Control y Tratamiento de la Mano de Obra en el Sistema de Costos por Órdenes de

The qualitative approach to research is one that can heavily rely on reflection and retrospective analysis. However, it is also prudent that the researcher take hard written output as data to analyse. In the Frame 1, students were told to write anything they liked on the story they had done so far in 2 minutes (though these 2 minutes were adjusted accordingly, as per teacher tradition). The students were also told not to worry about grammar, and only concern themselves about what they wanted to write. This was done for two reasons. First, after consultation with the lead teacher, it was decided that we did not want the students to be overly conscious of their grammar to the point where it would obstruct the free flow of writing. Second, as much as I was interested in the vocabulary the students had acquired in their sessions with me, I also wanted to gauge their engagement to the story on an emotional level. I was interested to find out if the students were able to express themselves on an emotive level, instead of the merely talking about events and actions (Greenwood, 2012).

An example of how I analysed the student texts can be seen as following.

Nervous Scard AFraid Shoked

I was walking through the street with Joe an I was scared of the people singing and I’m shoked of people hi walking infront of me and hitting me, I’m AFraid I’m I might be lost and Joe will leave alone and I’m very nervous of how nousi people they are and they ming hurt me. I feel very sad of how I can’t found a

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place of silence and safety. I try to not think about them. and their face is in my mind and I want to run away.

Sample 1: The Silence Seeker – Matthew

Each sample was first transcribed as faithfully as possible to the original text produced by the students, from the spelling right up to how the words were placed. This was to ensure that I captured a snapshot that was rich enough to provide me with multiple layers of analysis. With Matthew’s (pseudonym) writing sample, the reader is immediately brought into how the character was feeling at the time, expressed through highly descriptive and emotive words for his level of English proficiency level in comparison to that of his friends. Words like ‘scared’, ‘shoked (shocked)’, ‘nervous’ and ‘sad’ shine through the writing to illustrate a level of emotional connection between Matthew and the characters in the book. Next, I analysed the writing in terms of the vocabulary use, both general vocabulary, and the also the target vocabulary that had been taught in the lessons. Here I saw the target words ‘scared’, ‘nousi (noisy)’, ‘silence’ and ‘safety’ being used, as we had done several dramatic activities using these words prior to the writing task. However, it has to be made clear that this was not a test to determine language acquisition, as we did not have a reference point to make as to whether the words that Matthew used had been learnt before or after the relevant lessons. Instead of acquisition, this part of the analysis was interested in ‘uptake’ (adapted from Lyster & Ranta, 1997), where we are able to gauge if a student has managed to internalise a word and replicate it according to its correct usage. Acquisition on the other hand deals with retention of the learnt vocabulary, which in Case 1 did not have a high validity rating due to the short duration of the programme.

Another aspect that I looked at was grammar, which included language structures. Although the task had not required them to think about the grammar when they writing, an analysis of grammar was still important to analyse in order to gain a measure of the students’ language proficiency. Apart from that, I also looked other features of the samples that I deemed were interesting or those that provided me with further insight of how the students thought. As can be seen in this example, Matthew wrote down keywords that he had wanted to put in his writing, even before he had written them. This shows that he had had specific words in his head that he had wanted to use, and constructed sentences around them with deliberation. The data obtained from the analysis formed pieces to the puzzle that created a clearer picture when analysed in context, along with the analysis of other written work, triangulated by other sources of data.

In Frame 3, the writing tasks were analysed using the Jacobs scale (Jacobs, Zinkgraf, Wormouth, Hartfiel, & Hughey, 1981), which enabled both the collaborating class teacher and myself to put numbers to what we thought was the students’ ability in writing. However, also due to the limitations imposed by the rolling enrolments, the figures in the Jacob scale were unable to be utilised to contrast learning before and after the applied drama sessions.

32 Discussion with co-researchers

Discussion with my co-researchers gave me a wealth of insight that would have otherwise been unattainable. In addition, the reflective practitioner needs guidance to facilitate better understanding and learning through reflection (Emden, 1991; Johns, 1995), and this is even more crucial to me as an emerging researcher in a field where I am not considered an expert. Moreover, one of the dangers of embarking on a journey of reflective practice is that there is a tendency for the reflective practitioner to only pay attention to aspects of practice that he or she finds disturbing. This would mean that aspects in which do not generate enough attention are sometimes sidelined or even go unnoticed (Johns, 1995). This is why a reflective researcher needs guidance, especially from an informed party, or at the very least someone who has an informed outsider’s point of view. I had three co-researchers who were directly involved throughout the study. The first was my senior supervisor Janinka Greenwood, who worked with me during the first cycle of research (Frame 1) in NZ, and the second was the collaborating class teacher who worked with me during the Malaysian phase of my research in Frame 2. It is worthy of mention that the teacher was my student in her undergraduate teacher training course, where I taught drama in education. As such, she was no stranger to using certain simple drama techniques, as well as stage drama. For Frame 3, I worked with the teacher of the class, whom I have also designated as the collaborating class teacher, but will specifically denote whether I refer to the NZ or Malaysian class teacher if there are any instances that may cause ambiguity. I was lucky to have had to opportunity to work with this particular teacher, as he was well versed in communicative and task-based learning approaches, as well as being experienced in drama and theatre. However, it was also a bit of a surprise to me that the he had never used any drama pedagogy in his teaching, and that he was keen to learn from me.

These discussions happened throughout the research, both during and outside of data collection. During data collection, the discussions would normally occur within the same day of the data collection session if time permitted, or would occur within a few days after. This was to ensure that the insights obtained were still fresh in our minds, and that we would be able to recall specific incidents together if the need arose. However, the reflexive researcher is bounded by the code of conduct to be aware of any factors that could affect the data in any way. With this consideration, it also has to be taken into consideration that not all discussions happened according to plan, and that the researcher and the co-researchers were restricted by demands of time and obligation, as well as geographical location. As such, some of the discussions did not occur within the given time frame, which inevitably leads to the possibility of lost data.

During the discussions, a typical session would include the debrief and feedback of what had occurred in the day’s class. The discussions would normally be guided by Gibbs’ (1988) model of reflection, using the following six steps in a cyclical order: i) Description (what happened?); ii) Feelings/Thoughts (what were you thinking/feeling); iii) Evaluation (what were the good and bad of what happened); iv) Analysis (What

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can you understand of the situation); v) Conclusion (What else could/would you have done?); and vi) Action Plan (what do you plan to do next?).

Using the feedback obtained from the co-researchers, I would critically reflect on the day by going through the model of reflection myself, and make the necessary notes or changes to the next lesson. As my senior supervisor, the first co-researcher had a dual role to play, which in itself provided an interesting mixture of feedback. On the co-researcher level, her feedback was essential for me as an extra pair of eyes in the field, and also as an insider who carried out portions of the research. As my supervisor, she had a more guiding role, and a more critical role in the evaluation stage of the reflection cycle. Inevitably, some of our research meetings would extend to become supervision meetings in their own right, as many dimensions overlapped between the domains of co-researcher and supervisor. Feedback from the collaborating teachers was no less important as they were the class teachers of the participants, who were of the right target demographic for the research, ESL practitioners with a general idea of how to use elementary aspects of drama in the language classroom but still lacked the knowhow to accomplish them. Additionally, some discussions were not carried out in the field, and would take the form of collegial discussion. These discussions did not have to be specific to whatever was taught in the field, and could even take the form of intellectual discourse regarding a wide variety of topics. However, matters regarding the research were usually given precedence before moving on to other matters.

Apart from co-researchers who were directly related with my research, I also carried out regular meetings in a bounded time frame with two PhD colleagues, one from Canada and the other from China (Nawi, Harasymchuk, & Yi, 2012), as part of a case study using cross-national dialogue research collaboration. In these meetings, each researcher was given 10 minutes to present the aspect of research that he wished to have critiqued and gain insight from the other two collaborators. This would then be followed by a question and answer session. After the session was over, each researcher would be given a week to critically reflect on the information obtained during the meeting, and at the end of the case study period, write up their reflections in a research publication.