Developing self-confidence in speaking activities

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(1)Tapia 1. Alberto Hurtado University Faculty of Education English Department. DEVELOPING SELF-CONFIDENCE IN SPEAKING ACTIVITIES.. Research to get the Academic degree of Bachelor of Education and English Teaching Tamara Andrea Tapia Cortez Soledad Araya Pérez. English Teacher Santiago, Chile 2014.

(2) Tapia 2. Content 1. Abstract ................................................................................................ 3 2. Resumen .............................................................................................. 4 3. Introduction........................................................................................... 5 4. Context ................................................................................................. 7 5. Research questions ............................................................................ 10 6. Problem .............................................................................................. 11 6.1 Hypothesis .................................................................................... 11 7. Rationale ............................................................................................ 12 8. Objectives .................................................................................................. 13. 9. Theoretical framework ........................................................................ 14 9.1 Motivation ..................................................................................... 14 9.2 Self- confidence ............................................................................ 17 9.3 Speaking....................................................................................... 19 9.3a Interaction…………………………………………………….20 9.3b Teacher’s role………………………………………………..23 10. Methodology ...................................................................................... 25 10.1 Procedure ................................................................................... 25 10.2 Instruments ................................................................................. 26 10.3 Data collection ............................................................................ 26 10.4 Data analysis .............................................................................. 27 11. Action Plan .............................................................................................. 31 11. Conclusion .............................................................................................. 34 12. References .............................................................................................. 36 13. Appendix. ................................................................................................ 38.

(3) Tapia 3. 1. Abstract. The current action research proposal was finished after a semester working as a practitioner with the 6th grade C at San Jose de la Familia school and makes reference to speaking problems in the class. 6th graders were capable of managing listening, reading and writing tasks satisfactorily, but demonstrated to be unable to produce oral sentences. After having experienced this situation, the current action research project is aimed at trying to find a solution to the 6th grade C students’ self-confidence problem which inhibits their capacity to develop oral skills. Therefore, this paper proposes an action plan, directed at motivating students to develop self-confidence in order to achieve oral communication.. Key words: Motivation, self-confidence, interaction, communication...

(4) Tapia 4. 2. Resumen. La presente propuesta de investigación - acción fue llevada a cabo luego de un semestre como practicante en el 6° C del colegio San José de la Familia y hace referencia a problemas del habla en las clases. Los estudiantes de sexto año eran capaces de desarrollar satisfactoriamente actividades que implicaban escuchar, leer y escribir, pero demostraron no poder producir oraciones orales. Luego de haber presenciado esta situación, el presente proyecto de investigación - acción está dirigido a intentar encontrar una solución al problema de auto-confianza de los alumnos del 6to C, el cual cuales inhibe la capacidad de los estudiantes de desarrollar habilidades orales. Es por esto que este trabajo propone un plan de acción dirigido a motivar a los estudiantes a desarrollar auto-confianza, de manera de lograr comunicarse oralmente en inglés.. Palabras clave: Motivación, auto-confianza, interacción, comunicación..

(5) Tapia 5. 3. Introduction. A website about psychology defines Self- Confidence as “a belief in yourself and your abilities, a mental attitude of trusting or relying on yourself”1. It also explains that it is tested in unknown situations in which people are not familiar with what they are going to face. Learning a foreign language can be grouped into the infinite events that represent something unknown for a person. Due to the fact that it implies a total different way of communication, every person reacts in a particular way when facing a particular situation: some people face it, some others run away and some others just paralyze. In Chile, students from a 6th grade reacted according to the third way mentioned. These students, pre-adolescents, had a very good performance in the English subject in general, but they were nervous, afraid of failing and afraid of making fool to themselves in front of their classmates. This fact did not only cause stagnation in their integral development of the four skills (reading, listening, writing and speaking) but also an emotional pressure in the environment when these tasks were given. The current action research attempts to find some clues to answer the problem of how could I solve this problem in English learning and what attitude I need to adopt and how to understand students’ reactions by learning more about their feelings and interest. Finally, a proposal of action. 1. http://www.uncommonforum.com/glossary/self-confidence.html.

(6) Tapia 6. plan to overcome the 6th grade C students’ lack of self-confidence in speaking tasks..

(7) Tapia 7. 4. Context:. 4.1 School Context: Colegio San Jose de la Familia is a private subsidized school located in La Pintana. It was founded in 2002 with the aim of providing people with a school to develop in students values such as solidarity, critical thinking, awareness about their personal development and aware of current social issues. For this reason, very quickly it became a school that differentiated its educational project from the rest of the schools located in the area. Although it is a private subsidized school, it works with a municipal scholarship program for some students called “Priority students”, providing students with the necessary meals plus no fees for going to this school. Families without the scholarship, must pay no more than $20.000 a month, which means a real effort for these families to offer a better education to their children. In this same line, it is important to mention that families are very involved in the learning process of their children and the school involves families in their project, such as the Family Day (a Saturday in which students, their families and teachers play games and have a big picnic in the school’s yard), the students-parents science fair, etc. The school goes from pre-K to 12th secondary level, with 40 students approximately in each class. The academic team seemed to be quite formal and professional: they talked about the students’ problems and together tried to solve them. There were also psychologists and specialists in learning.

(8) Tapia 8. problems, whom received students that were derived from their home teachers. In the same line of providing full support and education to students with limited economic resources, the school had a library, two computers rooms, one sports field, a comfortable teachers’ room and spacious classrooms which were decorated with plenty input according to each grade subject.. 4.2. Class Context: Sixth grade C was a class of 43 students, girls and boys. Their ages. ranged from 11 to 14 years old. Three of them were repeating the year. The students’ personalities were very different: some of them already behaved like teenagers and some others behaved like children. In spite of this last fact, students seemed to be quite close to each other in their personal relationship. School psychologist was constantly working with one of the students who had been diagnosed with ADHD and was labeled as a ‘complicated case’ because of his interruptions in the normal flow of the lessons. Another point important to mention is that four students used to work at the market with their families, therefore they missed some lessons. The relationship among students was very supportive; even though not all of them were close friends, there were no bullying cases in this grade and they always helped each other in the subjects they had more difficulty with. Teachers agreed that this class had been improving for the last 2 years. Regarding the English lessons, students were very enthusiastic. They worked with the MINEDUC book, English 6, and every Monday for 2.

(9) Tapia 9. pedagogical hours on the computers lab. The main problem that I saw during my training was that although students managed an appropriate knowledge of the subject, they got blocked and nervous when the turn to develop speaking activities arrived. The argument students gave went from lack of oral skills (they thought they did not know how to pronounce the words, nor how to put sentences together at the moment of speaking; and afraid that their performance would not sound natural); emotional problems (fear of making mistakes and of classmates making jokes at them and the feeling that they were not capable of speaking in English); to a cultural issue (in Chile they did not need to speak a foreign language, and possibilities of traveling abroad were almost zero – they said). Aside, all in all, it was a nice group to work with..

(10) Tapia 10. 5 Research Question. My research question is aimed at finding a solution to the students’ selfconfidence problem at the moment of speaking English.. . How can I motivate my students to develop self-confidence in English oral activities? When I started observing the 6th grade C lessons I realized that the teacher spoke English in the lessons and tried to make students speak also. Unfortunately, students did not do it. The lessons seemed to stop because nobody said a word and the teacher, trying to go back to the activities, started to speak in Spanish. When I started teaching the lessons the first measure was to speak English the entire lesson (except few exceptions related mainly to give school announcements). The second measure was to make students speak English asking questions related to the contents seen the same day. After seeing that students were quiet when they were asked to speak in the target language and becoming aware that they were not trying to orally produce sentences in English, I thought that maybe those students did not want to do it because they were not motivated towards the English subject. If students were not interested in making the effort to overcome their fear of embarrassment, my job was to investigate how to motivate 6th grade C students in order to achieve their participation in the oral activities..

(11) Tapia 11. 6. Problem.. The problem was that 6th grade C students were mainly afraid of speaking in English because they felt embarrassed and afraid of their classmates’ jokes. They had already learnt the contents and vocabulary, but when speaking activities started, students were paralyzed; they did not speak or move, and they tended to forget everything they managed 5 minutes ago.. 6.1 Question: How can I motivate my students to develop self-confidence in speaking activities? 6.2 Hypothesis: If I can motivate students to gain more self-confidence regarding their oral English performance, they will achieve speaking development in the target language..

(12) Tapia 12. 7. Rationale. Among all the problems found in a lesson, I decided to focus on this particular topic after seeing that it was not a matter of learning or not learning the contents, but a matter of feeling safe. 6th grade C students were terrified of making mistakes because they did not trust in their capacity of learning to speak English and, mainly, because they felt afraid of feeling ridiculous in front of their classmates’ jokes. I could not help to think that if these students developed their self-confidence and started daring to speak English, they would have a major tool for their lives, and future new opportunities. My aim is to find an alternative to start providing students with an appropriate and respectful environment and activities to help them develop their English oral skills, along with their language ego. It might also help teachers to implement speaking activities in different contexts but always pointing at developing self-confidence and, therefore, being able to speak English..

(13) Tapia 13. 8. Objectives:. All things considered, the heart of this research is aimed at investigating about my students’ main problem in English, in order to provide a first draft solution to the 6th grade C and, in time and with more experience, develop a global answer to this lack of confidence in speaking. But, for now, this action research project aims:. General objective: . Developing students’ self-confidence in English speaking activities.. Specific objectives: . Motivating students to achieve oral communication.. . Introducing students to spoken English.. . Using students’ previous knowledge for the speaking development.. . Generating motivating and meaningful conditions for learning..

(14) Tapia 14. 9. Theoretical Framework. In order to develop an action plan to solve my students’ self-confidence problem, it is compulsory to research about what some authors have said about the topics of this paper. The main idea here is to find clues to answer the main topics of the research questions, which are motivation, selfconfidence and speaking.. Motivation. Self-confidence. To motivate Sts for the development of self-Confidence towards the English language. They must want to do it.. Sts’ feeling of safety for the development of speaking skills improving their language ego and their risk taking skills. Speaking. Teaching how to speak without affecting sts’ motivation and selfconfidence achieving communication.. 9.1 Motivation. Motivation seems to be the basic ingredient to carry on any activity in our lives. When someone kills him/herself people say “he/ she did not have a sense in his/life”, meaning, that person did not have any reasons for living, was lacking motivation. But this concept does not only make reference to the feeling of enthusiasm for an objective; it includes the steps to reach the objective. The ‘What’ and ‘How’: what is going to be done; how much passion, time, dedication is going to be given. H.D Brown (2006) defines it.

(15) Tapia 15. better stating that “It is the extent to which you make choices about goals to pursue and the effort you will devote to that pursuit” In a school context it is important to bear in mind that there is more than one reason why a person is or is not motivated. Some students seem to be always motivated, whether there is a graded activity or not; some students are motivated in every subject they have, and some others are not. Therefore it is important to differentiate between the motivated learner and the student with an impressive facility to learn (Penny Ur, 1999) because having a student whose learning process is faster than others does not imply that he or she is a more motivated student. Bearing this in mind, maybe some of the 6th grade C students might have been interested in learning to speak English, but their learning process went at a different pace. Additionally, there are other factors to consider in the case of this group of La Pintana children. In vulnerable schools, some children arrive without breakfast and/or without having had a proper rest. In this case, no matter how hard a student wants to learn, he/she will not be in the better conditions to pay attention and learn. Abraham Maslow2 elaborated the Hierarchy of Needs Theory, in which he organized the human needs that must be first covered before he/she can reach his/her fullest potential, arguing that people will be hardly motivated if they do not satisfy basic needs and its discomfort. (Brown, 2006) Regarding English, there will be students willing to get good marks, and some others willing to learn English ‘just because’. Teachers, by 2. See http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html.

(16) Tapia 16. watching the students’ responses, can determine what type of motivation to develop and use in favor of the lessons. In this aspect, Robert Gardner (Brown, 2007) changed the concept Motivation and preferred to call it Orientation: “Orientation means a context or purpose for learning, motivation refers to the intensity of one’s impetus to learn”. Therefore, if a student is going to live in a foreign country, his/her Integrative orientation can be used in favor of his/her own development in the English subject. The same could happen with a student who wants to understand his/her favorite singer lyrics, the teacher could easily use his/her Instrumental orientation in pro for the English acquisition. It is also very important to emphasize one point in which many authors converged (Brown, 2006; Harmer, 2007; Ur, 1999): one of the most effective ways to help both children and adults to think and learn is to free them from the control of rewards and punishments (Brown quoting Bruner, 1972). And by saying these authors did not only refer to the M&M theory, but to the emotional rewards/punishments that take place. H. Brown (2007) explains that some students tend to focus more on pleasing teachers and authorities rather than on their own learning process. As explained by Krashen (Brown, 2007), humans seek out for reasonable challenge, so there is no need to condition our students in their learning process. What teachers can do instead is to help students to deal with the expectations people have over them and plan student-centered lessons, whose result is going to be an appreciation of love and intimacy among every actor of the learning/social community..

(17) Tapia 17. 9.2 Self-confidence. 6th grade C students were facing an unknown language; they were challenged to communicate in different codes and acquiring a different culture of communication. Every time students failed, they were building their own image as English speakers which, in this case, gave them the idea of not being capable of doing so. H.D Brown (2006) affirmed that “people derive their sense of self-esteem from the accumulation of experiences with themselves and with others, and from the assessments of the external world around them”. Bearing this in mind, it can be said that students build their self-confidence regarding the English subject according to their performance and to the opinion their pairs have. Therefore, one of the most striking aspects of this issue is the presence of high levels of anxiety and its opposite, inhibition. These attitudes show how students feel about the new language and culture: some learners do not know how to react in order to achieve the goal of speaking in English without the feeling of being someone else. This is explained in Brown’s book Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (2006) in which, quoting Earl Stevick, he affirms that people experience an identity crisis when learning a foreign language given the fact that “human beings tend to look for forms of alienation: between critical me and performing me, my native culture and my target culture, me and my teacher; me and my fellow students”. It can be said that when an initial learner is making a mistake he/she is also testing his/her own assessment regarding the English learning process (language ego) and.

(18) Tapia 18. developing, what Brown calls, the risk taking ability (the attitude of making guesses without fear of being wrong). Regarding developing self-confidence in students, there are some aspects that will depend on the teacher. First of all, it depends on the teacher to show a good attitude towards the students’ attempts to speak in the target language and to promote a respectful environment in which students can develop a strong language ego. Additionally, the teacher has the responsibility of knowing the students (what their levels of English are, their personalities, history and stories). In other words, not asking the shyest student of the classroom to tell a joke in front of the class; not asking a student with difficulties in the subject a too complicated question. “ “Considering the learners’ language ego will help determine who to call on, who to ask volunteer information, where to correct a students’ speech error, how much to explain something, how structured and planned an activity should be” (Brown, 2007) Nevertheless, bearing this in mind does not mean that there will be no challenges for the learners. It is important to remember Krashen’s theory i+1 in which each activity must go one step beyond the students’ capacities in order to make them go further in their knowledge development. And finally, promoting an environment of respect is also a measure that tends to first be promoted by the teacher, in which every learner understands that they are all going through the same experience and achieving the same purpose: learning. “A climate of acceptance will stimulate self-confidence and encourage participants to experiment and to discover the.

(19) Tapia 19. target language allowing themselves to take risks without feeling embarrassed” (Brown, 2007). 9.3 Speaking. The final goal of this action research project is that 6th grade C students can finally produce English sentences with words they know and with topics that are familiar to them, overcoming their problem of feeling unsafe. According to Jim Scrivener (2001), when people study a language, they accumulate a lot of ‘up-in-the-head’ knowledge (rules of grammar, lists of vocabulary, etc.) and one of the best ways to help learners activate this knowledge is to put them in ‘safe’ situations in class where they are inspired and encouraged to try using language from their ‘store’. But, what do students need to know to achieve oral communication?: First of all, due to the fact that this research is aimed at achieving oral communication without damaging the students’ language ego, it is of great importance to explain students that when teaching the pronunciation of a word, the aim is not to achieve a native accent but to formulate messages that the listener can understand (Harmer, 2007; Brown, 2006). Penny Ur (1999) suggests repetition activities, such as drills, making shopping lists, simulations, etc. in order to make the learners more familiar with the words. These activities serve as a useful starting point for the 6th grade C students in practicing the oral form of the words. “Each rehearsal gives them more confidence as they are not attempting to get the words out for the first time when they try to speak in subsequent ‘performances’” (Harmer, 2007). In.

(20) Tapia 20. addition, it is very important to give students a model for speaking and remain it the same for not causing confusion and desperation (Lewis & Hill, 1985). These two last aspects mentioned are essentials to accomplish the negotiation of meaning process which takes place in the interaction among the participants of a conversation. 9.3. a – Interaction: Communication is given by the one transmitting a message, and the other(s) receiving the message. There is no communication if the receiver does not understand the message. Therefore, there must be interaction in the lessons for students to achieve communication and to improve pronunciation. A good definition of interaction is given by Brown (2006) “interaction is the collaborative exchange of thoughts, feelings or ideas between two or more people, resulting in a reciprocal effect on each other”. According to this aspect Brown (2006), paraphrasing David Nunan (1991), explains that “one learners’ performance is always coloured by that of the person (interlocutor) he or she is talking with”. This process, called negotiation of meaning, consists of participants of a dialogue agreeing on what has been said, they get to an agreement of the meaning of the message. According to Lightbown & Spada (2011) it is a process to “arrive to a mutual understanding” with the previous “access to both comprehensible input and conversational interaction” (Brown, 2006). Hence, the importance of giving space in the lessons for students to interact with each other and start improving their understanding. In this context, it is also important to differentiate between the types of interaction that take place in a classroom among all the members.

(21) Tapia 21. participating in the conversation. Penny Ur (1999) gives different interaction patterns that describe the dynamic of who starts the conversations and who maintains it in a classroom context:. TT: Teacher very active, students only receptive. T: Teacher active, students mainly receptive. TS: Teacher and students fairly equally active. S: Student active, Teacher mainly receptive. SS: Students very active, teacher only receptive. Teacher-student interaction is given in a context of hierarchy. It is mainly based in display questions in which the teacher asks and the student gives answers that are expected. Although in this type of interaction little negotiation of meaning is present, it implies an evolution taking into consideration the Vygotsky’s “Zone of proximal development” in which the learner is better challenged when faced with a person with superior knowledge (Cazden, 1991). An example of the TT pattern is the teacher explaining the contents and students trying to understand the message. The T pattern, however, still has the teacher producing the messages but students sometimes intervene, for instance, asking for clarification. The TS pattern makes reference to questioning activities, which are quite recommended by some authors (Brown, 2006; Harmer, 2007; Scrivener, 2011; Ur, 1999). The reason relies on the fact that they request for specific information from the.

(22) Tapia 22. students making them feel safe because they know what they are expected to answer. Brown (2007) affirms that “Teacher questions gives students the impetus and opportunities to produce language comfortably without having to risk initiating language themselves” and he also adds an essential point to this project which aims to develop self confidence in speaking activities: “appropriately pitched questions can give more reticent students an affective ‘green light’ and a structured opportunity to communicate in their second language”. Therefore, it is important that the teacher makes clear what is expected in the answers. Brown (2007) also gives some examples of the types of questions to be asked. They could be from Close Ended Questions (i.e knowledge questions where specific answers are required), to Open Ended Questions (such as Analysis and Synthesis questions, among others). On the other hand, students/students interaction implies more negotiation of meaning, the integration of personal experiences, and a common cognitive process. In this type of interaction patterns, we have as an example pair work and group work. Pair work and group work “can improve motivation and contribute to a feeling of cooperation and warmth in the class” (Ur, 1999). Hence, SS and TS interaction should both have part in the lessons for all the advantages it brings in the achievement of oral communication. Brown (2007) numbers four main reasons on why to promote group work activities, which would be very helpful in the development of the 6th grade C self confidence in speaking activities: 1. Group work generates interactive language. 2. Group work offers and embracing affective climate.

(23) Tapia 23. 3. Group work promotes learner responsibility and autonomy 4. Group work is a step toward individualizing instruction. (in other words, each member of the group has his/her own contribution with his/her own capacities and/or virtues, making that students are validated as individuals) For all the reasons mentioned before, interaction is the most important feature of teaching speaking for this research as it helps to achieve selfconfident English speaking learners.. 9.3. b- Teachers’ role. Finally, since the aim is to help our students get self-confidence and develop their language ego to start communicating in English orally; the teacher’s role is mainly of a guide. As the expert of the subject, the teacher should encourage students to speak. One way to do it is by giving the students the opportunities to initiate oral communication (Brown, 2007). And not being the initiation all the times. According to Harmer (2007) some attitudes teachers can adopt in order to give students prominence in the lessons are the following: . Prompter: The teacher gives the learner the opportunity to struggle in a difficult situation in which the learner got lost, but he/she can also help in a discrete manner.. . Participant: The teacher introduces new information, presents the activities, engages students and participates in dialogues with them. It is, however, important not to participate too much.

(24) Tapia 24. in group dialogues as it is essential to give students the space to develop their speaking skills. . Feedback provider: The teacher tells students an evaluation of their performance. It is very important to focus on the What and Where to give the feedback, provided that constant interruptions or over-correction causes inhibition.. Knowing what attitude to adopt as a teacher will help me to encourage my students in their learning process, give them the space to develop their oral skills and to decrease my own anxiety which could cause too teachercentered lesson instead of allowing students to go in their own learning pace and making mistakes. Regarding error correction, sometimes teachers tend to correct students in the middle of an attempt at speaking, and interrupt the student’s fluency. For students, it is always difficult to continue speaking after they have been publicly corrected. Therefore, scaffolding seems to be the best way to correct errors. According to Scrivener (2011), scaffolding “refers to the way a competent language speaker helps a less competent one to communicate by both encouraging and providing possible elements for the conversation”. In other words, the listener offers support and with this attitude, the teacher will be correcting students’ mistakes in a way that does not interfere with the main aim of this research: to build self confidence in our students and in this way, teaching students to be respectful with their classmates’ learning process..

(25) Tapia 25. 10. Research methodology. 10.1 Procedure To begin with, this is a project based on qualitative methodology, more specifically, an action-research project made with the model explained by Anne Burns (2009). In other words, I will work with the observation of students’ behavior and reactions. Plus, due to the limited time I had at San Jose de la Familia School, there was no implementation of the program to be explained in the next pages, but only the students’ performance in the short oral activities in a 2 month time. In order to collect the evidence, the procedure was the following: . Observing lessons: two weeks paying attention to the activities the teacher gave and how students reacted to those activities and what the students’ strengths and weaknesses were.. . Implementing activities in which they could use their skills in reading, writing and listening in the development of their oral production.. . Giving a short quiz with two questions in which students answered what the most difficult part of speaking in English is and if they would like to learn how to do it.. . Keeping a record of the students’ participation in classes..

(26) Tapia 26. 10.2 Instruments: The material needed to work on my action research project and create a proposal to solve the lack of self-confidence problem regarding oral activities was formed after keeping a record of the problems I observed in the classroom. Therefore, the instruments are related to the collection of qualitative information. . Journals written by me as a practitioner with 6th grade C in San Jose de la Familia.. . An excel chart which shows the students’ attitude towards speaking activities that involved speaking in front of the entire classroom.. . A questionnaire given to the students.. 10.3 Data Collection: In order to obtain as much information as possible about the students’ motivation and self-confidence problem to speak English, a record of the students’ reaction towards oral production was kept. First of all, part of the process was the introduction of writing activities with the aim of turning them into speaking activities. For instance, starting with a picture-word matching worksheet about the holidays, then writing their own future holiday plans, to finally share the plan in oral form. Secondly, a record of the students that actively participated in the oral activities was kept, in order to determine if the number of students speaking.

(27) Tapia 27. English was increasing. This was an excel file where I marked with an X next to the name of the students who participated speaking English in the lesson to see at the end of the semester if students dared to speak English in time, or not (record of the attitude of developing self-confidence instead of checking their English knowledge). And finally, the students’ reactions were kept on the practicum journals, plus, their own opinions which they wrote on a paper answering the following questions: . What is the most complicated aspect of speaking in English?. . Would you like to learn to speak in English?. 9.4 Data Analysis Lessons developing oral skills started at the beginning of October. In each, students from 6th grade C followed the MINEDUC book and its activities, but at the post stage they had to practice speaking skills with the topic seen in the lesson. For instance, when introducing the “Last Holidays” topic students saw related vocabulary and rehearsed creating sentences in past with the words seen in the lesson. Subsequently, they created their own paragraph about their last holidays and shared it orally with the class. As it was expected, few students did the oral part of the activities when they first started, but their shy attitude started to change in time. One special point was, however, the attitude of daring to speak in English in front of their classmates. The results were the following:.

(28) Tapia 28. 6°C students : Class work. Participation October. November. December. 1) Carla Caceres Salinas. . . . 2) Braulio Araya. . . . 3) Eros Anton Salinas. . . . 4) Marcos Leiva. . . . 5) Nataly Alvarez. . . . 6) Camilo Arce. . . . 7) Alejandro Huytraiqueo. . . . 8) Nicolas Pino. . . . 9) Melanie Jopia. . . . 10) Amaro Rivas. . . . 11) Margarita Carcamo. . . . 12) Kevin Aguilera. . . . 13) Franco Angulo. . . . 14) Valeria Lobos. . . . 15) Darlyn Carmona. . . . 16) Camila Cerda. . . . 17) Angel Jara. . . . 18) Bayron Nehring. . . . 19) Camila Aliaga. . . . 20) Moira Farias. . . . 21) Tiare Gonzalez A.. . . . 22) Jose Leonardo Gutierrez. . . . 23) Josua Iturriaga. . . . 24) Francisca Vergara. . . . 25) Scott Aburto. . . . 26) Boris Alvarez. . . . 27) Emerson Millan. . . . 28) Catalina Acosta. . . . 29) Bastian Salas. . . . 30) Matias Morales. . . . 31) Melanie Seguel. . . . 32) Javiera Cardenas. . . . 33) Michelle Covarrubias. . . . 34) Vicente Palacios. . . . 35) Reychel Araya. . . .

(29) Tapia 29. Although the number of students daring to speak in public was not over half of the total number of students, the advanced achieved in only 3 months of work is evident. The following graph shows the students’ progress:. Sts confident of speaking in English 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 September Did not dare to speak English. October. November. Dared to speak english. The rising number of children speaking English in public is from 7 students in September to 15 in November. The importance of this fact is shown in the development of self-confidence and the motivation they reached. The chart does not show the number of students speaking English with each other in the oral activities; it shows the act of speaking in front of all of their classmates, in a foreign language and without a script. The evidence makes possible the assumption that, in a semester period, almost the entire 6th C could have developed their self-confidence regarding the oral production of English..

(30) Tapia 30. On the other hand, the questionnaires showed that the problem was not related to their attitude towards English itself, in other words, it was not a problem of likes and dislikes. Most of the students said that they would actually like to learn to speak English and for varied reasons: to travel, to get to know other people and /or to have better working opportunities in the future. But when they were asked about the difficulties they had in doing it most of them gave two answers; . Feeling insecure about not knowing how to pronounce some words.. . Feeling embarrassed and afraid of failure as they used to think that their classmates would make fun of them.. These answers are very interesting because students taught us two things: in order to have students daring to do certain activity first the teacher needs to provide them with the necessary tools for doing so, otherwise, the feeling of insecurity will increase and it will be very likely that every attempt of overcoming their fears to the activity will disappear and their anxiety will rise. On the other hand is the importance of providing an environment of respect in the learning process. Even though some families teach very little about values such as respect, it is the teacher’s responsibility to generate a climate in which errors are accepted and are kindly corrected. Ideally, students will learn to respect others and being respectful will come out naturally, but the teacher must teach students about how comfortable and nice it is to be in a respectful place where everyone is respected..

(31) Tapia 31. 13. Action Plan:. The aim was to prepare them to achieve a major task for them: to give an individual oral presentation that would demand from the speaker courage to speak in front of their classmates; and from the audience to be respectful, plus the space for student/student interaction. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and this project was not taken to practice. The topic for the final work proposal was My Best Memory. Students had to choose what their best memory was. With this project, students would develop their risk-taking ability lesson by lesson. They would communicate an event orally, and by telling others the best moment of their lives they would feel that their experiences and feelings are important; they would see that they had similar experiences, and would respect the spaces for talking. The idea was that students develop motivation by realizing that they all had different reactions to everyday events, but that they were more similar than what they thought they were. They would feel considered, and realized that there was nothing to feel ashamed of as they were all sharing a part of their lives. According to this aspect, Brown (2006) affirmed that “a climate of acceptance will stimulate self-confidence and encourage participants to experiment and to discover the target language allowing themselves to take risks without feeling embarrassed” To begin with, students would make a draft of the story in their notebooks. Dictionaries and pair help allowed. Subsequently, the teacher would walk through the classroom asking students to make the attempt to tell.

(32) Tapia 32. what their story will be about. Next lesson, they would have to choose something that reminded them of that situation: it could be a picture, a toy, a souvenir, clothing, etc. and would have to prepare what they wanted to say and the materials to be supporting them in their presentation. The aim of this activity was not so much that students rehearse on past verbs, but to start internalizing the language using the words they know and to give them the chance to interact among them in English. Finally, students would tell their best memory to their classmates. As the seating arrangement is to sit students in a big circle, the person presenting would be showing others his/her object but not standing in front of the entire class. He/she would be in the circle instead, as if she/he were telling something important to his/her closest friends. After the person speaks, 2 or 3 questions will be allowed so students have the chance to interact with each other. Errors would be scaffolded. The teacher would give each student feedback at the end of the lesson. In the period in which all presentation finished, the teacher would write on the board the slips students had and would invite them to give the correct form. With this activity what I hoped to achieve was to motivate students by making them feel that their own experiences counted, and if able to communicate in English, their experiences could be useful in any place on earth. In addition, sharing a personal memory in groups will help create an environment of respect, in which students do not feel afraid of making mistakes and become risk takers..

(33) Tapia 33. If we take into consideration that: 1) personal experiences and knowledge count, 2) environment of respect that promotes risk taking 3) space to develop English oral skills, students will develop a little (let us expect more than a little) confidence about their performance in English so, in the next lessons, the teacher can apply different classroom activities to develop oral skills such as commenting about a recent piece of news, etc..

(34) Tapia 34. 14. Conclusion:. It is well known that many theories and approaches in education have highlighted the importance of giving students space to learn, think, practice and make mistakes. However, nowadays our educational system forces teachers to forget about this truth - widely proven and documented – in order to look for result expressed in quantities and numbers. As the agent of change that I want to be, I strongly believe and state that students have the right to have a learning environment in which they do not feel pressured in their learning process or anxious for learning for the sake of a mere result. During my action research project I could prove that when students are in a context of respect, they feel motivated to learn and more self-confident about themselves. It is of major importance to acknowledge that students’ tastes, interest and previous experience give the teacher an important resource that must be taken into consideration when planning a lesson. Furthermore, I could prove during my research that their insecurity decreased as they started to feel less unsafe in each speaking situation. In the particular case of the 6th grade C students, they were all willing to tell their classmates about their happiest memories, which turned out in students making more efforts on trying to speak English. Hence, they were improving their selfconfidence because more students started to take the risk of telling their memories in English. On the other hand, through this action research project I realized about the importance of interaction in the goal I wanted my students to achieve. The.

(35) Tapia 35. constant practice of creating and receiving messages makes students improve their ability of understanding other people’s messages and to be better negotiators of meaning. Therefore, the appreciation students have towards their English oral performance improves. Finally, in order to preserve students’ self confidence in speaking activities it is compulsory for me to remain focused on the goal to achieve, in which students must develop their own self-confidence and their capacity to communicate and understand messages. In other words, the teacher must be very careful of not correcting every single mistake in public and to allow students to interact with each other. Most important, the teacher must be careful of not to underestimate students in their learning process. If the teacher does not believe in his/her students, how can we expect students to feel self-confident in speaking activities?.

(36) Tapia 36. 15.. References. BROWN, H. DOUGLAS. “Principles for Language Learning and Teaching”. Pearson Education ESL. 2006. BROWN, H. DOUGLAS. “Teaching by Principles. An interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy”. Pearson Education ESL. 2007. BURNS, ANNE. “Doing Action Research in English Language Teaching” Taylor & Francis, editions. 2009. CAZDEN, COURTNEY B.. “Classroom Discourse: The Language of Teaching and Learning” (Spanish version). Paidós editions. 1991.. HARMER, JEREMY. “The Practice of English Language Teaching”. Longman Handbooks for Language Teachers. 2007. HILL, JIMMIE & LEWIS, MICHAEL. “Practical Techniques for Language Teaching”. Heinle ELT. 1985. SCRIVENER, JIM. “Learning Teaching: The Essential Guide to English Language Teaching”. MacMillan Books for Teachers, 2011..

(37) Tapia 37. SPADA, NINA & LIGHTBOWN, PATSY M. “How Languages are Learned”. Oxford handbooks for language teachers. 2006.. UR, PENNY. “A Course in Language Teaching. Practice and Theory” Cambridge University Press. 1999.. 15.1 Sources:. . Games in the classroom: www.michellehenry.fr/jeux3.htm. . Pychology website: http://www.uncommonforum.com/glossary/self-confidence.html.

(38) Tapia 38. 16. Appendix 16.1 Worksheet model:.

(39) Tapia 39. 16.2 Journals:. September 10th This was my first class. I had been with a medical leave the previous week and me and my host teacher do not have a quite good communication, I sent her an email asking what should I teach in this lesson but she never answered, so I prepared 3 different lesson plans. I felt a bit uncomfortable as only at the beginning of the lesson I knew which of the three I had to teach. It turned out that I had to make some kind of review of the previous content and help students remember about some structures in sentences. The students were very open to every activity, I think it was because they were curious about me the way I was going to teach, and they behaved very well. What I did not know is that Monday classes are part of a “workshop” in which they will mainly work in the computers lab with agendaweb.org and the Thursday classes correspond to the normal curriculum in which I have to work with the book. Maybe working on the computers will have a lot of benefits, but I think that I will not have the continuity of the lessons as Thursdays’ lessons will not follow the Mondays’ lessons.. September 25th I had everything prepared for this session and my host teacher told me that we need to go faster with the contents so we do not stay behind other 6th grades, as the national parties of this year were too many days and children lost many classes. Unfortunately, the principal of the school told my host teacher that students were going to have a general rehearse of the “barras” (something similar to cheerleading but with boys and girls making shapes with ribbons and one colour posters). We were very disturbed because these children really lose a lot of classes in this activity just because the school has won plenty awards which are shown at the school entrance. The quantity of students attending to this event is huge, but what mostly caught my attention was that they did it because in this way they can skip classes... So my host teacher went to the gym with the part of the class that participates on the “Barras” and I stood in the classroom with the few children who do not participate. They were so few that I could still not teach the lesson I had prepared. We stayed in the classroom and i taught them the game i had in mind for the next lesson, one in which you write the name of a famous person in a paper, stick it on someone’s forehead and that person has to ask questions to guess whose name is in her/his paper. They were very interested. But at the beginning of the game I asked them why they did not participate in the barras. Most of them told me they just didn’t like it but there was one girl who caught.

(40) Tapia 40 my attention: she said she really would love going but that she prefers not to get much enthusiasm about it because the finals are on Saturdays, and every weekend she has to work with her grandmother at the “persa”. It is so sad to see children working, leaving behind their children duties and stop playing and having fun for doing things belonging to the adults, but well, her grandmother is too old and their family needs money. This student face is really like an adult face with sad eyes. It is the system’s fault, children shouldn’t be working and old people should not be working either. An horrible distribution of the public goods. September 27th I could finally teach my lesson!! My host teacher really liked it and students were very enthusiastic. Today two things caught all my attention: one was that, while we were talking about celebrations, I asked what celebrations they know in our country.... and they did not know any of them!! Only the most famous ones (la Tirana, national parties and... Viña del Mar festival –yes, as a national party-). And the second one was that in this same day, for the final activity things got a bit messy: we wrote many words in the whiteboard as our word bank, I wrote examples on it also so they could see the sentence structure, so we could play the GUESSING GAME. It consisted of using was/were in the questions to guess what famous character they had on their forehead. They had to work in pairs and the paper already had glue on it... but suddenly they began to speak and speak and speak in Spanish saying they did not know how to say the things we had studied (only knew how to write them). I felt very disappointed on both issues but the answer was very easy: i separated the class in teams (one team each row) and one person of each went in front of the others, and the entire class helped the person of its team by turns, they had a great time. To solve the first problem, they took as a homework to go to the internet and find about different Chilean celebrations (Spanish allowed). October 1st I do not have much to say about today. I was asked to teach students differentiate between regular and irregular verbs, and then to go to the labs on agendaweb.org. I feel like I’m just being someone else’s secretary because I am not doing what I would like. I think that having the opportunity to work on the computers is a huge thing I haven’t had on the other schools, and I could do many fun activities (these kids only know how to turn on a computer and go to facebook, nothing else). I hope I can do much more in the closest future. October 4th.

(41) Tapia 41 Today I was going to be assessed. The lesson plan was not very creative; I only had to work with the book. One thing I must emphasize is that the book has very good topics and well planned activities, and gives teacher the opportunities to develop even further the topics, such as the story of celebrations, allow students tell their own stories, etc. My students were very enthusiastic and they behave very well, always. Their English level is varied but what I love the most about them is that they all make efforts to get better in the subject. They help each other. And for them it is not so difficult to understand when I am saying everything in English, they actually understand it; the difficult part comes when they are asked to say something in English, so as an advice of my tutor I should work on that. I’ll be glad to make them speak. October 8th For today I prepared a worksheet. Miss Cindy told me that these students need some practice and practice about the structure of sentences. At the beginning, so they could wake up, we made the game that we could not do the previous class, tic-tac-toe and they told me everything they remember about the previous content. This has become my favorite part of each lesson because they start being very sleepy and suddenly, as they realize they actually remember the previous content, they feel excited and everyone wants to say something and the class itself begins to construct the whole unit in the whiteboard. I feel that in this part it’s them teaching me what we have been doing. And I see that they are learning. Then, we worked with the famous worksheet: on it I put a draw with a summary mind map so they could remember and complete the sentences, but my surprise was very sad when I saw that many of them were still not knowing what to do; then I was next to them explaining what they had to do and they immediately realized it was a very easy exercise!! I strongly believe that students have some kind of trauma with the English subject: they see a sentence and they get blocked! Not knowing what to do, imagining the worst things on earth just to answer one of the questions. So I decided to take home the worksheets and give them back with feedback, and some praises on it also. Maybe they will realize it is not difficult at all! October 11th I think that the parts of the discussions are the best. On the pre activities, we usually have a discussion as the text says. Todays’ talk was about BULLFIGHTS. On it, we talked about animal cares, how they damaged animals and what they think about circus having animals. For the first time children had different opinions: as some said bullfight were too violent against humans and animals, others said that it was its adrenaline what caught people’s attention. All of them agreed on circus having animals, except for one, Josuar, who said: circus has little space for animals and no veterinarian… he left his classmates thinking (great!) After that, in the last exercise, they were supposed to write about their favorite memory and after that, in the next class, they should bring an object or a poster or a photo to tell.

(42) Tapia 42 their experience to their classmate. Unfortunately we took too much time in the conversation about animals and they could not finish the narration of the memory (which I’m anxious to see) so it will be for next class. October 18th. Today we discussed the respect among cultures. Children were motivated and discussed about the topic. They had to role play a comic that is at the beginning of the unit in the students’ book; even though they do not speak in English fluently, they tried and they did it excellent. They communicated through what they know about the language and gestures. Most of them did it using spanglish, but I think it is a huge step. I was happy to hear what their opinions were and how they felt with the topic. They know that we are all different and they respect that. I could realize that they are and are going to be good people. November 5th In October 22nd, student had –again- barras rehearse, so I went to the labs with some students who played games in English. Not really much to say that hasn’t been said before: students waste too many classes on barras. I think it is OK to play sports, do gym, and stuff. But in this case I think it should not be in spite of… any subject. They should have an own specific schedule (maybe after classes) to do it. Then, on October 25th, students had their unit 5 test about past tense. It was extremely easy and I was surprised that the most participative students, the ones who have shown they have been really learning, did not get quite good results. I am starting to believe that these types of test really do not assess what students have been learning. I hope they do not be less motivated because of it. But today we had a very fast lesson, always kept on movement. We played a game, we made sentences, we went to the computers… I think we all ended up exhausted but at least they were not bored, at the contrary, they were very, very active!. November 8th Today we worked with a power point on the classroom. We were supposed to introduce some vocabulary such as places for going vacation. Students are really very visual learners, they loved it! There were making real sentences, giving personal examples, remembered about Chilean places they know, etc. it was a very interactive lesson. But there is a boy who is very active, his name is Matías, he has repeated the year many times before and still has bad marks and behaves not in the better way. I see him constantly when I go to the public market, he is always there,.

(43) Tapia 43. he lives near my house I think because every time I see him he is alone (not with a father, mother, no one). I always feel terrible when I have to call his attention, because he seems to be a very sad kid. He is the typical stereotype boy who receives every teacher’s scolding. He was constantly talking at the back of the classroom, distracting his other classmates, so I had not another option than asking him to be my helper and the one in charge of changing the slides. I could grab students attention who were very nervous and anxious about the earthquake procedure simulation so we ended up our lesson abruptly. November 15th On November 12th students had a test, from the workshop, and today we continue working with the content from the book. I still find it confusing the fact that on Monday it is workshop and on Thursday’s normal classes. I have seen that they get also confused because they did not know why they have tests or not. I am starting to see that they have improved a lot. Still working on the past, I think they really love to tell others about their own experiences, they realized they have all lived similar things, similar lives. Now we have been talking about our own previous holidays; they have talked about their winter holidays, their last holiday, favorite holiday, etc. So today we studied different topic such as connectors, wh words, but they did not realize they were learning like in grammar way. They had to tell their story by pieces and at the end to join everything into a coherent paragraph using connectors. It was their exit ticket, they all gave me their work before they leave. I really love to see them learning and producing their own texts. November 19th Today I was more upset than ever. We were going to work on the computers and make a fun activity with the main song Summer Nights from Grease (the movie). But after the first break (the time we have our classes) the owner of the school made a speech to congratulate the school for having got the second place at the “barras” championship. On one hand I was glad they got a result, because of the children enthusiasm and because of the classes they lost (at least it was worth…maybe). But on the other hand I was mad –again- because they stopped every class (without previous.

(44) Tapia 44. announcement) to say a huge speech and congratulate every single person who participated on it. I think I am starting to hate this “barras” thing… November 26th Today we could make the lesson of Summer nights. I was afraid that they would find it ridiculous because of the season it was recorded in. I realized that they were very open and willing to have a good time. I realized that these Fill in the blanks activities in which they have to complete the lyrics is still too difficult for them, maybe if my host teacher continues doing them they will master it, because they were very focused on finding the words all the required. When we were about to do the final activity, in which they had to imagine they were one of the friends and should continue with the rumor of Danny & Sandy, but they only wanted to sing! So instead of making another writing activity, they all stood up and boys sang Danny’s part and girls sang sandy’s part. We had a very good time and they were enjoying it, besides, I think this is very helpful for their pronunciation!. November 29th Today we talked about the future, how to make future plans, it caught my attention that for them is very difficult to imagine vacations different from theirs. For instance, I told them about my own vacations (nothing out of the ordinary) but I told them my plans were going to a trip to Rome, next going to visit Africa to finally finish at Jamaica. They all laught at me and asked me if I would really do those things, I told them no!, I am just imagining something I like. But then it was their turn and they still told me about going to Punta de Tralca, el quisco, and places from the central seaside. Maybe they just do not want to go somewhere else. We worked with a worksheet and the paragraph was for homework. I see that they are faster than before, maybe more awake, which makes that we can make more activities in a lesson. December 3rd We were discussing about making future plans. Still, on the unit Holidays, we talked about which of them were going to continue in the same school. So we started to talk about respecting each other, and what bullying means. We saw a very interesting video against bullying, they were shocked. So we started our own conversation about bullying. At the beginning of the lesson they were a bit mad because I arrange the persons they were going to seat with, a boy and a girl. I realized they have problems among them and I wanted them to manage how to.

(45) Tapia 45. work with their own classmates that were not their friends. Many of them kept fighting the entire lesson, maybe it was my mistake to force them working with the other gender person at their age, maybe it’s normal in their growing process and I just should not do it. Anyways, they had to make a vow with the class, their own commitment for the next year. In a power point they had to choose an image and write their vow. I was amazed to see how difficult it is for them to use a power point, but they managed to do it. My host teacher really liked this lesson and they were very happy, although not all of them could finish it. I think I really like to challenge them but maybe I ask too much for their age. December 6th Today was the goodbye. We did not have classes because at the beginning they were supposed to have an outing. But they finally decided to have a party in the school, a barbeque (I have never seen this before) but they gave me space to go ad say goodbye. I am leaving with a very good feeling. I think they are really good children, good, people, who really want to learn and have curiosity and opinion. They gave me this opportunity and were not only open to my activities, but they were also very warm. The UTP head and my host teacher were very nice and kind to me also, very supportive. Cindy gave me some advices that I think are very clever. She is a lady, a very good woman and a very good teacher. I felt sad of leaving this school, I have never felt so sad of leaving a school before..

(46) Tapia 46. 16.3 Questionaires.. The questionnaires to be shown in the next pages were given in November, 2012 to the 6th grade C students. Unfortunately, there were plenty of students absent because they had attended a Barras competition with the school..

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