EFFECTIVENESS OF GROUP WORK IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS FOR LEARNERS AT NATIONAL ACADEMY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Abstract

Group work is a fairly common teaching methodology in teaching and learning communicative foreign language skills including speaking skills. Evaluating the effectiveness of group work in teaching and learning foreign language speaking skills is one of the important contributing factors to the improvement of methodology; however, it has not been thoroughly studied at National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA). An interview with teachers at NAPA contributes to design a questionnaire to learners preparing for the Test of English Proficiency, level 3/6. The data from questionnaire are quantified and analyzed in the form of descriptive statistics revealing that group work is used quite often but ineffectively at NAPA due to some influencing factors to learners’ oral participation, and teachers’ inefficient strategies to enhance the learners’ participation in group work. The recommendations of this study contribute to improving the teaching and learning of foreign language speaking skill in the following classes of NAPA.