1. Rationale
English, nowadays, is widely taught from primary school to university, even at English centers through out the country. People learn English for their work or for their higher study. However, the results of the English courses are not very good. Vietnamese teachers of English have not known how to apply the teaching method in effective ways. They are lack of knowledge, teaching aid, time, and money to teach four language skills: listening skill, speaking skill, reading skill and writing skill. Like many teachers in the schools of Vietnam, teachers of English at PVN upper secondary school are faced with a common problem: students’ poor participation in activities in the classroom. In fact, there are a variety of reasons for this poor participation, and therefore finding appropriate techniques and methods for teaching English effectively to students at PVN upper secondary school requires a long serious research. This led me the choice of the study “organizing pair work and groupwork in the context of high school classrooms at PVN upper secondary school” with the hope of investigating into ways to organize pairwork and groupwork more effectively in English classes. My study only focuses on how to organize pairwork and groupwork more effectively for students at PVN upper secondary school in NAM DINH.
2. Aims of study
The study is aimed at:
 Understanding the theoretical background of classroom activities: pairwork and groupwork to improve students’ language skills.
 Investigating the use of pair and group work in PVN upper secondary school- a school located in Y Yen district, Nam Dinh province.
 Helping teachers at PVN upper secondary school to find out effective technique to organize pairwork and groupwork with the hope of helping them in teaching English.
3. Scope of the study
To improve four skills for students at PVN upper secondary school, the teachers can make use of various techniques and a number of things should be done. However, the researcher only intends to draw a brief overview of pairwork and groupwork in classes at PVN upper secondary school and to find out the ways to organize pairwork and groupwork more effectively.
4. Research questions of the study
This study was aimed to answer the following research questions:
1. How do the teachers in PVN high school use pair and group work? And how often?
2. Is that a suitable way of teaching in PVN school? Why?
3.How to organize pairwork and groupwork in English class more effectively for improving four skills to students at PVN upper secondary school?
5. Methods of study
To realize the aims of the study, a case study was used.The theoretical background of the study comes from many published books written by different authors on language teaching and language acquisition. The data collected for the study came from two sources: the students and the English teachers at PVN upper secondary school (8 English teachers and 120 students) by making survey questionnaires and observation.
In this research, quantitative method is used, too. All comments, remarks, recommendations assumption and conclusion provided in the study based on the analysis of the statistics from the survey questionnaires conducted with students and teachers of PVN upper secondary school. The study is also based on a qualitative method with the author’s own experience and observation during 6 years of teaching English.
6. Design of study
This study consists of 3 parts:
Part A: Introduction which presents the rationale, the aims, scope, the method and design of the study. The research questions are also mentioned in this part.
Part B: Development which consists of 3 chapters:
Chapter 1: Literature Review – reviews the theory about CLT, and pairwork and groupwork.
Chapter 2: Practical Research –provides an analysis on the current situation of using pairwork and groupwork in teaching and learning English at PVN upper secondary school. Data collection and analysis are also presented in this chapter.
Chapter 3: Findings and Suggestions – focuses on how the teachers at PVN upper secondary school organized pairwork and groupwork and difficulties facing them and their students in carrying out these activities and some suggestions for the teachers to organize pair work and groupwork more effectively.
Part C: Conclusion summarizes all the key issues as well as the limitations of the study and some suggestions for further study.