How Public High School Students Assume Cooperative

Roles to Develop Their EFL Speaking Skills

Cómo asumen estudiantes de secundaria de un colegio público

roles cooperativos para desarrollar sus habilidades de habla

Julie Natalie Parra Espinel

nataliemuymuy84@hotmail.com

Diana Carolina Fonseca Canaría

craisycarodia84@hotmail.com
Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, Colombia

This study describes an investigation we carried out in order to identify how the specific roles that
7TH grade public school students assumed when they worked cooperatively were related to their
development of speaking skills in English. Data were gathered through interviews, field notes, students’
reflections and audio recordings. The findings revealed that students who were involved in cooperative
activities chose and assumed roles taking into account preferences, skills and personality traits. In the
same manner, when learners worked together, their roles were affected by each other and they put into
practice some social strategies with the purpose of supporting their embryonic speaking development.

Key words: Cooperative, English, learning, roles, speaking, skills, work

Este estudio describe un proyecto de investigación llevado a cabo para identificar cómo los roles
específicos que asumían los estudiantes de grado séptimo, en un colegio público mientras trabajaban
cooperativamente, estaban relacionados con el desarrollo de su habilidad de habla en inglés. Los datos se
recolectaron a través de entrevistas, notas de campo, reflexiones de los estudiantes y grabaciones de
audio. Los resultados revelaron que los estudiantes al estar inmersos en actividades cooperativas
escogieron y asumieron roles teniendo en cuenta preferencias, habilidades y rasgos de personalidad. De
la misma manera, cuando los estudiantes trabajaron en conjunto pusieron en práctica algunas estrategias
sociales con el propósito de apoyar su etapa inicial de desarrollo de habla en inglés.

Palabras clave: aprendizaje cooperativo, habilidades de habla en inglés, roles, trabajo cooperativo

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Julie Natalie Parra Espinel and Diana Carolina Fonseca Canaría

Introduction
The Communicative approach has been considered by many teachers useful to
foster classroom interaction; it can allow students to increase acquisition of
knowledge as well as language proficiency and self-esteem. Among the
methodologies which can be related to a communicative approach to English
Language Teaching (ELT) is cooperative learning, which has become a relevant tool
for teachers and learners; it can support teachers in providing students with
meaningful communicative situations in which they can express their ideas, verify
hypotheses, share information and interact among themselves in order to enrich their
language and life skills.
In some kinds of cooperative work activities such as numbered heads together,
three steps interview and jigsaw (Kagan, 1994), students have the chance to work
together assuming specific roles with the aim of accomplishing particular tasks. Our
idea by means of this project was that as they played their roles, 7th grade students at
the “Institución Educativa Julius Sieber” in Tunja, Boyacá, became aware that they
were not only an important support for their own learning but were also a
fundamental part of a group.
As we could notice in the initial survey, group work sometimes became a
problem because learners tried to choose the person who knew more about the topic
thinking that they could avoid their responsibility inside the group. Consequently,
there were some pupils who had more responsibility than others. In relation to this
statement, by implementing cooperative activities among 7th grade students, we
sought to help them to take advantage of the abilities that they could have to
communicate in English, as well as to work together trying to assume equal
responsibilities inside a group for reaching a common goal.
Bearing in mind that cooperative work implies a complex process, we designed
activities to involve students in cooperative work in four gradual stages from the
easiest to the most complex. First of all, students developed cooperative activities in
order to learn their weaknesses and strengths in relation to language skills. Moreover,
they identified which roles they preferred to assume when they worked with others.
In the second and third stages, they faced team work in itself; it means that they had
to put into practice cooperative and collaborative skills. In the last stage, we expected
students to consolidate their work showing how they articulated speaking skills with

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 How Public High School Students Assume Cooperative
Roles to Develop Their EFL Speaking Skills

cooperative work through a theater performance. As students developed the

different activities, we as researchers investigated how learners engaged in their
development of speaking skill in English as they worked cooperatively as well as how
their roles were characterized in cooperative tasks development.

Literature Review
Keeping in mind that the purpose of this research was to identify how the
specific roles 7th grade students assumed when they worked cooperatively were
related to their development of speaking skill in English, this section will
contextualize the reader with theoretical elements associated with cooperative
learning and the development of speaking skills in EFL, which support the
development of this work.

Cooperative Learning, Principles and Techniques

Cooperative Language Learning Method (CLL) is the pedagogical approach in
which learners work in groups. This method has been defined by a variety of authors
in different fields. To begin with, Johnson and Johnson (2001) define cooperative
learning as a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of
different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their
understanding of a subject. According to Slavin (1999), a member of a team can be
encouraged to participate if he perceives that the group’s benefit also constitutes
his/her own gain. To end, Artz and Newman (1990) describe CLL as small groups of
learners working together as a team to solve a problem, complete a task, or
accomplish a common goal.
Bearing in mind the previous definitions, it is important to explain the pillars
which support cooperative learning as a meaningful way for learning English as a
foreign language; we need to keep in mind different points of view about language
learning. Thus, it is relevant to consider Piaget and Vygotsky’s ideas. According to
Piaget (1969), language is developed as a symbolic system to express knowledge
acquired through interaction with the physical world. He emphasizes that children
build their cognitive development when there is a direct contact between children
and those different things that they can explore, touch and manipulate. Vygotsky
(1978) asserts that language develops entirely from social interaction. It means that
language and thought emerge when children are able to interact with others (children

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Julie Natalie Parra Espinel and Diana Carolina Fonseca Canaría

or adults). So, people need to relate to others in order to supply primary necessities
and to share with others what they feel or think.
Equally important, Kagan (1994) agrees with Piaget’s and Vigotsky’s theories
because he pointed out that there is a better chance of learning when people interact
with each other. Rooted in this statement is the need to clarify that cooperative work
differs from group work. Despite both of their being seen as pedagogical strategies
that promote participation and interaction, there is a difference between “having
students work in a group” (Johnson & Johnson, 2000) and structuring students to
work cooperatively. Thereby, group work is defined as the way in which students
form groups but do not necessarily articulate their work based on what cooperation
implies. Furthermore, students many times work drawn solely by their own will and
they are not aware that they need to join others to reach common goals. In that sense,
this practice does not seem to function because there is not a positive
interdependence from group mates to fulfill a task.
In contrast to group work, cooperative work becomes a useful strategy for
learners because they can learn from and teach each other inside a group, and thus
form relationships with their peers by overcoming shyness, anonymity and isolation.
As López and Viáfara (2007) mentioned, “Learners’ personal growth is among the
positive aspects that emerged from working cooperatively”. In their study, some
teachers claimed that through working cooperatively their students seemed to start
gaining self-confidence, self-esteem and self-motivation. In addition to this relevant
aspect, teachers can take advantage of collaborative activities to make the learning
process effective. It is a positive aspect that teachers can move from one group to
another checking students’ task development and simultaneously can perceive
students’ attitudes and aptitudes in order to provide them feedback. In regard to
teachers’ points of view about cooperative work, López and Viáfara (2007) could
establish that the dynamics of working cooperatively in class led to teachers
identifying the development of students’ interpersonal skills. Further, learners had
the chance to work independently enabling the teacher’s control in class to be
reduced.
Bearing in mind what cooperation implies, some authors are in agreement with
the fact that minimal principles are required to promote Cooperative Learning in
students. By this means, we took into account the principles suggested by Johnson,
Johnson and Holubec (1993).These experts focus on developing some key elements

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with an emphasis on integrating social skills and academic tasks. They say that five
principles are required to carry out collaborative tasks. At first, students need to see
that their work benefits group mates and their group mates’ work benefits them
(positive interdependence) so each member must be responsible for helping to complete a
task (individual accountability). Working together, team mates have the chance to put
into practice interpersonal and small-group skills to coordinate efforts and solve problems
inside the group; moreover, they have opportunities to promote partners’ success by
helping and encouraging their attempts to develop a shared task. (Face to face promotive
interaction).Finally, group members need to analyze how they are working e.g. if their
group is functioning using collaborative skills or not (reflection).
In addition, we applied and adapted some techniques proposed by Kagan (1994)
and used in CLL as follows:
Three steps interview. In which students perform as interviewers to share
information within the group.
Numbered heads together. Where the students on each team are numbered
from 1 to 4 and one teammate chosen at random has to answer a question formulated
by the teacher.
Jigsaw. It is a technique in which each student in a group has a piece of
information and needs to combine all the information to put the puzzle together.
Paired storytelling. It is a technique in which participants are paired off and
assigned different segments of a text. After, they jot down key concepts found in the
sections in order to exchange information and relate the story they have read/heard
previously.

Learners’ Roles in CLL

As one of the main objectives in CLL is that learners share responsibilities inside
the group, there are some common roles that students can assume in cooperative jobs
with the aim of being accountable for a portion of a task and making participation
equitable among partakers. In diagram 1 there are some roles that team members or
learners can play while they are involved in cooperative learning.

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PRESENTER (He/She WRITER (He/She records

MANAGER (He/ She
explains the team’s answers results and makes sure
keeps the team on task)
to the rest of the class) everyone agrees)

READER (He/ She reads ENCOURAGER (He/ She CHECKER (He/She

aloud the question being makes sure makes sure everyone
answered by the team) everyone participates) understands)

Diagram 1. Kind of learners’ roles in CLL (Kagan, 1994)

Developing Speaking Skills in EFL

Based on Chastain (1998, pp.330-358), speaking is a productive skill which
involves many components. “Speaking is more than making the right sounds,
choosing the right words or getting the constructions grammatically correct”.
Thereby, Thornbury (2005, p. 3) claims that “Speaking is interactive and requires the
ability to cooperate in the management of speaking turns”. Furthermore, speakers
need to use communicative strategies when they lack words, phrases and structures in
English. Besides, speakers need to check what they have understood by repeating or
clarifying what they have said. In other words, they need to adjust what they say in
order to be comprehensible (Hedge, 2000, p. 262). Therefore, it is relevant to know
the different activities that teachers can accomplish in order to promote speaking
practice inside the classroom. Along the next paragraphs we will mention some of
these activities based on Harmer (2009).
Information gap. It is where speakers have different bits of information and
they can only complete the whole picture, text or puzzle by sharing that information.
Surveys. Students can design a questionnaire with a set of questions about any
topic and go round the group asking each participant their questions. This activity can
be used to get students interviewing each other.
Student presentations. Individual students give a talk on a given topic or
person. In order for this to work for the individual and for the rest of the class, time
must be given for the student to gather information and structure it accordingly.

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To close this part, we wanted to mention the study completed by Prieto (2007)
because it relates cooperative learning and speaking skill. The purpose of this study
was to identify to what extent Cooperative Learning strategies were effective in
reaching the desired oral production level of 11th graders at Colegio de Bachillerato Patria.
For achieving this objective, Prieto designed five lesson plans in which she combined
CL and speaking strategies. Along the study, she realized that during the
development of cooperative activities learners were aware of their responsibility in
their speaking process because there were some activities which allowed and
encouraged them to speak. Moreover, Prieto could notice that activity by activity
students had many elements at their disposal to express themselves and to be
successful in communicating. Pupils also understood that practicing speaking was the
only way to develop it, obviously using an appropriate input.

Research Design
In this section we will present the approach and type of research that we followed
considering the main purpose of this investigation. Moreover, the setting and
population, in which we carried out this work, will be described. Additionally, there is
an explanation of data collection techniques and procedures that we used.

Approach and Type of Research

The approach that we used for developing this inquiry was a qualitative one. This
approach considers each participant as a social agent. Each participant belongs to a
social context that determines his/her ideology. For that reason, participants were
grouped according to their interests or characteristics, brought together by a
moderator who uses the groups and their interaction as a way to gain information
about a focused issue (Delgado & Gutierrez, 1999). Looking at these statements, we
studied how a group of students performed when they assumed specific roles while
working cooperatively in order to develop speaking skills. In regard to the type of
research, this work was framed under the action research (AR) methodology; we
followed the stages proposed by Madrid (1998) to implement this kind of research.
To develop a plan of action we designed and applied a diagnostic survey (See
annex A) with the aim to identify and examine what happened when students worked
in groups and how they practiced speaking inside a group. Then, for acting, we
prepared the lesson plans including cooperative activities and developed them with

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DEVELOP A PLAN OF ACTION

Diagnosis

REFLECT ACT
Sharing students’ Planning and implementing
reflections CLL activities

OBSERVE EFFECTS
Observing students’ actions
and attitudes

Figure 2. Basic stages of Action Research (Madrid, 1998)

the chosen groups. In regard to the observation we did of the effects of cooperative
activities in the classroom, we took field notes and recorded students’ teamwork.
Finally, we involved students in reflecting upon the implementation of cooperative
learning; what is more, we constantly ponder upon what we were doing to support
our students’ work.

Setting and Population

The public school we worked with is called “Institución Educativa Julius Sieber”.
It is located in the Asis neighborhood, Tunja, Boyacá. This school has primary and
secondary education. Primary learners study during the morning while secondary
pupils study in the afternoon. For developing this inquiry, we first visited this
institution because we needed to collect information for our diagnosis. Due to the
fact that we were doing our final practice we had to work with an assigned group.
Consequently, we developed our project with a group of 37 seventh graders. They
were between 11 and 14 years old and had an elementary English level. There were 15
girls and 22 boys and all were from low and middle social classes. Although we
applied our pedagogical strategy to all those students, we selected only a
representative number, 8 participants, organized in two groups of four who were
chosen at random, to gather information. In consideration of our professional ethics
as researchers, we could not reveal the real names of participants involved in this

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quest. So, each member received a nickname depending on his/her physical features
or personality traits. The nicknames were Sandy, Damaris, Gafitas, Bond, Timy,
Pecus, Chistin and Pervertín. In that sense, we explored in depth what happened to
their learning process during the implementation of the activities.
At the beginning of working as a team, students were reluctant to work with
other partners different from their close friends. For that reason, they sometimes did
not collaborate with their group, showing instead a lack of discipline and indifference
to help their teammates to achieve the common goal. However, when they started to
work together, assuming equal responsibilities, they realized that they could help and
be helped by the rest of the participants to overcome difficulties. In addition, they
could take advantages of their own skills.

Data Collection Techniques and Procedures

In order to answer our research question we used two techniques. The first one
was related to observation; we used audio recordings as well as field notes as
instruments. The second one referred to elicitation; the instrument consisted of
interviews. As secondary instruments, we used surveys which contained students’
reflections.
Audio recordings. Hubbard and Power (1999, pp. 95-96) claim, “When
teachers do transcribe tapes, they often choose snippets of conversations to illustrate
key points in their research” .Thus, audio recordings provided us information about
how students developed their speaking skill when they worked in groups. We took
out some chunks from this instrument for getting detailed evidence on specific
aspects such as pronunciation, repetition and spelling as well as how pupils used the
target language to relate to their peers as they interacted orally with them. So, we used
audio recordings by placing small tape recorders within groups in those cooperative
activities in which students had to read, to expound upon ideas, give opinions or
when learners had to discuss a specific topic in order to come to an agreement.
Field notes. In order to report what we observed during the activities, we made
use of field notes. Burns (1999, p. 87) remarks, “Notes or field notes are descriptions
and accounts of events in the research context which are written in a relatively factual
and objective style”. Subsequently, we employed this instrument each session in
which cooperative activities took place, for twelve weeks approximately. It meant

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that we wrote our impressions as researchers about collaborative skills. Furthermore,

we included our impressions about learners’ actions, attitudes, and even some
English words that participants used in team work; we also described how students
interacted among themselves as they assumed specific roles in groups. During the
development of the activities we both wrote some key words, quotations and
expressions that learners had said and after each class we as researchers shared our
impressions with the intention of complementing our notes and writing in a more
objective perspective what we observed along the activity.
Interviews. A semi-structured interview (Bell, 1999) was used to explore the
teachers’ implementations of cooperative learning in their lessons. That is why we
used semi-structured interviews in which we as researchers had a general idea of
where we wanted the interview to go. We brought a set of questions as the basis for
the interview but we asked the participants other questions that helped us to delve
deeper or to obtain more information about team work.
For gathering accurate information, after each class one of us chose one team
member of a base group in order to ask him/her what he/she perceived about group
dynamic, partners’ attitudes toward roles and how he/she practiced speaking with
his/her peers. Moreover, one of us started the interview as a spontaneous
conversation in order to give students the confidence to answer the questions
without pressure.

Pedagogical Design
We designed our pedagogical strategy based on the analysis of the diagnosis
survey that we applied at the beginning of this inquiry. Also, we took into
consideration the Cooperative Language Learning principles proposed by Johnson,
Johnson, & Holubec (1993). The activities were integrated to the course syllabus as a
sequential process which involved the following stages: sensibilization, a reading task,
“The Origin of Emeralds”, organizing a script and achieving a big team goal, a “role
play” based on the reading.
In the first stage we carried out basic tasks or activities in order for participants to
become aware of the real meaning of cooperative work: sensibilization; for this stage,
students were chosen at random to organize groups of four and to develop a team task.
In the second, students worked together to read “The Origin of Emeralds”; they

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interacted orally to discuss what they read or found in the text and became familiar with
unknown vocabulary, among other activities. The third phase consisted of organizing
and completing a short script about the story that they read in the previous stage. The
last stage was the consolidation of the process: the presentation of a theater play. That
is, our participants were able to show how they articulated speaking skills with
cooperative activities, as well as everything they did during the process in which they
prepared the performance of the story. In Table 1 you can see the different activities
and techniques which were applied in each stage of this study. Additionally, the reader
will see the roles that emerged during cooperative tasks.

Table 1. Activities, techniques and roles applied in CLL

Phase Activity CLT technique CLT roles

Random organization Monitor, Painter, Dictionary
Sensibilization Describing animals
of groups guide, Writer and Presenter.
Monitor, Drawer
Reading task: “The Paired storytelling
Writer, Checker,
Origin of Baseboard Numbered heads
Dictionary guide,
Emeralds” together
Spinner, Speaker.
Characters, Interviewer , Writer
Three steps interview,
Organizing a script description, Interviewee, Reader, Monitor,
Jigsaw
Crossword puzzle Organizer
Monitor, Organizer,
Role play Rehearsal Partners Time–keeper, Encourager,
Presenter.

In Annex B, you can see an example of a complete lesson plan that we followed in
order to carry out the different cooperative tasks.

Data Analysis
This section describes the process followed to analyze the information we
gathered for answering our research question based on the nature of the information
that we collected by means of tape recordings, interviews, and field notes as well as
surveys which contained students’ reflections.

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For analyzing our data we based our work on the grounded theory. This approach
invites the investigator to read the data several times in order to detect similar themes or
patterns (Freeman, 1998). For starting this procedure, we got a general overview of all
the instruments and then began by looking at interviews in relation to how roles were
characterized in cooperative tasks and how students engaged in their speaking practice
while cooperating. Then, we made the transcription of each one of them in order to
learn the students’ perceptions about how they used the target language inside a group,
how they assumed specific roles and how the group was functioning. After that, we
used different colors to identify some common patterns about team work, roles and
speaking. To corroborate what we found in the interviews, we continued by analyzing
students’ surveys, our field notes and tape recordings of students’ oral interaction in
groups; we constantly contrasted the information in these instruments. It is important
to clarify that along the following discussion of the analysis, we will use the following
explicit codes to illustrate the evidence: (S’I= Students’ Interviews, FN= Filed Notes
from researchers, TR= Tape Recordings and SR= Students’ personal reflection).
For validating the findings obtained from the instruments, we used
methodological triangulation which combines dissimilar methods such as interviews,
observations, and physical evidence to study the same unit (Merriam, 1988, p. 69).
Similarly, we took into account researcher triangulation e.g. “the use of several
researchers” (Janesick, 1994, p. 215). Our study implied that each one of us analyzed
data from our own perspective and then compared our points of view in order to
enrich the process. Gathering patterns and constantly reducing information, we came
up with categories and sub categories, as follows:

Table 2. Categories and subcategories found along the data analysis

Categories Subcategories
• Identifying personality traits in relation to attitudes toward
roles.
1. The emerging dynamics to choose
• Discovering our skills to know the role that each person can
and assume roles. take to learn together.
• Becoming tolerant of our preferences in constructing a role.
2. Using strategies to support an • Building confidence
embryonic speaking development • Practicing language
while cooperating.

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1. The Emerging Dynamics to Choose and Assume Roles

The first category we found refers to the process participants followed for the
assignation of the functions members of groups would perform.
From the beginning of the study, we encouraged cooperative learning in students
by involving them in assuming specific roles while they worked on their teams. Data
revealed that students spent some time organizing themselves which implied three
specific aspects: exploring their abilities, their preferences and knowing each others’
attitudes and aptitudes with the objective of negotiating and selecting among
themselves the roles they would take. The next section discusses each of the three
topics previously named.
Identifying personality traits in relation to attitudes toward roles. It refers
to how students tried to discover and make others realize their own and their peers’
behaviors and attitudes when they had to develop a specific assignment in a
cooperative task. It meant that those personality features that participants had were
relevant for considering if someone was suitable for a role in the group or not. Hence,
students’ personalities became a crucial factor in how to organize the groups which
were going to work along the term.
Bearing the previous in mind, we could evidence along the process that when
students had to assume roles, there were some of them who felt worried because they
did not know if the roles that they or their partners would assume could be suitable
for them. For instance, one student mentioned: “Pervertín cuando empezamos con lo de los
grupos él era muy indisciplinado, yo no sé por qué lo escogieron de monitor” (Pervertín, when we
started with the groups he was very undisciplined, I do not know why he was chosen as monitor)
(Timy, S’I # 2, line 50). As we could see in the previous example an undisciplined
person was not considered the best option for being the monitor. In contrast we
found that sometimes teammates saw in other partners the best characteristics to
assume a specific responsibility; as evidence of this situation we took the following
example: “Ahora si me han dejado a mi de monitor y entre el grupo nos ayudamos, Y dicen que yo
soy buen monitor, los ayudo a los 3, a los compañeros, yo los ayudo y ellos me ayudan” (Now, they
have left me as monitor and among the group we help each other, they say that I am a good monitor, I
help the three, my partners, and they also help me). (Timy, S’I # 2, Line 61).
Discovering our skills to know the role that each person can take to learn
together. It means that when collaborative work was promoted, certain talents

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participants had were essential to foster cooperation in the group. Then, most of the
students were able to realize that they were good at developing assignments
depending on the different activities. Indeed, some pupils not only were conscious
about their own abilities, but also were able to identify their peers’ knacks. Through
the information that we gathered, we could evidence that when students had to make
decisions in relation to the participation that they wanted to have in a task, teammates
usually looked at participants’ strengths in order to fulfill a shared goal effectively.
The following excerpts exemplify the point:
“Timy me dice que escriba porque yo tengo bonita letra”

(Timy tells me to write because I have nice handwriting) (Pecus, S’I #8, line 24)
Another example from an interview:
Teacher-researcher: ¿A Bond siempre le gusta mirar en el diccionario? (Does Bond always
like to look up in the dictionary?)

Gafitas: Pues, nosotros lo escogimos porque a él le gusta buscar en el diccionario y busca

rápido las palabras. (We chose him because he likes to look things up in the dictionary
and finds the words quickly). (Gafitas, S’I # 7, lines 18- 20)

Additionally, we noticed students themselves highlighted their skills to assume a

role. Example, “Sí, a mi me gusta más escribir para captar bien las cosas y decirlas mejor” (Yes, I
like to write to understand things well and say them better). (Damaris, S’I #6, line 60). Students
most of the time said that they wanted to perform certain chores or particular
activities because they knew that they were good at doing that. Hence, it helped the
group to work quickly to complete assignments. Look at the following example:
– ¿En todas las actividades de grupo ha asumido el mismo rol? (Have you
assumed the same role in all the activities?)

– Sí, escribiendo. (Yes, writing)

– Porque soy muy rápida para escribir y pienso muy rápido y desarrollamos más
rápido. (Because I am very fast at writing, I think faster and we complete the
activities quickly). (S’R, Student’s Reflections)

Becoming tolerant of our preferences in constructing a role. According to

our findings, roles were characterized taking into account students’ preferences. We

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noticed that when students were involved in structuring groups there were some
participants who expected to perform according to what they preferred. So, some
learners tried to express what they liked and expected to do it in those situations in
which they felt comfortable. Thereby, teammates exercise some values as tolerance
and respect because when a person expressed to his/her partners the responsibility
that he/she wanted to assume, his/her peers were free to accept or not accept that
choice. The following is a clear example:
Teacher-researcher: Por qué cambió el rol de monitor? (Why did you change the role of
monitor?)

Pervertín: No, me cambiaron porque yo casi no apoyaba en nada. (No, they changed me
because I almost did not support anything)

Teacher-researcher: Y ¿Quién decidió cambiarlo? (And, Who decided to change you?)

Pervertín: Eh, todos. (eh, everyone.) (Pervertín, S’I # 4, line147)

Similarly, we could evidence that team members thought assuming roles and
working together implied that a person had to fulfill some criteria. They considered
collaboration, companionship, friendship, responsibility and respect as important
tools for developing chores while joining forces. Then, when a participant was not
considered to be a good candidate for performing a specific role, her/his partners
tried to give him/her another task which he/she could assume better. During the
interview some students came up with answers like this:
Teacher-researcher: ¿Cómo le pareció la actividad de hoy? (How did you feel about today’s
activity?)

Timy: Ja, Ja, bien, si me gustó. Por lo que eran entrevistas entre los personajes de la
leyenda. Pero la verdad, hoy no estuvimos organizados más que todo la culpa la tuvo
Pervertín porque él no quería ser el que entrevistaba ni el entrevistado. (Well. I liked it
since the interviews were over the characters of the legend. But the truth is, we were not
organized because of Pervertín. He did not want to be either interviewer or interviewee.)

Teacher-researcher: Y entonces ¿Cómo hicieron si a él le tocaba entrevistar? (Then, How did

you do if he was in charge of interviewing?)

Timy: A Pervertín si (risas) no le gusta así hablar, Es que a él le da más… es como pena
hablar para el público. Entonces como él sólo quería escribir y buscar en el diccionario le

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Julie Natalie Parra Espinel and Diana Carolina Fonseca Canaría

dijimos, Pervertín ayúdenos con escribir, como él era Are entonces de paso iba
escribiendo lo que él iba contestando. (Pervertín [laughs] does not like to speak so, it is
like he feels embarrassed ... when talking to the public. Then as he just wanted to write
and look things up in the dictionary we told him, Pervertín, helps us to write, as he was
Are, he was writing what he was answering). (Timy, S’I # 5, line 14- 16, 40 -41)

In the example presented above, the monitor realized that Pervertín could
perform neither interviewer nor interviewee because he did not achieve the role’s
expectation. Nevertheless, their partners were able to discover that he liked
performing other roles as writer and dictionary guide in which he felt comfortable.
Consequently, Pervertín could also contribute with a portion of the task

2. Using Strategies to Support an Embryonic Speaking

Development While Cooperating
This category attempts to describe the atmosphere that students created within
the group when they worked together and those different aspects related to the way
in which students put into practice the target language at a very basic level. It was
evident when participants used utterances, short sentences and expressions
interacting with peers.
Building confidence. It is related to the environment that students created
when they shared ideas, opinions and experiences with other partakers. At the
beginning of the process, we could notice that students felt reluctant to establish
any level of conversations with their peers. Most of them pointed out that they did
not trust other team members to express words or expressions which implied the
use of the foreign language (FN, researchers). However, when they remained in the
same groups for at least three months, some learners showed more interest in
interacting orally in English with their teammates. Likewise, since they got to know
each other better while they worked as a team, some pupils started to reveal relaxing
attitudes such as making jokes with their peers, encouraging each other to
participate in the given tasks or supporting partners in what they were doing.
Through this attitudes students felt comfortable and the group dynamic was more
enjoyable and effective.
The following example characterizes the confidence built up among participants
to encourage or motivate partakers to join a task as well as to support what they were

46 HOW, A Colombian Journal for Teachers of English

 How Public High School Students Assume Cooperative
Roles to Develop Their EFL Speaking Skills

saying or doing; some students used special words to congratulate peers’ work when
necessary:
Timy: Venga le pregunto la quinta. Where did he appear? (Come, I’ll ask you the fifth
question. Where did he appear?)

Pecus: River Magdalena. (Magdalena River)

Timy: Muy bien, mocoso. Ahora estúdieselo bien (Okay, brat. Now study it well.) (Timy
said that expression to encourage his partner to speak) (FN, researchers)

In the previous example, Timy, who was the monitor of the group, often used
words like: Hágale, ay no importa, digalo, rápido, hable duro, bien (Do it, never mind, say so, fast,
speak up, very good) to animate partners inside the group to participate.
Likewise, we realized that writing was a tool for students to prepare their
speaking. As a meaningful consequence in speaking, learners started to ask other
members inside the group to clarify their doubts about what the meaning of a word
was, how to write specific words and how to pronounce them accurately. In that
manner, learners broke down some barriers for being understood as well as being
able to understand what other partners wanted to say as is evidenced in the following
sample:
Damaris: (writer)¿Qué es beautiful? (What is beautiful?)

Timy: Bonito o bonita (Nice or pretty).

Damaris: ¿Entonces long es pelo? (So, is long hair?)

Timy: No, largo. (No, long).

(TR Chunks)

In this excerpt we could highlight that most of the time students felt the necessity
to clarify what they did not know or understand; by this means, they trusted what the
other partners advised them.
Practicing Language. It involves those different strategies that students used
for understanding or verifying information. Along the implementation of
cooperative tasks, some pupils adopted repetition and pronunciation as tools for
promoting peer interaction. Indeed, we could identify that; when the fellows worked

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Julie Natalie Parra Espinel and Diana Carolina Fonseca Canaría

in small groups, they had more opportunities for practicing what they heard from
other partners. Then, when a teammate was able to internalize a word or expression
correctly, he/she could perform as a model because his/her partners could probably
repeat what he/she was saying. For example:
Chistin: Ahora pintémoslo blue and yellow. (Now let’s paint it blue and yellow.)

Bond: NO, red, color yellow, yellow and red.

We also noticed that team members learnt some expressions that the teacher
often used during her classes. Indeed, students who internalized those words and
expressions could use them as tools to achieve a better functioning of the group. It
reveals that most of the time when students worked as a team, there was frequently
someone in the group who felt the need to transmit what the teacher had said to
others. The following example illustrates this point:
Teacher: Don’t worry, that’s ok. (She said to the whole group)

Pecus: That’s ok (He said to the rest of his partners with a mocking accent). Thank you,
thank you, thank you. (TR Chunks)

The monitor repeated the words quickly and that’s ok after the teacher said
them. He used these expressions inside the group in order to make his partners work
faster but at the same time for encouraging them to develop the tasks more
efficiently. (FN, researchers)

Conclusions
This research was meaningful because it helped both students and teachers to
understand the importance of cooperative work. Students could increase not only
oral skills but also the quality of their participation in the development of a task.
Cooperative learning demands certain abilities, characters and values that
students need to cooperate inside a group. In that sense, students could explore not
only their abilities and preferences but also learn about each other’s attitudes and
aptitudes in order to negotiate what to do in a specific task and how to effectively
complete it.
For characterizing the roles in cooperative learning, teammates usually looked at
participants’ strengths in order to fulfill a shared goal effectively. Indeed, during the

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 How Public High School Students Assume Cooperative
Roles to Develop Their EFL Speaking Skills

development of the activities some students discovered their own abilities and were
able to identify peers’ knacks.
By assuming roles teammates could put into practice some values such as
tolerance and respect because when a person expressed to his/her partners the
responsibility that he/she wanted to assume, his/her peers could choose to accept or
not accept that choice. Moreover, partakers considered collaboration,
companionship, friendship, responsibility and respect as the main qualities for
assuming roles and working together.
Concerning how students’ speaking practice emerged when they worked on
specific cooperative tasks, the team learning atmosphere that students created inside
the group was meaningful not only for students to establish conversations with their
peers but also to make the group dynamic more enjoyable. These public school
seventh grade students, who were not used to speaking English spontaneously in
class, started to use words, expressions and short sentences. They usually mixed
Spanish and English, but those pieces of language were used meaningfully. They
involved mainly two strategies to encourage their own and their group’s speaking
skills: repetition and pronunciation.

Pedagogical Implications
Cooperative activities provide learners another option for exploring and learning
social skills. It means that if students are able to recognize what they can do inside a
group, they can probably discover what they can do in society.
Taking into account that teachers have to assume a lot of responsibilities with
their students, cooperative learning becomes a useful tool for them to carry out
classes. It helps teachers to manage lessons by lowering stress and making it more
efficient by means of monitors in small groups.
When using cooperative techniques it is necessary for teachers to select and adapt
them taking into account students’ needs, interests, language level, previous
knowledge and the real environment in order to make the language learning process
meaningful as well as useful.
Similarly, some techniques such as numbered heads together, three steps
interview, and jigsaw motivated students to participate and to speak in English due to

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Julie Natalie Parra Espinel and Diana Carolina Fonseca Canaría

the fact that they had to follow a process and frequently share ideas in order to show a
final product.
We realized that when students assumed specific roles, they shared equal
responsibilities and helped other members inside the group to consolidate
knowledge. In that sense, they felt that they were important inside the group and that
their ideas were valuable.
We noticed that when students worked together they had more opportunities for
practicing the speaking skill. However, speaking development is not so spontaneous;
this takes time and requires everyday practice. Then, teachers cannot expect that
students who have never been used to speaking English would start speaking English
from the start in cooperative groups.

References
Artz, A.F., & Newman, C. M. (1990). Cooperative learning. Mathematics Teacher, 83, 448-449.
Bell, J. (1999). Doing your research project: A guide for first-time researchers in education, health and social
sciences. Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Burns, A. (1999). Collaborative action research for English language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Chastain, K. (1998). Developing second-language skills: Theory to practice (2ndEd.). Chicago: Harcourt
Brace Publishers.
Delgado, J.M., & Gutiérrez, J. (1999). Métodos y técnicas cualitativas de investigación en ciencias sociales.
Madrid: Síntesis Psicología. S.A.
Freeman, D. (1998). Doing teacher research: From inquiry to understanding. London: Heinle and Heinle
Publishers.
Harmer, J. (2009). How to teach English. Edinburgh: Longman.
Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and learning in the language classroom. Oxford University Press.
Hubbard, R., & Power, B. (1999). Living the questions: A guide for teacher-researchers. York, Maine:
Stenhouse Publishers.
Janesick, V. (1994). The dance of qualitative research design: Metaphor, methodolatry, and
meaning. In Denzin, N. & Lincoln, Y. (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 209-219).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Johnson, D., & Johnson, R. “Cooperative Learning” (Online) Retrieved 15 October 2001 from
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC18/Johnson.htm
Johnson, D. W.; Johnson, R. T., & Holubec, E. J. (1993). Cooperation in the classroom (6th ed.). Edina,
MN: Interaction Book Company.
Kagan, S. (1994). Cooperative learning. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing.

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 How Public High School Students Assume Cooperative
Roles to Develop Their EFL Speaking Skills

López, M.E., & Viáfara, J.J. (2007). Public school students’ performance in an EFL cooperative
work environment. HOW: A Colombian Journal for Teachers of English, 14, 89-112.
Madrid, D. (1998). Observation and research in the classroom, Modulo A, (asignatura) del Master
Interuniversitario Teaching English as a Foreign Language, del Australian Institute (120 págs.),
Barcelona.
Merriam, S. (1988). Case study research in education. A qualitative approach. USA: Library of Congress.
Piaget, J. (1969). The mechanisms of perception. London: Rutledge & Kegan Paul.
Prieto, C. (2007). Improving eleventh graders’ oral production in English class through
Cooperative Learning Strategies. PROFILE, 8(1), 75-90.
Slavin, R. (1999). Aprendizaje cooperativo. Teoría, investigación y práctica. Argentina: Aique.
Thornbury, S. (2005). How to teach speaking. Pearson Education Limited. Longman.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.

The Authors
Julie Natalie Parra Espinel holds a B.A. in Modern Languages from Universidad
Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, Tunja, Boyacá. She belongs to RETELE
research group that stimulates autonomous learning among 1st and 2nd semester
students. She has been an English teacher in different schools in Tunja, Boyacá.
Diana Carolina Fonseca Canaría holds a B.A. in Modern Languages from
Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, Tunja, Boyacá. She has been an
English teacher in different schools in Tunja, Boyacá. Her main interests in the
language field have been how to develop students’ speaking skills and ELT
methodologies.
This article was received on May 8, 2010 and accepted on September 17, 2010.

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Julie Natalie Parra Espinel and Diana Carolina Fonseca Canaría

Annex A: Diagnosis Survey

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Julie Natalie Parra Espinel and Diana Carolina Fonseca Canaría

Annex B: Sample of a Lesson Plan

UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGÓGICA Y TECNOLÓGICA DE COLOMBIA

SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES
ENGLISH PRACTICE
LESSON PLAN: 04

SCHOOL: JULIUS SIEBER GRADE: 7A DATE: OCTOBER 13, 2009

PRE- SERVICE TEACHERS: Diana Carolina Fonseca, Julie Natalie Parra
STANDARD: To describe characters who are involved in a story using simple
sentences.
To answer questions about different characters using simple sentences.
TOPIC: Myths

LANGUAGE: Simple Past tense (Yes/no and Wh questions)

FUNCTION: Describing and introducing characters’ general aspects
TIME: 4 hours

Achievement Indicators:
¨ To describe a character based on a model.
¨ To ask and answer questions with simple sentences in past tense.

Procedures Communicative activities Resources Assessment

Students will listen to a The teacher will
recording about the description verify what students
of a character. Then, the understood from the
Warming up: Tape recorder
teacher will ask them what they recording depending
understood about it. (General on the answers they
aspects) give.

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 How Public High School Students Assume Cooperative
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Procedures Communicative activities Resources Assessment

The teacher will draw different
rectangles on the board. Next,
she will write in the upper left
corner the number of the
different tables from 1 to 8. The teacher will ask
Each table will have some students for specific
Presentation incomplete sentences that Tape recorder details from the text
students will have to complete in order to verify
according to what they comprehension.
understand from the recording.
Students will listen to the
recording once, twice or thrice
if necessary.
The teacher will give students a
piece of paper with the
description of a character. This
description will have some
blanks; then, students will listen
to the recording twice in order
to complete the blanks (They
will listen to the recording
thrice if necessary).
The teacher will stick on the Tape recorder The teacher will
board the poster with the check that all the
Guided Poster
description and the blanks. students copy the
practice Markers
Next, she will ask students sentences in their
which are the missing words Set of copies notebooks.
and she will write them on the
poster.
The teacher will write some
questions on the board and the
students will answer them
based on the information that
they have in the paragraph.
Students will copy them in their
notebooks.

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Procedures Communicative activities Resources Assessment

The teacher will explain to
students what the activity is
about. Based on the text, “The
Origin of Emeralds” and the
groups that the teacher
organized before (Base groups),
each participant inside the
group will choose a character
and, using the description as a
model, write a short description
of his/ her character.
Then, the teacher will give
groups a list of questions which
are related to a character in the
Creative story. Students will discuss and
practice analyze the different questions Tape recorder
(Cooperative in order to understand them.
Worksheets
work & three Next, each student inside the
steps Pencils
group will choose one of the
interview) following roles: interviewer,
interviewee, writer and reader.
The interviewer will ask the
questions that the teacher gave
her/him. The interviewee will
answer the questions using the
information that he/she has in
his/her description. Two
students will perform as writers
and they will have to pay
attention to the interviewee’s
answers and they will have to
take notes of each one of them.
One student at random will
introduce the character.

COMMENTS:

TUTOR’S SIGNATURE:

56 HOW, A Colombian Journal for Teachers of English