Free Teaching Speaking Skills To Esl Students Through Cooperative Learning Dissertation Results Example

Introduction

In this research, I venture to discover how the cooperative learning method can help ESL students enhance their oral English language skills. This study therefore seeks to answer the following question: How can cooperative learning improve the speaking skills of ESL learners?

Method

The results that will be presented in this paper are based on the above study question. The data collected from the pre and post-test oral exams, as well as the experimental group's documented attitudes towards these, were analyzed using an Excel spreadsheet. The tables and charts generated were then used to answer the initial research question.

Results

At the beginning of the semester, both the experimental and the control groups were required to take a pre-test in order to establish a starting point with which to measure the development in each group. There were two tasks demanded in this test. The first task required the subjects to talk about the differences between a set of pictures, while the second involved expressing an opinion on a specified topic. Speaking skills were judged and subsequent grades given based on five important criteria: Pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary, grammar and interactive communication. Each of these criteria was worth 12 points.
As displayed in Table 1 above, the overall average mean score of the pre-test experimental group was 45 with a standard deviation of 1.40881045. The mean score of the pre-test control group, meanwhile, was 45 with a standard deviation of 1.168289. The result therefore indicates that both the experimental and control groups scored quite similarly at the offset when it came to their speaking skills.
Once the pre-test was complete, students were then divided in two groups. The control group was taught English by a traditional method while the students in the experimental group were divided into three groups, each consisting of five students, in order to foster closer group communication and interaction. At the end of the required eight-week period, a post-test was given to both groups individually. This test demanded the same two task as in the pre-test.
The results from Table 2 above show that the mean score of the experimental group on the post-test was 55 with a standard deviation of 1.413301. The mean score for the post-test control group, meanwhile, was 49 with a standard deviation of 0.989375, which means the experimental group scored much higher in their post-test. This would seem to indicate that the experimental group benefited from the cooperative learning approach and therefore achieved remarkable improvements in their post-tests. The control group simply did not achieve such success, although their scores also improved slightly from their pre-test results.
In the final step, surveys were then collected from those students who used the cooperative learning method during their speaking class. The results of those surveys were compiled into Table 3, listed below.
The above table outlines the various survey questions that were used to gauge the students’ feelings and attitudes towards the cooperative learning method and its overall effectiveness in improving their English language skills. The survey contained seven statements they had to consider - with each point ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The totals demonstrate that the experimental group tended to positively rate the cooperative learning approach used in their speaking classes, with the majority of respondents either strongly agreeing or agreeing with all seven statements outlining their effectiveness.
In fact, the pie chart below quantifies the percentage of each choice in the survey. Strongly agree was selected for 31% of the answers while Agree was selected for 29% of the answers. The results seem to reveal that students’ attitudes toward the cooperative learning approach were overwhelmingly positive.

Discussion

It can therefore be concluded that the cooperative learning method can in fact be useful in helping ESL students enhance their oral English language skills. The research conducted here sought to answer the question of how cooperative learning could prove effective. By examining the results of the qualitative research collected from the survey, it is clear that those students who employed the cooperative learning method during the eight-week trial perceived it to be broadly beneficial in improving their vocabulary and speaking skill and fostering a more inclusive and comfortable environment in which to do so. But more than simple perceptions, the experimental group's results were both quantified and validated by their impressive post-test scores. In fact, the experimental group clearly outscored and ultimately outlearned their controlled group counterparts. These results would seem to prove that ESL students who firmly believe in a more cooperative and interactive learning approach will be more likely to outperform peers who stick to more traditional methods of learning - all of which bodes well for the future of the cooperative learning method.