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Recently, cooperative learning (CL) has been a proper solution to enhance learner’s performance. It has been widely believed that there are some sound reasons to take CL into implementation but not other methods. Obviously, as one of the most popular structures of learnerscentered approach in the recent years, cooperative activities have been widely used in language classroom, especially in encouraging learner’s participation and improving their motivation in learning. First, CL is highly appraised for their contribution to students achievement. It is beneficial both for academic achievement and the development of the learners social and learning skill. Second, CL has a rigorous foundation on research. Studies have been conducted and come to a conclusion that CL are associated with achievement, high thinking level, self esteem, liking for the subject matter, for schools and the intergroup relations. Furthermore, many studies have proved that cooperative learning has positively influenced students’ projectbased learning (PBL) performance (William, 2003; Noel Robert, 2003; Graham, 2005). CL has enormous advantages over traditional one because traditionally, students only communicate with the teacher about their learning but in CL classrooms students are involved in group work and discussions, which not only improves doing project assignments accuracy but also betters their problem solving skills as well as establish a social atmosphere and meaningful learning. However, the real situation is always different from theory. According to my observation, many students at Cam Khe High School find project a difficult task, they find project hard to do, they only deal with tasks in class and they don’t often learn at home. Moreover, most teachers often skip this part because they found difficult to design classroom activities to attract students’ participation. They encounter lots of challenges in finding appropriate methods to learn this part. And they often ask students to finish this part at home without checking what their students had done. Obviously, students themselves often neither study at class nor at home. One of the difficulties of students when learning in doing project because this is a difficult task to them and it is absolute new to them. Moreover, despite the benefits of CL, there is still inadequate research on the issue, especially in the context of Vietnam. Similarly, at Cam Khe High School, there has been no research on the subject of improving students in doing project by cooperative learning. For this reason, the researcher decided to carry out a research on “A study on the using of cooperative learning in doing project assignments of grade 10 students at Cam Khe High School”
1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply indebted people whose help to make my graduation paper possible First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor Ms Nguyen Thi To Loan, M.A, whose invaluable comments, guidance, criticism and generous help were very important to me in the process of carrying out this study My special thanks also go to all lecturers and the staff of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Hung Vuong University for their useful materials, guidance and enthusiasm during my course of study I really wish to thank all of my colleagues and my students at Cam Khe high school for their enthusiasm participating in doing the questionnaires Without their valuable opinions and ideas on the questionnaires, the study would not have been accomplished Last but not least, I would also like to show my deep gratitude to my beloved family and my friends who always support and stand by me with their consideration and encouragements ABSTRACT In upper-secondary schools in Vietnam, with the innovation of textbook for 10th form students in light of Communicative Approach, the teaching of the four skills has been much more focused on So far, the English teaching methods have been on the way to perfect However, in doing project assignments is a crucial lesson that the teachers of English experience a lot of difficulties In order to improve the quality of doing project writing, the graduation paper limits itself to the study on using cooperative learning in doing project assignments for 10th students This study is to bring some effectiveness to the process of doing project in the classroom The study has been conducted for the purpose of investigating the real situation of using cooperative learning in doing project assignments to improve in project lesson of grade 10th students at Cam Khe high school, Phu Tho province Thus, two sets of survey questionnaires are used to investigate student’s attitudes, perspectives toward in doing project and cooperative learning in project to find out the teachers’ difficulties in carrying out this technique From the results collected from the survey questionnaires and teacher’s interview, the researcher recommended some solutions to deal with the cooperative learning and improve the students’ project performance The results showed that the use of cooperative learning in doing project assignments are an effective way to improve doing project assignments for high school students This is also the researcher’s wish to have a suitable and interesting method in teaching project to help grade 10 students at Cam Khe high school improve project assignments Hopefully, the graduation paper will make a small contribution to the improvement of learning and teaching in general and in doing project assignments in particular TABLE OF CONTENTSContents LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CL Cooperative learning PBL Project Based-Learning CLT Communicative Language Teaching EFL English as a Foreign Language ELT English Language Teaching ESL English as Second Language % Percent LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES NO Table Page Table 1.1: Distinguishing cooperative learning from 16 traditional groups Table 1.2: The contents and structure of units in Textbook 25 English 10 Table 1.3: Checklist of project in current “English 10” 26 Textbook Table 2.1: The English entrance examination scores of 28 grade 10A4 Table 2.2: Summary of the students’ questionnaires 30 Table 2.3: Summary of the teachers’ interview questions 30 Table 2.4: The experiment procedure at Cam Khe High 32 school Table 3.1: Students’ understand doing project assignments 34 Table 3.2: “What students know about the CL 37 10 Table 3.3: Students’ opinion about “the benefits of CL” 37 11 Table 3.4:Students’ expectations in using CL in English 38 12 lesson Table 3.5: Benefits of CL in doing project 41 13 Table 3.6: Students’ difficulties in CL method 42 14 Table 3.7: Students’ expectations of using CL in doing 43 project NO Figure Figure 3.1: Student’s attitude before using of CL in doing Page 35 project (%) Figure 3.2: Students’ feeling in doing project assignments 36 difficult (%) Figure 3.3: Students’ attitudes towards doing project 40 assignments (%) Figure 3.4: Students’ feeling about CL in doing project 41 assignments (%) Figure 3.5: Students’ opinion about necessary CL in doing 42 6 project (%) Figure 3.6: The frequency of using cooperative learning in doing projectThe frequency of using group writing (%) 43 PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale Recently, cooperative learning (CL) has been a proper solution to enhance learner’s performance It has been widely believed that there are some sound reasons to take CL into implementation but not other methods Obviously, as one of the most popular structures of learners-centered approach in the recent years, cooperative activities have been widely used in language classroom, especially in encouraging learner’s participation and improving their motivation in learning First, CL is highly appraised for their contribution to student's achievement It is beneficial both for academic achievement and the development of the learners social and learning skill Second, CL has a rigorous foundation on research Studies have been conducted and come to a conclusion that CL are associated with achievement, high thinking level, self esteem, liking for the subject matter, for schools and the intergroup relations Furthermore, many studies have proved that cooperative learning has positively influenced students’ project-based learning (PBL) performance (William, 2003; Noel & Robert, 2003; Graham, 2005) CL has enormous advantages over traditional one because traditionally, students only communicate with the teacher about their learning but in CL classrooms students are involved in group work and discussions, which not only improves doing project assignments accuracy but also betters their problem solving skills as well as establish a social atmosphere and meaningful learning However, the real situation is always different from theory According to my observation, many students at Cam Khe High School find project a difficult task, they find project hard to do, they only deal with tasks in class and they don’t often learn at home Moreover, most teachers often skip this part because they found difficult to design classroom activities to attract students’ participation They encounter lots of challenges in finding appropriate methods to learn this part And they often ask students to finish this part at home without checking what their students had done Obviously, students themselves often neither study at class nor at home One of the difficulties of students when learning in doing project because this is a difficult task to them and it is absolute new to them Moreover, despite the benefits of CL, there is still inadequate research on the issue, especially in the context of Vietnam Similarly, at Cam Khe High School, there has been no research on the subject of improving students in doing project by cooperative learning For this reason, the researcher decided to carry out a research on “A study on the using of cooperative learning in doing project assignments of grade 10 students at Cam Khe High School” Previous researches 2.1 In the world Ahangari and Samadian (2014)conducted a study about “The effect of cooperative learning activities on writing skills of Iranian EFL learners” 50 students of Islamic Azad University were selected for their experimental study The outcomes of the study confirmed the effect of cooperative learning activities on improving the components of writing skills such as content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanics The researchers suggested that writing performance can be improved through small-group cooperative interaction among peers in a supportive and stress-reduced environment Ilhan Ilter (2014) also had a study on “The efficacy of project-based learning approach on Social Studies Education: Conceptual achievement and academic motivation.” In this research, an experimental study was carried out in social studies 4thgrade students' to develop students' conceptual achievement and motivation to succeed academically The study aims to investigate the effectiveness of project-based learning (PBL) in social studies The findings indicated a statistically significant difference in favor of the experimental group on the concept achievement and motivation Students who participated in the PBL environments not only enriched and expanded their knowledge but also achieved a higher level of motivation than the control group The PBL in team format activities were provided to promote the experimental group students' motivation to succeed academically and to develop their conceptual achievement The results demonstrated that the PBL improved students' understanding regarding social studies concepts and helped them achieve the behaviors which were aimed academically The experimental group's intended behaviors in academic motivation at the beginning of the experimental treatment turned into performed behaviors at the end 2.2 In Viet Nam The study titled “ The effects of cooperative learning activities on improving writing skills of EFL students at International school, Vietnam National University a quasi experimental research” of (Tran Thi Lan Huong 2013) was conducted as an attempt to examine the perceptions of first-year EFL learners towards CL to investigate their participation level and quality in CL, find out possible influential factors on their participation, pinpoint teachers’ monitoring strategies to motivate students to participate in activities, and recommend several pedagogical implications to motivate and balance their oral participation The study titled “The Effect of Project-Based Learning on Student Performance” by of ( Nguyen Thi Huyen Trang (2016 ) This study analyzed the effectiveness of an alternate pedagogical approach in the form of standardsfocused project-based learning (PBL) teaching model in psychology classes Both the control and experimental groups initially adopted a negative attitude when presented with an alternate method of learning They viewed the group project as an unnecessary task although the literature contradicts their initial perception Data analyzed found that the experimental group that engaged the project and took responsibility for the learning of their peers scored significantly higher on the multiple-choice exam when compared to the control group No 10 significance was found in the second experimental group where majority of the students did their part, but did not report feeling a sense of responsibility for the learning of their peers Key indicators for higher academic performance were: 1) high self-efficacy; 2) high level of perceived control; and 3) growth mindset This is the first time the study “A study on the using of cooperative learning in doing Project assignments of grade 10 students at Cam Khe High School” is carried out in Cam Khe district Different from other studies, it focuses on studying CL in teaching and doing project assignments whereas the above studies focus on different aspects Research purposes The study aims at: - Investigating the current situation in of teaching and learning “Project” part in English 10 textbook at Cam Khe High school - Applying CL in teaching “Project” part in English 10 textbooks - Evaluating the effectiveness of CL in teaching “Project” part in textbook for grade 10 students - Proposing some suggestions to improve CL activities for teaching and learning project of grade 10 students at Cam Khe High school Research questions In order to achieve the above-mentioned purposes, the study seeks to answer the following questions: How is “Project” part in English 10 textbooks is being implemented at Cam Khe High School ? How isto apply “ Cooperative learning” applied in doing “Project” part in English 10 textbooks? Is that activity effective in enhancing student’s performance in doing project? Methodology APPENDIX 5: Interview before using CL in doing projects in the English 10 textbook INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR ENGLISH TEACHERS This interview question is designed for my study “A study on the using of cooperative learning in doing project assignments of grade 10 students at Cam Khe High School” Your assistance in answering the following items is greatly appreciated Question 1: Can you tell me about the purposes of project part in English 10 pilot book? …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… Question 2: What activities did you use in teaching “project”? …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… Question 3: What difficulties did you meet in your lesson? …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… Question 4: In your opinion, what are causes of those difficulties? …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… Question 5: What should be done to improve the effectiveness of project? …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… APPENDIX 6: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR ENGLISH TEACHERS This interview question is designed for my study “A study on the using of cooperative learning in doing project assignments of grade 10 students at Cam Khe High School” Your assistance in answering the following items is greatly appreciated Question 1: How you understandabout cooperative learning in doing project? …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… Question 2: What you think about the effectiveness of cooperative learning in doing project assignments? …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… Question 3: Do you feel interested in this method when teaching project? …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… Question 4: What are your difficulties you encountered when applying cooperative learning in doing project assignments? …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… Question 5: What should be done to improve the effectiveness of cooperative learning in doing project assignments? …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… APPENDIX 7: Lesson plan Date of preparing: 10/03/2018 Period: 80th UNIT 8: NEW WAYS TO LEARN Lesson 7: Looking back and project I Objective: By the end of the lesson, students will able to: - Pronounce correctly three -syllable adjectives and verbs related to the topic new ways to learn - Use some words / phrases relate to electronic devices that can help us learn - Do the exercises on relative clauses - Talk about some reasons that we should use electronic devices in class II Teaching method: -Integrated, mainly communicative, presentation - Students work individuals, in groups or pairs III Teaching aids: Textbook, pieces of papers, computer, CD IV.Anticipated problem V Procedures: Class organization (1 minute) Class Teaching date Checking homework :( 2minutes) Talk about how you use the mobile phone? Absentee New lesson: Stage/Time IV Project (20’) Teacher’s activities Students’ activities discuss about the reason for the - read all the use of electronic devices in class Ban (v) : decide the thing is not allowed: nghiêm cấm statements -listen to the teacher -work in groups - After the teacher will move the - write the answer on topic in lesson about personal the board electronic devises in class- to use or not to use - Ask student to read aloud the requirement of this task in -Listen to the teacher - read all the textbook.” Your class is going to statements hold a discussion on the topic -listen to the teacher Personal electronic devices in -work in groups class - to use or not to use To prepare for presentation, your group's discuss the board the - Give groups’ following” presentation on the - Divide class into groups, give poster for - write the answer on each groups to cooperative learning and give their ideas on poster - Before doing this task, teacher asks students to know about the cooperative learning - Introduces some information about cooperative learning - Ask students discuss to Personal board - Each group have a presenter about groups’ production -Other student listen and feedback electronic devices in class - to use or not to use in their group and maybe others groups And then write their result on the poster - Go around to help if necessary Present - After minutes, call on groups goes to the board to stick the poster Base on the poster present on the whole class - Check the student’s answers then give feedback Summary the main idea (1’) Home work (1’): present about the topic Personal electronic devices in class APPENDIX OBSERVATION SHEET Class:……… Teacher:………… Date:………… Lesson:…………… Part/Section:………… Time:………… Number of students:……………… Observation sheet Objective Comment Does the teacher use in doing project activities Names of activities Time Work arrangement The student’s involvement The student’s attitude Comment: …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… OBSERVATION SHEET Class: 10A4 Teacher: Le Thi Kim Thoa Date: Monday 12th, 2018 Lesson 7: Unit 8: New ways to learn Part/Section: Looking back and project Time: 45 minutes Number of students: 42/42 Observation sheet Objective Comment Does the teacher use in doing Yes project activities Names of activities Giving questions Time 15 minutes Work arrangement Applying of cooperative The student’s involvement learning 100% The student’s attitude Good Comment: board layout OBSERVATION SHEET Class: 10A4 Date: Thursday 24th, 2018 Teacher: Le Thi Kim Thoa Lesson:7 Unit 9: Preserving the environment Part/Section: Looking back and project Time: 45 minutes Number of students: 42/42 Observation sheet Objective Comment Does the teacher use in doing Yes project activities Names of activities Listing Time 15 minutes Work arrangement Applying of cooperative The student’s involvement learning 100% The student’s attitude Very good Comment:Well – prepared, clear instruction However, teacher should provide new word and structure for students APPENDIX 9: SOME PICTURES OF THE EXPERIMENTSABOUT DOING PROJECT THROUGH COOPERATIVE LEARNING 10A4 students are using cooperative learning under teacher’s instruction Student’s result after using of cooperative learning Students and teacher’s feedback about other’s presentation APPENDIX 10: SOME PICTURES OF DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE Delivering the questionnaires 42 students in class 10A4 are completing the survey questionnaires ... carry out a research on A study on the using of cooperative learning in doing project assignments of grade 10 students at Cam Khe High School Previous researches 2.1 In the world Ahangari and... mindset This is the first time the study A study on the using of cooperative learning in doing Project assignments of grade 10 students at Cam Khe High School is carried out in Cam Khe district... grade 10 students in doing project assignments based on the real situation 56 Significance of the study Although the study was conducted on a small scale with a particular group of grade 10 students