c. Characteristics of successful speaking activity
According to Ur 1999: 120, it is said that the characteristics of a successful speaking activity are as follows: Firstly, learners talk a lot. As much as possible of
the period of time allotted to the activity is in fact occupied by learners talk. This may seem obvious, but often most time is taken up with teacher talk or pauses.
Secondly, participation is even. Classroom discussion is not determined by a minority of talkative participants; all get chance to speak, and contributions are
fairly evenly distributed. Thirdly, motivation is high. Learners are eager to speak: because they are interested in the topic and have something new to say about it, or
because they want to contribute to achieving a task objective. The last, language is of an acceptable level. Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant,
easily comprehensible to each other, and of an acceptable level of language.
3. Group Work
a. The Definition of Group Work
Bright and McGregor in Soraya 2010: 17 stated that a group work is a classroom situation where students are working within smaller units or groups.
Through interacting with each other in groups, students can be given the opportunity to oral exchange. The aim is to get the students involved in oral
interaction: asking and answering questions, agreeing and disagreeing certain points of the tasks. Indeed, it is through this kind of tasks that researchers believe
many aspects of both linguistic and communicative competence are developed. Killen 2009: 159 stated that group work occurs when two or more
students are working together. In group work, students work together without
direct intervention from the teacher, for at least some of the time. But, this does mean that students are left to their own devices to learn whatever they like. It
means that the teacher have to structure the learning environment so that the students can interact productively under the teacher indirect guidance as they
work towards achieving particular learning outcomes. Brown 2001: 177 stated that group work is a generic term covering a
multiplicity of techniques in which two or more students are assigned a task that involves collaboration and self-initiated language. It is also important to note that
group wo rk usually implies “small”-group work that is students in groups of
perhaps six or fewer. Large groupings defeat one of the major purposes for doing group work: giving students more opportunities to speak.
Oral interaction, in group, is based on a real attempt to find a collective solution to problems. Group work is a meaningful activity because the students
need to focus on meaningful negotiation and information exchange. For this reason, students should be familiar with the discussion topic. The main concern of
the teacher is, of course to get the students to talk and to stimulate their interest and imagination.
b. The advantages of using group work
Killen 2009: 159 mentions some advantages of group work and some particular reasons for using it as follows:
1 Group work shifts the focus from students being passive recipients of
information to being active learners. This can enhance students’ achievement and retention.
2 Group work is a useful way of activating students’ prior knowledge and
helping them to reconstruct their understanding of the subject matter. 3
Group work can be a useful way of giving students an opportunity to work on realistic task that is to complex or too large to be undertaken by individuals.
4 Group work encourages the students to verbalize their ideas and feelings and
this can help them to understand the subject matter. 5
Some students will be very effective at explaining ideas to others, in language that they find easy to understand. This can help both the explainer and the other
group members to master the content. 6
Forcing learners to concentrate on communicating clearly with others in their group enhances their metacognition; they learn to think better and with more
self-awareness. 7
Group work can improve students’ problem-solving skills and have them discover that there are multi solutions to problems. This helps to increase
students’ depth of understanding and increases the possibility that they will look at the future problems from several perspectives.
8 Group work can improve students’ oral communication skills at the same time
as they learn the curriculum content. 9
Group work can encourage co-operation among students. It helps them to learn respect for one another’s’ strengths and limitations.
10 Group work can be a fun way to learn, thus motivating students and increasing
their active participation in learning.
11 Group work allows the teacher to temporarily concentrate his teaching efforts
on a small group of students while the other students engage actively in learning.
12 When equipments or facilities are limited, rotation of groups allows all
students to use the equipment that is available. 13
Group work teaches students to be less reliant on the teacher and more reliant on their own ability to think and to seek information from other sources.
14 Group work allow the teacher to vary the learning tasks for different groups of
students, thus adapting to students’ needs, interests, and abilities without making these differences too obvious to other students.
15 Group work gives all students an opportunity to contribute ideas and to try to
master the content in a non-threatening environment. Often one group member’s answer or idea can trigger another group member to think of
something else. 16
Group work allows students to experience roles as leaders, peers, and subordinates and to experience a range of social contacts.
17 Group work gives the teacher a chance to circulate and check individual
students’ understanding, without placing the students in a testing situation. 18
When group tasks require students to solve complex problems they provide rich opportunities for assessing students’ initiative, creativity, flexibility,
tolerance and communication skills. 19
Group tasks can reduce the teachers’ assessment load.
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