SKKN Motivating and enhancing students' english speaking ability at Quy Hop 2 High School by applying small group projects at home

love to learn speaking skill and become more active in the speaking lesson. 
- Through the projects that have been done, I evaluate and score on the regular 
assessment of students (according to each group member's presentation and task 
performance). 
After working on small group projects at home, I've noticed: 
 Firstly, in speaking lessons, students are more active and dynamic because this 
measure not only creates opportunities for good students but also average and weak 
students to participate in projects and express them. So students promote their 
creativity and autonomy in learning, thereby absorbing knowledge easily and 
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unforgettable thanks to the process of learning, gathering and selecting information 
according to the requirements of the project. 
 Second, students have the opportunity to reinforce group learning. Team 
members must know how to organize assignments, share work, learn from each other, 
and enhance solidarity, discipline and responsibility. 
 Moreover, students have the opportunity to practice and practice speaking 
English more, they practice at home with individuals, with group members and 
present in front of the class, and they practice their presenting ability. As a result, 
skills such as communication, language skills, especially English speaking skills, are 
gradually improved. 
 In addition, students have the opportunity to improve their skills in using 
information technology, using computers connected to the Internet to search for 
information, and using PowerPoint projectors to present products. 
 Finally, through the projects, not only did students practice speaking, but I have 
also learned a lot from students, especially about information technology skills. 
 I can see clearly that this method also helps to strengthen the relationship 
between teachers and students, between students. Teachers and students understand 
each other better, exchange more friendly. 
 Photo: Class 11C2, 11C7 (2021 - 2022) - Group work to discuss ideas 
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 Photo: Class 11C8 (2021 - 2022) - After project implementation 
 Photo: Class 11C8 (2021 - 2022) - After project implementation 
 After the students completed the evaluation and comments on the projects, I 
asked the students of 3 classes with 127 students to complete and submit the 
evaluation sheet of the results they received after implementing the project (see 
appendix 6). 
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Photo: Students' assessment after carrying out the projects 
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 In generally, all students have a positive assessment of the solution at 5 levels 
with the following numbers: 
Table 8: Summary of the number of students in the classes who self-assessed the 
measure of small-group project implementation at home 
Full name: 127 students Class: 11C2, 11C7, 11C8 
Criteria 1 2 3 4 5 
1. Doing small group projects at home helps me practice 
speaking and practicing English much more effectively 
than the traditional presentation method. 4 13 23 31 56 
2. Develop self-study ability through group projects. 2 6 17 45 57 
3. Practice my pronunciation better 7 11 41 68 
4. Improve my ability to talk about topics 8 13 47 59 
5. Improve my vocabulary 6 15 30 76 
6. More self-confident in speaking English in front of 
others. 3 9 25 42 48 
7. Speak English without afraid of making errors 5 19 28 34 41 
8. Enhance my creativity by presenting projects in diverse 
and attractive formats. 9 21 29 53 15 
9. Develop collaboration skills, technology skills and 
teamwork responsibilities during project implementation. 4 12 20 91 
10. Hope the project-based teaching method to be 
replicated in many other lessons. 5 10 32 80 
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III. CONCLUSION 
1. Summary 
 My research "Motivating and enhancing students' English speaking ability by 
applying small group projects at home" was conducted at Quy Hop 2 High School 
from school year 2020-2021 to school year 2021-2022. 
 A small group project at home environment provides students with 
opportunities to develop their abilities to adapt and change methods to fit new 
situations. Further, students have greater opportunity to learn real Communication 
associated with seeking information from any resource such as Internet. 
 The results seem consistent with our hypothesis that small group project 
method can help students to improve speaking skills. This measure creates 
opportunities for students to practice speaking, motivate them in speaking practice, 
attracts them to the subject to gradually improve their quality, and helps students 
perfect their knowledge, promote creativity, dynamism, develop skills of 
collaboration, problem solving and self-regulation in learning, thereby improving self-
control in learning, improving speaking ability, actively participate in their learning 
process under the support organization of teachers. 
2. Recommendation 
 I originally assumed that speaking skill in learning a language is more 
important than any other ones and taking advantage of small group project measure 
probably produces new English speakers. Now many linguistics and ESL teachers 
agree on that students learn to speak in the second language by “interacting”. We 
should know that it is necessary for us to apply small group project at home on 
effectively speaking development and motivating students in learning. 
After analyzing all activities carried out in the class and the results’ progress, I 
have some requirements for both students and teachers. 
To students: 
* English students must practice speaking many times before delivering any 
composition in order to clarify their ideas about the message they want to give to the 
listeners and correct some possible mistakes. 
* Students do not have to be afraid of asking any question to the teacher. He/she 
is the one that will help them to understand the different topics and clarify doubts. 
* Students must try to make peer reviews with their classmates. That is a great 
method of sharing perspectives to correct mistakes. 
* Students must try to manage the time and coordinate to fulfill the mission. 
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To teachers: 
* English professors should apply a different methodology in class at the 
moment of verifying the lack of understanding on the students' part, reinforce those 
techniques that present difficulties and solve students' problems and doubts. 
 * English teachers must provide a supportive environment where students can 
feel comfortable, to share opinions and to have a better teaching and learning process. 
 * Teachers must clarify the students what is expected about the subject, provide 
enough information and ideas to speak about, give and adequate feedback and not 
programmed texts. Just in that way students will create good compositions and with 
the time they will improve their speaking skills. 
* Teachers must center the students' subtopics on current topics or let them 
choose their own subtopics. In that way students will be more comfortable and 
interested in what they are talk about. 
* Teachers should help the students to discover their own errors through 
different exercises, examples or dynamics. 
 I hope that doing small group projects at home will be applied on much more 
topics with association of many classes and this measure will be applied not only in 
our school but also in other schools in Nghe An province and others provinces. 
 This study shows the effectiveness of conducting a project in English 
classrooms and some ways to assess students’ work in the hope to develop students’ 
presentation skill. 
Hope to receive comments from my colleges! 
Many thanks to spend your time on this study! 
Quy Hop, March 20
th
, 2022 
 Writer 
 Tran Thi Loc 
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APPENDIX 
APPENDIX 1 
QUESTIONNAIRES 
Class : ... 
Question 1: How is the speaking lesson? 
Very exciting Exciting Normal  Boring Very boring  
Question 2: Did you get more chances to speak in English during the lesson? 
Yes No 
Question 3: Please tick () the level of agreement that most accurately reflects your 
opinion about this lesson. 
What are your 
problems 
facing? 
Strongly 
agree 
Agree 
Neither 
agree nor 
disagree 
disagree 
Strongly 
disagree 
Lack of 
vocabulary 
lack of self-
confidence 
afraid of making 
errors 
no ideas about 
what to say 
Question 4: What did you think really help you to talk during the lesson? Please rank 
all those options below in order from 1 to 4 
Rank Interesting 
speaking 
activities 
Speaking 
topic 
Teacher’s 
instruction 
Classmates 
1 
2 
3 
4 
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APPENDIX 2 
PROJECT TEAMWORK PLAN 
Project Name: ................................................................................................. 
Team Members: .............................................................................................. 
Product:............ Due Date:............. 
Task 
(Activities need 
to be done) 
Person responsible 
(A responsible person must 
be identified for each action 
step) 
Timeline 
(An expected 
completion 
date) 
Comment 
(Comments are 
optional.) 
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
APPENDIX 3 
GUIDELINES ON ORAL PRESENTATION 
Name of the Project: ............................................................................................ 
Names of the Group members: 1. ____________________ 
 2._____________________ 
 3.____________________ 
 4. ____________________ 
 5._____________________ 
 6. _____________________ 
I. INTRODUCTION 
1. Group members 
2. Introducing name of project 
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II. CONTENT 
 A. Purpose 
B. Activities 
C. Person in charge 
D. Possible difficulties 
E. Effects 
III. CONCLUSION 
1. Concluding the contents 
2. Giving some key values 
IV. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 
Answer questions related to the topic from the teacher and the audience. 
APPENDIX 4 
MARKING CRITERIA 
YES (√) 
/ 
NO (X) 
COMMENTS 
NAME OF 
THE 
PROJECT 
ACTION PLAN 
PREPARAT
ION 
Have you had a group leader? 
Have your leader assigned tasks to all 
members? 
Have your group listed tasks and plans 
that you intend to do? 
CHECKLIST FOR POSTER/POWERPOINT/VIDEO 
 Project: _____________________ Group: _____________________ 
 Teacher: __________________________ Class: __________________________ 
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Have you searched the information 
from magazines, newspapers, the 
Internet, or libraries? 
Have you taken your own photos of 
your community? 
Have you compiled, evaluated, and 
synthesized the relevant information? 
DESIGN 
Are illustrated picture/ photos eye-
catching meaningful, and 
understandable 
Handwriting on the poster is neat and 
easy to read? 
Does your poster/PowerPoint/video 
include: 
- Title of the project? 
- Name of group members? 
- Main contents 
APPENDIX 5 
ORAL PRESENTATION RUBRIC 
Topic: ______________________________________________________ 
Group: ________________________ 
CATEGORY 4 3 2 1 SCORE 
Content 
Shows a 
full 
understandi
ng of the 
topic. 
Shows a 
good 
understandi
ng of the 
topic. 
Shows a 
good 
understandi
ng of parts 
of the topic. 
Does not 
seem to 
understand 
the topic 
very well. 
Clear speech 
and 
pronunciatio
Speaks 
clearly and 
distinctly 
Speaks 
clearly and 
distinctly 
Speaks 
clearly and 
distinctly 
Often 
mumbles or 
cannot be 
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n 
all (100-
90%) the 
time, and 
mispronoun
ces no 
words. 
most (89-
75%) the 
time, but 
mispronoun
ces 1, 2, or 3 
words. 
about 74-
60% of the 
time. 
Mispronoun
ces no more 
than 5 
words 
understood 
OR 
mispronoun
ces more 
than 7 
words. 
 Eye-contact 
Confidence 
Facial 
expressions 
and body 
language 
generate a 
strong 
interest and 
enthusiasm 
about the 
topic with 
the others. 
Facial 
expressions 
and body 
language 
sometimes 
generate a 
strong 
interest and 
enthusiasm 
about the 
topic with 
the others. 
Facial 
expressions 
and body 
language are 
used to try 
to generate 
enthusiasm, 
but seem 
somewhat 
pretended. 
Very little 
use of facial 
expressions 
or body 
language. 
Did not 
generate 
much 
interest in 
topic being 
presented 
Preparation 
Student is 
completely 
prepared 
and has 
fully 
rehearsed. 
Student 
seems pretty 
prepared but 
might have 
needed a 
couple more 
rehearsals. 
The student 
is somewhat 
prepared, 
but it is 
clear that 
rehearsal 
was lacking. 
Student 
does not 
seem at all 
prepared to 
present. 
Discussion 
Student can 
fully 
answer the 
audience’s 
questions 
Student can 
answer the 
audience’s 
questions, 
but rather 
slowly 
Student can 
answer 
some of the 
audience’s 
questions 
Student can 
answer only 
1 of the 
audience’s 
questions 
Total score ____ / 20 
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APPENDIX 6 
Summary of the number of students self-assessing on the implementation of 
small group projects at home 
Full name: Class: 
Criteria 1 2 3 4 5 
1. Doing small group projects at home helps me practice 
speaking and practicing English much more effectively than 
the traditional presentation method. 
2. Develop self-study ability through group projects. 
3. Practice my pronunciation better 
4. Improve my ability to talk about topics 
5. Improve my vocabulary 
6. More self-confident in speaking English in front of others. 
7. Speak English without afraid of making errors 
8. Enhance my creativity by presenting projects in diverse 
and attractive formats. 
9. Develop collaboration skills, technology skills and 
teamwork responsibilities during project implementation. 
10. Hope the project-based teaching method to be replicated 
in many other lessons. 
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nd 
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