the paper discusses how this particular increase four competencies of teachers, namely (1) Competency Pedagogik, (2) Personality Competence, (3) and Social Competence (4) Professional Competence.
1. Competency Pedagogik
Based on the Law on Teachers and Lecturers, pedagogik competence is the ability of learning which include:
a.memahami students;
b.merancang and implement learning;
c.mengevaluasi study results;
d.mengembangkan themselves professionally.
The pedagogik competence is the ability of teachers and lecturers to manage the learning process of students. A teacher and lecturer who has had minimal competency pedagogik the particular field of study, science education, both learning methods, and approaches of learning. This ability Pedagogik obtained through the education process, when studied in the FKIP / IKIP (before becoming a university) that can be used as the LPTK (Institute of Labor Education Education).
So LPTK (Institute of Labor Education Education) has an important role in the ability of prospective teachers to develop competencies for pedagogik. This is because, from where prospective teachers are introduced to the world of teaching. LPTK not only teach students to master a particular field, but also teaches about the basics of psychology that is useful for students in schools in accordance with tahapannya. In addition LPTK teaches how to design a syllabus, teaching materials and create a good classroom atmosphere. For educators, the vanguard of progress in education in Indonesia. In the hands of their curriculum is described in the syllabus, teaching materials, and learning in the classroom dynamic and mencerahkan. Quality of the teachers, a curriculum change is not an issue, because the curriculum only for equipment, how the most important tool is used. In fact, according to Clandinin and Conelly teacher is basically the creator of the curriculum.
To support the efforts of teachers print quality, innovative and creative, we need to consider the paradigm of critical pedagogy dilontarkan by Colin Lankshear, Michael Peters and Michele Knobel. In Conternarratives, the work of Henry Giroux et al., They think that there are six characteristics critical pedagogy. First, education is in essence a form of social and cultural criticism. One of the goals of education is a social reconstruction. Education institutions is the media who are expected to scrutinize and improve the various issues that arise in society caused by economic factors, political, and cultural. Therefore, various problems that developed in the empirical reality is brought to the classroom for dikritisi dicarikan and exit through the process of codification context. Discussion of the results is offered and then implemented as an alternative solution. This process will not run the most if there is no critical awareness of educational practitioners, especially teachers and students.
Second, the very existence of someone associated with the wider community both in the scope of family, community, or educational institutions. That is, someone's awareness is in essence a reflection of the collective that was formed through family, community and school. For, she learned from people in surrounding areas. In the context of critical pedagogy, not berkualitasnya teacher education and human resources due to structural or cultural factors. Therefore, the education process is an effort to 'bring' about the condition of someone who he was.
Third, social facts can never be separated with ranah value. This means that the various activities that occur in reality-is an empirical manifestation or reflection of the value of the perpetrator. Therefore, according to this paradigm, there is a close relationship between the value of action, between signifier with the signified. Relationships are not always permanent (fixed) and often dimediasi by the circle of production, consumption, and social relations. Therefore, the critical reading of a social fact must always be made. For example, the theme of the book can be taught is a positive for the government to improve the intellect of the people. But for parents, teaching is a book every year because of the burden of change and expensive.
Fourth, language is central to the formation subyektifitas. In this perspective the interests, needs, and trends in a person or institution appear through the media language. On the other hand, the language is in essence a form of stress and thought that someone agreed by the community. Words that appear by a community dimaknai are not necessarily exactly the same by the other. Therefore, it is often found in people who have problems caused by the differences appear in language and culture.
Fifth, the emergence of differences in status in the community both economically and socially due to the privilese is not fair by the other party, such as the bureaucrats, politicians, and owners of capital, because of certain interests. The problem is, many community members who consider the differences that occur once only, natural, and certainly. In a critical perspective, the emergence of the difference is caused by the unfair treatment from the authorities. For that, people need to disadarkan about this condition. This does not mean that all members of society must be the same, but when I get the wealth, social status, or position is done in a reasonable and procedural, of course it will be accepted.
Finally, in the emergence of a critical perspective on public issues should be associated with other aspects. Consider the problems of only one aspect as well as to simplify the problem. The education process must be able to see the problems that arise in the community from many perspectives. For example, the number of teachers who "moonlight" outside the profession as a teacher can not be seen from the aspect of professionalism and work ethics of teachers only, but should be related to government policy issues that have not yet appreciate the teaching profession, or the low appreciation of the profession this community.
Although the critical discourse of education is quite long, but the fact is that many educational institutions to print staff's "not familiar" with this case because it is considered left-kirian. However, while many still find that the power of educators who have not been professional, creative and less critical because the more stuck on the issue tends to be mechanical and routine, and wait for commands from superiors with the pattern "the operational and technical guidelines", may be one of the causes is the case menggodok they (LPTK) is also not far from the output (teacher). Starting from this fact, there is a positive side that can be developed from the paradigm when the critical pedagogy that educators establish LPTK generated also critical.
Of the four competencies that must be owned by a teacher, as mandated by law, the pedagogical, personality, social and professional, then consider LPTK paradigm on the pedagogical competence in the organization so that this does not just provide material goods but poor technical nuances philosophical.
If prospective teachers are taught to think critically, would accept the changes and criticism, then when he was teaching the teacher will apply the same in his life. Creating a critical young generation, innovative and creative is the task of a teacher. Bring issues of social, political, economic and culture in the process of learning, is a provision for them to solve problems they will face in the future. But it will not happen without a good learning process, learning process is the determination of targets, problem solving, team work, critical analysis, debate, discussion, and so forth. The process of learning is the ability pedagogig a teacher, requires teachers to recognize children didiknya, what the advantages and disadvantages didiknya children. Designing learning environment to become more alive, with a critical spirit and pesreta students to find solutions, and provide the new information each day according to time of development, not to make the class quiet room containing the recorded lessons based on children's books in print, without question or activities that make children think creatively. So it is not only the learning but notice, and that signifies competence pedagogig teachers are common. This is why pedagogig critical to consider to improve the competency of teachers.
In addition pedagogig competence can also be developed when the prospective teachers have become teachers, for example, upgrading to, workshops, further education, education in the office, and other academic activities.
So how to improve the competency pedagogig is:
teacher candidates are taught to think critically so that it would accept the changes and criticism.
Teachers should improve the knowledge in the areas of political, social, economic and culture in the process of learning.
Each prospective teacher must follow the process of education in the LPTK produce quality teachers.
Competency pedagogig teachers can be developed through upgrading, workshops, further education, education in the office, and other academic activities.
2. Competency Personality
Teachers often seen as a figure who has the personality ideal. Therefore, the time teachers are often seen as role models or model (which should be imitated and diteladani). As a teacher must have a model of competence related to the development of the personality (personal competencies), including:
(1) associated with the ability to experience the teachings of religion in accordance with the religious dianutnya;
(2) the ability to honor and respect among religious believers;
(3) the ability to behave in accordance with the norms, rules, and the value system in society;
(4) the nature of-merit as a teacher for example, decorum and order and karma;
(5) be democratic and open to criticism and renewal.
Teachers can not say, "You must like this, not so!" Or, "Do not be like this, this is wrong!", If he can not mempratekkannya in real life. Akan strange happens when the children told students not smoking, but smoking itself is a teacher in the school environment. More and more strange, because it can not remove the cigarette, it does not prohibit students with the reason he does not understand because it is prohibited without the effort to become role models for students. In other words, try to improve every day, learning to understand yourself first is an effective way of creating restriction-ban, but teachers are not compliance for himself.
Appearance teachers, speech and speech is an example of moral teacher participants didiknya. If he can not keep sikapnya although he can teach very well, then the ideals of the nation to print the next generation of advanced, intelligent and has good morals that will not be fulfilled.
A teacher's morality is the key in improving the quality of self-competence and that must be fulfilled in order to improve the quality of education. An assumption that is supported by a research has stated that there were a significant correlation between the behavior of the faculty perceptions of student performance (Kozma, Belle, and Williams, 1978, in Jacob, 2002, h.2). So, basically subject students achievement is influenced by the competency pengajarnya.
Still dealing with the personality of competence, teachers' attitudes towards the subjects they teach are also influential, attitude towards students. Show enthusiasm (Great Spirit) to the subjects taught, that teacher is not enthusiastic for the subjects they teach that it was difficult to expect students to receive lessons are keyed. To ensure there is enthusiasm on the students is to plan the subjects may be, the way that may cause interest on the subjects the students are.
Thus, the increase competency personality can be done with the road:
A teacher must increase their knowledge about the norms, rules of the system in society.
A teacher should be an example that shows the example to the students.
Show enthusiasm attitude towards what is taught! If teachers themselves do not keyed to the subjects that he teach, what may he flushed students can expect to receive what he teach?
3. Social Competence
Competence is related to the ability of teachers as members of the community and as social beings, including:
(1) the ability to interact and communicate with a colleague to improve the professional ability;
(2) the ability to recognize and understand the functions of each institution and the social;
(3) the ability to work together both individually and in groups.
Social competence, is not needed because teachers diisolasi in the classroom. Ability to bersosial can not be separated from the personality of competence, how to behave to sejawat colleagues, students and community children are very dependent on the personality of teachers themselves.
If the personality of teachers are good, the social competence akan proportionate straight. Related to social competence, there is good potential teachers learn how to be parents, both of which are not problematic and problematic. Most of the teachers to call parents if a problem, without berbasa-stale error directly told the children, the teachers' complaint without a note on the time greeting thank the parents are given to discuss improvements to the child. Receive a call from the school have made anxious parents, so it is very wise not to burden them with the carpet and hold menjelek-jelekkan students. Teachers such as this, indicates the personality and social ability are low.
So, in order to be able to develop social competence, teachers must:
Teachers must know and understand the environment akan faces, before that can interact with both socializing.
Teachers must know how to behave, and bertutur said fine, but the patient firmly, and how to better interact with other people.
Sharing respect, mutual understanding, attitudes you want to work together, and so is the attitude that should be ditumbuhkan to be able to interact with the work environment
4. Professional Competence
Professional competence is the competence or ability related to the adjustment tasks Keguruan. Competency is a competency that is very important, because directly related to the performance shown. Therefore, the level keprofesionalan a teacher's competence can be seen as follows:
(1) the ability to master the foundations kependidikan, for example, will understand the purpose of education that must be achieved both national goals, the institutional, curricular and learning goals;
(2) understanding in the field of educational psychology, for example, understand the stages of development of the students, understand theories about learning;
(3) ability to control materials in accordance with the lessons of field studies diajarkannya;
(4) ability to apply the various methodologies and strategies for learning;
(5) ability to design and utilize the various media and sources of learning;
(6) ability to carry out evaluation of learning;
(7) ability in preparing the program; (ability in implementing the elements of support, such as school administration, and counseling and guidance;
(8) ability to conduct scientific research and thinking to improve performance.
As with other professions, teachers also are required for the professional. Every profession has a target to be achieved, for example, students are graduating with a target value and get a good job, or a doctor who has a target to strive to serve patients in order to improve their health. Similarly, a teacher, a teacher's target is to provide knowledge as their stock in the future, not only knowledge of the material but also knowledge of useful life for socializing.
To achieve the target, the need and business strategy, that is always looking for a good learning techniques, and are not fed growth stages learn each student. Learning strategies can be based on research on education, for example, the management class. In the school if there are students who repeatedly break duduknya, teachers will continue to warn, so that students are aware of the regulations. But based on research Becker, Thomas, Koser (1989), if teachers ignore students who leave the seat, and then praised the students who remain seated, on average students who leave the seat will be reduced. Therefore, always read the results of research on education, both learning about psychology and about how to teach, it is important to improve the ability of these teachers.
In addition it is important for teachers to continue deep into the material that he teach lessons, as they learn and teach each other. Students learn what teachers teach, but teachers also learn from the questions that arise from the students. Because it is very important for teachers to continue to read and understand the development of technology.
Creative teachers who are teachers who can use material that is around for the lesson materials, and mengaplikasikannya with the methodology of learning, and create a fun learning atmosphere. If it can be done, then there is no student who said the word "study" with a tone full load and lazy, because the "study" for their sense of adventure is keingintahuan, with a fun susana. If students receive a lesson of course pleased with the heart it will be more understandable and the results can be maximum. This is consistent with research that shows, the teachers set the class with both also tend to produce students who prefer to learn (grows & Good, 1975; Ebas & McDonald, 1976)
In order to perform tasks the teacher can develop a professional competence, the teacher is obliged:
Merencakan learning, implement a quality process, and assess and evaluate learning outcomes.
Improve and develop the academic qualifications and competence in line with the sustainable development of science, technology, and art;
act objectively and not discriminatory on the basis of considerations of gender, religion, tribe, race, and physical condition, or family background, and socio-economic status of students in learning;
uphold laws and regulations, law and code of ethics of teachers, and religious values and ethics, and
Maintain and foster unity and nation.
Conclusion
Teachers are professional educators with the primary task of educating, teaching, guiding, directing, training, assess, and evaluate students on early childhood education path of formal education, primary education and secondary education.
The position of teachers as professionals aiming to implement the national education system and realize the goal of national education, the development potential of students to become people who believe and fear to God, have a certain noble, healthy, berilmu, skilled, creative, independent, and a citizens of a democratic and responsible.
Competence is a set of knowledge, skills and attitudes that must be owned, dihayati, and mastered by teachers or lecturers in implementing the tasks keprofesionalan.
The competence of teachers include:
1. Pedagogik competency is the ability to manage students' learning.
How to develop competency pedagogik is:
teacher candidates are taught to think critically so that it would accept the changes and criticism.
Teachers should improve the knowledge in the areas of political, social, economic and culture in the process of learning.
Each prospective teacher must follow the process of education in the LPTK produce quality teachers.
Competency pedagogig teachers can be developed through upgrading, workshops, further education, education in the office, and other academic activities.
2. Competence is the ability of the personality that dogged personality, have a certain noble, wise, and authoritative as well as the example of students.
Competency in order to develop the personality that can be done is:
A teacher must increase their knowledge about the norms, rules of the system in society.
A teacher should be an example that shows the example to the students.
Show enthusiasm attitude towards what is taught! If teachers themselves do not keyed to the subjects that he teach, what may he flushed students can expect to receive what he teach?
3. Social competence is the ability of teachers to communicate and interact efficiently and effectively with students, sesame teachers, parents / guardians of students, and the surrounding communities.
To develop social competence, how is:
Teachers must know and understand the environment akan faces, before that can interact with both socializing.
Teachers must know how to behave, and bertutur said fine, but the patient firmly, and how to better interact with other people.
Sharing respect, mutual understanding, attitudes you want to work together, and so is the attitude that should be ditumbuhkan to be able to interact with the work environment.
4. Professional competence is the ability to control the materials and lessons are widely depth.
Teachers can improve the professional competence, if:
Merencakan learning, implement a quality process, and assess and evaluate learning outcomes.
Improve and develop the academic qualifications and competence in line with the sustainable development of science, technology, and art;
act objectively and not discriminatory on the basis of considerations of gender, religion, tribe, race, and physical condition, or family background, and socio-economic status of students in learning;
uphold laws and regulations, law and code of ethics of teachers, and religious values and ethics, and
Maintain and foster unity and nation.
Showing posts with label Article. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Article. Show all posts
Saturday, 20 August 2011
DESCRIPTORS OF ACTION RESEARCH
practical everyday life action-oriented evolving intuitive flexible narrative
own words reflective process purposeful exploratory interpretive interactive holistic qualitative collaborative heuristic discovery descriptive accessible open-ended complex relevant practitioner's point of view
STARTING POINTS
• Ask individuals to complete the "Starting Points" questions (see below). Tell them to think broadly about many areas for possible questions
• Go around the group one at a time and list on a flipchart all of the different areas that surface from this handout.
• Ask each person to take one of the areas from the flipchart (could be an idea of theirs or someone else's) and practice writing a question in that area.
• Go around the group, and one at a time, ask each person to read their question very slowly twice. The group should listen to the questions. Absolutely no comments are made after each question is read.
• Ask the group to generate characteristics, qualities, and guidelines for what makes a good action research question.
1. I would like to improve...
2. I am perplexed by...
3. Some people are unhappy about...
4. I'm really curious about...
5. I want to learn more about...
6. An idea I would like to try out in my class is...
7. Something I think would really make a difference is...
8. Some I would like to do to change is...
9. Right now, some areas I'm particularly interested in are...
Guidelines for Developing a Question
1. One that hasn't already been answered
2. Higher level questions which get at explanations, reasons, relationships. "How does...?", "What happens when...?"
3. Not "Yes-No" question
4. Everyday language; avoid jargon
5. Not too lengthy; concise; doesn't have to include everything you're thinking
6. Something manageable; can complete it
7. Something do-able (in the context of your work)
8. "Follow your bliss"; want to feel commitment to the question; passion
9. Keep it close to your own practice; the further away you go, the more work it is
10. Should have tension; provides you an opportunity to stretch
11. Meaningful to you; provides you a deeper understanding of the topic
12. Question leads to other questions
Reasons to Do Action Research
What works...
• To figure out a particular "how to" of teaching
• To demonstrate to principals, parents, students, ourselves that a teaching practice is useful
Collegiality...
• To have time to talk about teaching with our colleagues
• To develop better overall relationships with our colleagues
Personal/Professional Development...
• To be supported and pushed in our development as teachers
• To recognize that growth doesn't just happen, that often we need more formal structures in order to grow
• To enable teachers to engage in intellectual pursuits and become continuous learners
Starting where we are...
• To start with the teacher that I am, not that someone else thinks I should be
Consistency...
• To practice being a continuous learner, to live by what I am trying to help my students learn
• To connect teachers in different roles, schools, districts
Challenging the norm...
• To create new forms of professional development
• To create new forms of research
• To construct knowledge with teachers at the center
Robin Marion - Professor at National Louis University
Guidelines for Data Collection
Asking the right questions is the key skill in effective data collection.
• Be clear as to why you are collecting data. Formulate good questions that relate to the specific information needs of the project.
• Be clear about how you are going to use the data you collect.
• Design a process to collect data. Our beliefs and values affect this selection process.
• Use the appropriate data analysis tools and be certain the necessary data are being collected. The data:
o must be accurate;
o should be useful;
o must not be too time consuming; and
o must be reliable enough to allow you to formulate hypotheses and develop strategies with confidence.
• Decide how much data is needed. Ask:
o what is an accurate sample size?
o for how long should the data be collected?
• Make sure that the data make your job easier.
• Use multiple sources of data to increase the believability of the findings. Collect data from more than two sources or points of view, each which provides a unique justification with respect to relevant information about the situation.
• Present the data in a way that clearly communicates the answer to the question.
• Be aware that how you set up the situation influences the results.
• Review the data. Ask:
o do the data tell you what you intended?
o can you display the data as you intended?
• Do not expect too much from data. Remember:
o data should indicate the answer to the question asked during the design of the collection process.
o you do not make inferences from the data that the data will not support.
o data don't stand alone. It's the meaning we apply to the data that is critical. "Data do not drive decisions; people do."
o the stronger the disagreements with the data, the bigger the learning potential. It is important to validate the different views and try to come up with a world view.
• Visually display the data in a format that can reveal underlying patterns.
o Look for patterns related to time or sequence as well as patterns related to differences in staff and other factors.
• Remember that your primary job is not data collection. No research method should interfere with your primary job.
• While good information is always based on data (the facts), simply collecting data does not necessarily ensure that you will have useful information.
• The key issue is not how do we collect data, but how do we generate useful information?
Data Collection: The 5 W's and an H
WHY are we collecting this data?
• What are we hoping to learn from the data?
• What are you hoping to learn from using this particular data collection strategy?
• Is there a match between what we hope to learn and the method we chose?
WHAT exactly are we collecting?
• What different sources of data will allow us to learn best about this topic?
• What previously existing data can we use?
• How much data do we need to really learn about this topic?
WHERE are we going to collect the data and for how long?
• Are there any limitations to collecting the data?
• What support systems need to be in place to allow for the data collection to occur?
• Are there ways to build data collection into the normal activities of the classroom?
WHEN are we going to collect the data and for how long?
• Have we built into the plan collecting data at more than one point in time?
• Are there strategies we can use to easily observe and record data during class?
• Can you afford the time to gather and record data using the strategies you have selected?
WHO is going to collect the data?
• Are there data which can be generated by students?
• Is there a colleague who can observe in your room or a student teacher who can assist with data collection?
• What can you do yourself without it being too overwhelming?
HOW will data be collected and displayed?
• How will you collect and display the qualitative data? the quantitative data?
• What plan do you have for analyzing the data?
• To whom will you present what you have learned?
Techniques for Gathering Data
1. Interviews with students, parents, teachers
2. Checklists of skills, behaviors, abilities, movement, procedures, interactions, resources
3. Portfolios of a range of work from students of different abilities around a particular topic; a representation of a total experience; a collection of documents for analysis
4. Individual files of students' work (e.g., tapes, samples of work, art work, memos, photos of models/projects, reports), of students' opinions; of student attitudes, of students' experiences
5. Diaries/journals written by teachers, students, parents, class groups, teachers
6. Field notes/observation records - informal notes written by a teacher
7. Logs of meetings, lessons, excursions, school expectations, material used
8. Student-teacher discussion/interaction - records of comments and thoughts generated by students
9. Questionnaires of attitudes, opinions, preferences, information
10. Audiotapes of meetings, discussions in class or about data gathered, games, group work, interviews, whole class groups, monologues, readings, lectures, demonstrations
11. Videotapes of classrooms, lessons, groups, demonstrations, a day in a school, lunch times
12. Still photography of groups working, classrooms, faces, particular students over time, at fixed intervals in a lesson
13. Time-on-task analysis of students, teachers; over a lesson, a day, a week
14. Case study - a comprehensive picture/study of a student or a group of students
Guidelines for Analyzing Your Data
• Design a systematic approach to analyze your data. This may develop as you become more comfortable with what you are learning.
• Do not be afraid to let the data influence what you are learning as you go deeper with your analysis.
• Look for themes and patterns to emerge. Look for those unique ideas that you had not considered which may influence your thinking.
• Make sure that you are organizing your data based on what you are actually learning from the data, not on the assumptions you bring with you to your analysis.
• Don't censor the data, even if you don't like what you are learning. Include data that doesn't necessarily reflect change or growth. All of this is part of the learning experience and can still inform our practice.
• Go through your data several times. New ideas will occur to you with a fresh perspective.
• Think about creating visual images of what you are learning. A grid, an idea map, a chart, or some visual metaphor are all possibilities to help make sense of the data and display a powerful presentation of your ideas.
• Write lots of notes to yourself (post-its work well) as you are sorting. This kind of reflection will help you as you step back and try to look at the big picture.
• Share your findings with a colleague. Do new questions emerge from this discussion?
• Let the data influence you. Jot down ideas for actions you will take as a result of what you are learning.
Writing Prompts for Classroom Action Researchers
September
Begin by visualizing what an observer might sense as they shadow you as you go about your work: the physical environment (sights, sounds, smells, arrangement of furniture, what hangs on the walls, from the ceilings); the interactions among individuals in the setting (students, teachers, administrators, support staff, and parents); and the activities (what are people doing.) Write about this now, and then revisit the vision of your work environment later in the year.
October
Write a story about an event or circumstance that illustrates the issue(s) you are interested in studying.
November
What question(s) would you have to answer to understand your issue better?
December
How do you get at the "real" issue that interests you, how do you peel back the layers to reveal the root causes of the condition/circumstance/situation you would like to change or better understand?
January
Think about the kids of "evidence" that convince you that something is working...then answer: What data do I currently have about my students? What feedback do I have from parents, administrators, and others which will influence my thinking? Where are the gaps? What do I do with the data?
February
How can I use the data I've collected to better understand my question? My issue? What do I do with the data?
March
What have I learned from the data I collected after reading through it, rereading it, looking for patterns, themes, curiosities?
April
How can I tell my story, what I have learned, to others? What parts do I leave in? What do I leave out? What form should I take? Who are the others who might/should/could see what I have written?
May
Revisiting September's writing...what would an observer sense as they shadow you going about your work...the physical environment, the interactions among individuals and the activities. Compare this with your September entry. How has the vision changed? How is it the same?
Other
What is the action in your action research?
A Process for Analyzing Your Data
In using qualitative research, you will be collecting and analyzing at the same time. These processes inform each other. Be open to new ways of thinking as you learn more from your data.
1. Go through everything you have collected. Make notes as you go.
2. Look for themes, patterns, big ideas. Key words and phrases can trigger themes. Determine these themes by your scan of the data, not on your preconceived ideas of what you think the categories are.
3. Narrow the themes down to something manageable. (3-5 of your most compelling and interesting)
4. Go back through all of your data and code or label information according to the themes in order to organize your ideas. Some ideas may fit into more than one theme. Create sub-groups under each theme.
5. Write continuously. Jot down what you are seeing, what questions are emerging, and what you are learning. Keep notes on those new ideas which are unanticipated. These may be findings or surprises which you had not planned.
6. Review your information after it is coded/labeled to see if there is
• a frequency of certain items and/or
• powerful, interesting, unusual comments or behaviors which are of particular interest to you. This may be an incident which gives you a new insight, and it may be one of the most important to hold on to.
7. Identify the main points which appear most frequently and are the most powerful. It will be hard to let go of some of your information, but it is important to sift through it.
8. Write up your major points. You can write them up by
• theme,
• chronologically, or
• the different modes you used for collecting information.
9. Draw the information together to include some of the evidence which supports each of your themes. The reader should be able to draw conclusions based on the evidence you have presented.
ROLE OF PARTICIPANTS IN A GROUP
• The most important role of participants is to be good listeners and to ask the group member, who is talking about his or her study/research, good questions. The intent of these questions should be to open up new possibilities and new ways of thinking for the person who is sharing.
• If you, as a group member, have suggestions, new ideas, or solutions to offer...wait. If you jump in with the strategies that you think will work, you are not giving your colleagues the opportunity to own and explore their situations deeply. This is hard, but with practice, it becomes easier.
• Your name/what you do (district position)
• Background information (setting, population, school, class)
• Question (expectations, assumptions, evolution, if applicable)
• Why chose the question; (rationale). What drew you to the question?
• Why important to you. Educational philosophy, if applicable to question.
• Instruments used to collect data (surveys, questionnaires, etc.)
• Actual data (students' samples, quotes, voices; adult quotes; observations)
• Literature review/references (if used)
• Organization of data/analyzing data by themes, chronologically, by questions, by source
• Struggles (to arrive at question, to collect data, findings, etc.)
• Reflections on action research process, separate from the topic
• Changes you've gone through in the process; insights, inconsistencies
• Conclusions/findings; what I learned; interpretation
• Feelings, intuitions not encountered in the study
• Future directions; Where do I go from here?; impact; new questions; ideas for implementation changes in practice/perspective; recommendations
• Pictures
Other thoughts:
• All write-ups should not/will not look alike. They will reflect not only the teacher and his/her particular style, but also the nature and context of the question.
• Remember you are telling a story. You can organize this chronologically, by themes, by data source (i.e.: students, parents, staff), or some other way. It's up to you!
own words reflective process purposeful exploratory interpretive interactive holistic qualitative collaborative heuristic discovery descriptive accessible open-ended complex relevant practitioner's point of view
STARTING POINTS
• Ask individuals to complete the "Starting Points" questions (see below). Tell them to think broadly about many areas for possible questions
• Go around the group one at a time and list on a flipchart all of the different areas that surface from this handout.
• Ask each person to take one of the areas from the flipchart (could be an idea of theirs or someone else's) and practice writing a question in that area.
• Go around the group, and one at a time, ask each person to read their question very slowly twice. The group should listen to the questions. Absolutely no comments are made after each question is read.
• Ask the group to generate characteristics, qualities, and guidelines for what makes a good action research question.
1. I would like to improve...
2. I am perplexed by...
3. Some people are unhappy about...
4. I'm really curious about...
5. I want to learn more about...
6. An idea I would like to try out in my class is...
7. Something I think would really make a difference is...
8. Some I would like to do to change is...
9. Right now, some areas I'm particularly interested in are...
Guidelines for Developing a Question
1. One that hasn't already been answered
2. Higher level questions which get at explanations, reasons, relationships. "How does...?", "What happens when...?"
3. Not "Yes-No" question
4. Everyday language; avoid jargon
5. Not too lengthy; concise; doesn't have to include everything you're thinking
6. Something manageable; can complete it
7. Something do-able (in the context of your work)
8. "Follow your bliss"; want to feel commitment to the question; passion
9. Keep it close to your own practice; the further away you go, the more work it is
10. Should have tension; provides you an opportunity to stretch
11. Meaningful to you; provides you a deeper understanding of the topic
12. Question leads to other questions
Reasons to Do Action Research
What works...
• To figure out a particular "how to" of teaching
• To demonstrate to principals, parents, students, ourselves that a teaching practice is useful
Collegiality...
• To have time to talk about teaching with our colleagues
• To develop better overall relationships with our colleagues
Personal/Professional Development...
• To be supported and pushed in our development as teachers
• To recognize that growth doesn't just happen, that often we need more formal structures in order to grow
• To enable teachers to engage in intellectual pursuits and become continuous learners
Starting where we are...
• To start with the teacher that I am, not that someone else thinks I should be
Consistency...
• To practice being a continuous learner, to live by what I am trying to help my students learn
• To connect teachers in different roles, schools, districts
Challenging the norm...
• To create new forms of professional development
• To create new forms of research
• To construct knowledge with teachers at the center
Robin Marion - Professor at National Louis University
Guidelines for Data Collection
Asking the right questions is the key skill in effective data collection.
• Be clear as to why you are collecting data. Formulate good questions that relate to the specific information needs of the project.
• Be clear about how you are going to use the data you collect.
• Design a process to collect data. Our beliefs and values affect this selection process.
• Use the appropriate data analysis tools and be certain the necessary data are being collected. The data:
o must be accurate;
o should be useful;
o must not be too time consuming; and
o must be reliable enough to allow you to formulate hypotheses and develop strategies with confidence.
• Decide how much data is needed. Ask:
o what is an accurate sample size?
o for how long should the data be collected?
• Make sure that the data make your job easier.
• Use multiple sources of data to increase the believability of the findings. Collect data from more than two sources or points of view, each which provides a unique justification with respect to relevant information about the situation.
• Present the data in a way that clearly communicates the answer to the question.
• Be aware that how you set up the situation influences the results.
• Review the data. Ask:
o do the data tell you what you intended?
o can you display the data as you intended?
• Do not expect too much from data. Remember:
o data should indicate the answer to the question asked during the design of the collection process.
o you do not make inferences from the data that the data will not support.
o data don't stand alone. It's the meaning we apply to the data that is critical. "Data do not drive decisions; people do."
o the stronger the disagreements with the data, the bigger the learning potential. It is important to validate the different views and try to come up with a world view.
• Visually display the data in a format that can reveal underlying patterns.
o Look for patterns related to time or sequence as well as patterns related to differences in staff and other factors.
• Remember that your primary job is not data collection. No research method should interfere with your primary job.
• While good information is always based on data (the facts), simply collecting data does not necessarily ensure that you will have useful information.
• The key issue is not how do we collect data, but how do we generate useful information?
Data Collection: The 5 W's and an H
WHY are we collecting this data?
• What are we hoping to learn from the data?
• What are you hoping to learn from using this particular data collection strategy?
• Is there a match between what we hope to learn and the method we chose?
WHAT exactly are we collecting?
• What different sources of data will allow us to learn best about this topic?
• What previously existing data can we use?
• How much data do we need to really learn about this topic?
WHERE are we going to collect the data and for how long?
• Are there any limitations to collecting the data?
• What support systems need to be in place to allow for the data collection to occur?
• Are there ways to build data collection into the normal activities of the classroom?
WHEN are we going to collect the data and for how long?
• Have we built into the plan collecting data at more than one point in time?
• Are there strategies we can use to easily observe and record data during class?
• Can you afford the time to gather and record data using the strategies you have selected?
WHO is going to collect the data?
• Are there data which can be generated by students?
• Is there a colleague who can observe in your room or a student teacher who can assist with data collection?
• What can you do yourself without it being too overwhelming?
HOW will data be collected and displayed?
• How will you collect and display the qualitative data? the quantitative data?
• What plan do you have for analyzing the data?
• To whom will you present what you have learned?
Techniques for Gathering Data
1. Interviews with students, parents, teachers
2. Checklists of skills, behaviors, abilities, movement, procedures, interactions, resources
3. Portfolios of a range of work from students of different abilities around a particular topic; a representation of a total experience; a collection of documents for analysis
4. Individual files of students' work (e.g., tapes, samples of work, art work, memos, photos of models/projects, reports), of students' opinions; of student attitudes, of students' experiences
5. Diaries/journals written by teachers, students, parents, class groups, teachers
6. Field notes/observation records - informal notes written by a teacher
7. Logs of meetings, lessons, excursions, school expectations, material used
8. Student-teacher discussion/interaction - records of comments and thoughts generated by students
9. Questionnaires of attitudes, opinions, preferences, information
10. Audiotapes of meetings, discussions in class or about data gathered, games, group work, interviews, whole class groups, monologues, readings, lectures, demonstrations
11. Videotapes of classrooms, lessons, groups, demonstrations, a day in a school, lunch times
12. Still photography of groups working, classrooms, faces, particular students over time, at fixed intervals in a lesson
13. Time-on-task analysis of students, teachers; over a lesson, a day, a week
14. Case study - a comprehensive picture/study of a student or a group of students
Guidelines for Analyzing Your Data
• Design a systematic approach to analyze your data. This may develop as you become more comfortable with what you are learning.
• Do not be afraid to let the data influence what you are learning as you go deeper with your analysis.
• Look for themes and patterns to emerge. Look for those unique ideas that you had not considered which may influence your thinking.
• Make sure that you are organizing your data based on what you are actually learning from the data, not on the assumptions you bring with you to your analysis.
• Don't censor the data, even if you don't like what you are learning. Include data that doesn't necessarily reflect change or growth. All of this is part of the learning experience and can still inform our practice.
• Go through your data several times. New ideas will occur to you with a fresh perspective.
• Think about creating visual images of what you are learning. A grid, an idea map, a chart, or some visual metaphor are all possibilities to help make sense of the data and display a powerful presentation of your ideas.
• Write lots of notes to yourself (post-its work well) as you are sorting. This kind of reflection will help you as you step back and try to look at the big picture.
• Share your findings with a colleague. Do new questions emerge from this discussion?
• Let the data influence you. Jot down ideas for actions you will take as a result of what you are learning.
Writing Prompts for Classroom Action Researchers
September
Begin by visualizing what an observer might sense as they shadow you as you go about your work: the physical environment (sights, sounds, smells, arrangement of furniture, what hangs on the walls, from the ceilings); the interactions among individuals in the setting (students, teachers, administrators, support staff, and parents); and the activities (what are people doing.) Write about this now, and then revisit the vision of your work environment later in the year.
October
Write a story about an event or circumstance that illustrates the issue(s) you are interested in studying.
November
What question(s) would you have to answer to understand your issue better?
December
How do you get at the "real" issue that interests you, how do you peel back the layers to reveal the root causes of the condition/circumstance/situation you would like to change or better understand?
January
Think about the kids of "evidence" that convince you that something is working...then answer: What data do I currently have about my students? What feedback do I have from parents, administrators, and others which will influence my thinking? Where are the gaps? What do I do with the data?
February
How can I use the data I've collected to better understand my question? My issue? What do I do with the data?
March
What have I learned from the data I collected after reading through it, rereading it, looking for patterns, themes, curiosities?
April
How can I tell my story, what I have learned, to others? What parts do I leave in? What do I leave out? What form should I take? Who are the others who might/should/could see what I have written?
May
Revisiting September's writing...what would an observer sense as they shadow you going about your work...the physical environment, the interactions among individuals and the activities. Compare this with your September entry. How has the vision changed? How is it the same?
Other
What is the action in your action research?
A Process for Analyzing Your Data
In using qualitative research, you will be collecting and analyzing at the same time. These processes inform each other. Be open to new ways of thinking as you learn more from your data.
1. Go through everything you have collected. Make notes as you go.
2. Look for themes, patterns, big ideas. Key words and phrases can trigger themes. Determine these themes by your scan of the data, not on your preconceived ideas of what you think the categories are.
3. Narrow the themes down to something manageable. (3-5 of your most compelling and interesting)
4. Go back through all of your data and code or label information according to the themes in order to organize your ideas. Some ideas may fit into more than one theme. Create sub-groups under each theme.
5. Write continuously. Jot down what you are seeing, what questions are emerging, and what you are learning. Keep notes on those new ideas which are unanticipated. These may be findings or surprises which you had not planned.
6. Review your information after it is coded/labeled to see if there is
• a frequency of certain items and/or
• powerful, interesting, unusual comments or behaviors which are of particular interest to you. This may be an incident which gives you a new insight, and it may be one of the most important to hold on to.
7. Identify the main points which appear most frequently and are the most powerful. It will be hard to let go of some of your information, but it is important to sift through it.
8. Write up your major points. You can write them up by
• theme,
• chronologically, or
• the different modes you used for collecting information.
9. Draw the information together to include some of the evidence which supports each of your themes. The reader should be able to draw conclusions based on the evidence you have presented.
ROLE OF PARTICIPANTS IN A GROUP
• The most important role of participants is to be good listeners and to ask the group member, who is talking about his or her study/research, good questions. The intent of these questions should be to open up new possibilities and new ways of thinking for the person who is sharing.
• If you, as a group member, have suggestions, new ideas, or solutions to offer...wait. If you jump in with the strategies that you think will work, you are not giving your colleagues the opportunity to own and explore their situations deeply. This is hard, but with practice, it becomes easier.
• Your name/what you do (district position)
• Background information (setting, population, school, class)
• Question (expectations, assumptions, evolution, if applicable)
• Why chose the question; (rationale). What drew you to the question?
• Why important to you. Educational philosophy, if applicable to question.
• Instruments used to collect data (surveys, questionnaires, etc.)
• Actual data (students' samples, quotes, voices; adult quotes; observations)
• Literature review/references (if used)
• Organization of data/analyzing data by themes, chronologically, by questions, by source
• Struggles (to arrive at question, to collect data, findings, etc.)
• Reflections on action research process, separate from the topic
• Changes you've gone through in the process; insights, inconsistencies
• Conclusions/findings; what I learned; interpretation
• Feelings, intuitions not encountered in the study
• Future directions; Where do I go from here?; impact; new questions; ideas for implementation changes in practice/perspective; recommendations
• Pictures
Other thoughts:
• All write-ups should not/will not look alike. They will reflect not only the teacher and his/her particular style, but also the nature and context of the question.
• Remember you are telling a story. You can organize this chronologically, by themes, by data source (i.e.: students, parents, staff), or some other way. It's up to you!
Impact of Action Research at the School Level
Impact of Action Research at the School Level
The impact of engaging in action research often went beyond influencing individual teachers and students to affect the collegial and professional relationships between the researcher and school-based colleagues and administrators. In a number of cases the process of doing the action research as well as the research findings also played a role in shaping the policies, practices, and structures of the school.
Impact on Service Delivery
When asked to identify how their action research impacted their school sites, the researchers most frequently identified change in the systems and organization of the school that structure the way in which services are provided to students with disabilities. Descriptions of how the studies resulted in the implementation of these new structures and strategies can be found throughout the interviews and written reports. These changes included smaller class sizes, schedule changes, less frequent pull-out instruction, new transition processes, enhanced teaming and mutual feelings of responsibility toward students, increased common planning time, and role modeling between regular and special education students. Furthermore, many of the researchers reported that these changes have resulted in their ability to more effectively meet the needs of their special education students:
"One of the things we thought of doing differently was to have an adapted or special education section of Driver's Education. I think my action research brought out some of the more positive things that come out of an inclusion class, like having positive role models and fewer behavior problems. So, the decision is that we're not going to create a special class [just for the special education students]."
(TH)
"One thing we were able to do out of our research was to create a transition form to be used by the fifth grade teachers that would give us a better idea of where to place the kids once they came to middle school. Basically, the time we had for our research gave us the time to really look at the skills the special education kids needed in order to be successful in regular education."
(TN)
Impact on School Practices and Professional Interactions
Many of the action researchers also identified specific examples of changes in school practices that occurred as a result of the studies. They identified a shift toward creating more balance between meeting the needs of students and making adjustments to better accommodate the needs of staff, or meeting the learning needs of all students and maintaining a safe learning environment. In addition, researchers reported changes in curriculum and instructional strategies as a result of their findings.
"Last year we had staff tearing their hair out about issues in the building. I think people are feeling better about that. We can continue to meet the needs of our students, but meet the needs of larger populations, making sure that everyone can learn in a safe place." [TC]
"The one thing that stuck out to me was that the self-contained classes, all the special education classes, they said were too easy. They said that they don't get enough homework. They aren't challenged enough...It's been kind of a wakeup call that we need to make our self-contained classes harder and give more homework. We can't stop challenging the kids." [TH]
The action researchers also identified multiple ways in which their work impacted professional interactions with colleagues. The most frequently noted was discussion of specific research findings with individuals, teams, or the whole faculty at staff meetings or other school forums. In some cases this professional dialogue was initiated when researchers asked colleagues to participate in some aspect of the study such as giving feedback about the research question or methodology, or providing data. The value of the research increased in cases where it addressed issues that colleagues deemed important. Additionally, dialogue among various professional groupings was enhanced in instances where data collection designs solicited feedback from multiple stakeholder groups. A number of the researchers noted that the knowledge they gained from doing the studies led others to seek out and value their expertise.
"People have been really interested. I had several special education teachers give the surveys to their classes and some of them requested in writing copies of what I found out." [TM]
"...[the principal] reviewed the survey and gave some input on it. When I shared the information, she was very positive about it. She thought it might work." [TF]
"Actually, one of the results of our survey and sharing at the staff meeting was that they put together an instructional design team for next year. We're getting regular education teachers, ESL, Title, and special education teachers-all of us--together." (TF)
"Because I interviewed both regular and special education students, the results were [shared with] the department chair. This definitely affected the way teachers feel about inclusion." (TH)
Research findings also served as the basis for school planning and decision-making, and frequently led to some level of implementation involving colleagues. While some felt responsible for promoting change on behalf of their colleagues as a result of their data and findings, in other instances, building principals actively used the studies as a catalyst for dialogue in an effort to encourage collaboration and shared decision making among faculty.
Over all, researchers expressed great satisfaction when some action was taken at the school level to address the issues identified in their research. At the same time, the small number of researchers who were unable to identify a forum for dialogue or who felt that nothing changed as a result of their work expressed frustration.
"My [research demonstrated] that in order for cross-categorical and full inclusion to work, there had to be certain things in place. This year, they are not in place, and it is very difficult...what we said was totally disregarded. Nothing changed...my principal knows how I feel and how others feel, but as far as I know nothing will change." (TB)
"It's a frustrating year. My action research started me asking questions...Because now I know how things could be, and I can see so clearly that they are not the way they should be..." (TN)
Impact on Collegial Interactions Beyond the School
Deepening professional interaction across school sites is a central factor in how the action research group processes are designed4. The opportunity to interact with teachers from across the district in monthly research group meetings was highly valued by participants, as it reduced the sense of isolation many teachers felt, particularly as they grappled with challenging changes in their work setting. The opportunity to share current practices and to problem solve with others who have similar jobs was identified by participants as one of the most beneficial aspects of taking part in the research program.
"One thing that really everyone said was that [special educators] feel totally isolated out there. There are lots of new changes and people don't know where to go [for help]." (TJ)
"What we [special educators] do is very different compared to what a lot of the other professionals in our buildings do. The frustrations that we have are hard for other teachers to understand at times. What has been so great is just to sit down with these folks from other schools who are basically doing the same things." (TI)
The opportunity to reflect collaboratively in this way provided a fresh lens with which to look at old problems and created an information base for forming new strategies. Individuals stated that they benefited from the opportunity to test out their observations and conclusions with others, and were more motivated to try out new ideas after hearing about others' theories and practices.
"It's interesting to be with a group of people from different schools and to listen to what it's like at different schools and how every school has its separate struggles. And sit there and think, 'Really? That's how you do it at your school? That's not how...', you know? So for me that's been really interesting. I've learned from that." (TA)
"So classroom action research really brought some different schools together that are not in the same attendance area. I heard about the collaborative teaching that some of the people are doing which really motivates me to try to get something like that going here." (TE)
The professional network that developed as a consequence was frequently noted. As a result of these bonds, participants not only consulted with each other beyond group meeting times but indicated that they would be more likely to contact colleagues and seek support from others on future issues.
At the end of the project year, action researchers participating in this study were provided an additional forum for sharing their work with the Jack Jorgensen, Director of Special Education; other special education administrators; several building administrators and other action researchers from the district. This powerful community experience multiplied the positive impact of group support and feelings of efficacy for individual researchers.
"When we presented our projects at the end of last year, [the Director] was at my table when I shared. He was very supportive. I was impressed by how supportive he was throughout the whole process by allocating the funds and supporting our professional development." (TM)
"We met with [the Director] as a group in a round table discussion last spring. My paper was all about how as a first year teacher I did not feel there was much support for me-not much opportunity to talk to people about how things were going for me. This year they have developed a support group and I felt like that really tied into what I found." (TO)
Finally, reading the work of previous action researchers and having others read about their work was cited as a way in which collegial relationships were formed and supported. Individuals felt that reading studies from past action researhers helped them think more carefully about their questions and research strategies. Additionally, they were surprised at the frequency with which other colleagues commented on and asked them questions about their findings once studies were published.
The Impact of the Action Research on the District
The District Level Rationale for Special Education Action Research Groups
Jack Jorgensen, the district administrator in charge of special education, knew that when the Madison Metropolitan School District called on all schools to implement a cross categorical service delivery model the change would cause enormous challenges, particularly for the special education teachers. This and other recent policy shifts would not only broaden the number of disability areas covered by individual teachers, but would fundamentally alter the nature of the work that many special education teachers did with their students. He also knew that dramatic policy changes in the district typically elicited a significant amount of anxiety and uncertainty from teachers as they learned how to effectively negotiate their new roles and responsibilities. One of the things Jorgensen did to help ease special education teachers and the district at large through this transition smoothly was to fund two special education teacher action research groups.
As noted above, two primary objectives guided Jorgensen's decision to support these action research projects. First, he believed this would provide special education teachers with an avenue for exploring the dramatic changes they were facing as a result of the shift to a cross-categorical service delivery model. While the district administration were aware that special education teachers were very concerned about the changes inherent in the shift to cross-categorical programming, he felt that:
There were still a lot of outstanding questions around that. Why was that such a big issue? And we haven't really gotten into some of the more in-depth kind of questions that we would have liked to have asked...Certainly [the action research project] allowed teachers to take more of a direct role in framing for themselves the concerns and issues that they wanted to further address.
While the teacher action research groups were meant to be beneficial to the participating teachers on an individual level, Jorgensen also expected the studies to have a direct impact on the district as a whole. Specifically, his second objective was to have the action research studies provide him with information generated by teachers themselves about their professional development needs. In the early fall of 1999, Jorgensen attended the two newly formed special education teacher action research groups to explain why he was funding the project. He "framed it to make sure that they understood that I had sort of a self serving need out of this to come away with some information, [namely, the] recommendations they might have for me that would help shape a multi-year professional development plan." Jorgensen met again with the two research groups at the end of the year to hear what had been learned. In the end, Jorgensen identified as the most significant influence the studies had on district level policies and practices was its impact on a multi-year professional development plan that was developed during the summer of 2000, following the research year.
Impact on Professional Development
The Madison district developed a multi-year professional development plan in order to help schools and special education teachers adapt to the fundamental changes that the policy shifts had had on the area of special education. In planning out the professional development plan, the district used numerous strategies to gather information from special education teachers and assistants about the kinds of professional development opportunities they felt they needed. The teacher action research groups proved to be one of the key sources of information that influenced the shape of the multi-year plan. The role that the action research groups played in the design of the professional development plan lent credibility to the plan itself.
In the plan that emerged, a number of specific outcomes for professional development arose out of the teacher action research groups. For example:
1. One first year teacher explored the challenges she faced just trying to learn how to fulfill her multiple roles and responsibilities. The professional development plan called for the establishment of "a first year special education teacher professional development program."
2. In the action research meetings teachers discussed how valuable it was to have the opportunity to talk with colleagues from other schools about both common challenges and successful strategies. A key piece of the professional development plan revolved around peer coaching.
3. In the action research meetings teachers also talked extensively about how helpful it would be to have a district wide website that would facilitate the flow of information between teachers and the district and among teachers about issues facing special education teachers. Such a site was established under the professional development plan.
4. A number of action research studies concluded that there was, as Jack Jorgensen explained, "a need to provide professional certification for teachers so that they can be more prepared to work with students who have disabilities other than the ones the teachers are trained in." This kind of professional development was incorporated into the plan.
5. A number of action research studies focused on the need for teachers to learn about effective strategies for working in partnership with regular education teachers. This kind of professional development was also incorporated into the plan.
6. Several action research studies discovered the need for more professional development for special education assistants. A professional development program for these assistants was initiated in the fall of 2000.
Challenges
While the teacher action research project proved to be enormously beneficial to individual teachers and schools, and according to Jorgensen even had a significant impact on the district level special education policies and practices, at the same time, maintaining on-going communication between the district and the teachers about the extent of the district-level impact was challenging. As a consequence, while the teachers were very impressed with Jorgensen's attendance and interaction with them at research meetings, in follow up interviews most expressed dubiousness that their work had actually influenced district level planning. This was consistently true despite the fact that the action research groups had been cited as sources of influence on the professional development plan in both oral presentations and printed information about the plan.
The teachers' lack of knowledge about the role of their studies on the district stemmed from a couple of key factors. First, most of the teachers conducted studies on aspects of their own work with students and consequently did not expect their research to impact district level administration. Participants repeatedly suggested that their work was not generalizeable to the district level even though it had been enormously beneficial to them. Secondly, while the teachers may have been interested in taking advantage of the professional development opportunities that resulted in part from their own action research studies, they did not for the most part express a keen interest in knowing why those particular opportunities had been made available to them.
Conclusion
This paper has examined the unusual case where a central office school district administrator invested funds to support two teacher action research groups concerned with issues of cross-categorical service delivery in special education with the specific intent of informing district level professional development planning and of more actively involving teachers in shaping the implementation of the new policy. Participating in the research groups had a variety of effects on the fifteen participating teacher researchers, on their classroom practices and students, and on practices in their schools and beyond. These included a greater understanding of the multiple meanings associated with the term cross-categorical programming; greater insight into how staff in a particular building or across the district viewed different program models and their work as special education teachers; useful information about how students had different experiences under various program conditions such as inclusion and pull-out models, and how they viewed these experiences; and the introduction of different classroom practices (e.g., organizational skills study groups for students) that were intended to address problems that were illuminated through teachers' inquiries. Many of the teachers greatly valued the opportunity to interact with colleagues from across the district as well as with the district's Director of Educational Services, and felt professionally strengthened by the experience of being in an action research group.
Although a number of specific links between teachers' research and subsequent district level plans could be identified in our research (e.g., the initiation of a professional development program for first year special education teachers and special education assistants), a few teachers expressed disappointment about the perceived lack of follow-though on their research on the part of their colleagues, schools, or district. From our outside perspective as researchers, we could see that even though a number of issues and recommendations arising from the teachers' inquiries had indeed been incorporated into district planning, the teachers were not always necessarily aware of these actions. Another factor involved in teachers' satisfaction with the level of follow-up from their research was the connection of the building principals to the research. The principals of the fifteen teachers varied in their knowledge of and support for the research studies. Some of the issues raised in the teachers' studies required implementation at the building level rather than at the district level. Some of the principals encouraged the teachers to share their research with the staff of their schools and supported follow-up activities and others did not do so. Strengthening the links of the principals to the action research projects is an issue that will need to be addressed in the future if the research studies of teachers are going to impact school policies and practices to a greater extent.
In the two years since the original effort, Jorgensen has funded four similar action research groups. At the end of each year, participating researchers have come together to share what they have learned with central office staff and building principals, thus ensuring that the Madison Metropolitan School District's commitment to using teacher action research to inform district policy with regard to special education policy and practice continues.
The impact of engaging in action research often went beyond influencing individual teachers and students to affect the collegial and professional relationships between the researcher and school-based colleagues and administrators. In a number of cases the process of doing the action research as well as the research findings also played a role in shaping the policies, practices, and structures of the school.
Impact on Service Delivery
When asked to identify how their action research impacted their school sites, the researchers most frequently identified change in the systems and organization of the school that structure the way in which services are provided to students with disabilities. Descriptions of how the studies resulted in the implementation of these new structures and strategies can be found throughout the interviews and written reports. These changes included smaller class sizes, schedule changes, less frequent pull-out instruction, new transition processes, enhanced teaming and mutual feelings of responsibility toward students, increased common planning time, and role modeling between regular and special education students. Furthermore, many of the researchers reported that these changes have resulted in their ability to more effectively meet the needs of their special education students:
"One of the things we thought of doing differently was to have an adapted or special education section of Driver's Education. I think my action research brought out some of the more positive things that come out of an inclusion class, like having positive role models and fewer behavior problems. So, the decision is that we're not going to create a special class [just for the special education students]."
(TH)
"One thing we were able to do out of our research was to create a transition form to be used by the fifth grade teachers that would give us a better idea of where to place the kids once they came to middle school. Basically, the time we had for our research gave us the time to really look at the skills the special education kids needed in order to be successful in regular education."
(TN)
Impact on School Practices and Professional Interactions
Many of the action researchers also identified specific examples of changes in school practices that occurred as a result of the studies. They identified a shift toward creating more balance between meeting the needs of students and making adjustments to better accommodate the needs of staff, or meeting the learning needs of all students and maintaining a safe learning environment. In addition, researchers reported changes in curriculum and instructional strategies as a result of their findings.
"Last year we had staff tearing their hair out about issues in the building. I think people are feeling better about that. We can continue to meet the needs of our students, but meet the needs of larger populations, making sure that everyone can learn in a safe place." [TC]
"The one thing that stuck out to me was that the self-contained classes, all the special education classes, they said were too easy. They said that they don't get enough homework. They aren't challenged enough...It's been kind of a wakeup call that we need to make our self-contained classes harder and give more homework. We can't stop challenging the kids." [TH]
The action researchers also identified multiple ways in which their work impacted professional interactions with colleagues. The most frequently noted was discussion of specific research findings with individuals, teams, or the whole faculty at staff meetings or other school forums. In some cases this professional dialogue was initiated when researchers asked colleagues to participate in some aspect of the study such as giving feedback about the research question or methodology, or providing data. The value of the research increased in cases where it addressed issues that colleagues deemed important. Additionally, dialogue among various professional groupings was enhanced in instances where data collection designs solicited feedback from multiple stakeholder groups. A number of the researchers noted that the knowledge they gained from doing the studies led others to seek out and value their expertise.
"People have been really interested. I had several special education teachers give the surveys to their classes and some of them requested in writing copies of what I found out." [TM]
"...[the principal] reviewed the survey and gave some input on it. When I shared the information, she was very positive about it. She thought it might work." [TF]
"Actually, one of the results of our survey and sharing at the staff meeting was that they put together an instructional design team for next year. We're getting regular education teachers, ESL, Title, and special education teachers-all of us--together." (TF)
"Because I interviewed both regular and special education students, the results were [shared with] the department chair. This definitely affected the way teachers feel about inclusion." (TH)
Research findings also served as the basis for school planning and decision-making, and frequently led to some level of implementation involving colleagues. While some felt responsible for promoting change on behalf of their colleagues as a result of their data and findings, in other instances, building principals actively used the studies as a catalyst for dialogue in an effort to encourage collaboration and shared decision making among faculty.
Over all, researchers expressed great satisfaction when some action was taken at the school level to address the issues identified in their research. At the same time, the small number of researchers who were unable to identify a forum for dialogue or who felt that nothing changed as a result of their work expressed frustration.
"My [research demonstrated] that in order for cross-categorical and full inclusion to work, there had to be certain things in place. This year, they are not in place, and it is very difficult...what we said was totally disregarded. Nothing changed...my principal knows how I feel and how others feel, but as far as I know nothing will change." (TB)
"It's a frustrating year. My action research started me asking questions...Because now I know how things could be, and I can see so clearly that they are not the way they should be..." (TN)
Impact on Collegial Interactions Beyond the School
Deepening professional interaction across school sites is a central factor in how the action research group processes are designed4. The opportunity to interact with teachers from across the district in monthly research group meetings was highly valued by participants, as it reduced the sense of isolation many teachers felt, particularly as they grappled with challenging changes in their work setting. The opportunity to share current practices and to problem solve with others who have similar jobs was identified by participants as one of the most beneficial aspects of taking part in the research program.
"One thing that really everyone said was that [special educators] feel totally isolated out there. There are lots of new changes and people don't know where to go [for help]." (TJ)
"What we [special educators] do is very different compared to what a lot of the other professionals in our buildings do. The frustrations that we have are hard for other teachers to understand at times. What has been so great is just to sit down with these folks from other schools who are basically doing the same things." (TI)
The opportunity to reflect collaboratively in this way provided a fresh lens with which to look at old problems and created an information base for forming new strategies. Individuals stated that they benefited from the opportunity to test out their observations and conclusions with others, and were more motivated to try out new ideas after hearing about others' theories and practices.
"It's interesting to be with a group of people from different schools and to listen to what it's like at different schools and how every school has its separate struggles. And sit there and think, 'Really? That's how you do it at your school? That's not how...', you know? So for me that's been really interesting. I've learned from that." (TA)
"So classroom action research really brought some different schools together that are not in the same attendance area. I heard about the collaborative teaching that some of the people are doing which really motivates me to try to get something like that going here." (TE)
The professional network that developed as a consequence was frequently noted. As a result of these bonds, participants not only consulted with each other beyond group meeting times but indicated that they would be more likely to contact colleagues and seek support from others on future issues.
At the end of the project year, action researchers participating in this study were provided an additional forum for sharing their work with the Jack Jorgensen, Director of Special Education; other special education administrators; several building administrators and other action researchers from the district. This powerful community experience multiplied the positive impact of group support and feelings of efficacy for individual researchers.
"When we presented our projects at the end of last year, [the Director] was at my table when I shared. He was very supportive. I was impressed by how supportive he was throughout the whole process by allocating the funds and supporting our professional development." (TM)
"We met with [the Director] as a group in a round table discussion last spring. My paper was all about how as a first year teacher I did not feel there was much support for me-not much opportunity to talk to people about how things were going for me. This year they have developed a support group and I felt like that really tied into what I found." (TO)
Finally, reading the work of previous action researchers and having others read about their work was cited as a way in which collegial relationships were formed and supported. Individuals felt that reading studies from past action researhers helped them think more carefully about their questions and research strategies. Additionally, they were surprised at the frequency with which other colleagues commented on and asked them questions about their findings once studies were published.
The Impact of the Action Research on the District
The District Level Rationale for Special Education Action Research Groups
Jack Jorgensen, the district administrator in charge of special education, knew that when the Madison Metropolitan School District called on all schools to implement a cross categorical service delivery model the change would cause enormous challenges, particularly for the special education teachers. This and other recent policy shifts would not only broaden the number of disability areas covered by individual teachers, but would fundamentally alter the nature of the work that many special education teachers did with their students. He also knew that dramatic policy changes in the district typically elicited a significant amount of anxiety and uncertainty from teachers as they learned how to effectively negotiate their new roles and responsibilities. One of the things Jorgensen did to help ease special education teachers and the district at large through this transition smoothly was to fund two special education teacher action research groups.
As noted above, two primary objectives guided Jorgensen's decision to support these action research projects. First, he believed this would provide special education teachers with an avenue for exploring the dramatic changes they were facing as a result of the shift to a cross-categorical service delivery model. While the district administration were aware that special education teachers were very concerned about the changes inherent in the shift to cross-categorical programming, he felt that:
There were still a lot of outstanding questions around that. Why was that such a big issue? And we haven't really gotten into some of the more in-depth kind of questions that we would have liked to have asked...Certainly [the action research project] allowed teachers to take more of a direct role in framing for themselves the concerns and issues that they wanted to further address.
While the teacher action research groups were meant to be beneficial to the participating teachers on an individual level, Jorgensen also expected the studies to have a direct impact on the district as a whole. Specifically, his second objective was to have the action research studies provide him with information generated by teachers themselves about their professional development needs. In the early fall of 1999, Jorgensen attended the two newly formed special education teacher action research groups to explain why he was funding the project. He "framed it to make sure that they understood that I had sort of a self serving need out of this to come away with some information, [namely, the] recommendations they might have for me that would help shape a multi-year professional development plan." Jorgensen met again with the two research groups at the end of the year to hear what had been learned. In the end, Jorgensen identified as the most significant influence the studies had on district level policies and practices was its impact on a multi-year professional development plan that was developed during the summer of 2000, following the research year.
Impact on Professional Development
The Madison district developed a multi-year professional development plan in order to help schools and special education teachers adapt to the fundamental changes that the policy shifts had had on the area of special education. In planning out the professional development plan, the district used numerous strategies to gather information from special education teachers and assistants about the kinds of professional development opportunities they felt they needed. The teacher action research groups proved to be one of the key sources of information that influenced the shape of the multi-year plan. The role that the action research groups played in the design of the professional development plan lent credibility to the plan itself.
In the plan that emerged, a number of specific outcomes for professional development arose out of the teacher action research groups. For example:
1. One first year teacher explored the challenges she faced just trying to learn how to fulfill her multiple roles and responsibilities. The professional development plan called for the establishment of "a first year special education teacher professional development program."
2. In the action research meetings teachers discussed how valuable it was to have the opportunity to talk with colleagues from other schools about both common challenges and successful strategies. A key piece of the professional development plan revolved around peer coaching.
3. In the action research meetings teachers also talked extensively about how helpful it would be to have a district wide website that would facilitate the flow of information between teachers and the district and among teachers about issues facing special education teachers. Such a site was established under the professional development plan.
4. A number of action research studies concluded that there was, as Jack Jorgensen explained, "a need to provide professional certification for teachers so that they can be more prepared to work with students who have disabilities other than the ones the teachers are trained in." This kind of professional development was incorporated into the plan.
5. A number of action research studies focused on the need for teachers to learn about effective strategies for working in partnership with regular education teachers. This kind of professional development was also incorporated into the plan.
6. Several action research studies discovered the need for more professional development for special education assistants. A professional development program for these assistants was initiated in the fall of 2000.
Challenges
While the teacher action research project proved to be enormously beneficial to individual teachers and schools, and according to Jorgensen even had a significant impact on the district level special education policies and practices, at the same time, maintaining on-going communication between the district and the teachers about the extent of the district-level impact was challenging. As a consequence, while the teachers were very impressed with Jorgensen's attendance and interaction with them at research meetings, in follow up interviews most expressed dubiousness that their work had actually influenced district level planning. This was consistently true despite the fact that the action research groups had been cited as sources of influence on the professional development plan in both oral presentations and printed information about the plan.
The teachers' lack of knowledge about the role of their studies on the district stemmed from a couple of key factors. First, most of the teachers conducted studies on aspects of their own work with students and consequently did not expect their research to impact district level administration. Participants repeatedly suggested that their work was not generalizeable to the district level even though it had been enormously beneficial to them. Secondly, while the teachers may have been interested in taking advantage of the professional development opportunities that resulted in part from their own action research studies, they did not for the most part express a keen interest in knowing why those particular opportunities had been made available to them.
Conclusion
This paper has examined the unusual case where a central office school district administrator invested funds to support two teacher action research groups concerned with issues of cross-categorical service delivery in special education with the specific intent of informing district level professional development planning and of more actively involving teachers in shaping the implementation of the new policy. Participating in the research groups had a variety of effects on the fifteen participating teacher researchers, on their classroom practices and students, and on practices in their schools and beyond. These included a greater understanding of the multiple meanings associated with the term cross-categorical programming; greater insight into how staff in a particular building or across the district viewed different program models and their work as special education teachers; useful information about how students had different experiences under various program conditions such as inclusion and pull-out models, and how they viewed these experiences; and the introduction of different classroom practices (e.g., organizational skills study groups for students) that were intended to address problems that were illuminated through teachers' inquiries. Many of the teachers greatly valued the opportunity to interact with colleagues from across the district as well as with the district's Director of Educational Services, and felt professionally strengthened by the experience of being in an action research group.
Although a number of specific links between teachers' research and subsequent district level plans could be identified in our research (e.g., the initiation of a professional development program for first year special education teachers and special education assistants), a few teachers expressed disappointment about the perceived lack of follow-though on their research on the part of their colleagues, schools, or district. From our outside perspective as researchers, we could see that even though a number of issues and recommendations arising from the teachers' inquiries had indeed been incorporated into district planning, the teachers were not always necessarily aware of these actions. Another factor involved in teachers' satisfaction with the level of follow-up from their research was the connection of the building principals to the research. The principals of the fifteen teachers varied in their knowledge of and support for the research studies. Some of the issues raised in the teachers' studies required implementation at the building level rather than at the district level. Some of the principals encouraged the teachers to share their research with the staff of their schools and supported follow-up activities and others did not do so. Strengthening the links of the principals to the action research projects is an issue that will need to be addressed in the future if the research studies of teachers are going to impact school policies and practices to a greater extent.
In the two years since the original effort, Jorgensen has funded four similar action research groups. At the end of each year, participating researchers have come together to share what they have learned with central office staff and building principals, thus ensuring that the Madison Metropolitan School District's commitment to using teacher action research to inform district policy with regard to special education policy and practice continues.
ACTION RESEARCH IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION
David Nunan
Abstract
In this paper, I hope to provide a rationale for the use of action research in second and foreign language education. Questions addressed in the paper include:
What is action research in language education?
Is action research ‘real’ research?
What are some of the problems confronted by teachers doing action research?
What are some of the solutions to these problems?
What are the views of the teachers on the action research process?
The paper will be illustrated with data from a longitudinal action research project.
Action research: description and rationale
Until comparatively recently, the focus of concern in much of the writing on second and foreign language education was at the level of method. Methodological prescriptions were generally argued logico-deductively, and prescriptions for practice were generally devoid of data. This tended to reinforce the gap between theory, research and practice, a gap which, according to van Lier, is due in part to the obstacles which prevent teachers from doing research:
‘Those of us who work in teacher education know that one of the most difficult things to balance in a course is the tension between theoretical and practical aspects of the profession. ... theory and practice are not perceived as integral parts of a teacher’s practical professional life. ... This situation is the result of communication gaps caused by an increasingly opaque research technocracy, restrictive practices in educational institutions and bureaucracies (e.g. not validating research time, or not granting sabbaticals to teachers for professional renovation), and overburdening teachers who cannot conceive of ways of theorizing and researching that come out of daily work and facilitate that daily work.’
(van Lier 1992:3)
Despite the difficulties referred to by van Lier, there is some evidence that the picture is beginning to change. The change has been prompted in part by a growing sensitivity on the part of many researchers to the complexities of the teacher’s task. Practitioners, on their part, seem to have grown tired of the swings and roundabouts of pedagogic fashion, and are looking for evidence before embracing the latest trend to appear in the educational market place. This is not to suggest that a revolution has taken place, however.
While position papers, and logico-deductive argumentation have not disappeared from the scene (and I am not suggesting for a moment that they should), they are counterbalanced by empirical approaches to inquiry. I believe that these days, when confronted by pedagogical questions and problems, researchers and teachers are more likely than was the case ten or fifteen years ago, to seek relevant data, either through their own research, or through the research of others. Research activity has increased to the point where those who favour logico-deductive solutions to pedagogic problems are beginning to argue that there is too much research.
(Nunan, 1992a).
An important concept underpinning action research (AR) is that of reflective practice. Wallace (1991), in his excellent book on reflective teaching argues that reflective teaching provides a way of developing professional competence by integrating two sources of knowledge: received knowledge, experiential knowledge, with practice. Wallace's conception is captured in the following figure:
[Insert Nunan Fig. 1: Reflective practice model of professional education/development]
He links this with action research, arguing that:
‘"action research" can be attractive for two reasons:
1. It can have a specific and immediate outcome which can be directly related to practice in the teacher’s own context.
2. The ‘findings’ of such research might be primarily specific, i.e. it is not claimed that they are necessarily of general application, and therefore the methods might be more free-ranging than those of conventional research.
.... "Research" of this kind is simply an extension of the normal reflective practice of many teachers, but it is slightly more rigorous and might conceivably lead to more effective outcomes.’
(Wallace 1991:56-7)
As we can see from the selected extracts presented above, action research is justified on the grounds that it is a valuable professional development tool. It represents what I would call an inside out approach to professional development. It represents a departure from the ‘outside in’ approach (i.e. one in which an outside ‘expert’ brings the ‘good news’ to the practitioner in the form of a one-off workshop or seminar). In contrast, the inside out approach begins with the concerns and interests of practitioners, placing them at the centre of the inquiry process. In addition to being centred in the needs and interest of practitioners, and in actively involving them in the their own professional development, the inside out approach, as realised through action research, is longitudinal in that practitioners are involved in medium to long-term inquiry.
I believe that the benefits to professional development are justification enough for the development of an action research agenda. However, I believe that a further rationale for the development of such an agenda comes from the research process itself, and I shall deal with this in section three of my paper. First, however, I should like to look at the steps involved in the action research process.
Steps in the research process
The action research process is generally initiated by the identification by the practitioner of something which they find puzzling or problematic. This puzzlement or problematicity may, in fact, have emerged from a period of observation and reflection. The second step is the collection of baseline data through a preliminary investigation which is designed to identify what is currently happening in the classroom without trying to change anything. Based on a review of the data yielded by the preliminary investigation, an hypothesis is formed. The next step is the development of some form of intervention or change to existing practice, along with a way of evaluating the effects of this change. The final step is reporting on the outcomes of the interaction, and, if necessary, planning further interventions. Two examples of the action research cycle are presented in Tables 1 and 2.
Table 1: The Action Research Cycle: An ESL Example
1. Problem/puzzle Identification -–> A teacher identifies a problem/puzzle.
‘My students don’t seem interested or
motivated.’
| |
2. Preliminary Investigation -–> What’s going on? Recording and observing
class over several days.
| |
3. Hypothesis -–> Content doesn’t seem to stimulate students.
Exclusive use of display questions.
| |
4. Plan intervention -–> Increase use of referential questions.
Make links between content and learners.
| |
5. Outcome -–> More complex interactions.
More involvement and interest.
More ‘natural’ discourse, e.g. students nominate
topics, Ss disagree with teacher, S-S
interaction
| |
6. Reporting -–> Staff development session
Table 2: The Action Research Cycle: A Foreign Language Example
1. Problem Identification -–> A teacher identifies a problem in her
classroom.
‘My students aren’t using the target language
[German]’
| |
2. Preliminary Investigation -–> What’s going on? Recording and observing
class over several days.
| |
3. Hypothesis –-> Teacher uses too much English.
The important stuff is done in English
| |
4. Plan intervention –-> Teacher increases target language use.
Teacher uses German for classroom
management etc.
| |
5. Outcome –-> Dramatic increase in use of German by
students.
| |
6. Reporting -–> Article in teachers’ newsletter.
Action research and ‘real’ research
In the first part of this paper, I argued that action research can be justified on professional development grounds. However, I believe that AR can also be justified on research grounds. In fact, I believe that there is something essentially patronising in the view that, while AR might be good for professional development, it hardly counts as research. Let us, to use a currently fashionable term, ‘deconstruct’ this view. First of all, what do we mean by ‘research’? What is the function of research?
Elsewhere, I have defined research as ‘a systematic process of inquiry consisting of three elements or components: (1) a question, problem, or hypothesis, (2) data, (3) analysis and interpretation of data’ (Nunan 1992a:3). Action research incorporates these three elements and therefore qualifies as 'real' research. For me the salient distinction between AR and other forms of research is that in AR the research process is initiated and carried out by the practitioner. As far as I am concerned, the opposition is not between action research and ‘real’ research, but between good research and bad research. A further characteristic, perhaps differentiating AR from other forms of practitioner research, is that it incorporates an element of intervention and change.
Fundamental to any discussion of research is a consideration of the researcher’s conception of notions such as ‘truth’, ‘objectivity’, and the status of knowledge. I recently attempted to deal with the tensions of objective and subjective knowledge by suggesting that they represent two alternative ways of looking at the world:
‘Two alternative conceptions of the nature of research provide a point of tension within the book. The first view is that external truths exist ‘out there’ somewhere. According to this view, the function of research is to uncover these truths. The second view is that truth is a negotiable commodity contingent upon the historical context within which phenomena are observed and interpreted. Further ‘[research] standards are subject to change in the light of practice [which] would seem to indicate that the search for a substantive universal, ahistorical methodology is futile.’ (Chalmers 1990:21) ... This second, context-bound attitude to research entails a rather different role for the classroom practitioner than the first. If knowledge is tentative and contingent upon context, rather than absolute, then I believe that practitioners, rather than being consumers of other people’s research, should adopt a research orientation to their own classrooms. There is evidence that the teacher-researcher movement is alive and well and gathering strength. However, if the momentum which has gathered is not to falter, and if the teacher-researcher movement is not to become yet another fad, then significant numbers of teachers, graduate students, and others will need skills in planning, implementing and evaluating research.’
(Nunan, 1992a)
There are those who would argue that my definition of research as a systematic process of inquiry involving formulating a question, collecting relevant data, and analysing and interpreting that data is inadequate, that in order to count as research, the process should also meet the twin strictures of reliability and validity. Key questions for establishing the reliability and validity of research are set out in Tables 2 and 3.
Table 3: Questions for establishing the reliability and validity of a study
______________________________________________________
Type Key Question
______________________________________________________
INTERNAL Would an independent researcher, on reanalysing the
RELIABILITY data, come to the same conclusion?
EXTERNAL Would an independent researcher, on replicating the
RELIABILITY study, come to the same conclusion?
INTERNAL Is the research design such that we can confidently claim
VALIDITY that the outcomes are a result of the experimental treatment?
EXTERNAL Is the research design such that we can generalise beyond
VALIDITY the subjects under investigation to a wider population?
______________________________________________________
Source: D. Nunan. 1992. Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge University Press.
While I would argue that any research needs to be reliable, the issue of validity is more problematic. If one is not trying to establish a relationship between variables, but (for example) to describe and interpret phenomena in context, does the imperative to demonstrate that one has safeguarded one’s research from threats to internal validity remain? By the same token, if one is not trying to argue from samples to populations, then it would not be unreasonable to assert that external validy is irrelevant. I would ague that as most AR is not concerned with arguing from samples to populations, external validity is not at issue. (For an excellent discussion of issues to do with reliability and validity in qualitative research, see LeCompte and Goetz, 1982).
It is popularly assumed that the purpose of research is to test theories. For example, ‘That communicative language teaching is more effective than audiolingualism.’ Allwright and Bailey have pointed out that there are problems with this proposition. In the first place, some theories are untestable (for example, Krashen’s attestations on ‘subconscious’ acquisition). Secondly, classrooms are too complex for us to control all the variables in the manner prescribed by experimental research. They propose an alternative purpose for research, namely to try and understand and deal with immediate practical problems facing teachers and learners (Allwright and Bailey 1991). If we accept this alternative purpose, we are drawn immediately into embracing AR, because it makes no sense for an outsider to arbitrate on the practical problems facing teachers and learners. This does not mean that outsiders, such as university based researchers, have no role to play in practitioner-based research. However, the role is one of collaboration and advice rather than direction and control.
Problems and solutions in doing action research
I would now like to reassure those who might feel that I am looking at teacher research through rose coloured glasses. It is certainly not the case that everything is rosy in the AR garden. The principal problems identified by teachers with whom I have worked in a number of different contexts include the following:
• Lack of time
• Lack of expertise
• Lack of ongoing support
• Fear of being revealed as an incompetent teacher
• Fear of producing a public account of their research for a wider (unknown) audience
We have experimented with a number of solutions to the problems. I believe that the chances for an action research agenda to succeed will be maximised under the following conditions:
• There is someone ‘on the ground’ to ‘own’ the project.
One or more individuals with training in research methods are available ‘on tap’ to provide assistance and support to teachers.
• That teachers are given paid release time from face-to-face teaching during the course of their action research.
That collaborative focus teams are established so that teachers involved in similar areas of inquiry can support one another.
• That teachers are given adequate training in methods and techniques for identifying issues, collecting data, analysing and interpreting data, and presenting the outcomes of their research.
In order to facilitate the process, colleagues and I have developed an in-service programme. This programme was initially devised for the LIPT project (Languages Inservice Project for Teachers) in South Australia, and has been further modified and refined in Sydney, where a project has been established bringing together mainstream teachers, ESL teachers, and teachers of LOTE (Languages Other than English – a term which is preferred to Foreign Language Teachers as most non-English languages are widely used within the Australian community, and the term ‘foreign’ is therefore a misnomer). In Table 4, I have provided a summary of the professional development programme as it currently exists.
Table 4: The inservice programme in outline
______________________________________________________
SESSSION 1. An introduction to classroom observation and research
a. A series of reflective activities designed to get teachers thinking about their own teaching style.
b. Reflecting on the teaching of others: teachers examine and critique extracts from a range of classrooms identifying those aspects of the extracts they liked and disliked.
c. Identification of ideological beliefs and attitudes underlying critiques.
Between session task: Teachers record and reflect on their own teaching.
SESSION 2: An introduction to action research
a. Teachers report back on the between session task.
b. Introduction to issues and methods in action research.
c. Introduction to the action research process.
Between session task: Teachers develop a draft action plan.
SESSION 3: Focus groups and action plans
a. Formation of focus groups and appointment of facilitators.
b. Sharing of draft action plans.
c. Refining questions.
Between session task: Baseline observation, focus group meetings, preliminary data collection.
SESSION 4: ANALYSING DATA
a. Participants develop ways of analysing and making sense of their data.
Between session task: Ongoing data collection and analysis, focus group meetings.
SESSION 5: WRITING UP
a. Participants receive input on presenting their research.
b. Development of draft reporting outlines.
Between session task: Production of draft reports.
SESSION 6: REFINING REPORTS
Participants receive feedback on and discussion of their reports.
SESSION 7: EVALUATION
Participants evaluate the LIPT process and provide feedback on how their involvement changed them.
Evaluating action research
From what has already been said, it is clear that action research is difficult, messy, problematic, and, in some cases, inconclusive. It consumes a great deal of time, and often strains the goodwill of the teachers involved, as well as those with whom they work. However, evaluative data from teachers themselves suggest that teachers who have been involved in action research are overwhelmingly favourable. For example, Mickan, who collected data on the reaction of outside teachers to his LIPT project writes:
‘Teachers have welcomed the articles from LIPT. They have found them particularly useful and relevant because they depict the complex circumstances of classroom life in an honest and direct way. They have found them a rich source of ideas and valuable for informing their own practice. The warts and all descriptions (including failures and successes), the research techniques used, the analysis of results and the contextual detail are all elements which readers relate to and understand. As such they possess a validity which derives from the detailed narration of classroom ecology. The experiential reports give other practitioners models and ideas for their own practice. They also suggest topics and procedures for classroom investigations in different contexts.’
(Mickan, 1991).
An evaluation by Lewis (1992) is also favourable. She reports on a study conducted with a group of teachers of French immersion programmes in British Columbia. The focus of her research was the effect on the professional practice of the teachers of engaging in AR. She drew the following conclusions from her research.
1. Through the process of systematically implementing their own choice of action project based on the needs of the students in particular, each teacher learned more about their own theories, or frames for teaching, and modified these frames to a certain extent.
2. The frames for teaching of the participants in this study are related to the bigger questions of second language education and education in general. Practice cannot be understood thoroughly without appreciating how educational theory is expressed within teachers’ frames and neither can theory be useful without recognising that what counts is how theory becomes expressed within practice.
3. [The] ‘teacher as researcher’ or ‘reflection in action’ approach to teacher education can be a very powerful way of facilitating change in curriculum.
In evaluating the last of the LIPT projects, we asked teachers to complete the following statements:
Action research is..............................................................................................................
Action research is carried out in order to....................................................................
We also asked them to respond to the following:
1. What are the most significant things you have learned in carrying out your classroom research?
2. What questions/issues has your classroom research raised for you?
3. What further areas/ideas are you interested in pursuing?
Sample responses to the first of these probes on the most significant outcomes for the participants are set out in Appendix 2. It can be seen that these are overwhelmingly favourable, the participants choosing to focus either on the substantive content outcomes (‘By collecting and analyzing data on my children, I found that they were more highly motivated than I had given them credit for.’ ), learning process outcomes (‘The active involvement of the children in the learning process facilitates learning.’ ‘I discovered that kids know how to learn – the project taught me to listen to them.’), or reflections on the research process itself (‘In working through the action research process, I discovered which methods of data collection are most suited to my research question – next time I will be better prepared as I will be more aware of what I am looking for, and will be better able to match my questions and data.’). The enthusiastic validation of learner-centred approaches to instruction, even though this was not a primary aim of most research, is also worth noting.
Finally, participants were asked to complete a checklist to indicate how their teaching had changed as a result of their involvement in the project. Results are set out below. It can be seen from the survey that, if self-reports are to be believed, the experience was, for most teachers, an overwhelmingly positive one.
How has your teaching changed? Complete the following:
Since I have been doing action research, I find that when I teach I now ...
More About the Less
same__________
1. tend to be directive_______________________________ 1___ 14____ 10___
2. try to use a greater variety of behaviours______________ 16___ 6______0___
3. praise students__________________________________ 15___ 10_____ 0 __
4. criticise students_________________________________ 0___ 11____ 13___
5. am aware of students’ feelings______________________ 18___ 6_____ 0___
6. give directions__________________________________ 4____ 16_____ 5___
7. am conscious of my nonverbal communication 11___ 14_____0_
8. use the target language in class______________________ 19__ 6_____ 0___
9. am conscious of nonverbal cues of students___________ 12____ 12____ 0 _
10. try to incorporate student ideas into my teaching___ 20___ 5____ 0___
11. spend more class time talking myself________________ 1____ 9_____15 __
12. try to incorporate student ideas into my teaching 20__ 5____ 0___
13. try to get my students working in groups ________ 15___ 18____ 0___
14. try to get divergent, open-ended student responses____ 14____ 10____ 0___
15. distinguish between enthusiasm and lack of order_____ 9___ 15____ 0___
16. try to get students to participate__________________ 18___ 7____ 0___
Conclusion
In this paper, I have argued that the adoption of an action research orientation can be justified in professional development terms and research terms. Despite the bureaucratic difficulties and obstacles which are placed in the way of teachers, the elitism of a certain cadre of researchers (some of whom were once classroom teachers themselves!), and the suspicion which is sometimes directed at academics who are trying to promote a closer relationship between theory, research, and practice, there is evidence that things are beginning to change. I can offer no more fitting conclusion to this paper than the following extract from two of the profession’s foremost advocates of the development of harmony between theory, research and practice, who have striven in their own teaching, writing and research, to enhance the status of both practitioner and researcher within language education.
‘Slowly, the profession as a whole is realising that, no matter how much intellectual energy is put into the invention of new methods (or of new approaches to syllabus design, and so on), what really matters is what happens when teachers and learners get together in the classroom. … This shift in emphasis from concentrating on planning decisions … to concentrating on looking at what actually happens in the classroom, has led researchers to have much greater respect for classroom teaching. The more we look, the more we find, and the more we realise how complex the teacher’s job is. And teachers, in their turn, faced at last with researchers who have at least some idea of the enormous complexity of everyday classroom life, are beginning to be more receptive to the whole research enterprise. … Being a good classroom teacher means being alive to what goes on in the classroom, alive to the problems of sorting out what matters, moment by moment, from what does not. And that is what classroom research is all about: gaining a better understanding of what good teachers (and learners) do instinctively as a matter of course, so that ultimately all can benefit.’
(Allwright and Bailey, 1991)
APPENDIX 1
THE LIPT PROJECT: SOME FOCUS GROUP AND RESEARCH TITLES
1. LITERACY AND LOTE 3. LOTE TOPICS
Big books and the German classroom Back to the drawing black board
Journal writing in action Two heads are better than one ... or are they?
‘Reading in German? Not a problem!’ Assessing primary French
Making big books What’s that word again?
Tell me more ... Towards a positive classroom
Developing writing skills Making a game
A literature-based program He can’t hear you nodding Sophie
It’s too hard! Mistakes are for learning
Writing what I want to in German Beginning at the beginning or
Language arts and LOTE immersion of tadpoles
Extending a primary German
program
2. DEVELOPING LEARNING STRATEGIES Dai, Forza Giochiamo! Let’s play!
Cross-age tutoring in German Speak!
‘No stop-start’ learning centres and language Learning through games
learning Let’s play games
Cross-age tutoring in Pitjantjatjara In French, please
Learning together Immersion – or in at the deep end
Learning contracts and LOTE Using more Indonesian in the classroom
Cross-age tutoring in Greek When I speak German I feel great!
Learning centres rule OK? Motivation and language learning
Learning how to learn Heaps more French??
Who’s speaking German?
Using an activities-based approach
APPENDIX 2
1. What are the most significant things you have learned in carrying out your classroom research?
• The active involvement of the children in the learning process facilitates learning.
• Children have different learning preferences and teachers need to allow for this in their instructional practices.
• Children find it difficult to express feelings and opinions on paper.
• It is easy to ‘spoon feed’ children, but this leads to ineffective learning.
• Teaching problems only go away if they are recognized and tackled.
• The most important outcome for me was that I learned how to do action research. To benefit, I therefore have to do it again!
• Working with the children together (e.g. finding their thoughts/feelings and acting on them).
• In working through the action research process, I discovered which methods of data collection are most suited to my research question – next time I will be better prepared as I will be more aware of what I am looking for, and will be better able to match my questions and data.
• The process removed my tunnel vision to teaching.
• It helped me to making links with other teachers of Mandarin , as well as parents and the community.
• The process dramatically enhanced my rapport with students.
• I found that by carefully, step-by-step directing students, I was able to give them tools to manage their own learning.
• By collecting and analyzing data on my children, I found that they were more highly motivated than I had given them credit for.
• The most important outcome for me was that I discovered the children enjoy (and respond well) to being consulted about their learning and being given some say in what they learn.
• There was a negative outcome for me – I’ve learned not to expect children to have completed tasks or to value something just because they’re important to me.
• I found that Year 7 learners still need lots of structure and guidance, even when independent skills are encouraged.
• I was disappointed. I expected too much in my initial project – book flood! Only book trickle is possible in such a short time.
• The most important discovery for me was that my students need more time and opportunities to work in groups as they need to learn to work on their own without teacher directed lessons all the time.
• The need for informed input in this process – one needs to read etc., recent research and thinking in order to maximize value of one’s own research, and move beyond one’s own ‘blinkered’ vision.
• The positive benefit of concentrating on one particular area because the attitude/approach of openness and inquiry carries over into one’s teaching in general.
• I have learned that students with a very limited knowledge of the target language are prepared to try to write more than I expected, and that in future I should try to foster this willingness in my classes.
• Contrary to my expectations, I found that the children were keen to be part of a ‘project’. This led to increased motivation (maybe Hawthorne Effect?)
• I have learned that one needs to undertake classroom research. One needs to intervene – observation alone isn’t a good enough indicator of how much children are learning.
• In my research, I delved into how my lessons were arranged and the effectiveness (or not) of my teaching. I looked closely at my learning strategies. It allowed me to construct a unit that was designed for junior primary students’ needs and interests and my research allowed my to construct strategies accordingly.
• I discovered that kids know how to learn – the project taught me to listen to them.
Acknowledgment
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the British Council for financial support.
TAG: Your tag here,
Abstract
In this paper, I hope to provide a rationale for the use of action research in second and foreign language education. Questions addressed in the paper include:
What is action research in language education?
Is action research ‘real’ research?
What are some of the problems confronted by teachers doing action research?
What are some of the solutions to these problems?
What are the views of the teachers on the action research process?
The paper will be illustrated with data from a longitudinal action research project.
Action research: description and rationale
Until comparatively recently, the focus of concern in much of the writing on second and foreign language education was at the level of method. Methodological prescriptions were generally argued logico-deductively, and prescriptions for practice were generally devoid of data. This tended to reinforce the gap between theory, research and practice, a gap which, according to van Lier, is due in part to the obstacles which prevent teachers from doing research:
‘Those of us who work in teacher education know that one of the most difficult things to balance in a course is the tension between theoretical and practical aspects of the profession. ... theory and practice are not perceived as integral parts of a teacher’s practical professional life. ... This situation is the result of communication gaps caused by an increasingly opaque research technocracy, restrictive practices in educational institutions and bureaucracies (e.g. not validating research time, or not granting sabbaticals to teachers for professional renovation), and overburdening teachers who cannot conceive of ways of theorizing and researching that come out of daily work and facilitate that daily work.’
(van Lier 1992:3)
Despite the difficulties referred to by van Lier, there is some evidence that the picture is beginning to change. The change has been prompted in part by a growing sensitivity on the part of many researchers to the complexities of the teacher’s task. Practitioners, on their part, seem to have grown tired of the swings and roundabouts of pedagogic fashion, and are looking for evidence before embracing the latest trend to appear in the educational market place. This is not to suggest that a revolution has taken place, however.
While position papers, and logico-deductive argumentation have not disappeared from the scene (and I am not suggesting for a moment that they should), they are counterbalanced by empirical approaches to inquiry. I believe that these days, when confronted by pedagogical questions and problems, researchers and teachers are more likely than was the case ten or fifteen years ago, to seek relevant data, either through their own research, or through the research of others. Research activity has increased to the point where those who favour logico-deductive solutions to pedagogic problems are beginning to argue that there is too much research.
(Nunan, 1992a).
An important concept underpinning action research (AR) is that of reflective practice. Wallace (1991), in his excellent book on reflective teaching argues that reflective teaching provides a way of developing professional competence by integrating two sources of knowledge: received knowledge, experiential knowledge, with practice. Wallace's conception is captured in the following figure:
[Insert Nunan Fig. 1: Reflective practice model of professional education/development]
He links this with action research, arguing that:
‘"action research" can be attractive for two reasons:
1. It can have a specific and immediate outcome which can be directly related to practice in the teacher’s own context.
2. The ‘findings’ of such research might be primarily specific, i.e. it is not claimed that they are necessarily of general application, and therefore the methods might be more free-ranging than those of conventional research.
.... "Research" of this kind is simply an extension of the normal reflective practice of many teachers, but it is slightly more rigorous and might conceivably lead to more effective outcomes.’
(Wallace 1991:56-7)
As we can see from the selected extracts presented above, action research is justified on the grounds that it is a valuable professional development tool. It represents what I would call an inside out approach to professional development. It represents a departure from the ‘outside in’ approach (i.e. one in which an outside ‘expert’ brings the ‘good news’ to the practitioner in the form of a one-off workshop or seminar). In contrast, the inside out approach begins with the concerns and interests of practitioners, placing them at the centre of the inquiry process. In addition to being centred in the needs and interest of practitioners, and in actively involving them in the their own professional development, the inside out approach, as realised through action research, is longitudinal in that practitioners are involved in medium to long-term inquiry.
I believe that the benefits to professional development are justification enough for the development of an action research agenda. However, I believe that a further rationale for the development of such an agenda comes from the research process itself, and I shall deal with this in section three of my paper. First, however, I should like to look at the steps involved in the action research process.
Steps in the research process
The action research process is generally initiated by the identification by the practitioner of something which they find puzzling or problematic. This puzzlement or problematicity may, in fact, have emerged from a period of observation and reflection. The second step is the collection of baseline data through a preliminary investigation which is designed to identify what is currently happening in the classroom without trying to change anything. Based on a review of the data yielded by the preliminary investigation, an hypothesis is formed. The next step is the development of some form of intervention or change to existing practice, along with a way of evaluating the effects of this change. The final step is reporting on the outcomes of the interaction, and, if necessary, planning further interventions. Two examples of the action research cycle are presented in Tables 1 and 2.
Table 1: The Action Research Cycle: An ESL Example
1. Problem/puzzle Identification -–> A teacher identifies a problem/puzzle.
‘My students don’t seem interested or
motivated.’
| |
2. Preliminary Investigation -–> What’s going on? Recording and observing
class over several days.
| |
3. Hypothesis -–> Content doesn’t seem to stimulate students.
Exclusive use of display questions.
| |
4. Plan intervention -–> Increase use of referential questions.
Make links between content and learners.
| |
5. Outcome -–> More complex interactions.
More involvement and interest.
More ‘natural’ discourse, e.g. students nominate
topics, Ss disagree with teacher, S-S
interaction
| |
6. Reporting -–> Staff development session
Table 2: The Action Research Cycle: A Foreign Language Example
1. Problem Identification -–> A teacher identifies a problem in her
classroom.
‘My students aren’t using the target language
[German]’
| |
2. Preliminary Investigation -–> What’s going on? Recording and observing
class over several days.
| |
3. Hypothesis –-> Teacher uses too much English.
The important stuff is done in English
| |
4. Plan intervention –-> Teacher increases target language use.
Teacher uses German for classroom
management etc.
| |
5. Outcome –-> Dramatic increase in use of German by
students.
| |
6. Reporting -–> Article in teachers’ newsletter.
Action research and ‘real’ research
In the first part of this paper, I argued that action research can be justified on professional development grounds. However, I believe that AR can also be justified on research grounds. In fact, I believe that there is something essentially patronising in the view that, while AR might be good for professional development, it hardly counts as research. Let us, to use a currently fashionable term, ‘deconstruct’ this view. First of all, what do we mean by ‘research’? What is the function of research?
Elsewhere, I have defined research as ‘a systematic process of inquiry consisting of three elements or components: (1) a question, problem, or hypothesis, (2) data, (3) analysis and interpretation of data’ (Nunan 1992a:3). Action research incorporates these three elements and therefore qualifies as 'real' research. For me the salient distinction between AR and other forms of research is that in AR the research process is initiated and carried out by the practitioner. As far as I am concerned, the opposition is not between action research and ‘real’ research, but between good research and bad research. A further characteristic, perhaps differentiating AR from other forms of practitioner research, is that it incorporates an element of intervention and change.
Fundamental to any discussion of research is a consideration of the researcher’s conception of notions such as ‘truth’, ‘objectivity’, and the status of knowledge. I recently attempted to deal with the tensions of objective and subjective knowledge by suggesting that they represent two alternative ways of looking at the world:
‘Two alternative conceptions of the nature of research provide a point of tension within the book. The first view is that external truths exist ‘out there’ somewhere. According to this view, the function of research is to uncover these truths. The second view is that truth is a negotiable commodity contingent upon the historical context within which phenomena are observed and interpreted. Further ‘[research] standards are subject to change in the light of practice [which] would seem to indicate that the search for a substantive universal, ahistorical methodology is futile.’ (Chalmers 1990:21) ... This second, context-bound attitude to research entails a rather different role for the classroom practitioner than the first. If knowledge is tentative and contingent upon context, rather than absolute, then I believe that practitioners, rather than being consumers of other people’s research, should adopt a research orientation to their own classrooms. There is evidence that the teacher-researcher movement is alive and well and gathering strength. However, if the momentum which has gathered is not to falter, and if the teacher-researcher movement is not to become yet another fad, then significant numbers of teachers, graduate students, and others will need skills in planning, implementing and evaluating research.’
(Nunan, 1992a)
There are those who would argue that my definition of research as a systematic process of inquiry involving formulating a question, collecting relevant data, and analysing and interpreting that data is inadequate, that in order to count as research, the process should also meet the twin strictures of reliability and validity. Key questions for establishing the reliability and validity of research are set out in Tables 2 and 3.
Table 3: Questions for establishing the reliability and validity of a study
______________________________________________________
Type Key Question
______________________________________________________
INTERNAL Would an independent researcher, on reanalysing the
RELIABILITY data, come to the same conclusion?
EXTERNAL Would an independent researcher, on replicating the
RELIABILITY study, come to the same conclusion?
INTERNAL Is the research design such that we can confidently claim
VALIDITY that the outcomes are a result of the experimental treatment?
EXTERNAL Is the research design such that we can generalise beyond
VALIDITY the subjects under investigation to a wider population?
______________________________________________________
Source: D. Nunan. 1992. Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge University Press.
While I would argue that any research needs to be reliable, the issue of validity is more problematic. If one is not trying to establish a relationship between variables, but (for example) to describe and interpret phenomena in context, does the imperative to demonstrate that one has safeguarded one’s research from threats to internal validity remain? By the same token, if one is not trying to argue from samples to populations, then it would not be unreasonable to assert that external validy is irrelevant. I would ague that as most AR is not concerned with arguing from samples to populations, external validity is not at issue. (For an excellent discussion of issues to do with reliability and validity in qualitative research, see LeCompte and Goetz, 1982).
It is popularly assumed that the purpose of research is to test theories. For example, ‘That communicative language teaching is more effective than audiolingualism.’ Allwright and Bailey have pointed out that there are problems with this proposition. In the first place, some theories are untestable (for example, Krashen’s attestations on ‘subconscious’ acquisition). Secondly, classrooms are too complex for us to control all the variables in the manner prescribed by experimental research. They propose an alternative purpose for research, namely to try and understand and deal with immediate practical problems facing teachers and learners (Allwright and Bailey 1991). If we accept this alternative purpose, we are drawn immediately into embracing AR, because it makes no sense for an outsider to arbitrate on the practical problems facing teachers and learners. This does not mean that outsiders, such as university based researchers, have no role to play in practitioner-based research. However, the role is one of collaboration and advice rather than direction and control.
Problems and solutions in doing action research
I would now like to reassure those who might feel that I am looking at teacher research through rose coloured glasses. It is certainly not the case that everything is rosy in the AR garden. The principal problems identified by teachers with whom I have worked in a number of different contexts include the following:
• Lack of time
• Lack of expertise
• Lack of ongoing support
• Fear of being revealed as an incompetent teacher
• Fear of producing a public account of their research for a wider (unknown) audience
We have experimented with a number of solutions to the problems. I believe that the chances for an action research agenda to succeed will be maximised under the following conditions:
• There is someone ‘on the ground’ to ‘own’ the project.
One or more individuals with training in research methods are available ‘on tap’ to provide assistance and support to teachers.
• That teachers are given paid release time from face-to-face teaching during the course of their action research.
That collaborative focus teams are established so that teachers involved in similar areas of inquiry can support one another.
• That teachers are given adequate training in methods and techniques for identifying issues, collecting data, analysing and interpreting data, and presenting the outcomes of their research.
In order to facilitate the process, colleagues and I have developed an in-service programme. This programme was initially devised for the LIPT project (Languages Inservice Project for Teachers) in South Australia, and has been further modified and refined in Sydney, where a project has been established bringing together mainstream teachers, ESL teachers, and teachers of LOTE (Languages Other than English – a term which is preferred to Foreign Language Teachers as most non-English languages are widely used within the Australian community, and the term ‘foreign’ is therefore a misnomer). In Table 4, I have provided a summary of the professional development programme as it currently exists.
Table 4: The inservice programme in outline
______________________________________________________
SESSSION 1. An introduction to classroom observation and research
a. A series of reflective activities designed to get teachers thinking about their own teaching style.
b. Reflecting on the teaching of others: teachers examine and critique extracts from a range of classrooms identifying those aspects of the extracts they liked and disliked.
c. Identification of ideological beliefs and attitudes underlying critiques.
Between session task: Teachers record and reflect on their own teaching.
SESSION 2: An introduction to action research
a. Teachers report back on the between session task.
b. Introduction to issues and methods in action research.
c. Introduction to the action research process.
Between session task: Teachers develop a draft action plan.
SESSION 3: Focus groups and action plans
a. Formation of focus groups and appointment of facilitators.
b. Sharing of draft action plans.
c. Refining questions.
Between session task: Baseline observation, focus group meetings, preliminary data collection.
SESSION 4: ANALYSING DATA
a. Participants develop ways of analysing and making sense of their data.
Between session task: Ongoing data collection and analysis, focus group meetings.
SESSION 5: WRITING UP
a. Participants receive input on presenting their research.
b. Development of draft reporting outlines.
Between session task: Production of draft reports.
SESSION 6: REFINING REPORTS
Participants receive feedback on and discussion of their reports.
SESSION 7: EVALUATION
Participants evaluate the LIPT process and provide feedback on how their involvement changed them.
Evaluating action research
From what has already been said, it is clear that action research is difficult, messy, problematic, and, in some cases, inconclusive. It consumes a great deal of time, and often strains the goodwill of the teachers involved, as well as those with whom they work. However, evaluative data from teachers themselves suggest that teachers who have been involved in action research are overwhelmingly favourable. For example, Mickan, who collected data on the reaction of outside teachers to his LIPT project writes:
‘Teachers have welcomed the articles from LIPT. They have found them particularly useful and relevant because they depict the complex circumstances of classroom life in an honest and direct way. They have found them a rich source of ideas and valuable for informing their own practice. The warts and all descriptions (including failures and successes), the research techniques used, the analysis of results and the contextual detail are all elements which readers relate to and understand. As such they possess a validity which derives from the detailed narration of classroom ecology. The experiential reports give other practitioners models and ideas for their own practice. They also suggest topics and procedures for classroom investigations in different contexts.’
(Mickan, 1991).
An evaluation by Lewis (1992) is also favourable. She reports on a study conducted with a group of teachers of French immersion programmes in British Columbia. The focus of her research was the effect on the professional practice of the teachers of engaging in AR. She drew the following conclusions from her research.
1. Through the process of systematically implementing their own choice of action project based on the needs of the students in particular, each teacher learned more about their own theories, or frames for teaching, and modified these frames to a certain extent.
2. The frames for teaching of the participants in this study are related to the bigger questions of second language education and education in general. Practice cannot be understood thoroughly without appreciating how educational theory is expressed within teachers’ frames and neither can theory be useful without recognising that what counts is how theory becomes expressed within practice.
3. [The] ‘teacher as researcher’ or ‘reflection in action’ approach to teacher education can be a very powerful way of facilitating change in curriculum.
In evaluating the last of the LIPT projects, we asked teachers to complete the following statements:
Action research is..............................................................................................................
Action research is carried out in order to....................................................................
We also asked them to respond to the following:
1. What are the most significant things you have learned in carrying out your classroom research?
2. What questions/issues has your classroom research raised for you?
3. What further areas/ideas are you interested in pursuing?
Sample responses to the first of these probes on the most significant outcomes for the participants are set out in Appendix 2. It can be seen that these are overwhelmingly favourable, the participants choosing to focus either on the substantive content outcomes (‘By collecting and analyzing data on my children, I found that they were more highly motivated than I had given them credit for.’ ), learning process outcomes (‘The active involvement of the children in the learning process facilitates learning.’ ‘I discovered that kids know how to learn – the project taught me to listen to them.’), or reflections on the research process itself (‘In working through the action research process, I discovered which methods of data collection are most suited to my research question – next time I will be better prepared as I will be more aware of what I am looking for, and will be better able to match my questions and data.’). The enthusiastic validation of learner-centred approaches to instruction, even though this was not a primary aim of most research, is also worth noting.
Finally, participants were asked to complete a checklist to indicate how their teaching had changed as a result of their involvement in the project. Results are set out below. It can be seen from the survey that, if self-reports are to be believed, the experience was, for most teachers, an overwhelmingly positive one.
How has your teaching changed? Complete the following:
Since I have been doing action research, I find that when I teach I now ...
More About the Less
same__________
1. tend to be directive_______________________________ 1___ 14____ 10___
2. try to use a greater variety of behaviours______________ 16___ 6______0___
3. praise students__________________________________ 15___ 10_____ 0 __
4. criticise students_________________________________ 0___ 11____ 13___
5. am aware of students’ feelings______________________ 18___ 6_____ 0___
6. give directions__________________________________ 4____ 16_____ 5___
7. am conscious of my nonverbal communication 11___ 14_____0_
8. use the target language in class______________________ 19__ 6_____ 0___
9. am conscious of nonverbal cues of students___________ 12____ 12____ 0 _
10. try to incorporate student ideas into my teaching___ 20___ 5____ 0___
11. spend more class time talking myself________________ 1____ 9_____15 __
12. try to incorporate student ideas into my teaching 20__ 5____ 0___
13. try to get my students working in groups ________ 15___ 18____ 0___
14. try to get divergent, open-ended student responses____ 14____ 10____ 0___
15. distinguish between enthusiasm and lack of order_____ 9___ 15____ 0___
16. try to get students to participate__________________ 18___ 7____ 0___
Conclusion
In this paper, I have argued that the adoption of an action research orientation can be justified in professional development terms and research terms. Despite the bureaucratic difficulties and obstacles which are placed in the way of teachers, the elitism of a certain cadre of researchers (some of whom were once classroom teachers themselves!), and the suspicion which is sometimes directed at academics who are trying to promote a closer relationship between theory, research, and practice, there is evidence that things are beginning to change. I can offer no more fitting conclusion to this paper than the following extract from two of the profession’s foremost advocates of the development of harmony between theory, research and practice, who have striven in their own teaching, writing and research, to enhance the status of both practitioner and researcher within language education.
‘Slowly, the profession as a whole is realising that, no matter how much intellectual energy is put into the invention of new methods (or of new approaches to syllabus design, and so on), what really matters is what happens when teachers and learners get together in the classroom. … This shift in emphasis from concentrating on planning decisions … to concentrating on looking at what actually happens in the classroom, has led researchers to have much greater respect for classroom teaching. The more we look, the more we find, and the more we realise how complex the teacher’s job is. And teachers, in their turn, faced at last with researchers who have at least some idea of the enormous complexity of everyday classroom life, are beginning to be more receptive to the whole research enterprise. … Being a good classroom teacher means being alive to what goes on in the classroom, alive to the problems of sorting out what matters, moment by moment, from what does not. And that is what classroom research is all about: gaining a better understanding of what good teachers (and learners) do instinctively as a matter of course, so that ultimately all can benefit.’
(Allwright and Bailey, 1991)
APPENDIX 1
THE LIPT PROJECT: SOME FOCUS GROUP AND RESEARCH TITLES
1. LITERACY AND LOTE 3. LOTE TOPICS
Big books and the German classroom Back to the drawing black board
Journal writing in action Two heads are better than one ... or are they?
‘Reading in German? Not a problem!’ Assessing primary French
Making big books What’s that word again?
Tell me more ... Towards a positive classroom
Developing writing skills Making a game
A literature-based program He can’t hear you nodding Sophie
It’s too hard! Mistakes are for learning
Writing what I want to in German Beginning at the beginning or
Language arts and LOTE immersion of tadpoles
Extending a primary German
program
2. DEVELOPING LEARNING STRATEGIES Dai, Forza Giochiamo! Let’s play!
Cross-age tutoring in German Speak!
‘No stop-start’ learning centres and language Learning through games
learning Let’s play games
Cross-age tutoring in Pitjantjatjara In French, please
Learning together Immersion – or in at the deep end
Learning contracts and LOTE Using more Indonesian in the classroom
Cross-age tutoring in Greek When I speak German I feel great!
Learning centres rule OK? Motivation and language learning
Learning how to learn Heaps more French??
Who’s speaking German?
Using an activities-based approach
APPENDIX 2
1. What are the most significant things you have learned in carrying out your classroom research?
• The active involvement of the children in the learning process facilitates learning.
• Children have different learning preferences and teachers need to allow for this in their instructional practices.
• Children find it difficult to express feelings and opinions on paper.
• It is easy to ‘spoon feed’ children, but this leads to ineffective learning.
• Teaching problems only go away if they are recognized and tackled.
• The most important outcome for me was that I learned how to do action research. To benefit, I therefore have to do it again!
• Working with the children together (e.g. finding their thoughts/feelings and acting on them).
• In working through the action research process, I discovered which methods of data collection are most suited to my research question – next time I will be better prepared as I will be more aware of what I am looking for, and will be better able to match my questions and data.
• The process removed my tunnel vision to teaching.
• It helped me to making links with other teachers of Mandarin , as well as parents and the community.
• The process dramatically enhanced my rapport with students.
• I found that by carefully, step-by-step directing students, I was able to give them tools to manage their own learning.
• By collecting and analyzing data on my children, I found that they were more highly motivated than I had given them credit for.
• The most important outcome for me was that I discovered the children enjoy (and respond well) to being consulted about their learning and being given some say in what they learn.
• There was a negative outcome for me – I’ve learned not to expect children to have completed tasks or to value something just because they’re important to me.
• I found that Year 7 learners still need lots of structure and guidance, even when independent skills are encouraged.
• I was disappointed. I expected too much in my initial project – book flood! Only book trickle is possible in such a short time.
• The most important discovery for me was that my students need more time and opportunities to work in groups as they need to learn to work on their own without teacher directed lessons all the time.
• The need for informed input in this process – one needs to read etc., recent research and thinking in order to maximize value of one’s own research, and move beyond one’s own ‘blinkered’ vision.
• The positive benefit of concentrating on one particular area because the attitude/approach of openness and inquiry carries over into one’s teaching in general.
• I have learned that students with a very limited knowledge of the target language are prepared to try to write more than I expected, and that in future I should try to foster this willingness in my classes.
• Contrary to my expectations, I found that the children were keen to be part of a ‘project’. This led to increased motivation (maybe Hawthorne Effect?)
• I have learned that one needs to undertake classroom research. One needs to intervene – observation alone isn’t a good enough indicator of how much children are learning.
• In my research, I delved into how my lessons were arranged and the effectiveness (or not) of my teaching. I looked closely at my learning strategies. It allowed me to construct a unit that was designed for junior primary students’ needs and interests and my research allowed my to construct strategies accordingly.
• I discovered that kids know how to learn – the project taught me to listen to them.
Acknowledgment
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the British Council for financial support.
TAG: Your tag here,
Teaching Listening
Using Textbook Listening Activities
The greatest challenges with textbook tape programs are integrating the listening experiences into classroom instruction and keeping up student interest and motivation. These challenges arise from the fact that most textbook listening programs emphasize product (right or wrong answer) over process (how to get meaning from the selection) and from the fact that the listening activities are usually carried out as an add-on, away from the classroom.
You can use the guidelines for developing listening activities given here as starting points for evaluating and adapting textbook listening programs. At the beginning of the teaching term, orient students to the tape program by completing the exercises in class and discussing the different strategies they use to answer the questions. It is a good idea to periodically complete some of the lab exercises in class to maintain the link to the regular instructional program and to check on the effectiveness of the exercises themselves.
Integrating Listening Strategies With Textbook Audio and Video
Students can use this outline for both in-class and out-of-class listening/viewing activities. Model and practice the use of the outline at least once in class before you ask students to use it independently.
1. Plan for listening/viewing
• Review the vocabulary list, if you have one
• Review the worksheet, if you have one
• Review any information you have about the content of the tape/video
2. Preview the tape/video
• (tape) Use fast forward to play segments of the tape; (video) view the video without sound
• Identify the kind of program (news, documentary, interview, drama)
• Make a list of predictions about the content
• Decide how to divide the tape/video into sections for intensive listening/viewing
3. Listen/view intensively section by section. For each section:
• Jot down key words you understand
• Answer the worksheet questions pertaining to the section
• If you don't have a worksheet, write a short summary of the section
4. Monitor your comprehension
• Does it fit with the predictions you made?
• Does your summary for each section make sense in relation to the other sections?
5. Evaluate your listening comprehension progress
Teaching Listening
Assessing Listening Proficiency
You can use post-listening activities to check comprehension, evaluate listening skills and use of listening strategies, and extend the knowledge gained to other contexts. A post-listening activity may relate to a pre-listening activity, such as predicting; may expand on the topic or the language of the listening text; or may transfer what has been learned to reading, speaking, or writing activities.
In order to provide authentic assessment of students' listening proficiency, a post-listening activity must reflect the real-life uses to which students might put information they have gained through listening.
• It must have a purpose other than assessment
• It must require students to demonstrate their level of listening comprehension by completing some task.
To develop authentic assessment activities, consider the type of response that listening to a particular selection would elicit in a non-classroom situation. For example, after listening to a weather report one might decide what to wear the next day; after listening to a set of instructions, one might repeat them to someone else; after watching and listening to a play or video, one might discuss the story line with friends.
Use this response type as a base for selecting appropriate post-listening tasks. You can then develop a checklist or rubric that will allow you to evaluate each student's comprehension of specific parts of the aural text. (See Assessing Learning for more on checklists and rubrics.)
For example, for listening practice you have students listen to a weather report. Their purpose for listening is to be able to advise a friend what to wear the next day. As a post-listening activity, you ask students to select appropriate items of clothing from a collection you have assembled, or write a note telling the friend what to wear, or provide oral advice to another student (who has not heard the weather report). To evaluate listening comprehension, you use a checklist containing specific features of the forecast, marking those that are reflected in the student's clothing recommendations.
TAG: Your tag here,
The greatest challenges with textbook tape programs are integrating the listening experiences into classroom instruction and keeping up student interest and motivation. These challenges arise from the fact that most textbook listening programs emphasize product (right or wrong answer) over process (how to get meaning from the selection) and from the fact that the listening activities are usually carried out as an add-on, away from the classroom.
You can use the guidelines for developing listening activities given here as starting points for evaluating and adapting textbook listening programs. At the beginning of the teaching term, orient students to the tape program by completing the exercises in class and discussing the different strategies they use to answer the questions. It is a good idea to periodically complete some of the lab exercises in class to maintain the link to the regular instructional program and to check on the effectiveness of the exercises themselves.
Integrating Listening Strategies With Textbook Audio and Video
Students can use this outline for both in-class and out-of-class listening/viewing activities. Model and practice the use of the outline at least once in class before you ask students to use it independently.
1. Plan for listening/viewing
• Review the vocabulary list, if you have one
• Review the worksheet, if you have one
• Review any information you have about the content of the tape/video
2. Preview the tape/video
• (tape) Use fast forward to play segments of the tape; (video) view the video without sound
• Identify the kind of program (news, documentary, interview, drama)
• Make a list of predictions about the content
• Decide how to divide the tape/video into sections for intensive listening/viewing
3. Listen/view intensively section by section. For each section:
• Jot down key words you understand
• Answer the worksheet questions pertaining to the section
• If you don't have a worksheet, write a short summary of the section
4. Monitor your comprehension
• Does it fit with the predictions you made?
• Does your summary for each section make sense in relation to the other sections?
5. Evaluate your listening comprehension progress
Teaching Listening
Assessing Listening Proficiency
You can use post-listening activities to check comprehension, evaluate listening skills and use of listening strategies, and extend the knowledge gained to other contexts. A post-listening activity may relate to a pre-listening activity, such as predicting; may expand on the topic or the language of the listening text; or may transfer what has been learned to reading, speaking, or writing activities.
In order to provide authentic assessment of students' listening proficiency, a post-listening activity must reflect the real-life uses to which students might put information they have gained through listening.
• It must have a purpose other than assessment
• It must require students to demonstrate their level of listening comprehension by completing some task.
To develop authentic assessment activities, consider the type of response that listening to a particular selection would elicit in a non-classroom situation. For example, after listening to a weather report one might decide what to wear the next day; after listening to a set of instructions, one might repeat them to someone else; after watching and listening to a play or video, one might discuss the story line with friends.
Use this response type as a base for selecting appropriate post-listening tasks. You can then develop a checklist or rubric that will allow you to evaluate each student's comprehension of specific parts of the aural text. (See Assessing Learning for more on checklists and rubrics.)
For example, for listening practice you have students listen to a weather report. Their purpose for listening is to be able to advise a friend what to wear the next day. As a post-listening activity, you ask students to select appropriate items of clothing from a collection you have assembled, or write a note telling the friend what to wear, or provide oral advice to another student (who has not heard the weather report). To evaluate listening comprehension, you use a checklist containing specific features of the forecast, marking those that are reflected in the student's clothing recommendations.
TAG: Your tag here,
A Genre-based Approach to Developing Oral Skills in an Adult Thai EFL Context
Paper presented at the Fifth Pan-Asian Conference on Language Teaching at FEELTA, Vladivostok, Russia, June 20, 2004
Phil Chappell
University of Wollongong, Australia
AUA Language Centre, Thailand
Orientation
This paper provides an outline of a cycle for the teaching and learning of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) oral skills, taking whole texts, or complete stretches of discourse, as the point of departure. After a discussion of the constructs of the nature of language and learning, a teaching/learning cycle is outlined. Following this, a practical application of the cycle is detailed, with data taken from a lower-intermediate adult EFL classroom lesson in a language centre for adults in Bangkok, Thailand. Preliminary observations from this data reveal several positive outcomes from using the teaching/learning cycle, as well as several areas that would benefit from a more in-depth level of inquiry.
Oracy in a Thai EFL Context
Currently, the notion of English as a Foreign Language in Asian contexts is a topic of debate, as language educators seek to redefine the role of English in countries where communication in the language is often between two interlocutors from countries where the first language is not English.[1] The construct (EFL) as used in this paper is intended to foreground the following:
Most learners are in a high enclosure context (Brown, 2001) where they do not have ready access to communicative
situations in English outside of the classroom.
Most often, when learners do use English in social, commercial and academic situations, it is with a speaker of another
Asian language.
Many learners who elect to learn English outside of the mainstream education system, i.e. in private language institutions,
do so for reasons related to future opportunities, such as for employment or travel.
The task, then, for language teachers in EFL contexts is to create socially meaningful situations within the classroom whereby learners can gain control of using English for a vast range of communicative purposes. Unlike other contexts, such as ESL ones, where the lingua franca is English, learners in EFL contexts do not have real-life exposure to the ways that English is used to “get things done” (Halliday 1994). If we consider the difference between a Thai adult in Thailand learning an everyday social practice such as returning faulty goods to a point of purchase, and another Thai adult learning the same practice in Australia, it is immediately clear that the adult in Australia can not only try out the practice in “real life”, but can also observe how it is done by experts in “real life”. The same learner in Thailand does not have these ready-made opportunities, and is left at the mercy of the language teacher to create the situations within the classroom arena.
It is against this backdrop that a text-based syllabus (Feez, 1998) informed by a social theory of language (Bakhtin, 1952/1986; Halliday, 1978) and learning (Wood, et. al., 1974; Vygotsky, 1978), and utilising a teaching/learning cycle (Feez, 1998; Macken et. al. 1993) that is explicit in its coverage of the relationship between contexts of language use and forms and functions of language within those contexts has been applied to an EFL classroom.
A Social Model of Language
As outline above, curriculum objectives in Thai EFL contexts are most likely to focus on the communicative potential of language learning, rather than foregrounding the formal properties of the language. Therefore, a view of language as a systemic resource for acting on and in the world seems appropriate for this teaching/learning context. Russian language philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin (1952/1986) outlines this view quite succinctly:
All the diverse areas of human activity involve the use of language. Quite understandably, the nature and forms of this use are just as diverse as are the areas of human activity… Language is realized in the form of individual concrete utterances (oral and written) by participants in the various areas of human activity. These utterances reflect the specific conditions and goals of each such area not only through their content (thematic) and linguistic style, that is, the selection of the lexical, phraseological, and grammatical resources of the language, but above all through their compositional structure. All three of these aspects – thematic content, style, and compositional structure – are inseparably linked to the whole of the utterance and are equally determined by the specific nature of the particular sphere of communication. Each separate utterance is individual, of course, but each sphere in which language is used develops its own relatively stable types of these utterances. These we may call speech genres. (Bakhtin, 1986, p.60)
Within his discussion of the nature of language, Bakhtin acknowledges the social nature of language in human activity, the social purpose of the activity and the language choices made by the interlocutors, the explicit recognition of a lexical and grammatical system linked to meaning making, and the argument that within a culture, there exists relatively stable types of texts (genres). This view resonates with the “sociosemiotic” theory of language developed by Halliday (1978), and which informs much of the application of genre pedagogy in Australia today[2], of which the main components are:
—Language is a resource for making meaning.
—Users of the language construct texts to make meaning.
—The meaning potential of a language system is represented in its context of culture; “…the entire semantic system of the language” (Halliday, 1978, p. 109), and its context of situation, “…the environment in which the text comes to life” (1978, p. 109).
—The context of situation, often referred to as the social context, is created by the social activity in which the text is constructed, the role relationships among the interlocutors, and the function of language within the activity as well as the medium chosen (1978, p. 110).
—As Bakhtin (1952/1986) also notes above, texts are viewed from their overall “compositional structure” (1952/1986; p. 60) as well as at the lexical and grammatical level. In the Hallidayan model, texts are viewed at the level of the rhetorical structure of the text, the lexicogrammatical choices made, and the lower level of graphemes and morphemes.
A Social Theory of Learning
Given the nature of the language learning objectives in Thai adult EFL contexts, namely for learners to gain control over the co-construction of a variety of text types within a variety of social contexts, a social interactionist view of learning is posited. In fact, much genre pedagogy is firmly grounded in theories inspired by L.S Vygotsky (1978) and Jerome Bruner (e.g. Wood, Bruner and Ross, 1976), both of whom foreground the social, contingent supporting role of expert others in the course of appropriating social processes. It is important to locate this view of learning within the broader context of educational theory, especially as related to recent curriculum-centred (Skinner, 1968) and student-centred (Piaget, 2000) theories of learning.
Approaches to learning that are grounded in the work of Vygotsky and Bruner are often labelled sociocultural approaches (Lantolf, 2000; Moll, 1990; Rogoff and Lave, 1984). A sociocultural approach to learning views learning as the transformation of participation (or the appropriation of new forms of social and cultural ways to act in the world) in concrete social activities (Engestrom, 1999), and can be contrasted with curriculum-centred approaches, which view learning as the successful transmission of knowledge from an expert other (c.f. Skinner, 1968). Further, student-centred approaches, which conceive of learning as the successful acquisition of knowledge from an expert other (c.f. Piaget, 2000) differ fundamentally from a sociocultural approach.
The pedagogical implications of this approach lie in the view that, rather than knowledge being transmitted or acquired, knowledge is socially and culturally constructed (Vygotsky, 1978), hence the metaphor of transformation, which suggests that at the individual level, learners internalise “…culturally given higher psychological functions” (Engestrom, 1999). Thus, what and how the English language learner learns is dependent upon what opportunities for the appropriation of new ways of acting in the world using English language meaning-making resources the teacher provides. Put simply, the sociocultural view of language learning foregrounds the interactions the language learner has with expert others (both teacher and fellow learners; Donato, 1994; Tharp and Gallimore, 1988) during meaningful, concrete human activity. It is neither a curriculum-centred approach nor a student-centred approach; rather, it is a teaching/learning centred approach.
A Teaching/Learning Curriculum Framework
A teaching/learning curriculum cycle developed by Martin and colleagues (Macken et. al., 1989, cited in Cope and Kalantzis, 1993) through the Disadvantaged Schools Program in Sydney, Australia forms the framework for the teaching/learning cycle used in this project. This cycle "…attempts to engage students in an awareness of the social purposes, text structure and language features in a range of identified text types or genres" (Callaghan, Knapp and Noble, 1993:180).
The cycle begins with field-building activities; that is, activities aimed at immersing the learners in the context of culture (Halliday, 1978) and the social purpose of the spoken texts, their temporal and spatial contexts, the roles and relationships of the interactants, and the role of language within the activity, as well as the medium chosen. This is essentially Halliday’s (1978) context of situation described above. The cycle then moves on to text modeling and a deconstruction of the text. This involves analyses of the rhetorical staging of the spoken text, the lexical and grammatical resources used, and prosodic features of the text. Next, joint production (or co-construction) of similar spoken texts is carried out by the teacher and learners, leading to independent co-construction of texts by the learners themselves. The cycle is recursive; the teacher can enter each stage where necessary, and return to the various stages based on the students' needs (see below). The attraction of the cycle is best summed up by Callaghan, Knapp and Noble (1993), "[the curriculum cycle] requires that teachers be clear about the reasons they are in any one stage at any particular time…the more clearly defined each language activity, the more specific each of the learning outcomes for the activity can be" (1993:181).
Teaching/Learning Cycle for Oral Skills Development
Below is an outline of the teaching/learning cycle that has been adapted for the teaching and learning of oral skills in the context outlined earlier in this paper. For sake of convenience, it is presented in a linear format, however it is important to reiterate that the cycle is recursive; it is possible to enter each stage of the cycle at any time during a lesson or unit of work. For example, the students may already be familiar with the social context, thus the first stage could be skipped. Further, some students may face difficulties in the independent construction stage, thus the joint construction stage may be re-entered (Feez, 1998) as a whole class or small group activity. This contingency management (Tharp and Gallimore, 1988) is a central role of the teacher, and is employed through a comparison of explicit goals and objectives of learning activities with actual student performance. If the goals and objectives are available to the learners, and, in fact if they are co-constructed with the learners (Nunan, 1988), it is possible that not only the teacher, but also fellow learners can assist performance throughout the cycle (Donato, 1994; Tharp and Gallimore, 1988).
The Teaching/Learning Cycle
Building the Context
Purpose
• What is the social purpose of the conversation?
• What is the goal of each speaker in this kind of conversation?
Field
• What objects, ideas, opinions, etc. are often talked about in this context?
• Where does this kind of conversation occur?
Speakers
• What role does each speaker have in the conversation?
• What kind of social relationship do they have?
• What kinds of attitudes, opinions and activities characterise each speaker?
Mode
• Is this face-to-face communication? Telephone? E-conferencing? Etc.
• What is each speaker doing while he or she is talking?
Modelling and deconstructing the conversation
Staging
• What are the major stages of the conversation?
• What stages are necessary and what kinds of optional stages could there be?
• How does this kind of conversation differ from others?
Grammar and vocabulary
Flow
• How do pronouns and conjunctions make the conversation more cohesive?
• What conversational gambits help the conversation flow?
Functions
• What key grammatical functions in the conversation should be focused on?
• What is grammatical form of each of these functions?
Vocabulary
• What key elements of the noun group, verb group and prepositional group should be focused on?
Pronunciation
• What key sounds, stress patterns, intonation patterns should be focused on?
Joint production of a conversation
• Modelling a conversation between teacher and students and between students.
• Teacher assists performance.
Independent conversation
• Students create their own conversations.
• Teacher and peers assist performance.
Assessment
• Individual conversational partners enact conversation for class, or for other groups.
• Teacher and peers assist performance.
• Enter any of the previous stages as needed.
Practical Application of the Teaching/Learning Cycle for Oral Skills
The teaching/learning cycle was trialled by the writer and a group of 13 adult and young adult EFL learners during a lower-intermediate course at the AUA Language Centre, Bangkok, Thailand. A vignette of one lesson is included in Appendix A. A series of possible activities, and a record of actual activities of the sample lesson are provided below.
Using Role Plays
Upon reading the vignette of the lesson (Appendix A), it will be immediately apparent that role play has been utilised at various stages of the lesson. This is a conscious decision of the teacher, and reflects the need to promote communicative oral practice in the classroom. Role play also serves a vital role in assessing student performance at various stages of the teaching/learning cycle; it not only helps the teacher to assess performance, it also functions as an awareness-raising tool for the learners. For example, the third role play (discussed further, below) was undertaken at the context building stage of the cycle. The social purpose, field, role relationships and mode of discourse had been covered through the unfolding drama of the shopping expedition, however an examination and deconstruction of sample texts, including rhetorical staging, key lexis and grammar and salient pronunciation concerns was yet to come. By having the learners perform at their current level of ability at this stage allows both the teacher and the learners to gauge the actual developmental level through independent problem solving, and thus establish, in various forms, goals and objectives to raise performance to higher levels. Thus, in this instance role play is providing a measure (for the teacher and the learners) of a learner’s zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978), which is defined as:
…the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. (Vygotsky, 1978, p.86)
It is this synthesis of the construct of scaffolding (Wood, Bruner and Ross, 1976) in the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) that forms the foundations for the sociocultural theory of learning discussed earlier. In the context of the sample lesson described in this paper, role play provides data which helps the teacher develop an understanding of the learners’ acts so that, at the various stages of the teaching/learning cycle s/he can:
…recruit [the learner’s] attention, reduce degrees of freedom in the task to manageable limits, maintain “direction” in the problem solving, mark critical features, control frustration, and demonstrate solutions when the learner can recognise them. (Wood, Bruner and Ross, 1976, p.99)
The Lesson within the framework of the Teaching/Learning Cycle
Bellow is the lesson applied to the framework of the teaching/learning cycle. The left hand column indicates in general terms activities that the teacher and students can engage in at each stage of the cycle. The right hand column indicates the actual activities that were carried out during the lesson described above.
Assisting Learning
Building the Context
Pictures, video, students' own recall of past experiences
Vocabulary building tasks, role plays (students role play achieving purposes and goals), focused listening of sample dialogues
Establish the relationship between the speakers (equal/unequal --formal/informal, etc)
Focused listening to a sample dialogue, analysing students' role plays
Is this speaking while doing something else, or is the main activity speaking?
Modelling and deconstruction of text
Jumbled dialogues, students reorder the stages, students name the stages
Delete stages and analyse whether the purpose and goals were achieved
Compare/contrast different dialogues
Gap-fills in dialogues, pronoun trace tasks, creating multiple clause sentences
Identifying words or phrases that "keep the conversation going"
Students analyse/identify "how someone said something" to achieve his/her goal
Grammatical tasks focusing on form
Relate vocabulary tasks in 'building the field' section above
Pronunciation recognition tasks, pronunciation drills, minimal pairs, etc
Joint construction of text
Open class Role plays, problem solving dialogues, casual conversations, etc between teacher and students and students together
Independent construction of text
Students work in pairs/threes to create dialogue
Assessment
Self assessment, peer assessment, teacher assessment using observation, video recording, audio recording Example
A service encounter: returning faulty goods to the store
Students discuss prior experience of purchasing and returning faulty goods
Students brainstorm items they like to buy (nouns) and problems that can occur with the item(participles e.g It's scratched).
Students role play returning a faulty item.
Students listen to a sample dialogue.
Check that students understand the level of formality and the service-customer relationship (check during role play above and through focused listening)
Video would be useful, but in this case, groups brainstormed all activities that accompany this dialogue (e.g. checking faulty good, handing over receipt, going to store room, etc)
Students were given strips, each containing one stage. In groups, they ordered the stages, then listened to the dialogue again and revised
This stage was omitted
The level of formality and staging of a previous dialogue were compared with this dialogue
The transcript of the dialogue was analysed for pronoun references (personal and impersonal) and ways to express more than one problem with a good. Also, ways that the salesclerk could offer reasons for the faults. Gambits not covered
Students re-ordered jumbled sentences that stated problems with goods (e.g. The handbag is scratched and there's a tear inside). Further vocabulary development was done through the students drawing the item and labelling problems
'ed' endings (e.g scratched, damaged) were highlighted - extra syllable noted and practiced in a pronunciation game with minimal pairs
Teacher and a student role play --class observes. Repeated with two students.
'Closed pair practice'
Students formed groups of 3 -- one student observed and gave feedback on the role play -- repeated changing roles
Teacher observed and assessed selected groups, giving feedback on role play and the process of peer feedback
Comments on the Performance of Two Learners during Dyadic Text Production[3]
May and Urn worked through most of the lesson as a dyad. In fact, throughout the course they enjoyed working together; they demonstrated many excellent examples of how students can assist each other in language learning activities. They each took on the role of expert other at different times, although May was more proficient in English overall.
Rhetorical structure, lexical and grammatical resources employed
In the lesson under discussion here, May and Urn took to role play activity 3 (returning faulty goods to the store) with enthusiasm, and demonstrated a firm understanding of the social purpose. The staging of their text indicates that they were not only familiar with the situation, but also with the social process of the service encounter[4]. The rhetorical structure of the text is:
Request for service>Statement of problem>Service available? Yes or no> Transaction of service> Exchange of goods> Thanks/Closure
In terms of the lexical and grammatical resources used, it is clear that both May and Urn used language appropriate to the register (a formal business encounter), as we can see by polite openings and closings, and the accommodating nature of Urn as service provider:
May: Can I change it?
Urn: Yes….you wait for me for for a minute/?
May: Yes/
Urn: /because* er I would like to check (o)first the stock room.
May: Okay. (enacted pause) YES, that's RIGHT. Can you wrap for me?
Urn: Yes.
It is interesting to note that the role play carried out in the independent construction stage is both longer (in terms of the amount of turns of each student), but also more complex in its staging. After significant scaffolding vis-à-vis the activities in the modeling and deconstruction stage, and the joint production stage, May and Urn clearly approached the creative, independent construction stage with much more knowledge of the field, particularly the optional stages that may be utilised. Hence, we find more authentic activities, such as the negotiating the complication of the exchanged item being bigger and thus more expensive, and the offering of a special service to offset the inconvenience of receiving a faulty good. The groundwork in the earlier stages of the teaching/learning cycle certainly appears to have provided the students with sufficient knowledge of the genre, a broader range of lexis and grammar, and the motivation to take to the independent construction stage without undue uncertainty, a problem with many “free practice” speaking activities in Thai adult language classes.
Part of the learning objectives (as dictated by the course syllabus) was to gain an awareness of the form and function of specific language features (describing the problem with a damaged consumer good). It is clear that neither May nor Urn utilized these resources in their initial role play (and the other six dyads, as far as the teacher could ascertain did not either). Therefore, this role play did suggest this as one area of focus in the forthcoming stages of the cycle. As can be seen from the independent construction stage later in the cycle, both learners employed more lexical and grammatical resources to describe faulty goods:
(Note May’s use of clauses using participles as adjectives)
May: Uh…Yes…uh yesterday I buy a… a BLACK bag..handBAG. A black handBAG. Yes. But...I went home I get uh some problem. This handbag inside there is uh… inside…inside the handbag is torn.
Urn: Is torn?=
May: =Yes a::nd the outside of the handbag is scratched.
Urn: Hm Mm?
May: And then I…I see the stripe…the strep (strap) of the handbag is loose so I would like t:o give this for this problem.
(Note Urn’s attempts to use the participles as adjectives by repeating the problems)
Urn: …Uh…is to::rn?
May: Yeah.
Urn: And…scrat.
May: SCRATCHED=
Peer assistance during independent co-construction of text
In the role play enacted in the context building stage, there is little to suggest that May and Urn provide assistance to each other in their endeavours to use English to get the job of exchanging a faulty good done successfully. However, in the follow up role play, two interesting phenomena emerge.
First, note how May assists Urn with her pronunciation of ‘ed’ endings, a feature worked on the deconstruction stage.
Urn: And…scrat.
May: SCRATCHED=
Urn: =scratch
Although Urn’s final production of the word ending is not successful, it is clear that May took on the role of expert other at this point. It might be inferred from this episode that the assistance offered was not within Urn’s immediate zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1986).
Second, note below how Urn has set herself the goal of attempting to successfully use the comparative structure, which was not a focus at any of the stages of the cycle, but had been in a previous unit of work. This indicates the agentive nature of the language learner (Lantolf, 2000) and is a good reminder of Vygotsky’s (1978) premise that learning always has a history and precedes development. It is also a reminder of the understanding within a sociocultural approach to language learning that learning is not a linear process, but a process where development moves forward at times, and backwards at others (Aljaafreh and Lantolf, 1994). Urn, an active agent in her own language learning, took a socially situated opportunity to develop her ability to use a grammatical structure more successfully.
Urn: Okay. I check the new one, but…uh…BIGGER THAN…than you…than uh bigger than than the one before yours…bigger than the one=
May: =okay never mind. I.. I.. I like this handbag. Can I exchange that?
Urn: Yes, but same style, but BIGGER than that one.
May: Okay. Never mind. I don’t MIND.
Summary and Conclusions
The preceding section offers a brief but necessary view of some sample data from two of the stages from the teaching/learning cycle. This exploratory study was made in order to identify possible areas of future inquiry. The main area that this writer will explore is the nature of peer scaffolding during classroom language learning activity. Oral activities in the classroom are often done with simultaneous small groups of learners; therefore the possibility of the teacher being on-hand to provide assistance as needed is almost non-existent. The potential for learners to provide peer support in activities of this type offers some exciting future developments for language teaching pedagogy.
The teaching/learning cycle for oral skills developed here does not have universal application, but it is a highly useful heuristic for educators working with learners in high enclosure contexts. However, the application of the cycle requires practitioners to have a firm understanding of a sociocultural approach to learning and the social nature of language. Indeed, perhaps the only context in which the cycle can be successfully used is in a context where the practitioner has undergone a paradigm shift vis-à-vis the epistemological and ontological assumptions informing her or his approach to language and learning.
REFERENCES
Adolphs, S (2002) Genre and spoken discourse: probabilities and predictions, Nottingham Linguistic Circular 17
Aljaafreh, A. & Lantolf, P. (1994), ‘Negative feedback as regulation and second language learning in the proximal zone’, Modern Language Journal, 78, 1v, 465-483
Bakhtin, M.M. (1952/1986). Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Texas: University of Texas Press.
Brown, H.D., (2001) Teaching by Principles: An integrative approach to language pedagogy, New York: Longman
Callaghan, M., Knapp, P., and Noble, G. (1993). Genre in Practice in Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (1993) Ed’s
Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (1993). The Powers of Literacy: A Genre Approach to Teaching Writing. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press.
Donato, R (1994) Collective Scaffolding in Second Language Learning, in Lantolf and Appel (Ed's).
Engeström, Y., (1999), Activity theory and transformation in Engeström, Y., Miettinen, R., Punamäki, R-L (Ed's)
Engeström, Y., Miettinen, R., Punamäki, R-L (Ed's). (1999) Perspectives on Activity Theory, New York: Cambridge University Press
Feez, S., (1998) Text-based Syllabus Design, Sydney: NCELTR
Halliday, M.A.K. (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold
Halliday, M.A.K., (1978) Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. London: Edward Arnold
Lantolf and Appel (Ed's) (1994) Vygotskian Approaches to Second Language Research, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing
Lantolf, J (Ed) 2000 Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning New York: Oxford University Press
Moll, L.C. (Ed.), Vygotsky and education: Instructional implications of sociohistorical psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press
Nunan, D. (1988c). The Learner-centred Curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Piaget, J., Weaver, H., Kagan, J., (2000) The psychology of the child, Basic Books
Rogoff, L., and Lave, J., (1984) Everyday cognition: Development in social context New York: Harvard University Press
Skinner, B.F., (1968) The technology of teaching, B.F. Skinner Foundation
Tharp, R.G. and Gallimore, R., (1988) Rousing minds to life: Teaching, learning and schooling in social context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society – The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wood, D.J., J.S. Bruner, and G. Ross, The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 1976. 17(2): p. 89-100.
APPENDIX A: CLASSROOM VIGNETTE
The Strep is Loose and the Inside is Torn: A Day out Shopping in an Oral Skills Lesson
In this lesson, the main learning aims were to:
q Become familiar with the staging of casual conversation related to a shopping encounter.
q Focus on interactants' motives and conversational goals.
q Gain an awareness of register, particularly tenor (interpersonal features), in casual conversation.
q Gain an awareness of the form and function of specific language features (describing the problem with a damaged consumer good).
q Utilise role play to improve conversational ability.
Warm up 1
Class started with an introduction to the staging of a casual conversation: a chance encounter with a friend while out shopping. The scene was set - while you are wandering through the World Trade Centre (a popular shopping mall in downtown Bangkok) on a shopping expedition, you happen upon a friend. I elicited the various stages that could characterise such a conversation by taking on the shopper's role, and asking a student to take on the other role. While we 'role played' for the class, I noted the stages and some language samples on the black board. The other twelve students were listening quite intently, and the model was interspersed with laughter and light humorous moments from we two actors as well as the audience. The final stages appeared on the board something like this:
Casual Conversation
Greeting
Small talk
Talk about…
Closing - Well, I have to go now. Nice to see you again. Nice talking to you.
Say Goodbye
After this model (and applause form the rest of the students), I asked a student to choose a partner and model the encounter for the class. As they progressed through their conversation, I assisted the flow a couple of times by pointing out the stage of the conversation that they could progress to. I did this once when a speaker abruptly ended the conversation, and a second time when there was a prolonged pause that if left unchecked may have caused discomfort with one of the speakers. After this model (and another round of applause), I directed the students to stand up and mingle around the room. Before they began, I reminded them of the context of situation - you are wandering through the World Trade Centre, on your way to begin some shopping, when you bump into a friend. You stop for a brief (5-minute chat). The class took to the task with smiles, energy and enthusiasm. I wandered around listening to various conversations, and noted that many of the pairs were spending most of the time talking about their shopping plans - where exactly they were going in the centre and what they were planning to buy. I also noted that they were referring to the stages written on the board, which seemed to help them keep going to a 'natural' close.
This prompted me to make an on-the-spot change to my lesson plan. Initially, I was going to have the students sit in groups of three and brainstorm things that they've bought recently and that they have had a problem with, naming the problems. I was going give them my own recent example as a frame:
a printer
- the paper doesn't feed
- the colours aren't clear
- the plug is loose
However, as the students seemed to be enjoying this mini role playing, and to help create a very clear context (in terms of field, tenor and mode) for the main part of the lesson, I made a quick call to extend this warm up.
Warm up 2 - leading in to the main context of the lesson
At a point during the role playing when it seemed most of the students had closed their conversations, I called everyone to attention and set a slightly different context. You have now finished shopping, and you're on your way out of the World Trade Centre. Just before you leave the centre, you see another friend. You stop for a brief chat and talk about things that you have just bought. The students commenced this second act of the morning with the same vigor and light-hearted fun that I always try to generate in free-speaking activities. I let this go on for a few minutes, and then asked all the students to sit down.
Context building: Using Role Play again
After the students had settled down, I elicited from a few of them what they had just bought on their shopping trip. A list went up on the board:
- a shirt
- a pair of shoes
- cosmetics
- a necklace
- a CD
- a T-shirt
- a watch
I then dramatised the next act of the morning. You have gone out shopping, chatted with a friend, bought what you needed, chatted with another friend, travelled all the way home, and now you are unpacking your bags. You open the bag, smiling and happy with your new purchase, and when you look at it (big frown on my face), you notice that there's something wrong with it. Look at my shirt, it has a (elicit from the class) tear in it (I frown…students laugh). What can I do? Students call out "refund", "go back to the shop".
"Okay", I said. "I'm the customer with my damaged shopping. Who wants to be the salesclerk?"
Ying[5] agreed, and we acted out for the rest of the class the conversation that takes place between the customer with a problem, and the salesclerk who is responsible for solving the problem. After this, I asked pairs (seated) to role play a similar situation.
At this point, I recorded May and Urn's conversation (see transcript 1, Appendix B).
Modelling a text
The next stage of the lesson involved listening to an encounter between a salesclerk and a customer - the customer bought a jacket and found several problems with it; therefore she has returned to the store. The listening task focused the students on the product, the problems, what the salesclerk offers to do, and how the customer responds. I played the tape and the students listened and discussed in small groups what they had heard.
Following this, I played the tape again, and asked the students to work in pairs and write down how the customer described the problems with her jacket. The following language features were reconstructed by the pairs and finally written on the black board by me:
It has a tear in the lining
It's torn in several places.
Some of the buttons are very loose.
There's a stain on the collar.
Through careful eliciting and focusing, I made the students aware of the grammatical form of these now decontextualised statements (use of have + a noun; use of is + past participle adjective). I then elicited three more examples from the students' recent role play (attempt to recontextualise) and wrote these on the black board. I led some pronunciation practice of the stress patterns and problem sounds of these statements, then I had the students work on some sentence-level exercises from their textbook to reinforce the grammatical forms of these language features. Finally, the students wrote the problems that they had had with the products they recently bought at the World Trade Centre.
To focus the students on the rhetorical staging of this kind of conversation, I next assigned them to groups of three and gave each group a collection of paper strips. Each strip had a functional label for each of the stages of the conversation that they had listened to. Their task was to put the strips in the correct order, as shown below.
Greeting and offering service
State what you want
Ask for details of the problem
Give details of the problem
Offer to solve the problem
Accept or refuse the offer
Offer to solve the problem again
Each group came up with slightly different orderings of the strips, so I played the tape and had them re-think their results. I then asked each group in sequence to tell me the functional stage of the conversation, which I wrote on the board (as above). A discussion emerged about what alternative ways there are to redress a problem with a recently purchased item, and I gave time to allow the students (as a whole class) to discuss these.
Joint production of the text
We were now ready to move on to a scaffolded, joint construction of the conversation, this time allowing the students the opportunity to use language features recently focused upon, as well as to follow a more 'scripted' act (however, as can be seen from the transcripts of May and Urn (see transcript 2, Appendix B), this did not result in any kind of formulaic or prescriptive framework, but rather, it gave the students access to a bigger tool kit form which to choose than before.
I asked for a volunteer and, like above jointly produced a conversation with the rest of the class looking on. I did this with another volunteer, and then had the same pairs as previously perform their role plays.
At this point, I recorded May and Urn's conversation (see transcript 2, Appendix B).
APPENDIX B: TRANSCRIPTS 1 AND 2
TRANSCRIPT 1
(Students negotiate roles)
Urn: May I help you?
May: Yes. Yesterday I..yesterday I bought a new shirt, but I get home..this shirt is too SMALL.
Urn: Small?=
May: =Yes.
Urn: We:ll…what can I do?
May: You can help me?
Urn: Yes…you have receipt?
May: Yes. Let me see. Here's a receipt.
Urn: Okay……How 'bout the shirt?
May: Yes. I would like to aah…same…aah…same colour? Uh the size I would like aah…size L large size=
Urn: =uh huh.
May: And…uh… uh this style.
Urn: Oka::y?
May: Can I change it?
Urn: Yes….you wait for me for for a minute/?
May: Yes/
Urn: /because* er I would like to check (o)first the stock room.
May: Yes wait a minute. Yes minute.
(Enacted pause 3 seconds as salesclerk goes to collect new shirt)
Urn: Oka::y? You can exchange.
May: Yes.
Urn: Uh. Little? You can check it again.
May: Okay. (enacted pause) YES, that's RIGHT. Can you wrap for me?
Urn: Yes.
May: Okay. Thank you very much.
Urn: You're welcome.
May: Okay. Bye by::e.
Urn: Bye by::e.
TRANSCRIPT 2
Urn: May I help you?
May: Uh…Yes…uh yesterday I buy a… a BLACK bag..handBAG. A black handBAG. Yes. But...I went home I get uh some problem. This handbag inside there is uh… inside…inside the handbag is torn.
Urn: Is torn?=
May: =Yes a::nd the outside of the handbag is scratched.
Urn: Hm Mm?
May: And then I…I see the stripe…the strep (strap) of the handbag is loose so I would like t:o give this for this problem.
Urn: May I take a look?
TAG: Your tag here,
Phil Chappell
University of Wollongong, Australia
AUA Language Centre, Thailand
Orientation
This paper provides an outline of a cycle for the teaching and learning of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) oral skills, taking whole texts, or complete stretches of discourse, as the point of departure. After a discussion of the constructs of the nature of language and learning, a teaching/learning cycle is outlined. Following this, a practical application of the cycle is detailed, with data taken from a lower-intermediate adult EFL classroom lesson in a language centre for adults in Bangkok, Thailand. Preliminary observations from this data reveal several positive outcomes from using the teaching/learning cycle, as well as several areas that would benefit from a more in-depth level of inquiry.
Oracy in a Thai EFL Context
Currently, the notion of English as a Foreign Language in Asian contexts is a topic of debate, as language educators seek to redefine the role of English in countries where communication in the language is often between two interlocutors from countries where the first language is not English.[1] The construct (EFL) as used in this paper is intended to foreground the following:
Most learners are in a high enclosure context (Brown, 2001) where they do not have ready access to communicative
situations in English outside of the classroom.
Most often, when learners do use English in social, commercial and academic situations, it is with a speaker of another
Asian language.
Many learners who elect to learn English outside of the mainstream education system, i.e. in private language institutions,
do so for reasons related to future opportunities, such as for employment or travel.
The task, then, for language teachers in EFL contexts is to create socially meaningful situations within the classroom whereby learners can gain control of using English for a vast range of communicative purposes. Unlike other contexts, such as ESL ones, where the lingua franca is English, learners in EFL contexts do not have real-life exposure to the ways that English is used to “get things done” (Halliday 1994). If we consider the difference between a Thai adult in Thailand learning an everyday social practice such as returning faulty goods to a point of purchase, and another Thai adult learning the same practice in Australia, it is immediately clear that the adult in Australia can not only try out the practice in “real life”, but can also observe how it is done by experts in “real life”. The same learner in Thailand does not have these ready-made opportunities, and is left at the mercy of the language teacher to create the situations within the classroom arena.
It is against this backdrop that a text-based syllabus (Feez, 1998) informed by a social theory of language (Bakhtin, 1952/1986; Halliday, 1978) and learning (Wood, et. al., 1974; Vygotsky, 1978), and utilising a teaching/learning cycle (Feez, 1998; Macken et. al. 1993) that is explicit in its coverage of the relationship between contexts of language use and forms and functions of language within those contexts has been applied to an EFL classroom.
A Social Model of Language
As outline above, curriculum objectives in Thai EFL contexts are most likely to focus on the communicative potential of language learning, rather than foregrounding the formal properties of the language. Therefore, a view of language as a systemic resource for acting on and in the world seems appropriate for this teaching/learning context. Russian language philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin (1952/1986) outlines this view quite succinctly:
All the diverse areas of human activity involve the use of language. Quite understandably, the nature and forms of this use are just as diverse as are the areas of human activity… Language is realized in the form of individual concrete utterances (oral and written) by participants in the various areas of human activity. These utterances reflect the specific conditions and goals of each such area not only through their content (thematic) and linguistic style, that is, the selection of the lexical, phraseological, and grammatical resources of the language, but above all through their compositional structure. All three of these aspects – thematic content, style, and compositional structure – are inseparably linked to the whole of the utterance and are equally determined by the specific nature of the particular sphere of communication. Each separate utterance is individual, of course, but each sphere in which language is used develops its own relatively stable types of these utterances. These we may call speech genres. (Bakhtin, 1986, p.60)
Within his discussion of the nature of language, Bakhtin acknowledges the social nature of language in human activity, the social purpose of the activity and the language choices made by the interlocutors, the explicit recognition of a lexical and grammatical system linked to meaning making, and the argument that within a culture, there exists relatively stable types of texts (genres). This view resonates with the “sociosemiotic” theory of language developed by Halliday (1978), and which informs much of the application of genre pedagogy in Australia today[2], of which the main components are:
—Language is a resource for making meaning.
—Users of the language construct texts to make meaning.
—The meaning potential of a language system is represented in its context of culture; “…the entire semantic system of the language” (Halliday, 1978, p. 109), and its context of situation, “…the environment in which the text comes to life” (1978, p. 109).
—The context of situation, often referred to as the social context, is created by the social activity in which the text is constructed, the role relationships among the interlocutors, and the function of language within the activity as well as the medium chosen (1978, p. 110).
—As Bakhtin (1952/1986) also notes above, texts are viewed from their overall “compositional structure” (1952/1986; p. 60) as well as at the lexical and grammatical level. In the Hallidayan model, texts are viewed at the level of the rhetorical structure of the text, the lexicogrammatical choices made, and the lower level of graphemes and morphemes.
A Social Theory of Learning
Given the nature of the language learning objectives in Thai adult EFL contexts, namely for learners to gain control over the co-construction of a variety of text types within a variety of social contexts, a social interactionist view of learning is posited. In fact, much genre pedagogy is firmly grounded in theories inspired by L.S Vygotsky (1978) and Jerome Bruner (e.g. Wood, Bruner and Ross, 1976), both of whom foreground the social, contingent supporting role of expert others in the course of appropriating social processes. It is important to locate this view of learning within the broader context of educational theory, especially as related to recent curriculum-centred (Skinner, 1968) and student-centred (Piaget, 2000) theories of learning.
Approaches to learning that are grounded in the work of Vygotsky and Bruner are often labelled sociocultural approaches (Lantolf, 2000; Moll, 1990; Rogoff and Lave, 1984). A sociocultural approach to learning views learning as the transformation of participation (or the appropriation of new forms of social and cultural ways to act in the world) in concrete social activities (Engestrom, 1999), and can be contrasted with curriculum-centred approaches, which view learning as the successful transmission of knowledge from an expert other (c.f. Skinner, 1968). Further, student-centred approaches, which conceive of learning as the successful acquisition of knowledge from an expert other (c.f. Piaget, 2000) differ fundamentally from a sociocultural approach.
The pedagogical implications of this approach lie in the view that, rather than knowledge being transmitted or acquired, knowledge is socially and culturally constructed (Vygotsky, 1978), hence the metaphor of transformation, which suggests that at the individual level, learners internalise “…culturally given higher psychological functions” (Engestrom, 1999). Thus, what and how the English language learner learns is dependent upon what opportunities for the appropriation of new ways of acting in the world using English language meaning-making resources the teacher provides. Put simply, the sociocultural view of language learning foregrounds the interactions the language learner has with expert others (both teacher and fellow learners; Donato, 1994; Tharp and Gallimore, 1988) during meaningful, concrete human activity. It is neither a curriculum-centred approach nor a student-centred approach; rather, it is a teaching/learning centred approach.
A Teaching/Learning Curriculum Framework
A teaching/learning curriculum cycle developed by Martin and colleagues (Macken et. al., 1989, cited in Cope and Kalantzis, 1993) through the Disadvantaged Schools Program in Sydney, Australia forms the framework for the teaching/learning cycle used in this project. This cycle "…attempts to engage students in an awareness of the social purposes, text structure and language features in a range of identified text types or genres" (Callaghan, Knapp and Noble, 1993:180).
The cycle begins with field-building activities; that is, activities aimed at immersing the learners in the context of culture (Halliday, 1978) and the social purpose of the spoken texts, their temporal and spatial contexts, the roles and relationships of the interactants, and the role of language within the activity, as well as the medium chosen. This is essentially Halliday’s (1978) context of situation described above. The cycle then moves on to text modeling and a deconstruction of the text. This involves analyses of the rhetorical staging of the spoken text, the lexical and grammatical resources used, and prosodic features of the text. Next, joint production (or co-construction) of similar spoken texts is carried out by the teacher and learners, leading to independent co-construction of texts by the learners themselves. The cycle is recursive; the teacher can enter each stage where necessary, and return to the various stages based on the students' needs (see below). The attraction of the cycle is best summed up by Callaghan, Knapp and Noble (1993), "[the curriculum cycle] requires that teachers be clear about the reasons they are in any one stage at any particular time…the more clearly defined each language activity, the more specific each of the learning outcomes for the activity can be" (1993:181).
Teaching/Learning Cycle for Oral Skills Development
Below is an outline of the teaching/learning cycle that has been adapted for the teaching and learning of oral skills in the context outlined earlier in this paper. For sake of convenience, it is presented in a linear format, however it is important to reiterate that the cycle is recursive; it is possible to enter each stage of the cycle at any time during a lesson or unit of work. For example, the students may already be familiar with the social context, thus the first stage could be skipped. Further, some students may face difficulties in the independent construction stage, thus the joint construction stage may be re-entered (Feez, 1998) as a whole class or small group activity. This contingency management (Tharp and Gallimore, 1988) is a central role of the teacher, and is employed through a comparison of explicit goals and objectives of learning activities with actual student performance. If the goals and objectives are available to the learners, and, in fact if they are co-constructed with the learners (Nunan, 1988), it is possible that not only the teacher, but also fellow learners can assist performance throughout the cycle (Donato, 1994; Tharp and Gallimore, 1988).
The Teaching/Learning Cycle
Building the Context
Purpose
• What is the social purpose of the conversation?
• What is the goal of each speaker in this kind of conversation?
Field
• What objects, ideas, opinions, etc. are often talked about in this context?
• Where does this kind of conversation occur?
Speakers
• What role does each speaker have in the conversation?
• What kind of social relationship do they have?
• What kinds of attitudes, opinions and activities characterise each speaker?
Mode
• Is this face-to-face communication? Telephone? E-conferencing? Etc.
• What is each speaker doing while he or she is talking?
Modelling and deconstructing the conversation
Staging
• What are the major stages of the conversation?
• What stages are necessary and what kinds of optional stages could there be?
• How does this kind of conversation differ from others?
Grammar and vocabulary
Flow
• How do pronouns and conjunctions make the conversation more cohesive?
• What conversational gambits help the conversation flow?
Functions
• What key grammatical functions in the conversation should be focused on?
• What is grammatical form of each of these functions?
Vocabulary
• What key elements of the noun group, verb group and prepositional group should be focused on?
Pronunciation
• What key sounds, stress patterns, intonation patterns should be focused on?
Joint production of a conversation
• Modelling a conversation between teacher and students and between students.
• Teacher assists performance.
Independent conversation
• Students create their own conversations.
• Teacher and peers assist performance.
Assessment
• Individual conversational partners enact conversation for class, or for other groups.
• Teacher and peers assist performance.
• Enter any of the previous stages as needed.
Practical Application of the Teaching/Learning Cycle for Oral Skills
The teaching/learning cycle was trialled by the writer and a group of 13 adult and young adult EFL learners during a lower-intermediate course at the AUA Language Centre, Bangkok, Thailand. A vignette of one lesson is included in Appendix A. A series of possible activities, and a record of actual activities of the sample lesson are provided below.
Using Role Plays
Upon reading the vignette of the lesson (Appendix A), it will be immediately apparent that role play has been utilised at various stages of the lesson. This is a conscious decision of the teacher, and reflects the need to promote communicative oral practice in the classroom. Role play also serves a vital role in assessing student performance at various stages of the teaching/learning cycle; it not only helps the teacher to assess performance, it also functions as an awareness-raising tool for the learners. For example, the third role play (discussed further, below) was undertaken at the context building stage of the cycle. The social purpose, field, role relationships and mode of discourse had been covered through the unfolding drama of the shopping expedition, however an examination and deconstruction of sample texts, including rhetorical staging, key lexis and grammar and salient pronunciation concerns was yet to come. By having the learners perform at their current level of ability at this stage allows both the teacher and the learners to gauge the actual developmental level through independent problem solving, and thus establish, in various forms, goals and objectives to raise performance to higher levels. Thus, in this instance role play is providing a measure (for the teacher and the learners) of a learner’s zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978), which is defined as:
…the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. (Vygotsky, 1978, p.86)
It is this synthesis of the construct of scaffolding (Wood, Bruner and Ross, 1976) in the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) that forms the foundations for the sociocultural theory of learning discussed earlier. In the context of the sample lesson described in this paper, role play provides data which helps the teacher develop an understanding of the learners’ acts so that, at the various stages of the teaching/learning cycle s/he can:
…recruit [the learner’s] attention, reduce degrees of freedom in the task to manageable limits, maintain “direction” in the problem solving, mark critical features, control frustration, and demonstrate solutions when the learner can recognise them. (Wood, Bruner and Ross, 1976, p.99)
The Lesson within the framework of the Teaching/Learning Cycle
Bellow is the lesson applied to the framework of the teaching/learning cycle. The left hand column indicates in general terms activities that the teacher and students can engage in at each stage of the cycle. The right hand column indicates the actual activities that were carried out during the lesson described above.
Assisting Learning
Building the Context
Pictures, video, students' own recall of past experiences
Vocabulary building tasks, role plays (students role play achieving purposes and goals), focused listening of sample dialogues
Establish the relationship between the speakers (equal/unequal --formal/informal, etc)
Focused listening to a sample dialogue, analysing students' role plays
Is this speaking while doing something else, or is the main activity speaking?
Modelling and deconstruction of text
Jumbled dialogues, students reorder the stages, students name the stages
Delete stages and analyse whether the purpose and goals were achieved
Compare/contrast different dialogues
Gap-fills in dialogues, pronoun trace tasks, creating multiple clause sentences
Identifying words or phrases that "keep the conversation going"
Students analyse/identify "how someone said something" to achieve his/her goal
Grammatical tasks focusing on form
Relate vocabulary tasks in 'building the field' section above
Pronunciation recognition tasks, pronunciation drills, minimal pairs, etc
Joint construction of text
Open class Role plays, problem solving dialogues, casual conversations, etc between teacher and students and students together
Independent construction of text
Students work in pairs/threes to create dialogue
Assessment
Self assessment, peer assessment, teacher assessment using observation, video recording, audio recording Example
A service encounter: returning faulty goods to the store
Students discuss prior experience of purchasing and returning faulty goods
Students brainstorm items they like to buy (nouns) and problems that can occur with the item(participles e.g It's scratched).
Students role play returning a faulty item.
Students listen to a sample dialogue.
Check that students understand the level of formality and the service-customer relationship (check during role play above and through focused listening)
Video would be useful, but in this case, groups brainstormed all activities that accompany this dialogue (e.g. checking faulty good, handing over receipt, going to store room, etc)
Students were given strips, each containing one stage. In groups, they ordered the stages, then listened to the dialogue again and revised
This stage was omitted
The level of formality and staging of a previous dialogue were compared with this dialogue
The transcript of the dialogue was analysed for pronoun references (personal and impersonal) and ways to express more than one problem with a good. Also, ways that the salesclerk could offer reasons for the faults. Gambits not covered
Students re-ordered jumbled sentences that stated problems with goods (e.g. The handbag is scratched and there's a tear inside). Further vocabulary development was done through the students drawing the item and labelling problems
'ed' endings (e.g scratched, damaged) were highlighted - extra syllable noted and practiced in a pronunciation game with minimal pairs
Teacher and a student role play --class observes. Repeated with two students.
'Closed pair practice'
Students formed groups of 3 -- one student observed and gave feedback on the role play -- repeated changing roles
Teacher observed and assessed selected groups, giving feedback on role play and the process of peer feedback
Comments on the Performance of Two Learners during Dyadic Text Production[3]
May and Urn worked through most of the lesson as a dyad. In fact, throughout the course they enjoyed working together; they demonstrated many excellent examples of how students can assist each other in language learning activities. They each took on the role of expert other at different times, although May was more proficient in English overall.
Rhetorical structure, lexical and grammatical resources employed
In the lesson under discussion here, May and Urn took to role play activity 3 (returning faulty goods to the store) with enthusiasm, and demonstrated a firm understanding of the social purpose. The staging of their text indicates that they were not only familiar with the situation, but also with the social process of the service encounter[4]. The rhetorical structure of the text is:
Request for service>Statement of problem>Service available? Yes or no> Transaction of service> Exchange of goods> Thanks/Closure
In terms of the lexical and grammatical resources used, it is clear that both May and Urn used language appropriate to the register (a formal business encounter), as we can see by polite openings and closings, and the accommodating nature of Urn as service provider:
May: Can I change it?
Urn: Yes….you wait for me for for a minute/?
May: Yes/
Urn: /because* er I would like to check (o)first the stock room.
May: Okay. (enacted pause) YES, that's RIGHT. Can you wrap for me?
Urn: Yes.
It is interesting to note that the role play carried out in the independent construction stage is both longer (in terms of the amount of turns of each student), but also more complex in its staging. After significant scaffolding vis-à-vis the activities in the modeling and deconstruction stage, and the joint production stage, May and Urn clearly approached the creative, independent construction stage with much more knowledge of the field, particularly the optional stages that may be utilised. Hence, we find more authentic activities, such as the negotiating the complication of the exchanged item being bigger and thus more expensive, and the offering of a special service to offset the inconvenience of receiving a faulty good. The groundwork in the earlier stages of the teaching/learning cycle certainly appears to have provided the students with sufficient knowledge of the genre, a broader range of lexis and grammar, and the motivation to take to the independent construction stage without undue uncertainty, a problem with many “free practice” speaking activities in Thai adult language classes.
Part of the learning objectives (as dictated by the course syllabus) was to gain an awareness of the form and function of specific language features (describing the problem with a damaged consumer good). It is clear that neither May nor Urn utilized these resources in their initial role play (and the other six dyads, as far as the teacher could ascertain did not either). Therefore, this role play did suggest this as one area of focus in the forthcoming stages of the cycle. As can be seen from the independent construction stage later in the cycle, both learners employed more lexical and grammatical resources to describe faulty goods:
(Note May’s use of clauses using participles as adjectives)
May: Uh…Yes…uh yesterday I buy a… a BLACK bag..handBAG. A black handBAG. Yes. But...I went home I get uh some problem. This handbag inside there is uh… inside…inside the handbag is torn.
Urn: Is torn?=
May: =Yes a::nd the outside of the handbag is scratched.
Urn: Hm Mm?
May: And then I…I see the stripe…the strep (strap) of the handbag is loose so I would like t:o give this for this problem.
(Note Urn’s attempts to use the participles as adjectives by repeating the problems)
Urn: …Uh…is to::rn?
May: Yeah.
Urn: And…scrat.
May: SCRATCHED=
Peer assistance during independent co-construction of text
In the role play enacted in the context building stage, there is little to suggest that May and Urn provide assistance to each other in their endeavours to use English to get the job of exchanging a faulty good done successfully. However, in the follow up role play, two interesting phenomena emerge.
First, note how May assists Urn with her pronunciation of ‘ed’ endings, a feature worked on the deconstruction stage.
Urn: And…scrat.
May: SCRATCHED=
Urn: =scratch
Although Urn’s final production of the word ending is not successful, it is clear that May took on the role of expert other at this point. It might be inferred from this episode that the assistance offered was not within Urn’s immediate zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1986).
Second, note below how Urn has set herself the goal of attempting to successfully use the comparative structure, which was not a focus at any of the stages of the cycle, but had been in a previous unit of work. This indicates the agentive nature of the language learner (Lantolf, 2000) and is a good reminder of Vygotsky’s (1978) premise that learning always has a history and precedes development. It is also a reminder of the understanding within a sociocultural approach to language learning that learning is not a linear process, but a process where development moves forward at times, and backwards at others (Aljaafreh and Lantolf, 1994). Urn, an active agent in her own language learning, took a socially situated opportunity to develop her ability to use a grammatical structure more successfully.
Urn: Okay. I check the new one, but…uh…BIGGER THAN…than you…than uh bigger than than the one before yours…bigger than the one=
May: =okay never mind. I.. I.. I like this handbag. Can I exchange that?
Urn: Yes, but same style, but BIGGER than that one.
May: Okay. Never mind. I don’t MIND.
Summary and Conclusions
The preceding section offers a brief but necessary view of some sample data from two of the stages from the teaching/learning cycle. This exploratory study was made in order to identify possible areas of future inquiry. The main area that this writer will explore is the nature of peer scaffolding during classroom language learning activity. Oral activities in the classroom are often done with simultaneous small groups of learners; therefore the possibility of the teacher being on-hand to provide assistance as needed is almost non-existent. The potential for learners to provide peer support in activities of this type offers some exciting future developments for language teaching pedagogy.
The teaching/learning cycle for oral skills developed here does not have universal application, but it is a highly useful heuristic for educators working with learners in high enclosure contexts. However, the application of the cycle requires practitioners to have a firm understanding of a sociocultural approach to learning and the social nature of language. Indeed, perhaps the only context in which the cycle can be successfully used is in a context where the practitioner has undergone a paradigm shift vis-à-vis the epistemological and ontological assumptions informing her or his approach to language and learning.
REFERENCES
Adolphs, S (2002) Genre and spoken discourse: probabilities and predictions, Nottingham Linguistic Circular 17
Aljaafreh, A. & Lantolf, P. (1994), ‘Negative feedback as regulation and second language learning in the proximal zone’, Modern Language Journal, 78, 1v, 465-483
Bakhtin, M.M. (1952/1986). Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Texas: University of Texas Press.
Brown, H.D., (2001) Teaching by Principles: An integrative approach to language pedagogy, New York: Longman
Callaghan, M., Knapp, P., and Noble, G. (1993). Genre in Practice in Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (1993) Ed’s
Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (1993). The Powers of Literacy: A Genre Approach to Teaching Writing. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press.
Donato, R (1994) Collective Scaffolding in Second Language Learning, in Lantolf and Appel (Ed's).
Engeström, Y., (1999), Activity theory and transformation in Engeström, Y., Miettinen, R., Punamäki, R-L (Ed's)
Engeström, Y., Miettinen, R., Punamäki, R-L (Ed's). (1999) Perspectives on Activity Theory, New York: Cambridge University Press
Feez, S., (1998) Text-based Syllabus Design, Sydney: NCELTR
Halliday, M.A.K. (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold
Halliday, M.A.K., (1978) Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. London: Edward Arnold
Lantolf and Appel (Ed's) (1994) Vygotskian Approaches to Second Language Research, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing
Lantolf, J (Ed) 2000 Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning New York: Oxford University Press
Moll, L.C. (Ed.), Vygotsky and education: Instructional implications of sociohistorical psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press
Nunan, D. (1988c). The Learner-centred Curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Piaget, J., Weaver, H., Kagan, J., (2000) The psychology of the child, Basic Books
Rogoff, L., and Lave, J., (1984) Everyday cognition: Development in social context New York: Harvard University Press
Skinner, B.F., (1968) The technology of teaching, B.F. Skinner Foundation
Tharp, R.G. and Gallimore, R., (1988) Rousing minds to life: Teaching, learning and schooling in social context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society – The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wood, D.J., J.S. Bruner, and G. Ross, The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 1976. 17(2): p. 89-100.
APPENDIX A: CLASSROOM VIGNETTE
The Strep is Loose and the Inside is Torn: A Day out Shopping in an Oral Skills Lesson
In this lesson, the main learning aims were to:
q Become familiar with the staging of casual conversation related to a shopping encounter.
q Focus on interactants' motives and conversational goals.
q Gain an awareness of register, particularly tenor (interpersonal features), in casual conversation.
q Gain an awareness of the form and function of specific language features (describing the problem with a damaged consumer good).
q Utilise role play to improve conversational ability.
Warm up 1
Class started with an introduction to the staging of a casual conversation: a chance encounter with a friend while out shopping. The scene was set - while you are wandering through the World Trade Centre (a popular shopping mall in downtown Bangkok) on a shopping expedition, you happen upon a friend. I elicited the various stages that could characterise such a conversation by taking on the shopper's role, and asking a student to take on the other role. While we 'role played' for the class, I noted the stages and some language samples on the black board. The other twelve students were listening quite intently, and the model was interspersed with laughter and light humorous moments from we two actors as well as the audience. The final stages appeared on the board something like this:
Casual Conversation
Greeting
Small talk
Talk about…
Closing - Well, I have to go now. Nice to see you again. Nice talking to you.
Say Goodbye
After this model (and applause form the rest of the students), I asked a student to choose a partner and model the encounter for the class. As they progressed through their conversation, I assisted the flow a couple of times by pointing out the stage of the conversation that they could progress to. I did this once when a speaker abruptly ended the conversation, and a second time when there was a prolonged pause that if left unchecked may have caused discomfort with one of the speakers. After this model (and another round of applause), I directed the students to stand up and mingle around the room. Before they began, I reminded them of the context of situation - you are wandering through the World Trade Centre, on your way to begin some shopping, when you bump into a friend. You stop for a brief (5-minute chat). The class took to the task with smiles, energy and enthusiasm. I wandered around listening to various conversations, and noted that many of the pairs were spending most of the time talking about their shopping plans - where exactly they were going in the centre and what they were planning to buy. I also noted that they were referring to the stages written on the board, which seemed to help them keep going to a 'natural' close.
This prompted me to make an on-the-spot change to my lesson plan. Initially, I was going to have the students sit in groups of three and brainstorm things that they've bought recently and that they have had a problem with, naming the problems. I was going give them my own recent example as a frame:
a printer
- the paper doesn't feed
- the colours aren't clear
- the plug is loose
However, as the students seemed to be enjoying this mini role playing, and to help create a very clear context (in terms of field, tenor and mode) for the main part of the lesson, I made a quick call to extend this warm up.
Warm up 2 - leading in to the main context of the lesson
At a point during the role playing when it seemed most of the students had closed their conversations, I called everyone to attention and set a slightly different context. You have now finished shopping, and you're on your way out of the World Trade Centre. Just before you leave the centre, you see another friend. You stop for a brief chat and talk about things that you have just bought. The students commenced this second act of the morning with the same vigor and light-hearted fun that I always try to generate in free-speaking activities. I let this go on for a few minutes, and then asked all the students to sit down.
Context building: Using Role Play again
After the students had settled down, I elicited from a few of them what they had just bought on their shopping trip. A list went up on the board:
- a shirt
- a pair of shoes
- cosmetics
- a necklace
- a CD
- a T-shirt
- a watch
I then dramatised the next act of the morning. You have gone out shopping, chatted with a friend, bought what you needed, chatted with another friend, travelled all the way home, and now you are unpacking your bags. You open the bag, smiling and happy with your new purchase, and when you look at it (big frown on my face), you notice that there's something wrong with it. Look at my shirt, it has a (elicit from the class) tear in it (I frown…students laugh). What can I do? Students call out "refund", "go back to the shop".
"Okay", I said. "I'm the customer with my damaged shopping. Who wants to be the salesclerk?"
Ying[5] agreed, and we acted out for the rest of the class the conversation that takes place between the customer with a problem, and the salesclerk who is responsible for solving the problem. After this, I asked pairs (seated) to role play a similar situation.
At this point, I recorded May and Urn's conversation (see transcript 1, Appendix B).
Modelling a text
The next stage of the lesson involved listening to an encounter between a salesclerk and a customer - the customer bought a jacket and found several problems with it; therefore she has returned to the store. The listening task focused the students on the product, the problems, what the salesclerk offers to do, and how the customer responds. I played the tape and the students listened and discussed in small groups what they had heard.
Following this, I played the tape again, and asked the students to work in pairs and write down how the customer described the problems with her jacket. The following language features were reconstructed by the pairs and finally written on the black board by me:
It has a tear in the lining
It's torn in several places.
Some of the buttons are very loose.
There's a stain on the collar.
Through careful eliciting and focusing, I made the students aware of the grammatical form of these now decontextualised statements (use of have + a noun; use of is + past participle adjective). I then elicited three more examples from the students' recent role play (attempt to recontextualise) and wrote these on the black board. I led some pronunciation practice of the stress patterns and problem sounds of these statements, then I had the students work on some sentence-level exercises from their textbook to reinforce the grammatical forms of these language features. Finally, the students wrote the problems that they had had with the products they recently bought at the World Trade Centre.
To focus the students on the rhetorical staging of this kind of conversation, I next assigned them to groups of three and gave each group a collection of paper strips. Each strip had a functional label for each of the stages of the conversation that they had listened to. Their task was to put the strips in the correct order, as shown below.
Greeting and offering service
State what you want
Ask for details of the problem
Give details of the problem
Offer to solve the problem
Accept or refuse the offer
Offer to solve the problem again
Each group came up with slightly different orderings of the strips, so I played the tape and had them re-think their results. I then asked each group in sequence to tell me the functional stage of the conversation, which I wrote on the board (as above). A discussion emerged about what alternative ways there are to redress a problem with a recently purchased item, and I gave time to allow the students (as a whole class) to discuss these.
Joint production of the text
We were now ready to move on to a scaffolded, joint construction of the conversation, this time allowing the students the opportunity to use language features recently focused upon, as well as to follow a more 'scripted' act (however, as can be seen from the transcripts of May and Urn (see transcript 2, Appendix B), this did not result in any kind of formulaic or prescriptive framework, but rather, it gave the students access to a bigger tool kit form which to choose than before.
I asked for a volunteer and, like above jointly produced a conversation with the rest of the class looking on. I did this with another volunteer, and then had the same pairs as previously perform their role plays.
At this point, I recorded May and Urn's conversation (see transcript 2, Appendix B).
APPENDIX B: TRANSCRIPTS 1 AND 2
TRANSCRIPT 1
(Students negotiate roles)
Urn: May I help you?
May: Yes. Yesterday I..yesterday I bought a new shirt, but I get home..this shirt is too SMALL.
Urn: Small?=
May: =Yes.
Urn: We:ll…what can I do?
May: You can help me?
Urn: Yes…you have receipt?
May: Yes. Let me see. Here's a receipt.
Urn: Okay……How 'bout the shirt?
May: Yes. I would like to aah…same…aah…same colour? Uh the size I would like aah…size L large size=
Urn: =uh huh.
May: And…uh… uh this style.
Urn: Oka::y?
May: Can I change it?
Urn: Yes….you wait for me for for a minute/?
May: Yes/
Urn: /because* er I would like to check (o)first the stock room.
May: Yes wait a minute. Yes minute.
(Enacted pause 3 seconds as salesclerk goes to collect new shirt)
Urn: Oka::y? You can exchange.
May: Yes.
Urn: Uh. Little? You can check it again.
May: Okay. (enacted pause) YES, that's RIGHT. Can you wrap for me?
Urn: Yes.
May: Okay. Thank you very much.
Urn: You're welcome.
May: Okay. Bye by::e.
Urn: Bye by::e.
TRANSCRIPT 2
Urn: May I help you?
May: Uh…Yes…uh yesterday I buy a… a BLACK bag..handBAG. A black handBAG. Yes. But...I went home I get uh some problem. This handbag inside there is uh… inside…inside the handbag is torn.
Urn: Is torn?=
May: =Yes a::nd the outside of the handbag is scratched.
Urn: Hm Mm?
May: And then I…I see the stripe…the strep (strap) of the handbag is loose so I would like t:o give this for this problem.
Urn: May I take a look?
TAG: Your tag here,
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)