VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES -*** TỐNG THỊ HOÀNG HẠNH A STUDY ON APPLYING GROUP DISCUSSION APPROACH TO ENHANCE SPEAKING SKILLS OF ENGLISH FOR THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT AN DUONG VOCATIONAL MIDDLE SCHOOL (Áp dụng đường hướng thảo luận theo nhóm để phát triể n kỹ nói cho sinh viên năm thư nhấ t tại ́ Trường Trung cấ p Nghề An Dương) M.A Minor Thesis Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.14.10 HANOI- 2010 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES -*** TỐNG THỊ HOÀNG HẠNH A STUDY ON APPLYING GROUP DISCUSSION APPROACH TO ENHANCE SPEAKING SKILLS OF ENGLISH FOR THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT AN DUONG VOCATIONAL MIDDLE SCHOOL (Áp dụng đường hướng thảo luâ ̣n theo nhóm để phát triể n kỹ nói cho sinh viên năm thư nhấ t tại ́ Trường Trung cấ p Nghề An Dương) M.A Minor Thesis Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.14.10 Supervisor : Duong Thi Thuc, M.A HANOI- 2010 iv TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………… LIST OF ABBREVIATION………………………………………………………… i ii iii iv vi Part I: Introduction Rationale…………………………………… ………………………………… Aim of the study ……… ………………………………………………………… Scope of the study………………………………………………………………… Methods of the study …………………………………………………………… Design of the study………………………………………………………………… 3 3 Part II: Development Chapter 1: Literature review……………………………………………………… 1.1 Speaking skill…… ………………… 1.1.1 What is speaking skill? …………………………………………………… 5 1.1.2 The requirements for speaking skill………………………………………… 1.1.2.1 Accuracy……………………………………………………………… 1.1.2.2 Fluency……………………………………………………………… 1.1.3 Common problems during Speaking Activities……………………………… 1.2 Cooperative Language Learning……………………………………… ……… 6 1.2.1.The background of CLL…………………………………………………… 1.2.2 Types of Cooperative Learning group……………………………………… 1.2.3 The benefits of Cooperative Language Learning…………………………… 1.3 Group discussion in speaking class……………………………………………… 1.3.1 History of the group discussion……………………….…………………… 1.3.2 The concepts of group discussions/group work……………….…………… 1.3.3 The formation of group discussion………………………………………… 1.3.4 Seating arrangement in group discussion…… …………………… 1.3.5 The role of learner in group discussion…………………………………… 1.3.6 The role of teacher in group discussion…………………………………… 1.3.7 The advantages and disadvantages of using group discussion in the speaking class………… 1.3.7.1 Advantages…………………………………………………………… 1.3.7.2.Disadvantages………………………………………………………… Chapter 2: Methodology 9 12 12 12 13 15 17 17 18 18 19 DECLARATION ………………………………………………………………… ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………… TABLE OF CONTENT…………………………………………………………… v 2.1 Setting of the study……………………………………………………………… 2.2 Current situations of teaching and learning English speaking skills at An Duong Vocational School 2.3 Methodology…………………………………………………… 2.3.1 Subject…………….………………………………………………………… 2.3.2 Techniques for Collecting Data……………………………………… 21 22 22 22 24 Chapter 3: Findings and Recommendations 3.1 Student survey………………………………………………………… 26 3.1.1 The importance of English speaking skill…………………………………… 3.1.2 Students’ interest in English speaking skill………………………………… 3.1.3 Students’ preference to how they like to practice speaking skill in class…… 3.1.4 Students’ opinion on speaking in group discussion………………………… 3.1.5 Students’ opinion on the advantages and disadvantages of group discussion 26 26 27 28 29 3.1.6 Students’ preference in group discussion…………………………………… 3.1.7 Factors cause difficulties when speaking in group discussion………… 3.1.8 Students’ desires in learning speaking through group discussion…………… 3.2 Teacher survey…………………………………………………………………… 30 31 32 33 3.2.1 Teachers’ opinion on teaching speaking skill……………………………… 3.2.2 Teachers’ opinion on the important role of group discussion in improving speaking skill… 3.2.3 Teachers’ opinion on group discussion in teaching speaking skill………… 3.2.4 The frequency of difficulties………………………………………………… 3.2.5 Teachers’ current teaching methods in using group discussion in speaking class………… 33 34 35 36 36 3.3 Reports on the students, teachers and the materials……………………………… 3.3.1 Report on the students……………………………………………………… 3.3.2 Report on the teachers……………………………………………………… 3.3.3 Report on materials………………………………………………………… 3.4 Recommendations……………………………………………………………… 3.4.1 Recommendations for students……………………………………………… 3.4.2 Recommendations for teachers……………………………………………… 3.4.3 Recommendations for materials……………………………………………… 3.4.4 Recommendations for administrators……………………………………… Part III: Conclusion Summary of the study……………………………………………………………… Limitation of the study…………………………………………………………… Suggestions for further research…………………………………………………… 38 38 39 40 40 40 40 41 41 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………………… APPENDIX APPENDIX 42 43 43 44 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATION GD: Group Discussion EFL: English Foreign Language ELT: English Language Teaching CLL: Cooperative Language Learning LIST OF Figures and table Figures: Figure 1: The importance of English Speaking Skill Figure 2: Students’ interest in English speaking skill Figure 1: Students’ preference to how they like to practice speaking skill in class Figure 4: The frequency of difficulties Tables: Table : Students’ Profiles Table 3: Teachers' Profiles Table 3: Students’ opinion on speaking in group discussion Table 4: Students’ opinion on the advantages and disadvantages of group discussion Table 5: Students’ preference in group discussion Table 6: Factors cause difficulties when speaking in group discussion Table 7: Students’ desires in learning speaking through group discussion Table 8: Teachers' opinion on teaching speaking skill Table 9: Teachers’opinion on the important role of group discussion in improving speaking skill Table 10: Teachers’ opinion on group discussion in teaching speaking skill Table 11: Teachers’ current teaching methods in using group discussion in speaking class PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale Language is the most common form of communication of mankind Communication through language plays an important role in our social activities and daily life as our social contacts are increasing frequently Economic global civilization requires people to learn more about cultural features, historical background and social realities from other countries Only this can effectively strengthen the communication, co-operation and negotiation with other countries and establish firmly economic and cultural relationship However, in this process, English as an international language has showed its importance than cannot be replaced People‟s ability to master a foreign language, especially English, has been an essential component in evaluating the power of a nation More and more people find it necessary and useful to have a good competence of English Some people recognize „tongue, finance, computer‟ as three powerful arms in the modern world The ability to express one-self orally has become an important factor to influence one‟s life and decide the success or failure of his understanding The ability to express one-self is one of the qualities that we must possess Meanwhile, English is widely used in the world People in most of the countries communicate with each other in English in the fields like politics, economics, culture, science, technology etc So learning English well seems to be an evitable necessity in the modern world Furthermore, oral English is the necessary aspect of learning because of the high-speed development of the society, whether you can express your-self fluently and properly shows how well you master the language In Vietnam, English is the most popular foreign language to be used as a mean of communication The use of English has dramatically increased in Vietnam, especially in the last decade English is spoken by many Vietnamese and is considered a necessity for those who are studying or doing research and for those who are working in places like foreign companies, holiday resorts, banks, hotels, universities, colleges, school and other public places Despite the widespread emphasis on the acquisition and use of English, many students (including the final year graduates) still struggle to communicate in English for academic purposes One of the primary reasons is that they lack the confidence and skills needed to successfully speak in English As a result, they become apprehensive when asked to speak in public The feeling of apprehension or fear when speaking in English has become a serious matter because it affects their employability and their self-esteem Many students admit that they are unable to secure their dream jobs after they have graduated This is likely due to their high levels of apprehension and their lack of confidence when asked to communicate in English during job interviews Speaking in a foreign language has often been considered as the most demanding of the four skills: listening, writing, reading and speaking When attempting to speak, learners must muster up their thoughts and encode those ideas in the vocabulary and syntactic structures of the target language Moreover, English Language Teaching (ELT) in Vietnam has affected the traditional teaching model through which students learn English just to pass exams and teachers lecture mainly to help students achieve this goal The result is that students not have enough English to communicate effectively with others Obviously, students‟ overall skills cannot be enhanced, especially among students at the college and university level Being a teacher of English at An Duong Vocational School, I am well aware that teaching speaking is not an easy job because there are many problems still existing in teaching speaking skills For example: the lack of vocabulary will make students unable to say words during speaking class In addition, most of students not feel confident enough to use English in speaking class Moreover, students often speak their Vietnamese language, and so on Therefore, it is necessary to create conductive and authentic learning environments for students to be able to practice speaking in order to reduce their apprehension A group discussion before a speaking task is one of the very good ways to create such environments Group discussions are very important in oral English classes It maximizes students‟ speaking time in a specified-time period Group discussions have a strong positive effect on the atmosphere in the classroom and the behaviors of the students as they can get more ideas from their friends The most important reason for using group discussions before speaking tasks is to reduce students‟ nervousness of making mistakes And this encourages students to be more active in completing their task Moreover, using group discussions can open skills of participation, cooperation, negotiation and so on effectively for the students in studying and working With a view to providing students with professional atmosphere to speak the international language easily and freely, the writer decided to a research entitled “A study on applying group discussion approach to enhance speaking skills of English for the first year students at An Duong Vocational Middle School” I hope that the research will be a big contribution to ideal strategy approaches in teaching and learning English to improve speaking skills for students Aim of the study The purpose of this study is aimed at investigating the reality of the use of group discussion in the speaking- class of the first year students at An Duong Vocational School To be specific, the aims of the study are:  Investigating the current situations of English speaking teaching and learning at An Duong Vocational School  Indicating the difficulties that the students and teachers usually meet during group discussions  Considering how group discussions enhance students to speak English in the class Scope of the study To improve speaking skill of the first year students at An Duong Vocational School, the teachers can apply diversified methods and techniques However, the study is limited to the applying group discussions to enhance English speaking skill for st year students at An Duong Vocational School Methods of the study By observing and reviewing 100 1st-year students and teachers of English in speaking-class at An Duong Vocational School, the researcher received necessary information to be able to create the framework of the questions from the interviews with teachers and the questionnaire with 100 students in five classes: Mechanics, Industrial Sewing, Vehicle Repair, Industrial Electricity and Computer Science To be able to receive as much valuable information as possible from the interview and the questionnaire, the researcher took notes of every conversation with each teacher and some specific students Design of the study The writer organizes this research paper in order to make the readers easily understand the paper Apart from INTRODUCTION that presents the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study and CONCLUSION that reviews the main content and findings of the study, summarizes the limitations revealed during the process of completing this research paper and suggests the further research, the paper is divided into three chapters: Chapter 1, Literature review, presents the basic concepts relevant to the study as English speaking skills, the requirements for speaking skills and group discussion in speaking skills Chapter 2, Methodology, provides an overview of the current situation of English teaching and learning for the non-major intermediate students at An Duong Vocational School including general introduction of An Duong Vocational School, students, teachers, classroom condition, the English syllabus of the course training The detailed statistic results from the data collection are also presented in this chapter Chapter 3, Findings and Recommendations, summaries the data analysis and discusses the factors that make the students reluctant to speak in the class and suggests some recommendations for motivating the 1st year-students to speak English in the class PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This section will discuss theoretical background related to speaking skill and analyze the elements that speaking as a skill requires The following part will provide an overview of cooperative language learning, including the types of cooperative learning group Finally, group discussion also will be dealt with by drawing upon the concepts and some essential features of one 1.1 Speaking skill 1.1.1 What is speaking skill? Speaking is a natural people‟s ability which was founded since they were born, and a lot of researches on it have been done to work out various definitions One of the definitions is speaking considered as “the productive skill in the oral mode” (sil.org/lingualinks/languagelearning) In addition, according to Bygate (1997, p.3), speaking is often thought of as a popular form of expression which uses the unprestigious colloquial register” It means that students must speak so as to carry out many transactions and speaking skill is a medium of communication which languages are learnt through To speak a language, especially a foreign language, learners need to know “not only the linguistic knowledge” but also “the culturally acceptable ways of interacting with others in different situations and relationship” (Hymes, 1971) It is assumed that speaking a language requires more than the language‟s knowledge itself; speakers must learn the way native speakers use the language to speak fluently and accurately Nowadays the goal of teaching speaking is to improve learner‟s communication skill “Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information” (Brown, 1994; Burn & Joyce, 1997) Speaking needs that learners not only should know how to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary but also understand when, why and in what ways to produce language communicatively To sum up, speaking is the most effective way for people to communicate with each other That is the reason why speaking skill is an important part of the second language learning and teaching This is the working definition which the researcher will put into consideration during the whole research process 32 3.1.8 Students’ desires in learning speaking through group discussion Q 11: A B C D E 100 100 100 0 60 40 - A To give clear instructions B To provide necessary vocabulary C To ignore your mistakes D To give feedback, praise and encouragement E Others Q12: A Never C Often B Sometimes D Always Table 7: Students’ desires in learning speaking through group discussion (by percent) From Table 8, we understand that it is very necessary to know the students‟ desires in learning speaking through group discussion All the students (100%) like their teachers to give clear instructions, to provide necessary vocabulary and as well as to give feedback, praise and encouragement in order to motivate them to speak in group discussion None of students (0%) wants their teachers to ignore their mistakes It is easy for students to make mistakes when speaking, so correcting mistakes is a chance for them to complete themselves An interesting fact drawn from Table is that more than half (60%) of the students prefer their teachers often to implement group discussion in speaking class Even though, 40% of them want group discussion to be always applied in speaking class It may be said that the students are enthusiastic to learn speaking in group 33 3.2 Teacher survey The questionnaires presented in Appendix were completed by teachers of English The data collected were analyzed and presented in tables and figures below 3.2.1 Teachers' opinion on teaching speaking skill A A Much D Not at all C D E 57 43 - 100 100 100 100 C A little B Not very much B 100 Q1: Q2: A Large class size B Student‟s low proficiency C Not enough time D Multi level class E Student‟s passive learning style Table 8: Teachers' opinion on teaching speaking skill As can be seen from Table 9, more than half of the teachers (57%) respond that they are much interested in teaching speaking skill But 43% of them say that they like teaching speaking skill very little As they say that although speaking skill is as important as writing, listening and reading skills, almost all An Duong vocational students‟ low proficiency in English is the reason for the students‟ low motivation in learning English They are still passive in learning, so they are quite unconfident in expressing their ideas in front of class individually Also in Table 9, all teachers (100%) comment that large class size, student‟s low proficiency, limited time, multi level class and student‟s passive learning style are also the difficulties in teaching speaking skill 34 3.2.2 Teachers’ opinion on the important role of group discussion in improving speaking skill A Q3: A Very important D No useful C D 100 0 0 71 29 C Little important B Rather important B Q4: A Always B Often C Sometimes D Never Table 9: Teachers’ opinion on the important role of group discussion in improving speaking skill (by percent) Group discussion is one of techniques to be applied in teaching speaking skill According to Figure 5, 100% of the teachers affirm that group discussion is very important in improving speaking skill As regards to the frequency that the teachers apply the group discussion in speaking class, 71% of them respond that they often implement group discussion and 29% sometimes implement this kind of activity To sum up, with the highest percentage of the important role of group discussion in improving speaking skill, group discussion is always considered as the prior strategy in teaching speaking skill 35 3.2.3 Teachers’ opinion on group discussion in teaching speaking skill A Q5: B C D E 100 100 100 100 14 100 100 28 86 43 A Increasing students‟ speaking time B Improving students‟ motivation C Creating exciting atmosphere to enhance students speak English D Releasing the fear and shyness when speaking in front of the other E Relaxing for teacher Q6: A Students over- use Vietnamese B Students make so much noise C Teacher can‟t control all the groups D Teacher can have some difficulties in evaluating E Group discussion takes a lot of time Table 10: Teachers’ opinion on group discussion in teaching speaking skill (by percent) According to Table 10, increasing students‟ speaking time, improving students‟ motivation, creating exciting atmosphere to enhance students speak English and releasing the fear and shyness when speaking in front of the other are all mentioned as the benefits of group discussion by all the teacher (100%) The benefit of relaxing for teacher only accounted for 14% Also from Table 10, all teachers (100%) criticize the difficulties of applying group discussion in teaching speaking skill because their students overuse their mother tongue and make so much noise during discussing 28% of the teachers can‟t control all the groups 86% of them say that it is very difficult for them to evaluate every student 43% suppose that group discussion takes a lot of time 36 3.2.4 The frequency of difficulties 14% Always 86% Sometimes Figure 4: The frequency of difficulties With regard to the frequency of meeting the difficulties in implementing group discussion in speaking class, from Figure we can see that a majority of the teachers (86%) complain that the difficulties always appeared in applying group discussion, 14% of them report that they sometimes encountered difficulties in implementing group discussion in speaking class 3.2.5 Teachers’ current teaching methods in using group discussion in speaking class Q8: A B C D E F G 100 86 14 100 100 A Students of the same proficiency B Students of the different proficiency C Students of the same age D Students of the different age E Students of the same sex F Students of the different sex G Students sitting near or next to each other 37 A Q9: B C D E F G 100 57 100 100 100 100 86 0 0 14 A Select the task carefully B Let students choose the topics C Provide necessary vocabulary D Give clear instructions E Give feedback, praise and encourage students F Do nothing Q10: A Go round the class and give prompts if necessary B Interrupting when students make mistakes C Speak all the time D Keep silent E Stand in once place and observe F Others Table 11: Teachers’ current teaching methods in using group discussion in speaking class (by percent) As can be seen from Table 11, to organize group discussion, most of the teachers (100%) arrange students of the different proficiency and sex and students sitting near or next to each other As they explain that by that way they can not only save the time, but also make the exciting and competitive atmosphere in each group in order to reach the highest result in teaching speaking skill The ages are also concerned when grouping; 86% of the teachers selected students of the same age, only 14% choose students of the different age None of the teachers mention grouping students of the same proficiency and the same sex Also from Table 11, regarding to how to motivate students in group discussion, 100% of the teachers state that they should select the task carefully to suit with the ability of the students, provide necessary vocabulary, give clear instructions and give feedback after discussing 57% of the teachers let the students choose topic themselves These teachers 38 thought that students are motivated to speak well if they have a good basic knowledge about the topic they have selected In question aimed to investigate the activities the teachers often when students are working in group discussion Most of the teachers (86%) support that they go around the class and give prompts if necessary Interrupting when students make mistakes, speaking all the time, keeping silent and standing in once place and observing are mentioned by no one 14% of the teachers choose another solution such as participating in groups as a member, taking note for feedback to the difficulties in teaching speaking To sum up, using group discussion in speaking class is an art It requires all the teachers of English to have a dynamic methodology in selecting group members, choosing the task carefully and controlling group discussion in order to enhance speaking skill of An Duong Vocational students 3.3 Reports on the students, teachers and the materials The above results shows that group discussion brings about a lot of benefits for both the students and the teachers in improving speaking skill, but otherwise, there are many challenges needed to be considered, as well 3.3.1 Report on the students All the students at the end of the implementation showed a different attitude towards group discussion and the skill of speaking At the beginning of the process students did not like to work in groups and felt uncomfortable speaking English After the experience of sharing and learning with others, they found real and concrete reasons to work with their partners They could learn through teaching Many values were learned during the process, such as solidarity, responsibility, team spirit, etc The first time when they used the cooperative learning strategies, they found itwas not easy, as they wanted to work only with their friends and, in some cases, they did not follow the rules In the first session, some groups delegated one student to the activity, but when the teacher asked another student for the answers they understood why it was important that everyone in the group managed the information Competition among the groups was an important factor to motivate students to work as a group, because it is important for them to be the best and to be recognized After observing the class session by session, various issues showed up in 39 the students‟ answers For example, they changed their concept of group work It was no longer a case of a group of friends where only one person had the responsibility of working and giving all the answers The oral production improvement gave students the opportunity to help and to learn from their partners They noticed that all of them had something to share and something to be valued in the group Students were aware of their responsibility in the speaking process They understood that one way to improve speaking is practicing with others, interacting with others, and learning from others In addition, they noticed their progress, in that at the beginning of the experience they were shy when they needed to communicate something orally but then they discovered that their partner was the teacher in some cases and they felt more comfortable asking for clarification of concepts or vocabulary A good attitude was an element that students included in their strengths, because they noticed that good relations among them were important if they wanted good results in the activities They valued and respected their partners and, in some cases, discovered new friendships through the work The roles assumed by students during the cooperative learning activities were fluid Roles were given by the teacher at the beginning to explain to students how they worked but after practicing those elements they were assigned by the students for each session, and they also created new ones For example one student was the recorder, another was the leader or the spokesperson, and they fulfilled those functions according to the task Students could rotate the functions in different groups This helped to reinforce self-esteem in some students 3.3.2 Report on the teachers From the investigation, it is found that group discussion approach has a very important implication in teaching and promoting speaking skill among the first year students In opposition, most of the English teachers also realiz that group discussion may bring about some undesirable problems which can be categorized into four The first problem that most teachers find annoying is the occurrence of noise in their speaking classes when the students are working in group Some teachers feel extremely stressful about this, so they expect the classrooms to be quiet and orderly and insist on a wellorganized and well-disciplined class The next problem is the teachers‟ little control over the whole class There are usually from to groups operating at the same time in a class, 40 so it is too difficult for them to control all the students‟ communicative activities Moreover, when the whole class is divided into groups, the teachers can not monitor, give help and advice to each individual student of these groups The last problem arises when students are not capable of splitting the responsibilities among the members in groups In conclusion, it is suggested that if the teachers want to improve the teaching quality and encourage communicative speaking skill of the students, it would be essential first to promote professional development among middle school EFL teachers Then the teachers need to build the good relationship between them and their students to encourage students to express their ideas freely and easily 3.3.3 Report on Materials Materials, topics and special equipment resources are motivating factors in the experience These elements give students tools and encouragement in their work The topics generally allow them to discuss and think about their real life Their personal and previous knowledge are always taken into consideration They find reasons to express themselves and share it with other students Discipline requirements and other behavioral rules are given at the beginning of the process by the teacher The students need to know how to work in a group and at the end of each class they reflect on that day‟s process in order to improve next time They are responsible for their discipline during the process Students are aware of their own responsibility in the process They identify the fact that the project‟s successful result is achieved through their good attitude and the contributions of all the class members 3.4 Recommendations 3.4.1 Recommendations for students For students, it is necessary to aware of the importance of learning speaking skills Instead of passive learning habits, students should be active in the language learning process In other words, in group discussion, students should overcome the fear and create their own opportunities to practice the target language Specifically, to improve English proficiency level, each student should enrich her vocabulary and get a good hold of grammar 3.4.2 Recommendations for teachers 41 Due to the several problems which occur in the applying group discussion in speaking class, English teachers should continue to learn advanced teaching theory, improve their professional knowledge, and master the ways and means of teaching In the teaching process, teachers need to encourage students to participate in oral communicative activities Teacher should pre-teach or review essential vocabulary before the activity enabling students to fill-out their speech with more interesting sentences and rich language In addition, teachers have to create more interesting environments for students to provide some meaningful opportunities communicate in the real situation, so that students can feel confident to express their thought and ideas in front of the crowd Also, the teacher must prepare well for his class He must be focused and know very clearly what exactly he is going to teach and how he is going to teach what he has planned to teach in the time allotted to him 3.4.3 Recommendations for materials It is a great help to teachers if they have access to suitable teaching materials, such as textbooks, exercise books, recordings, teachers' guides and so on In recent years various materials have increasingly been offered in electronic format However, publishing smallcirculation materials may be economically unviable, and therefore such materials are not always readily available, and public authorities should support the production of the teaching materials needed for the purpose, because small language teaching is very significant in terms of cultural and education policy The materials should be edited and written by experienced professionals The materials should be designed to address various skills for students such as; listening, writing, reading and speaking skills 3.4.4 Recommendations for administrators Firstly, it is needed to say that the administrators at An Duong Vocational School should have improvements in facilities and resources including widening classroom, providing a table which can be easily placed on the seminar table and increasing access to modern media for teaching and learning foreign language Secondly, the administrators should usually organize meetings to allow teachers to collaboratively examine student work Thirdly, retraining and continuing professional education must be made available for unqualified teachers ever year 42 PART C: CONCLUSION Summary of the study The study is aimed at investigating the application of group discussion approach to enhance speaking skills of English for the first year students at An Duong Vocational Middle School The study includes three main parts; Part A, introduction, presents the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study Part B, development, is organized into three chapters; Chapter one, Literature review, presents theoretical background of speaking skill, cooperative language learning, including the types of cooperative learning group Finally, the concept of group discussion, the formation, the advantages and disadvantages of group discussion have been also presented Chapter two, Methodology, presents the general introduction about An Duong Vocational School, the students, the teachers, the classroom condition, and the English course training The instrumentation- questionnaires designed for the students and the teachers have been raised In the last chapter (chapter three), Findings and Recommendations, the detailed statistic results from the data collection are also presented in this chapter Through the questionnaires to collect the information for the study, there are at least four factors necessary to work in group discussion in the classroom: first, increasing students talking time; second, increasing a number of students participating; third, improving the quality of students‟ talks; fourth, it is important to evaluate students‟ performance However, the study also finds that it is very common to have quite a lot of problems when applying group discussion The most common problem is the students‟ use of mother tongue Additionally, as student talking time increases, noise and teacher‟s less help and attention given to individuals are inevitable problems Besides, group discussion takes a lot of time Part C, conclusion, summaries the study In addition, the limitation and the suggestions for the further research are also presented In order to address two set survey questionnaires which have been indicated in the beginning, the researcher have concluded that applying group discussion approach helped 43 students to improve speaking skill and interaction The researcher confirmed that speaking is a productive skill and also indicated both advantages and disadvantages of group discussion In summary, with the application of group work in speaking class, more and more learners will be highly motivated, be exposed to authentic language, have chances to participate in discussion or speaking activities in groups, and become relatively fluent and successful in terms of message communication The researcher noticed that the first yearstudents only attained a certain level of knowledge and proficiency in language use But the most important point was that they could express themselves without the pressure of grades or other students‟ opinions The pedagogical implications of this research are relevant on different levels: students, teachers, school, and even national educational policies For the students: Students discovered that speaking is fun and easy when it involves working with others, and practiced values such as respect, tolerance, team spirit Limitation of the study Due to limited time and the researcher‟s ability, the study has some limitations The most obvious limitation of the study is the scale of the study This research work was only carried out in An Duong Vocational Middle School, located on the outskirts of Hai Phong City The next one is the study is concerned with the small scale of the participants The study only implemented group discussion approach in teaching speaking for 100 the first year students, random selected form five faculties: Mechanics, Industrial Sewing, Vehicle Repair, Industrial Electricity, and Computer Science So, the findings cannot be generalized to all the students of An Duong Middle Vocational school in particular and other Vocational Schools in Vietnam in general Another limitation is the quality and the quantity of the survey questionnaires for both students and the teachers to collect the information Therefore, the study cannot cover all the ideas and experience on applying group discussion in teaching speaking skill Suggestion for further research With the above mentioned limitation of the study, the following recommendations are given for further researches First of all, the next study should be carried out on the larger scale of schools and participants It can be broadened to all the Vocational School and Vocational Students in Hai Phong City, or even in Vietnam Next, the further researches should investigate in detail the factors effecting directly to applying group discussion in learning and teaching speaking skill such as ages, gender, interest, and ability 44 REFERENCES: Brown, G., Yule, G (1991) Teaching Spoken Language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Brown, H.D (1994) Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy Prentice Hall Regents Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2001 Burns, A., & Joyce (1997) Focus on speaking Sydney: National Center for English language teaching and research Bygate, M (1997) Speaking Oxford University Press Bygate, M (1987) Speaking Oxford: Oxford University Press Byrne, D (1984) Language learning in the classroom:Teaching oral English Hong Kong: Longman Byrne, D (1991) Techniques for Classroom Interaction Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cardenas, M L 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