The Role of GroupActivities for ImprovingReading Skills

Rashid Mahmood Khokher

Roll No. AY545700

Department of English Language andApplied Linguistics

Allama Iqbal Open University2014

Abstract

Reading is both a physical and cognitive process of

unraveling the message embedded in written

linguistic symbols. The use of group activities to

teach reading skills is an effective strategy. The

aim of the present study is to find the

effectiveness of group activities in teaching

reading skills.To examine the role of group

activities the researcher taught 15 hours in two

classes of the 10th grade in a private school of the

district Gujranwala and use group activities in only

one class while the other class were taught without

performing any kind of group activities.

Participants’ feedback was taken through an

assessment test at the end of teaching period. The

data reveals that use of group activities in

teaching reading skills can be quite effective

Like anything in education, grouping works best when

it is planned and used thoughtfully. Simply seating

students in groups of four or five does not mean

students are engaged with each other. It could

simply mean they are going to play and talk, rather

than complete regular class work. That is why it is

important to plan group work and the types of groups

you will be using.Students learn through their

participation in the attainment of knowledge by

gathering information and processing it by solving

problems and articulating what they have discovered

.

Dedication

To my mother who bids me adieu smilingly in the morning and welcomes me back when I return home, weary and exhausted, in the evening.

Acknowledgement

I would first like to thank the University for giving me the opportunity to work on this project and particularly to Ms Mudasar Jahan

Rashid Mahmood KhokherStudent of Diploma TEFL

INTRODUCTION

Background

The reading is not taught as

a skill in our classrooms. It is mostly teachers who

read and translate text into Urdu. Very rarely do

our students read the passages. In order to involve

learners in a reading process we need to use non-

traditional strategies such as using group

activities in the teaching of reading. However,

Introducing such materials in the class also

involves a lot of activitiy based learning.

Intoducing activity based learning in large classes

is quite a difficult task. So how to make the best

possible use of group activities in the existing

state of the things in Pakistan classrooms.

Statement of the Problem The

purpose of this study is to investigate the role of

group activities amongest the students of 10th grade

who possess different competence level of reading

skills

Hypothesis.

Students taught

reading skills through traditional method achieve

less marks on achievement test than those who are

taught reading skills through group work activities.

Objectives of the Study

The objectives of the study are as under

● To investigate the role of group activities

for improving reading skills

● To find out the results of teaching by

performing activities and without

performing activities

Significance of the Problem

This study is

going to add to the body of research on effective

reading strategies at school level. Results of the

study can be utilized to design new training

programmes in the country etc.

Delimitations of the Study We have to delimit our

study to the following:

Only 10th grade students were analysed

The research was restricted to only one school

Because of manageability issues we have to

restrict our research canvas.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Construct of the Study This

research was done in order to find out the

importance of group activities while teaching

reading skills to the students. Reading is one of

the most important aspect of learning . Educational

researchers have found that there is a strong

correlation between reading and academic success.*

In other words, a student who is a good reader is

more likely to do well in school and pass exams than

a student who is a weak reader.

Reading skills:

Reading skills are specific abilities which enable a

reader

to read the written form as meaningful language

to read anything written with independence,

comprehension and fluency

to mentally interact with the message.

Group activities:

The activities perform by

more than one student in the class under the

guidance of the teacher to learn

Existing Body of Research Accordi

ng to Good(1973,p267), the term group means”to

classify or gather individual measure into classes

or groups” to classify pupils or individuals into

less or more homogeneous groups for purpose of

instruction, testing, or experimentation”,”two or

more person in social interaction”

Good (1973,p.8)defines

group activity as “ discussion or work that

produces results not likely to have been achieved

by the same people teaching seperatly”Thomas(1986)

describes that one way of suiting teaching to

individual difference has been to divide the

learners into groups. The logic behind this

practice is that students usually must be taught in

groups, since society can not furnish a separate

teacher for each learner. So the most convenient

way to suit teaching to the individual

characteristics of students is to divide the

learners into homogeneous groups with each group

composed of learners who are alike. Moreover Calfee

and pointkowski(1986),point out the research on

grouping for instruction is motivated by the

assumption that grouping practices influences

students academic and social learning. The learner

get exposure to language that they can understand

(comprehensible input) and which contains unknown

item for them. Group work properly handeled is one

of the most valueable sources of input (Long and

Poter 1985)

McGreal suggests that groups of four to seven

students are efficient for the communicative use of

language . Christison and Bassanos(1981) have

recommended the following classroom management

based on both small and large groups

McGreal (1989),describes the role of English

teacher as:

In the traditional classroom, the teacher takes on

the role of the great leader , importer of the

knowledge and as the centre of all the activities .

But this role is not suitable for the English as a

foreign language (EFL) teachers who are teaching

skills. This skill based orientation implies a

different role of the teacher. Active participation

by the learner is essential. This can be done by

the employing group work activities in the

classroom. Holt; et al (1993) describe the

adventages of group work. Jacobs and Ratmanida

describes that group activities develop in western

countries have been advocate for use in foreign and

second language learning internationally and the

South asian second language educators feel that

group activities are appropriate to their contexts.

Long (1975,1977) describes that the potential

benefits of the use of group work activities are:

more learner language production, more varied talk,

the adoption by students of a wider range of roles,

more individualization, less bordome among

students,more opportunity for communicative

language use, more creative and more opportunity to

develop social interaction skills and learning to

learn skills. Martinez (1996) describe group work

as a mean of organization more advanced students to

tutor their lower proficiency classmates: the

teacher acts as a facilitator, only intervening

when a group is unable to solve a problem on its

own. According to Rutter et al (1979), the real art

of the group work is keeping all the students

actively engaged and on task. Cross (1995)

describes that group work activities are frequently

used in large classes because the use of groups

minimizes the time and expense that would otherwise

be needed to produce materials for large classes.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Design In order to carry

out this research the researcher taught 20 hours to

the two classes of the same level and use activities

in one class while the other class was being taught

without using activities, and at the end of teaching

period an assessment test was taken to determin the

effectiveness of the activity based teaching

Population Population of this

research was secondry level classes

Sample Size Sample of thisresearch was 40 students of secondry level

Instruments

Instrument used for

data collection was an assessment test that was

taken at the end of teaching period of 20 hours

Sampling Techniques In order

to take the data for analysis a test was taken to

evaluate the reading skills of the students of both

classes. A reading activity was designed and the

students were observed while reading the passage.

DATA ANALYSIS

Data Tabulation This chapter deals

with the presentation and analysis of data.

Following statistics were applied for the analysis

of data

Mean , standard deviation, variance and z-test for

two independent groups

In this chapter ,the following symbols refer to as

given below

CG = control group

EP = experimental group

EGPT =post test scores for experimental group

CGPT= post test scores for control group

VARIABLES NUMBER OF

STUDENTSMEAN STANDARD

DEVIATIONVARIANCE COMPUTED

Z-VALUE

CGPT 40 35.72 17.79 316.5 9.14748

EGPT 40 63.23 6.71 45.00

Data AnalysisAbove data table shows that that the mean, standard

deviation, variance of the control group and

experimental group are 35.72, 17.79, 316.5, and

63.23, 6.71, 45.00 respectively. The computed z-

value of (9.14748) of the two independent variable

exceeds the tabulated value(1.96). So the difference

between the means of two groups is significant at

0.05 level. Thus the experimental group performed

signifantly better than the controle group in the

post test , testing the academic achievement of the

students therefor the proposed hypothesis is

approved

Results and Discussion

The data reveals that students in the experimental

group have scored high on posttest. It is an

indication that the Group Work teaching method has

caused this excellent performance. So it can be

safely concluded that Group Work is an effective

teaching method . It is important to design group

work activities according to the needs of the lesson

and according to the mental level of the students,

only creative and well guided activities can be

prove fruitfull. The students of all levels like to

work in groups rather working alone, so it is

necessary to make the syllabus of the study activity

based. Activity based learning should be adopted in

our educational institutions. One of the main reason

of the bad performance of our education system is

that our method of teaching is not activity based.

Teachers should be trained to teach through group

work activities. Experimentation and research

projets should be added in our courses. Reading

should not be assigned only as home work. From time

to time reading activities should be done in class

as well. Group work activities shoul be

interactive, interesting and student centered. Every

reading activity must have a clear stated aim, you

should know why are you reading and what is the aim

of the reading.

FINDINGS/RECOMMENDATIONS/CONCLUSION

Findings The result of the research study

indicates that the teaching of reading skills

through group activities has positive effect on the

academic achievement of the secondry level students.

Thus our hypothesis “students taught reading skills

through traditional method achieve less mark on

achievement test than those who are taught through

group work activities”has been approved

Findings of the study are as follow :

1. 100% of the students like to work in groups

rather than working alone

2. It is easy for the students to work in groups

because they understand the material in a

better way.

3. student have the opinion that their speed of

learning get better while working in groups

4. 100% of the students want to bring their group

at the top position in the class

5. dull students can also improve by working in

groups

Recommendations.

1. the teachers teaching English at secondary

level may be encouraged to use group

activities in their English language

classrooms. Techniques of dividing the class

into groups ,providing different activities

according to the need of the given lesson and

keeping the students busy may be taught to

the existing teacher through refresher

corses.

2. The prospectives teachers may be encouraged

to apply the group work techniques for the

teaching of reading skills.

3. The English teacher at elementary as well as

secondary level may be informed by the

results of the study to convince them to use

group activities for the maximum benefit of

their students.

4. The bureaus of curriculum and the curriculum

wing of the ministary of education, Islamabad

may be informed of the result of the study ,

which may serve as guideline for improving

English language courses.

5. The Allama Iqbal Open University may benefit

from the result of the study by including a

unit on group work activities in their

correspondence courses of teaching of English

for P.T.C, C.T , B.Ed and M.Ed courses.

Conclusion.

The findings of the study led to the

following conclusion:

1. The experimental and controle groups were

equivalent at the time of starting the

experiment .

2. Teaching of reading skills through group

activities plays a positive role in improving

the academic achievement of the students.

3. Based on the research findings about the

attitude of the experimental group , it can

be concluded that the students have positive

attitude towards the group work activities.

The reason is that majority of the students

at each stage , like to work in group and

hence they can produce good results.

4. according to the study a lot of time can be

save by teaching through working in groups.

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teaching” The international Encyclopedia of teaching

and teacher education, New York: Pentice Hall

Christison, Maned J Bassanos(1981). Look who is

talking. San Francisco: Alemany press

Cross, D.(1995) large classes in action New York:

Prentice Hall

Good , Carter V(Ed)(1973). Dictionary of education,

New York : McGraw Hill book company

Holt ,D.D;et al.(1993). “ Cooperative learning in

the secondary school: maximizing language

acquisition , “academic achievement and social

development”

Long, Michael H.(1975). “Group work and

communicative competence in the TESOLclassroom “

Wasington DC: TESOL

Thomas R.M(1986). “The individual and group” In the

international Encyclopedia of teaching and teacher

education, New York: John Wiley and sons

Long Micheal H.and Porter, P.A(1985) “Group work

inter language talk,and second language

acquisition”, TESOL,19/2