A study on group discussion A study on group discussion and its impacts on speaking and its impacts on speaking

ability of the non-major ability of the non-major students at the post-students at the post-

elementary level in Military elementary level in Military Science AcademyScience Academy

By Pham Thanh Mai

Design of the studyDesign of the study

• Chapter one : Introduction

• Chapter two : Literature review

• Chapter three: Research design

• Chapter four : Data analysis

• Chapter five : Findings

• Chapter six : Discussion and Conclusion

Scope of the studyScope of the study Quantity : 16 students Target group : Post – Elementary

Non-major English students in 4th year of Chinese Department at MSA

Time : 10 weeks Investigation : - Nature of group work- Relationship between group work and

individual presentation

Objectives of the studyObjectives of the study

contribute more theory to the understandings of group discussion

find out the essentials of group discussion provide the teachers with the basic frameworkprovide students with more chances to interact build a stepping-stone to further study

Research questionsResearch questions

What truly happens during group discussion in classroom?

Do the students in pre-planning groups perform more accurately and better than those in unplanning groups in terms of tenses, subject-verb agreement and pronouncing morpheme-s in plurality?

Methods of the studyMethods of the study

Qualitative :

- Observation

- Questionnaire Quantitative:

- Descriptive statistics

Subjects of the studySubjects of the study

16 post-elementary non major students all of them learned English for 3 years at

school None of them has ever been to an English

speaking country they have little opportunity to use English

outside the classroom age : 21 – 24Sex : male

InstrumentationInstrumentation

Audio – recording

Questionnaire

Observation note

The implementation of the studyThe implementation of the study

Time : 10 weeks

Total number of participants: 16

Number of participants in a group: 4Number of groups: 4

( 2 No planning groups & 2 Pre-planning groups)

Records: All the group discussions and the individual presentations from No planning group & Pre-planning group

Group Data AnalysisGroup Data Analysis

Language Related Episodes Form-based LREs (F - LREs) Lexis-based LREs (L - LREs) Mechanics-based LREs (M - LREs) Leadership move

Individual Data AnalysisIndividual Data Analysis

Error - Free - Verb Forms (EFVF)- The percentage of accurately used verbs in terms

of tense and subject-verb agreement is taken into account

Error - Free - Noun Forms (EFNF)

- The percentage of correct noun form is measured by the number of nouns used correctly in plurality

by adding morpheme-s to the end of the word

Group Discussion FindingsGroup Discussion Findings

Language Related Episodes (LREs)- Vary between 2 groups, among topics - M-LREs are highest

Turns in group talks - no much difference in the number of turns

among the participants Leadership moves

- One or two students seem to be leaders in every talk

Individual Presentation FindingsIndividual Presentation Findings

most of the participants in PTP group performed better and more accurately than those in NP group in terms of EFVF and EFNF (in terms of tense, subject verb agreement and pronouncing morpheme-s in plurality ).

Group planning prior to individual presentations is really useful

Group planning should be applied and encouraged in the classroom

Further study: - Investigate in three areas: fluency, complexity and accuracy.

- Find out other factors affect students’ speaking competence

- experiment in higher or mixed proficiency level students - Include the subjects of both male and female in class

Conclusions and SuggestionsConclusions and Suggestions