative energy of the
group
Besides, Harmer (1999) argued that working in group is a relatively slow
process compared to working alone due to the fact that students often have to be
present at an assigned time and need time to negotiate before coming to an
agreement.
Although there are some disadvantages of group work, the advantages still
outweigh. Being aware of the all potential challenges in conducting group work will
help teachers anticipate the problems they might encounter to be able to reduce the
difficulties and make use of its benefits.
2.2.4 Group formation
There are a number of ways to form group work. According to Jung (2004),
groups can be formed randomly (counting off or by their seat proximity), on the
basis of teachers’-selection, or students’ selection. Random group assignments

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avoid cliques and ensure that students interact with different students throughout the
semester. Once teachers know their students fairly well, teacher-selected groups can
be useful for pairing weak and strong students, students with common interests or
shared learning styles, or characteristics. It can be said that teacher can clearly
understand their students’ behavior in class.
Random grouping
Random grouping is often used for in-class activities because of its
convenience and readiness that is random grouping is a way including collecting
and gathering students ignoring any differences among students in terms of their
language level, learning style, interests etc. The number of students in class varies
up to forty or more, so random grouping helps teacher saves time. For the class of
different levels, random grouping is supposed to narrow down the gap between the

students of different levels.
Student-selected grouping
Student selected grouping is another popular way to form groups. Many
students feel more committed when they are let choose their own partners with
whom they feel most comfortable to communicate.

However, student-selected

grouping can result in high level of noise in class because students of such groups
tend to exchange a large amount of information both relevant and irrelevant to the
lesson content.
Teacher-selected grouping
Compared to random grouping and student-selected grouping, teacherselected grouping is a more time-consuming method due to the fact that teachers
have match students together to form the best group for each of them basing on their
preferences, learning style, level of activeness and other related characteristics.
However, this kind of grouping is also supposed to be the most effective as it
enables peer tutoring that gives students more chances to learn from one another.

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Group size
It is suggested that three to five members in one group can be the best for it.
According to Honeyfield (1991), I-Jung (2004) and Ngoh (1991), a group with four
members make group work more interesting as there are a wider range of opinions
being expressed, as well as more negotiation required for the group members to
reach an agreement. In addition, each group member has better chances to express
their own ideas in such group size. Six should be the maximum number of members
in one group (Honeyfield,1991; I-Jung, 2004) as bigger groups may lead to
difficulties in controlling, organizing activities and encouraging contribution from

all members.
2.2.5 Teacher’s role in carrying out group work
In Communicative Language Teaching, teachers are supposed to take the
roles of a guide, an instructor, an organizer, an assessor, a prompter and a
participant (Hammer, 1991). When carrying out group work, even though the
students are more independent, the teacher still plays an important role in designing,
conducting the tasks and analyzing the need.
According to Cross (1992), the teacher is the manager of an activity who
must plant it, organize it, start it, monitor it, time it and in the end conclude it. The
teacher in the group work activities is not the free one but the one who is active with
assisting, supervising and monitoring the group. The teacher is not only there with
their students only at the beginning or the end of the learning process but from
beginning to the end of the process as they perform a number of roles including
- an activity selector who creates activities that fit the students' skills and
abilities, assigns group tasks that allow a fair division of energy as well as set up
"competitions" among groups.
- an instructor who is there to ensure that the students will be not misleading.

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