What activities can I implement to have my students participating in the English lessons?
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(2) 2. Index Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………….3 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………...4 Context……………………………………………………………………………………..5 Problem…………………………………………………………………………………….6 Research. Question………………………………………………………………………...8. Rationale…………………………………………………………………………………….9 Literature Review…………………………………………………………………………..11 Methodology……………………………………………………………………………….18 Action Plan…………………………………………………………………………………23 Data Analysis ……………………………………………………………………...............28 Conclusion and Implications……………………………………………………………….38 References………………………………………………………………………………….41 Appendixes…………………………………………………………………………………43.
(3) 3. Abstract This Action Research looks for different strategies to foster students participation in a school located in Ñuñoa. The group of students in which this project was developed is around the ages of 14 and 15. The set of strategies used were designed considering students’ opinions and interests in order to make them communicate with each other. By the end of this project the researcher finds himself with a set of strategies that was applied with good results in terms of participation by the students. Keywords: strategies, participation, communication, action research.. El siguiente proyecto de investigación acción busca diferentes estrategias para fomentar la participación de los estudiantes en una escuela ubicada en Ñuñoa. El grupo de estudiantes en el que este proyecto fue llevado a cabo tiene alrededor de 14 y 15 años. Las estrategias elegidas fueron diseñadas considerando las opiniones e intereses de los estudiantes, para así hacerlos comunicarse los unos con los otros. Al final de este proyecto, el investigador encontró que las estrategias fueron aplicadas con buenos resultados en términos de la participación de los estudiantes. Palabras claves: estrategias, participación, comunicación, investigación acción..
(4) 4. Introduction English, in a globalized world, is, perhaps, one of the most used tools to communicate for different purposes. Some people stand that English opens doors to new opportunities in several aspects of our lives. Considering these elements, English is a necessary challenge to those who learn, but also to those who teach it as a challenge for both people trying to learn it and people who teach it. Teachers are pushed to teach students in order to have a tool for adult life, that is to say, to include the management of English within the curriculum and also to teach it to obtain good results in tests at school. Here we, teachers, face a problem because in our Chilean context, English is not taught communicatively. Actually, teaching methods are still based on grammar. The majority of students leave school without knowing how to use English for communicative purposes. Luckily, some students will be able to know something about the language. If you are a teacher of English in a country that lives something similar, you have two choices. You can choose whether to teach students about English or teach students how to use English. Normally, there is a lot of pressure over teachers because it seems that nowadays teachers have to manage to fulfill different and even contradictory needs demanded by government, parents, students, etc. In the following research, the idea of having students participating using English, as a means of communication within the lessons, is discussed and addressed as a problem to solve..
(5) 5. Context I conducted the present research project in a school located in Ñuñoa. The school goes from 7th grade to 12th grade. There are three courses per level and the number of students per class is 37, as an average. It is a public school with remarkable results in standardized tests. For instance, it has the second national place in PSU ranking among the public schools. The school counts with a particular method to work the contents. It is called APRENADE; it consists on the separation of the content in three stages: pre, class, post. In the first one, students have an approach to the content (ideally this should happen at home). Afterwards, the students deal with the content in the lesson. Finally, they have a post work that they have to complete at home. Another important aspect of the school is related to discipline. Control is part of every day’s routine. For example, inspectors are always worried about the time students arrive at school, the clothes they wear and haircut as well. Inside the classroom, teachers are always struggling to keep students in silence. Another important aspect of discipline within the school is that every single Monday students have to sing both the national hymn and school hymn. In this sense, students are, according to Pavlov (1927) conditioned in order to follow the routines established by the school..
(6) 6. Problem Despite the good results and the strict discipline mentioned above, there is an issue that calls my attention. As I remarked before, teachers are always trying to maintain the silence inside the classroom. Of course, sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. The problem is that when teachers require students’ participation, there is very little involvement of the students in the class. It seems that students are used to answer questions in their tests and that is all. Their participation is strongly restricted to controlled answers, in other words, students always have to choose among a set of alternatives; that type of participation is closely tied to the way assessment procedures are done in the school. For instance, comprehension is, most of the time, checked through questions such as, Did Robert say that Mary is messy? Students only have two possible answers: yes or no .In terms of assessment, students are assessed through norm-referencing tests. It refers to “the placement of learners in rank order” (CEF, 2001). In that sense, the ranking itself is made in relation to their classmates. . Another element that triggers that limited participation has to do with the importance that standardized tests have for teachers and directives in the school. In regard to standardized tests, these are defined as “any form of test that (1) requires all test takers to answer the same questions, or a selection of questions from common bank of questions, in the same way, and that (2) is scored in a “standard” or consistent manner, which makes it possible to compare the relative performance of individual students or groups of students. (Also) the term is primarily associated with largescale tests administered to large populations of students, such as a multiple-choice test given to all the eighth-grade public-school students (…)” (Abbott, 2014) Having good results in SIMCE, for instance, is one of the most important goals that the school aims at..
(7) 7. However, it is important to mention that during my practice, I have tried to introduce activities that foster participation through the use of the target language. Unfortunately, these activities have faced one problem: students do not participate as much as required, I mean, students, for example, do not produce language when they are asked to. Of course, some of them participate and those are the ones who get the higher marks. There is little participation in the classroom and that little corresponds to those who have better marks than the rest. When I talk about little participation, I mean that few students answer to teacher questions and even less give their opinion when it is asked. To conclude, in that sense, the main problem is that I do not know what kind of activities may be suitable to encourage student’s participation within the English lessons..
(8) 8. Research question The main concern that I have is participation. I strongly believe that participation within the classroom is fundamental for learning English. I understand participation as the interaction through communication of the people within the classroom, that is to say, teacher-student; student-teacher and student-student. Communication is the main aim of learning a foreign language and without participation it is impossible to reach a level of English that could be useful for students in their lives. My aim is to find out activities that will improve students’ participation during the English lessons. Consequently, my question is: what activities can I implement to have my students participating in the English lessons?.
(9) 9. Rationale I genuinely believe that this research is relevant to both students and I. On the one hand, students may have the opportunity of becoming the owners of the class. They may be able to participate and take advantage of the spaces provided by the teacher within the lesson. Besides, participation inside the classroom is tremendously important if we think about an active citizenship, in other words, citizens that actively participate in the democratic life or their community. We must develop the capacity of our students to have their own voices. Teaching to live in democracy is, perhaps, the fundamental task that education should aim at. On the other hand, I would be able to change my role as a teacher. According to Larsen-Freeman (2007), teacher’s role depends strictly on the manner of understanding pedagogy. For instance, she declares ‘’ a traditional view of teaching has been characterized as ‘’knowledge transmission’’ (p. 162). Within this view, the class is teacher-centered since that only the teacher is responsible for transmitting the knowledge to their students. In that sense, the classical banking metaphor, the teacher makes deposits of knowledge inside students’ brains, made by Paulo Freire (1970) fits in this kind of class. On the contrary and in a student-centered view of teaching, students here are the protagonists of the lesson. As Larsen-Freeman (2007) declares: ‘’learning should be socially constructed and teaching meaningful on what students already know (…) students are active thorough experimentation, problem- solving, and dialoguing’’ (p. 162). Ideally, my role as teacher also will change. The fundamental role of a English teacher should be focused on being he link between the curriculum and students in order to address the multiple needs of students present in class (Larsen- Freeman, 2007).
(10) 10. As a result of this research and the implementation of new strategies to improve participation I, of course, expect that students can use the English lessons as a space that can be used to ask questions, make mistakes and improve their English in order to communicate with others and use English as a tool for their lives rather than as a source to answer standardized tests..
(11) 11. Literary Review Within this literary review the reader will find the key concepts that will enrich the production of my action plan and, hopefully, will help to deal with the problem related to the lack of participation in the school in which I carried my professional practicum. The concepts develop in this section are: motivation; strategies to motivate students; students centered classroom and collaborative learning; motivation leading to participation and, finally, the importance of participation. As I already stated above, these concepts are helpful to understand the multiple considerations when the problem to solve inside the classroom is linked to foster student’s participation. Motivation I will develop this concept under the light of Brown (2007) who defined motivation as “the extent to which you make choices about (a) goals to pursue and (b) the effort you will devote to that pursuit.” (p. 72) Of course this definition does not say too much about what happens within the classroom. We believe that there are some considerations that need to be made in order to enrich the understanding of the concept.. I have noticed that an English teacher is constantly under pressure. That pressure is done by the reign of results, I mean, teachers have to focus their lessons on preparing students to have good results rather than in developing abilities in order to communicate among peers. Consequently, what is being taught is literally filling the gaps and mechanical selection of answers. For the same reason, how can students feel intrinsically motivated, if.
(12) 12. the only goal they see is to complete the worksheet or study to pass the exam, and then forget? What is happening inside the classrooms is that students are being motivated only externally. According to Brown (2007) “Motivation is also typically examined in terms of the intrinsic and extrinsic motives of the learner. Those who learn for their own selfperceived needs and goal are intrinsically motivated, and those who pursue a goal only to receive an external reward from someone else are extrinsically motivated.” (p. 72). For instance, students are constantly under pressure because they are pushed to obtain good results in SIMCE or PSU; what I can observe in students is only extrinsic motivation in order to receive good grades and answer their tests. Penny Ur (1999) declares that there are some sources of extrinsic motivation that are out of teachers’ reach, for example, ‘’the desire of students to please some other authority figure such as parents, their wish to succeed in an external exam, or peer-group influences” (p. 277). However, there are some aspects of that extrinsic motivation that are controlled by the teacher. Aspects such as the reward or punishment of different behaviors. In that sense, students learn English only in order to succeed in certain exam, not to truly use it as a means for communication.. To conclude, I strongly believe that students have to move from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation. Indeed, Ryan and Deci (2000) stated “intrinsic motivation results in highquality learning and creativity, it is especially important to detail the factors and forces that engender versus undermine it.” The next step is to give students the space to find the motivation they need to learn English; give students the chance to use English for purposes of communication..
(13) 13. Strategies to motivate students Strategies to motivate students should be connected with the different student’s learning styles in order to provide mixed activities. Steven Hastings (2005) defines the theory of learning styles as ‘’straightforward’’. ‘’The central principle is that children learn in different ways’’. He also declares that the most commonly used system in schools and the one that has been highly promoted around the world is the VAK model of classification. This model divides learners into visual, auditory and kinaesthetic; ‘’those who like to look, those who like to listen and who who learn best through physical activity’’ (Hastings, 2005). Considering this classification, teachers should try to address mixed activities in order to make lessons more accessible to everyone. Being able to present a wide variety of activities within the lesson will increase, first, motivation and, secondly, participation. The perfect scenario would be a class in which all three styles are present. According to Hastings (2005) “many school activities are not purely visual, auditory or kinesthetic, but a mixture of all three. A child may be looking at a book (visual) while listening to a teacher (auditory) and making notes (kinesthetic).” Teachers should promote kinesthetic learning especially with young learners because the class which includes this element is much more dynamic, interactive and meaningful for children who tend to move a lot due to their, natural at this age, restlessness. Following Hastings’ reasoning, many investigations have shown that “kinesthetic activities were done in groups, and what pupils actually enjoyed was working with other people, not the activity itself." It is really important, because the moment when children start enjoying working with peers, without being aware of it, they learn even more..
(14) 14. The activity itself becomes a tool for social interaction as well as for meaningful and natural learning of a foreign language.. The last factor which may help students become motivated has to do with the affective factors. These can play an important role within the student’s learning process. According to Brown (2007) children ¨still have a great many inhibitions. They are extremely sensitive, especially to peers: What do others think of me? What will so-and-so think when I speak English? Children are in many ways much more fragile than adults’’ (p.61). Following Brown’s (2007) thought, teachers need to know that they are fundamental in overcoming those barriers. Teachers can use many strategies in order to create a good atmosphere of learning process where making mistakes is part of it. For example, he or she could help students to reinforce their self-esteem so they will not be affected by their classmates’ reactions or comments. It is teacher´s responsibility to empower students, and to show them that there are no limits in learning a second language; learning a second language is an endless process.. Students centered classroom and collaborative learning. First, there are some elements that are central in the consideration of a student centered classroom: the teacher must promote self- esteem of her students by talking to them in English and believing that they are able to understand instructions and conversations in English. If the teacher trusts them, they will automatically feel more confident and the probability of using a foreign language rises. “Learners´ belief that they.
(15) 15. indeed are fully capable of accomplishing a task is at least partially a factor in their eventual success in attaining the task” (Brown, D. 2007, p.62). Furthermore, what is expected from students in order to learn and to take responsibility for their learning too, includes basically the will and capacity for a dialogue with peers and the teacher, as well as learning and working collaboratively. Taking that into account, achieving dialogue must be understood as a two-way relationship, as Christine Howe (2010) states. Moreover the author explains how dialogue not only helps cognitive growth, but also fosters children’s’ conceptions of morality (Howe C., 2010) Subsequently, students’ progress on their own beliefs of morality meanwhile they learn how to assertively communicate with others, and to build a learning community, based on acceptance, respect and primarily, affection.. It is already said that teacher´s role is to facilitate students’ learning process. Considering that, a teacher who cares about students is worried about establishing positive learning atmosphere. “The role of the teacher in the language classroom is that of a facilitator, who creates a classroom climate conductive to language use and language learning”. (Richards, J. 2006, p. 23) A meaningful class has to be carried out focused on students’ interaction between peers and the teacher. Ideally, from the point of view of interactions, the teacher should promote more collaboration among students and more interaction. Taking that into consideration the emotional components stated above, a way of promoting them and learning is related to cooperative learning. Cooperative learning is defined as ‘’a technique teachers use to group students together to impact learning in a positive way’’ (Firestone, M., n.d). The positive impact was detected by the Russian Psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) with two concepts that still remain as fundamental in psychology and education. The zone of proximal development or ZPD is defined as “the.
(16) 16. distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in cooperation with more capable peers” (p.86). The cooperation, as Vygotsky declared, can be done by peers. Acknowledging that, scaffolding, the social assistance that peers can deliver to each other, is defined as the a social mediation that involves two or more people and that is performed by one (or more) that manages better an specific content. Working together, collaboratively, can help students that are below to a certain level to learn more, but also to develop social skills; as Larsen-Freeman (2007) remarks “teacher teaches students collaborative or social skills so that they can work together more effectively” and for students to be able to work in a collaborative learning process, they need to be taught how to listen to others, and how to express themselves clearly.. In order to conclude the discussion about this concept of students centered classrooms. I would like to emphasize that “Learning is not an individual, private activity, but a social one that depends upon interaction with others.” (Richards, J. 2006, p.25) and the teacher must be a guide who takes care about the quality of interaction among peers.. The importance of participation. There is one concept that is transversal to all the ones that we described above: participation. As we discussed in the previous chapter the main problem that I have noticed.
(17) 17. in my practice is that despite that I try to provide spaces to participate, students do not take advantage of them. So, I think that the problem is that I have to find out alternative ways of encouraging. students’. participation. within. my. English. lessons.. I believe that the first step is to make students participate is to motivate them with interesting topics. Students need to be engaged to what is happening inside the classroom. In that sense, there is an extra difficulty for us English teachers since that most of the students do not see English as a tool for their lives. It is our duty to find ways to make English a topic. of. interest. so. that. we. can. foster. student’s. participation.. The second step towards the development of students’ participation is to find strategies to make students feel comfortable within the classroom so that they are not afraid of making mistakes. Students tend to believe that making mistakes is wrong; they must know that mistakes are part of the learning process itself. That sense of trust, I think, will increase students’ interest to raise their voices inside the classroom.. Finally, both steps will, ideally, lead to a student centered classroom. Teachers need to understand that their role is to facilitate the knowledge to their students. The focus of each lesson must be the students and their learning process. Teacher’ talking time should be reduced to instructions and general explanations about the topic. Students need the space to develop their own pace for learning and teachers are responsible of trustring them and giving them the opportunities that they need..
(18) 18. Methodology First of all, I would like to start by explaining action research and its justification in the current issue that I am dealing with. Anne Burns (2009) affirmed that “AR is an appealing way to look more closely at puzzling classroom issues or to delve into teaching dilemmas” (p. 6). The possibility of looking closely to those issues is given by being selfreflective, critical and also systematic in the exploration of the teaching context in which the teacher is involved. Being critical is, perhaps, one of the most fundamental components of AR; the term, as Burns recognizes, can be misunderstood, that is why it is necessary to clarify its meaning. “By critical, I don’t mean being negative and derogatory about the way you teach, but taking a questioning and ‘problematising’ stance towards your teaching” (Burns, A. 2010, p. 2). In that sense, AR gives the chance of producing new innovative ideas for teaching in a context that the teacher takes part of. To conclude, I would to state that, according to Burns (2010), AR bases the interventions on information that is systematically collected from the context of teaching. It is gives to AR the consistency that needs to be classified as a scientific procedure. Participants 32 students take part of this action research. They are from 9th grade. Most of them have been in the school from 7th grade, that is to say, that they already know how participation within the school is. As I already mentioned above, the problem inside the context is that participation is restricted to answer questions that have only one right answer. In other words, their participation is very controlled and there are no spaces for creativity in English lessons..
(19) 19. Instruments for data collection With the purpose of obtaining the information that would help with the collection of data; I will proceed to introduce the methodology of this research. In regard to the instruments and in order to clarify the use of them and the reasons why I chose them, I will divide into two moments the data collection process. The first moment is before the action plan implementation; the second one is during and after the implementation. During the first moment I used two instruments: Firstly, the instrument that I used the most is the journal. According to Anne Burns (2010), keeping a journal is one of the methods to collect data that is widely used. A journal, stated Burns, is a source that allows ‘’capturing significant reflections and events in an ongoing way.” (p. 89). Burns also classifies the types of journal depending on some specific features. In that sense, I used two kinds of journal. On the one hand, a factual journal, it answers to the question what is happening here? The answer is given by recording the observations in a factual way, that is to say, objectively. On the other hand and as a complement to the factual journal, I used a reflective journal. It answers to the questions what are my responses to/ interpretations of what has happened? What meanings can I make about these happenings? As is reflected in the questions, this type of journal aims at capturing “’stream- of- consciousness’ ideas, thoughts, reflections, insights, feelings, reactions to lesson/events” (p. 90). The idea of complementing these two journals during my action research gives me the opportunity of not only taking notes within the lesson or maybe at the end of it, but also to write what I think about the events that can be analyzed as a piece of information that gives elements for my research..
(20) 20. Secondly, I decided to implement a short questionnaire with two open questions. Burns (2010) explains that questionnaires are useful when “you want to get responses from several people and you don’t have time to interview”. Taking that into consideration, interviewing 32 students would have given too much information to be analyzed during the period of time that I have to develop the research. In terms of the questions, they are openended items, using Burns (2010) classification. The kinds of responses that I can receive from students are short, but they can give information that is not easy to have with closedended items. The aim of the questions is focused to understand the meaning of participation and also to know student’s preferences and the requirements that they have. Taking that into account, I could prepare my intervention considering elements that were important for students. This information is going to be shown and analyzed in the following section devoted to the action plan. Here is a sample of the questionnaire given to the students- it is worth to mention that students received a copy in Spanish in order to fully understand what they were asked-: In the following space, you are asked to write brief definition about what you understand as participation within the classroom..
(21) 21. To finish, you are asked to write suggestions so that you, as a student, can participate more in the lesson.. In the second moment, I kept both journals during the implementation of the plan. After the intervention, I used a questionnaire with closed- ended items, in Burns (2010) words. I chose to implement a rating scales questionnaire. This “give you a broader range of responses than yes/no (…) (this) ask people to give the degree to which they agree with something (…)” (p. 82).I introduced this questionnaire in order to know students’ opinions and appreciations about the activities done during the lessons that were part of my action plan. Here is the sample: QUESTIONNAIRE ABOUT PARTICIPATION WITHIN ENGLISH LESSON The objective of this brief questionnaire is to know your perception about your participation within the English lesson. Different statements will be presented according to the topic already mentioned. Different aspects to evaluate participation are presented now. For each of them, please, indicate the number of appreciation, choosing one of the following options according to your opinion for each statement..
(22) 22. 1: yes, always, achieved, 100%, very good, excellent, totally agree. 2: almost always, 70%, good, agree. 3: from time to time, 40%, regularly, mediocre, disagree. 4: No, never, 0% or almost, bad, strongly disagree. 5: does not apply.. 1. The teacher promotes an environment that allows participation. 2. The teacher proposes activities in which collaboration among pairs is necessary. 3. The teacher allows that students interact among them. 4. The teacher fosters participation of all the students. 5. The teacher proposes activities in which participation is important for the development of the lesson. 6. I participate in English lessons..
(23) 23. Action plan The action plan is divided into four stages. a) Questionnaire (I already presented it, now I have to develop what took from here) b) Planning c) 5 activities d) Rating scales questionnaire. In the first stage of my action plan, as it is already mentioned above, I introduced a questionnaire with two open questions. The goal of these two questions was to find students’ definition of participation and, at the same time, the conditions that they found important in order to participate in English lessons. That definition and those conditions will give me a hint for the second step of the plan, planning. In the analysis of students’ responses I could notice that the concept participation is rigorously linked with two main ideas. On the one hand, students relate participation with giving their opinion inside the lesson. On the other hand, answering teacher’s questions is also an element that students associate with participating during the lesson. Another aspects that students wrote while answering the questions were: asking questions, interaction among classmates and collaborate. In regard to the second question, the majority of students thought that a requirement to raise their participation is given by the fact of having more participative lessons. As a second key notion, students affirmed that having a topic of interest is a characteristic that will lead them to participate more. Another opinions given.
(24) 24. by students were: group work and scaffolding provided by classmates. Students also acknowledged that they do not manage the language as much as they would like, that lack of management inhibited them from participating. During the second step, the planning, the ideas listed before provided me the opportunity of taking into account activities that foster, in the first place, that students could express their opinions. Including these kind of works, leads to have a more participative lesson. If students are the focus of the lesson, of course, I had to think about topics that would motivate them to participate. The third step of the plan consists in 5 activities that aim at foster students’ participation in English lessons. These activities are organized both on an individual basis, but also in groups. The idea is to make students work individually and in groups in order to raise collaborative work. It is important to mention that students were totally allowed to talk during the development of each activity, even if the activities are organized as individual work. I reckon the importance of scaffolding (Vygotsky, 1938) during the process of learning; that is why students can share their knowledge inside the classroom. In order to clarify this part of the action plan, I will proceed as follows: firstly, I will present the activity itself, that is to say, the steps that students took in each of them. Once they are presented, I will proceed to justify them all. “Hot topics” is the name of the first activity. Three images were presented to students. Image number one is a marihuana leaf. Image number two presented to homosexual couples at the top of a wedding cake. The last image exhibited two posters that represented two opposed positions about abortion. Students were asked to give their.
(25) 25. opinion for each one of the topics presented using the language seen during the lesson, that consisted in chunks to provide their opinion, for instance, I think/ I believe/ I agree/ I disagree, etc. Activity number two was group work and is called “the perfect school”. Students were displayed in groups of four. Each group has the task of creating “the perfect school”. Students were asked to invent the name; the location and the laws that will rule their school.. The. content. involved. in. this. lesson. was. referred. to. obligations/prohibitions/possibilities. In terms of language, students had to work with must/ have to in all their forms. The third activity is about giving advice and is called “telling our problems”. Students were given 15 minutes to write a teenager problem, it could be real, based on their lives, or fictional if they didn’t want to talk about their problems. Afterwards, students had to remove the sheet of paper where they wrote the problem and interchange it with another classmate. Finally, students had to write three advices to solve the classmate’s problem. The content that students had to use in here was related to giving advice. The language used was should/ ought to/ shouldn’t and had better (not). Activity number four is also devoted to give advices and is called “trying to save them”. Students are given two situations that bring ethical issues. These are the events: 1) You have a friend. Her family is very catholic. Her mother wants her to be a nun. Despite that, she has a boyfriend. Only you know of his existence. Unfortunately, she is pregnant..
(26) 26. 2) Your friend is involved in a huge problem with drug dealers. He knows that his grandma has money in the closet. As you know, she receives $70.000 per month. Your friend needs $60.000 for tomorrow and you have no money.. Students have to think in pairs about a solution for each problem. That solution is an advice for their friend. Students have to use the same pieces of language described for the previous activity. The last activity of the plan is about writing promises, offers and intentions, it is called “trying to save me”. Students were given, again, situations that may trigger ethical problems: 1. You are going to another country alone. You are saying goodbye to your familiy. 2. Your mom is yelling at you due to your bad marks in the school. 3. Your boy/girlfriend found you flirting with another person.. Students had to write two promises and two offers per situation. In order to achieve this purpose, students had to use will/shall and future going to. When I prepared all the activities designed for this part of the plan I focused on fundamental elements mentioned by the students. Firstly, I kept in mind students’ view about participation. Giving their opinion is a signal of participation within the lesson. In order to raise participation I thought about activities that deal with topics and situations that they may have lived in a moment of their lives; situations that are not far from them. I.
(27) 27. wanted to make them think about something is related to their daily live as adolescents students. Besides, I also took into consideration discussions, since that they trigger students to take a position in front of different topics that I showed them. Consequently, I included topics that can be seen as problematic inside a classroom, for example, gay marriage or marihuana legalization. I think that these topics help students to think about themselves as individuals and their position, but also give the opportunity to learn from others’ opinions. The last step of this action plan has to do with the implementation of a rating scale questionnaire that was already shown. It aims at knowing student’s opinion about the series of activities described above..
(28) 28. Data analysis. To make clearer the analysis of the data, the notes that I took were categorized into two aspects: a) reactions to the activities and b) development of the activity. When I talk about reactions I refer to all the kind responses that I could notice at the moment of presenting the activity. For instance, laughs when the situations were presented; faces at the moment of delivering the instructions; the disposition that students presented to accomplish the task, etc. When I mention development of the activity, I mean how students worked during the activity. For example, if students were motivated and engaged in the activity and how they behaved while the activity was being developed. Now, as a first step I will indicate some of the notes taken for each activity that will help me to present the analysis of my action plan. Then, the second step consists on the analysis of the data presented. Activity number one “Hot topics”: When the images were presented, students immediately reacted. Some of them, actually, make some comments to their classmates in Spanish. Even, some of them told me that they never discussed those kinds of topics in the classroom. They started to give reasons to support their positions even before the instructions were given. After the instructions were delivered, students began to write their opinions. Some of them discussed with a classmate due the differences of opinion. Most of the time, students work individually and used dictionaries to look in words that they did not know. Despite that, when they did not know how to express an idea or write a phrase, they asked for my help..
(29) 29. I could notice that the images, which refer to topics that are part of students’ daily life, instantaneously, produce a reaction. In this case, the reaction they had was positive. Students were engaged during the process of writing because the topic was something that, somehow, leads them to show their opinion and look for arguments to state a well-founded opinion. Since that the activity asked for a personal opinion, most of the time they tried to work autonomously looking for the accurate vocabulary to convey a clear message. Activity number two “The perfect school”: The first instruction given was that they had to form groups. Students, in general, celebrated. Their motivation rose only due to the group work. When I explained the activity, they started to discuss instantly inside the group. Most of them agreed that their perfect school would be the opposite of the school they are in. Students worked together and distributed roles within the group. For instance, one group had some writers and some students that were in charge of looking in words in the dictionary. Little of my help was needed here. Group work is an element that immediately motivates them. Most of the groups had one or two students that have a good command of English, so working with them is a possibility of learning more effectively for some students. Another aspect that is important in group work is that students do not feel embarrassed when they had doubts since that they can ask to a classmate. Activity number three “Telling our problems”: When I told students that the first step of the activity was to write a problem that they had, they did not look motivated at all! Students were reluctant to write their problems. In order to make them participate, I changed the activity a little bit. Instead of having them writing about their personal.
(30) 30. problems, I gave them the opportunity to make up a problem. Afterwards, students started to develop the activity. It was more complicated than the previous activities. They took longer time than the assigned for this part of the activity and required my help more times. I think that this activity did not work as well as I thought it could be. I believe that the reason is that at this age, fourteen or fifteen years, students are building their inside world, their self-esteem and personality are going through a process that is not easy to share with others. Their motivation decreased because they were not prone to share their problems with other that may not be a friend. This caused another difficulty; students had problems with making up a problem that did not necessarily relate with their experience. It was harder for them to find the appropriated words and vocabulary to convey a clear message. Activity number 4 “Trying to save them”: Again, the news of pair work excited them and raised their motivation quickly. Students immediately peer up and listened carefully to the instructions delivered. The situations presented triggered reactions such as: “wow!” “awful” “that’s very complicated” and “I don’t know what to do”. They started to talk with each other looking for a solution. I could notice how students negotiated their opinions, that sometimes were very different, to reach a common solution or advice. For a second time I could notice that group work is for students an element that makes them feel motivated and directly prepared them to develop activities better. Within this work, I could see how students try to agree in order to have one answer. They built up their advices autonomously; they discuss and looked for words and phrases that could fit with their thoughts..
(31) 31. Activity number 5 “Trying to save me”: Students really liked the situations. They did jokes about the situations and laughed a lot at the moment of reading them. Students worked very quickly in order to achieve the goal of the activity. They talk with other students and constantly made jokes among them. Most of them worked independently and were able to write interesting and funny promises, offers and intentions. The situations that, somehow, are part of their lives as adolescents made them have a good disposition to work and a high motivation to engage quickly. When they had the space to write and use their creativity, students can fulfill the requirements easily and in original ways. Now, after the analysis of the activities, I will analyze the results of the close- ended questionnaire applied to the students question by question..
(32) 32. Questionnaire analysis. The 30 students, that were present the day when the questionnaire was applied, agreed in different degree that the environment allowed participation during the lessons. I think that this 67% answered with a totally agree because and the other 33% agree because they have enough space to express themselves as they wish. For instance, in activity number 5 students felt free to joke with each other. Also, I noticed that they felt comfortable inside the classroom because they were not afraid of asking doubts when necessary. Students were able to feel comfortable despite they were dealing with a language that most of them do not manage..
(33) 33. 29 students agreed over the 70% that collaboration within activities was necessary to fulfill the goals of it. Obviously students took into consideration that two of these five activities were group work (one in groups and other one in pairs). Another point to consider is that students always have the opportunity to talk to each other if they feel they need it, even though the activities were on an individual basis..
(34) 34. Here, again, 29 students agreed over the 70% that they can interact among them within the class. The activities designed aimed at having them interacting in the English lesson. Taking that into consideration, students cooperated to achieve the goals of each activity. Most of the time, students had to discuss and exchange opinions and points of view; another aspect to contemplate is that during these activities students were not punished by talking or using their cellphones to look for information they needed. In that sense, they feel comfortable not only to talk to each other, but also to work..
(35) 35. Most of the time, the participation is restricted to those who have better marks, actually this is described as one of the parts of the problem that conducts this research. I have noticed that these students feel comfortable and trust in themselves. Despite that, during these activities and, during the whole year as well, I have tried to foster participation of all the students. With that 27% of students that do not think I tried to increase everyone’s participation. I have a new topic to reflect on: I have to think about strategies to increase the participation of the whole group..
(36) 36. As I described before, the majority of students participated actively during the activities. Despite that, students did not believe that their participation was fundamental for the development of the lesson. I think that this could be related to the question presented before. Perhaps students felt that they all were not central for the lesson development. Of course, there are always students that are more motivated to participate due to different reasons. These could be, for instance, their management of the topic/ subject; their personality and, obviously, their motivation to be an active part of the English lesson. Despite that, the challenge of including all the students is still present..
(37) 37. With this question I wanted to know how they perceived their participation. Almost half of the students, 13 students wrote that they participated from time to time and 12 students answered that almost always participated. This is surprising for me since that, as explained before, students participated actively in the activities provided by me. During the implementation of the intervention, students that were not regular participants participated. Despite that, there were students that did not participated as much as I would have liked. Here I can find another topic to reflect on, because it seems there is dichotomy between what I saw and what they felt. These and other reflections will be expanded during the conclusions and implications..
(38) 38. Conclusion and Implications. It is interesting for me to look at this research as project that is already finished. I would like to divide my reflections into two parts. On the one hand, my perceptions and feelings about the result of the intervention that I implemented. Sincerely, I believe that it worked. As already showed through the different parts of this research, students participated and were able to be engaged in the activities that I presented. I believe that is was helpful for me and for them, to have the first questionnaire. I could realize what students understood by participation and what elements they needed. I tried to include topics, situations that were familiar for adolescents and I think it helped to make students feel that English is something is also related to their lives. On the other hand, I have the results of the second questionnaire that gave me students’ opinion about the different activities that they developed in the English lessons. As I declared above, some of the results were surprising because I, most of the time, felt that worked very well. Questions four, five and six have a common topic that is related to participation towards the development of activities given in the lesson. Answers delivered by the students gave me a topic that is now food for thought, I have to find, perhaps this is a topic for a future action research, strategies to increase the even more the participation of those who are not comfortable with the use of English. Emotional factors play a fundamental role here: selfesteem, for instance, could be an interesting topic to investigate in order to make students use English as a tool to trust themselves..
(39) 39. I would like to acknowledge the limitations that I faced during the whole process of this action research. Some of the limitations were: -The school itself: since that the school is strongly advocated to obtain good results in standardized tests. In that sense, English is not taught for communication, but only to answer those kinds of tests. -My host teacher: Following the lines of the school, my teacher was always worried about teaching grammar. Moreover, she did not like to have “noise” during the lesson. It is important to notice that noise was for her what for me was interaction. Under these circumstances, it was little that I could do. Actually, that situation conditioned me to only have activities based on communication and not, for instance, whole lessons. -Students were not familiar with these types of activities: I think that this could be, maybe, one of the reasons why students did not feel that their participation was not fundamental for the development of the activities. I noticed how some students felt uncomfortable at the moment of presenting in front of class, for example. If students are not used to participate, it is normal that they do not know how to act when they are provided with the space to freely participate. If I were to do this again I would try to expand the communicativeness to the whole lesson gradually. In other words, I would try to start with the beginning of the lesson, pre, with activities that require students’ participation. After, I would try to have the pre and while including students’ participation. Finally, I would try with the whole lesson with the.
(40) 40. participation of them. I think that this could be better, because it would give the chance to students to get familiar with activities that need them to be an active part of the lesson. Despite these limitations and the different perceptions from both students and me, I think that this research is very relevant for my practice. I noticed that even in a context where English is perceived as a theoretical subject and not practical, there are spaces that can be used as spaces for communication and interaction. Students can be the owners of the class. They can, but also must communicate in order to develop themselves as learners and as future citizens. This research gives me hope for the future. Now I know, through my experience, that lessons can be done differently..
(41) 41. References Abbott, S. (Ed.), Hidden curriculum (2014, August 26). The glossary of education reform. Retrieved from http://edglossary.org/hidden-curriculum Brown, D. (2007) Teaching by Principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy, Third Edition. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. (2001). Cambridge, U.K.: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. Firestone, M. (n.d). What Is Collaborative Learning? – Benefits, Theory & Definition. Retrieved October 5, 2015, from http:///study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-collaborativelearning-benefits-theory-definition.html Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Opressed. New York: Continuum. Hastings, S. (2005, November 4). Learning Styles. TES. Howe, C. &. (2010). Educational Dialogues. Routledge. Pavlov, I.P. (1927). Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex (translated by G.V. Anrep). London: Oxford University Press. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2007). Teaching techniques in English as a second language. Ryan, R., & Deci, E. (2000). Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New. Directions.. Retrieved. June. 9,. 2015,. from. http://www.selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2000_RyanDeci_IntExtDefs.pdf Richards, J. (2006) Communicative Language Teaching Today. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ur, P. (1999). A Course in Language Teaching. Practice and Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press..
(42) 42. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press..
(43) 43. Appendixes Questionnaire #1 Se le pide que escriba una breve definición sobre lo que usted entiende por participación dentro de la clase.. Se le pide que escriba sugerencias para que usted, como estudiante, pueda participar más dentro de la clase de inglés..
(44) 44. Questionnaire #2 ENCUESTA SOBRE LA PARTICIPACIÓN EN LAS CLASES DE INGLÉS. La idea de esta breve encuesta es saber sobre su percepción de la participación dentro de las clases de inglés. Se le presentaran distintas proposiciones respecto al tema ya señalado. Se presentan a continuación los distintos aspectos a evaluar en relación a la participación dentro de la clase. Para cada uno de ellos, indicar el nivel de apreciación, señalando uno de los siguientes índices, según corresponda a cada afirmación.. 1: si, siempre, logrado, 100%, muy bien, excelente, muy de acuerdo. 2: casi siempre, 70%, bien, de acuerdo. 3: De vez en cuando, 40%, regular, mediocre, en desacuerdo. 4: No, nunca, 0% o casi, malo, muy en desacuerdo. 5: No aplica.. 1. El profesor promueve un ambiente propicio para participar.
(45) 45 2. El profesor propone actividades en que la colaboración entre pares es necesaria 3. El profesor permite que los estudiantes interactúen entre ellos 4. El profesor incentiva a la participación de todos los/las estudiantes 5. El profesor propone actividades en que participar es importante para el desarrollo de la clase. 6. Participo dentro de la clase de inglés..
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