How can I help my students believe that they can learn english

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(1)Facultad de Educación. HOW CAN I HELP MY STUDENTS BELIEVE THAT THEY CAN LEARN ENGLISH?. Tesis para optar al Título Profesional de Profesora de Inglés en enseñanza básica y educación media Por Damaris Beatriz Moya Maldonado. Profesor tutor: Mary Jane Abrahams Sánchez Directora de la carrera de Pedagogía en Inglés. Santiago, Chile 2013 -1-.

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(3) DEDICATORY. The author dedicates this paper to every teacher who fights every day to help their students retake their humanity. El deber del educador moderno no es talar selvas, sino regar desiertos. La defensa adecuada contra los sentimientos falsos es inculcar sentimientos justos. Si no alimentamos la sensibilidad de nuestros alumnos, sólo los convertimos en presa más fácil del propagandista. Pues la hambrienta naturaleza se vengará, y un corazón duro no es protección infalible contra una cabeza blanda. (Lewis, 2000, p. 22).. -3-.

(4) APPRECIATION. The author would like to thank her family, for giving her the possibility to study what she really loves: Pedagogy. She would also like to thank her guide teacher, who helped her to identify different characteristics of her teaching practice and to improve others. She also thinks necessary to thank her 12th G students, who gave her the possibility to meet them and who trusted her during this process. Finally, the author would like to thank Priscilla Echeverría, for helping her develop her critical thinking and realize the importance of education, and Mary Jane Abrahams, for guiding her in the process of creating the thesis providing meaningful advice on her work.. -4-.

(5) INDEX I. Page ABSTRACT ….…………………………………………………............... IX RESUMEN …………………………………………………….................. X I. INTRODUCTION ..……………….……………………………………... 1 II. CONTEXT ..……………………….…………………………………...... 3 2.1 The school 3 2.2 The teacher 4 th 2.3 The 12 G year 4 th 2.4 Experience with the 12 G year 5 2.5 Adolescence 6 III. THE PROBLEM ………………………….…………………..………… 8 IV. OBJECTIVES ………………………………………………………….. 9 4.1 General 9 4.2 Specific 9 V. RATIONALE .………………………………………………………….. 10 VI. THE QUESTION……………………….……………………………... 15 VII. HYPOTHESIS .……………………….……………………………… 16 VIII. LITERARY REVIEW ………………….……………………………. 17 IX. PLANNING THE ACTION …………….…………………………….. 18 9.1 Methodology 21 9.2 Timeline 21 X. RESOURCES NEEDED .……………….……………………………. 24 XI. PLANNING THE ANALYSIS ..……………………………………… 25. -5-.

(6) XII. DATA COLLECTION ………………….……………………………. 26 12.1 Questionnaire Nº1 26 12.2 Questionnaire Nº2 27 12.3 Questionnaire Nº3 29 XIII. THE FEEDBACK SESSIONS AND COMMENTS ……………… 32 13.1 Personal face to face feedback 33 13.2 Responding feedback 33 13.3 Classmates’ feedback 38 13.4 Effects of feedback on student-teacher relationship 40 XIV. CONCLUSION ...……………………………………………….…... 43 XV. GLOSSARY …………………………………………………….…… 45 XVI. REFERENCES ………………………………………………….….. 46 APPENDIX ……………………………………………………………….. 47. -6-.

(7) INDEX II Illustrations, Charts and Questionnaires. Page CHART Nº1: Action research timeline ......................................................... 22 CHART Nº2: First questionnaire .................................................................. 26 CHART Nº3: Second questionnaire ............................................................. 28 CHART Nº4: Third questionnaire ................................................................. 30 ILLUSTRATION Nº1: Responding feedback on the letters .......................... 34 ILLUSTRATION Nº2: Responding feedback on the letters .......................... 35 ILLUSTRATION Nº3: Responding feedback on the letters .......................... 35 ILLUSTRATION Nº4: Example ..................................................................... 36 ILLUSTRATION Nº5: Example ..................................................................... 36 ILLUSTRATION Nº6: Example ..................................................................... 36 ILLUSTRATION Nº7: Responding feedback on oral work ........................... 37 ILLUSTRATION Nº8: Responding feedback on oral work ........................... 37 ILLUSTRATION Nº9: Responding feedback on oral work ........................... 38 ILLUSTRATION Nº10: Classmates’ feedback ............................................. 39 ILLUSTRATION Nº11: Classmates’ feedback ............................................. 39 ILLUSTRATION Nº12: Classmates’ feedback ............................................. 39 ILLUSTRATION Nº13: Classmates’ feedback ............................................. 39. -7-.

(8) ILLUSTRATION Nº14: Classmates’ feedback .............................................. 40 ILLUSTRATION Nº15: Classmates’ feedback mediated by the author ........ 40 QUESTIONNAIRE Nº1: Guía de autoconocimiento ………………............... 47 QUESTIONNAIRE Nº2: Reflexión …………………………………….……….. 49 QUESTIONNAIRE Nº3: Reflexión II ………………………………….............. 50. -8-.

(9) ABSTRACT. In the following paper, the author carried out an action research project which had the purpose of identifying a specific problem that was interfering with her teaching practice, addressing it and looking for possible solutions to it. Questionnaires were used in order to identify the factor that was affecting her students’ engagement discovering that it was an important one which is not always taken into consideration by teachers: The self-efficacy concept. When the author identified that the main topic affecting engagement in her lessons was students’ self-efficacy concept, different strategies were created in order to help her students increase their positive self-efficacy concepts. The most important and successful strategy she used was feedback. During the period of the investigation, the author provided students with face to face, responding (teacher’s comments) and classmates’ feedback. These three types of feedback contained positive comments about students’ performance in the subject. The results of this strategy were astonishing; the majority of the students increased their positive self-efficacy concept, engaged with the lessons, and participated in them. This shows that students were not afraid of making mistakes, which promotes a better classroom atmosphere since students are more relaxed and self-confident.. -9-.

(10) RESUMEN. En el siguiente documento, la autora llevó a cabo un proyecto de investigación acción el que tenía como objetivo identificar un problema específico que estuviera interfiriendo con su práctica pedagógica, enfrentándola y encontrando posibles soluciones a ésta. Cuestionarios fueron utilizados con el fin de identificar el factor que estaba afectando el compromiso de los estudiantes, descubriendo que éste era uno importante el cual no es siempre tomado en cuenta por los profesores: El concepto de autoeficacia. Cuando la autora identificó que el principal concepto que estaba afectando el compromiso con sus clases era el concepto de autoeficacia de sus estudiantes, diferentes estrategias fueron creadas con el fin de ayudar a sus estudiantes a incrementar sus conceptos positivos de autoeficacia. La estrategia más importante y exitosa que ella usó fue el feedback. Durante el período de investigación, la autora dio a los estudiantes feedback cara a cara, de reacción (comentarios de la profesora) y de sus compañeros. Estos tres tipos de feedback contenían comentarios positivos acerca del desempeño de los estudiantes en el ramo. Los resultados de ésta estrategia fueron asombrosos, la mayoría de los estudiantes incrementaron su concepto positivo de autoeficacia, se comprometieron con las clases y participaron de ellas. Esto muestra que los estudiantes no tenían miedo a cometer errores, lo que promueve un mejor ambiente en la clase ya que los estudiantes están más relajados y seguros de sí mismos.. - 10 -.

(11) I. Introduction. Engagement is a recurring topic dealt with in papers and seminars, and it affects every teacher in each area at least once in their lives. This topic affects teachers’ teaching practice and it is exactly what happened to the author of this paper. That is why she decided to focus her research paper on this topic. As the author did not know what the reason why students did not engage with the lessons was, she created three main hypothesis that could explain this situation: Students are worried about graduating more than learning a foreign language, students are not interested in learning English because they think they will never travel to an English speaking country, and they do not believe they can learn English. In order for the author to find the answer to this problem, she created three questionnaires that could unveil the reasons why students did not engage with the lessons. These questionnaires were given to students in different stages of the process in order to identify the problem and evaluate the impact the actions taken have had. In the following paper the author will expose an action research project carried out at a municipal school in Santiago. Here the author discusses the topic of self-efficacy concept which is a factor that is not always taken into consideration when talking about engagement. This action research paper has as the main purpose to identify a certain pedagogical problem, address it, and find alternatives of solution to it in order to improve the author’s teaching practice. It is also expected by the author to give other teachers the possibility to find in this paper a plausible escape if they are experiencing a similar situation.. - 11 -.

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(13) II. Context. The context in which the project was carried out was divided into five areas: The school, the teacher, the grade the author was working with, experience with the group and adolescence. These five areas describe in detail what the author had to face at the beginning of this process. 2.1 The school The author started her final practice at Instituto Superior de Comercio Eduardo Frei Montalva A.26. This is a municipal school which has the purpose of preparing students to work in the areas of secretarial studies, accounting, and business. As this is a downtown school, students from different sectors of Santiago apply to study here. In this school there are about 50 teachers whose working-day is divided into three modules: The morning, afternoon and evening modules. There are also, two counselor teachers and two UTP workers: one for the morning module and one for the afternoon module. The school counts with a staff of cleaning assistants, administrative assistants, dining room assistants, deputy director and director. The morning module works with students from 11th and 12th year. There are 8 groups per level, so during the morning there are 16 groups of about 45 students each to be attended. As students from these levels study specific subjects (secretarial studies, accounting, and business), there are some teachers who are specialists in their areas, so they do not have pedagogy studies. The afternoon module works with students from 9th and 10th year. As well as in the morning module, there are 8 groups per level, so there are 16 groups of 45 students each during the afternoon. In this module, students have not yet started their specific studies, so most of the teachers have pedagogy studies. The evening module works with students who need to get the 12th year certification and the technical degree. It means that in this module there are students from 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th year. These students are fewer than the. - 13 -.

(14) ones attending in the morning or the afternoon, forming about three groups of approximately 10 students each. As this school is focused on preparing students to work, its schedule counts with few hours for areas such as language or history. As a result, students count with just two hours of English a week. This means that if there is a holiday or a celebration during the week, there is a group that misses two hours of English. The protocol used by this school at the moment of facing problems with discipline is a traditional1 one: When students do not behave, they are punished with a note in the teachers’ book, they are sent to the inspectors’ room, or their teachers ask their parents to go to talk to them. 2.2 The teacher During the period in which the author did her practice, she was being observed by her “guide teacher”. This “guide teacher” had the role of a mentor, so she was in charge of giving the author feedback on her practice to be able to improve her lessons and her classroom management. This teacher is really important in the experience of the practitioner because she is the person who helps the future teacher to analyze what is being done in the classroom, giving her a second opinion about her performance. The teacher who mentored the author during this year is about 40 years old. She is a teacher of English who studied at Universidad de Santiago de Chile and who has been working at the school for about 7 years. Her methodology is based on activities taken from the book and on readings mostly. It is completely understandable, when adding to this information the fact that the teacher has classes with all the 11th and 12th years. This means that she has 16 groups to teach just in the morning. With that number of hours in the morning it is clear that she has little time to create new material in a stimulating way. 2.3 The 12th G year This is a group of 45 students who will receive the accountant degree. In this group there are more than five students who already have children; many of them are over 18 years old. This group is placed in a small classroom, so 1. By traditional the author means that this system is used by many schools and becomes a tradition in which students know what punishment they receive if they break the rules.. - 14 -.

(15) students are very close to one another during the lesson, and when they have tests the movement around the class becomes difficult and many times the doors are obstructed by the rows formed in this kind of situation. 2.4 Experience with the 12th G year When the author arrived at the school to start her formal practice, she had to observe students and teacher’s behavior in the 12th G year for two weeks. During this period she could see that students were not really engaged with the lesson, and actually, they were very talkative and disruptive. At some moments the teacher had to turn to Spanish because students said that they did not understand when she spoke in English. In these lessons students worked with the book and with worksheets during the whole class. When the author started to teach the 12th year, she tried to bring different material to the class, using the book as a guide for the content she had to teach. During the first class, the author used a song about feelings and students created a poster in which they expressed what they felt when listening to it. Unfortunately, they were restless, talkative and they insisted on asking the author to speak Spanish. Furthermore, as the room was small, students were close to their classmates; an appropriate environment to talk and hide from the teacher. During the second week, the author tried to foster reading English and working in pairs but she got the same results. After these two weeks of trying to engage students with the lessons using different strategies to attract their attention and foster their participation, the author decided to look for methodologies that could reveal what was missing in her lessons that interfered with the student’s engagement. In the search, the author found the book The Highly Engaged Classroom by Marzano et al. (2011), which showed four areas to be checked when engaging with a topic: How do I feel?, Am I interested?, Is this important? and, Can I do this?. This book gave the author the idea of creating a questionnaire focused on these four areas. The purpose of this questionnaire was for students to analyze what they felt was missing in the lessons, and for the author to identify the area in which she was failing to engage students with.. - 15 -.

(16) With the set of questions prepared, the author discovered that students felt comfortable inside the classroom and with their classmates, this answered the first question. She also discovered that students felt interested in learning English because they thought that they needed it for their future and because they liked the idea of learning a new language, this answered the second question. Furthermore, students mentioned that they thought that learning English is important nowadays, answering the third question. Unfortunately, when students answered questions about their abilities or their performance in the subject, their answers moved from “I don’t know” to “I am good at Math”. This fact gave the author the idea that these students have low selfefficacy concept because they are not capable to see that they have the capabilities needed to learn English. Unfortunately, the author did not have enough evidence to state that these students did not believe they can do it: learn English. Therefore, the author created a new questionnaire mainly focused on students beliefs about their performance in the subject. The author created two main questions to answer the fourth area mentioned by Marzano et al. (2011): How do you feel with the idea of learning English? and Do you believe you can learn English?. The answers to these questions are surprisingly negative. Half of the students believed that they would never learn English, so the author decided to work on this topic with them. 2.5 Adolescence It is important to address that this group (12th G) is passing through the complex process of adolescence. This fact makes it harder for the author to engage with them and satisfy their needs as they are not sure of what they need or want. This stage is better described by Harmer (2007), who says that Adolescence is bound up, after all, with a pronounced search for identity, and a need for self-esteem; adolescents need to feel good about themselves and valued. [...] teenage students often have an acute need for peer approval, too (or, at the very least, are extremely vulnerable to the negative judgements of their own age group). (p. 83) These characteristics appeared for example at the moment of asking them to tell the author what they would like to include in the lessons. Accordingly, the author will have to take these aspects into consideration when searching for. - 16 -.

(17) an appropriate methodology to solve the problem found in this context which the author will begin to describe next.. - 17 -.

(18) III. The Problem. Having described the reality experienced by the author, it is appropriate to specify the main problem to be solved throughout this action-research project. At the beginning of the school year, the author could identify that she was unable to engage students with the lessons. She presented students with different material that could motivate them to pay attention and participate in classes. None of her methods worked. She showed them pictures, she presented a song, she asked them to form groups, but nothing worked. Finally, she decided to use this action-research project to find an answer to this problem. To clarify what students were expecting from the class and include it in the lessons, the author created a questionnaire2 which students had to complete individually. Here they specified their interests, expectations and experiences in previous English classes. These questions were based on the areas named by Marzano et al. (2011), thus the author could identify that the main problem affecting students’ engagement with the lessons was their selfefficacy concept: Students did not believe that they could learn English. The new discovery changed the focus of this action-research project which is now focused on finding strategies for the author to help students believe they can learn English.. 2. See Apendix Questionnaire Nº1. - 18 -.

(19) IV. Objectives. 4.1 General The general objective of this paper is to find the reason why the author cannot engage students with the lesson. 4.2 Specific The specific objective of this paper is to find strategies that complement the lessons in order for the teacher to help students believe that they can learn English and therefore, increasing their self-efficacy concept. When this happens, the teacher expects to have the necessary means to help students form a new perception of their capacities, giving them the possibility to participate in the lessons without feeling afraid of making mistakes.. - 19 -.

(20) V. Rationale. The reasons for the author to undertake this project are because: a. It is a topic that is interfering not just the author’s teaching practice, but also many teachers’ teaching practice. b. This topic is not always taken into consideration at technical schools. c. The author would like to find a way to help teachers to increase their students’ self-efficacy concept. She thinks that regarding these three focuses is necessary because in the Chilean context there are hundreds of what Casassus (2009) names the AntiEmotional School: La escuela anti-emocional es fundamentalmente controladora. En la mentalidad del siglo XIX se pensaba que para que los alumnos lograran aprendizajes cognitivos, había que controlar todo el espacio circundante a los alumnos para así evitar toda distracción. […] Pero por sorprendente que parezca, los objetivos de la escuela antiemocional, son emocionales. Se busca generar el sometimiento a la autoridad mediante elementos como el miedo (castigos), la vergüenza (la exposición humillante ante “errores”), la culpabilidad (juicios) o la estigmatización (etiquetamiento según raza, origen socio cultural o género). […] Los efectos de estas prácticas sobre el clima emocional del aula y de la escuela son deplorables. Los niños aprenden a simular lo que están sintiendo y pensando, y entren en una espiral negativa. No se sienten reconocidos en lo que ellos son. La falta de reconocimiento produce pérdida de sentido de su identidad; tienden a desconectar sus vínculos con docentes; y ante la frustración se gatillan emociones contrarias, y ven a los docentes y autoridades como enemigos. (p. 235, 236, 237) These schools (anti-emotional) have made students hide their feelings from the teacher, actions that interfere with students’ self-image, making it harder for them to see what they are good for, therefore affecting their selfefficacy concept. As it was said before, it happens at many schools in Chile, - 20 -.

(21) but it is not always taken into consideration, which is terrible if the consequences of this kind of practices are analyzed. Consequently, it is necessary to find a method to help teachers to boost their students’ selfefficacy concept. When the teacher used a second strategy3 to identify the factors that were interfering with students’ engagement, she realized that the main factor was that half of her students did not believe that they were able to learn English. Among the authors that deal with self-efficacy concepts are Arnold and de Andrés (2010) who describe the importance of fostering students to believe in their own capacities to do something in order to take risks to reach success. The feeling that is generated [low or high expectations] does not depend on objective, observable facts but on beliefs, often very subjective, but, for this very reason, amenable to change, and this change can occur in the classroom. There is no question that selfesteem can be nurtured through successful learning experiences that enable the learners to see themselves as competent – and a student who feels this way is likely to take the risks and challenges involved in the language learning process. (p. s.num.) Here the authors mention that students’ expectations depend on what students think about their own capacities to perform a task, so giving students the possibility to increase their self-efficacy concept makes them believe that they can perform the task, thus they are more likely to take the risk of making mistakes when performing it in order to become successful on it. That is why it is important for teachers to foster students’ self- efficacy concept to have more participative students who are not afraid of making mistakes, transforming the learning process into a more amenable experience. If the teacher reaches the level in which her students generate a positive self-efficacy concept, they will believe that they can learn English, and they will take the risk to make mistakes when learning this language. This topic is really important because, when learning a foreign language students get easily frustrated because they expect to learn without making mistakes. As Jeremy Harmer (2007) says, “Developmental errors” are common while. 3. See Appendix Questionnaire Nº2. - 21 -.

(22) learning a language and can happen at any moment when practicing to reach mastery. (p. 138) The author needs students to take this risk because that is the only way of learning a new language. Sadly, as the author mentioned before, the school in which the author did her final practice is a school based on an antiemotional field, so students are ridiculed or told off by their teachers or classmates when they make a mistake. This base has made students avoid participation, going against an appropriate learning process. If the author reaches the level in which students increase their participation in classes, they will have the possibility to learn more, and probably, they will not be afraid of asking her to clarify their questions. Maybe, they will also feel comfortable to speak English without worrying about misspelling or mispronunciation. All these characteristics will transform the classroom into an appropriate learning environment to practice a foreign language and the author will have students who feel part of their own learning process. Then, the author will not have to be worried about students making fun of their classmates or about some students afraid of clarifying their doubts. She will be able to become a facilitator in the classroom and students will become autonomous and responsible for their own learning. The writer of this paper strongly believes that it can be much easier for students to learn something when they believe they can do it. As Herbert Puchta’s quote in the article Cultivating Confidence (2010) says, “Negative beliefs influence our students’ expectations. Low expectations lead to a low level of motivation and every failure is seen as confirmation of the initial beliefs.” (p. s.num.) As it was mentioned above, when students have a positive self-efficacy concept, they are more likely to take the risk of participating in class; they lose fear of making mistakes what helps them to take the risk of participating in the lessons. As a result, students strengthen their vision of themselves and show themselves that they have the abilities to do whatever they pose as a challenge, making it possible for them to achieve success. This project is not just relevant for the author’s teaching practice, but also for her professional development, because she will be able to detect a specific problem, look for information to help her solve it, and finally use strategies to put the findings in action in order to make a change in the - 22 -.

(23) classroom. When the paper is finished, she will also be able to share it with colleagues from all over the world, which will give her the possibility to get feedback on her action and advice other teachers on finding ways to promote a positive self-efficacy concept on students. The author expects to get enough information about self-efficacy and expectations to create strategies that can link the content that the subject needs to contain with the main area that is affecting students’ engagement with the class. After doing this, the teacher expects students to become more participative and create rapport with them in order to foster an appropriate classroom atmosphere to learn a foreign language. The author expects this project to contribute to the field of foreign language teaching in the area of feelings. This means that this paper is mainly focused on reminding teachers not to forget that when students learn a foreign language, there are many aspects that cause frustration and prevent students’ participation. There are also other aspects that cause the same results which are the school’s culture and the home vision of the subject. There are areas that can be controlled by the teacher as there are areas which cannot be controlled by her. As the author thinks that there are many things that can be done in order to improve the classroom atmosphere and promote an appropriate learning environment, she will not take into consideration the aspects that go beyond her control. Many times, foreign language teachers forget about the fact that learning a language which students are not exposed to in real life, makes it harder for them to learn it, and with the violent school culture shared in most of the Chilean regions, it becomes a difficult task to ask students to take the chance to participate. Foreign language teachers should remember that there are also other areas that must be covered before or while teaching the language, and that there are spaces in the curriculum to include strategies to foster a classroom atmosphere appropriate for learning a foreign language and a positive self-efficacy concept for students to feel capable to perform successfully in the subject. The hope is that when this paper is finished, teachers (not just English teachers) have the chance to find a possible process to be used to improve their own reality. It is important to highlight that it is not a problem that affects just one class in a specific school, this is a problem that can affect any - 23 -.

(24) teacher at any moment in their lives. Hopefully, teachers can find in this investigation a formal research in which to base their actions when facing problems with engagement. The author is optimist when expecting people to hold as the main message of this paper the idea that engagement goes beyond students’ interest.. - 24 -.

(25) VI. The Question. At the beginning, the author thought that the main question on which she should base her action research project was How can I engage my students with the lesson? With this question she was trying to find a method to get her students’ attention during the lessons. As this question was too broad, she thought about, Which strategies can I use to engage my students with the lesson? With this question she was trying to find the same answer than in the first question: Methodologies to get her students’ attention. When she got the results of the first two questionnaires, she identified the final version of her research question: How can I help my 12th G year students at Instituto Superior de Comercio believe that they can learn English? She thought it was the best question because it addresses the self-efficacy concept, which is an important factor that influences engagement. This is what Marzano et al. (2011) explain, Self-efficacy is quite possibly the most important factor affecting engagement. Even if students feel good (“How do I feel?”), are interested in what is occurring (“Am I interested?”), and believe it to be important (“Is this important?”), they will probably not engage fully if they believe the task is impossible. (p.117) So if the author expected her students to engage with the lesson, she needed to address this question.. - 25 -.

(26) VII. Hypothesis. Before starting with the project, the author thought about possible reasons why she could not engage students with the lesson. The following are the main reasons the author found that could give a justification for the problem: a. Students are in 12th year in a technical school, so they are worried about graduating more than learning a new language. b. Students are not interested in learning English because they will never travel to an English speaking country. c. Students think they will never learn English.. - 26 -.

(27) VIII. Literary Review. In order for the author to have a concrete foundation of investigation, she decided to use the following authors as the main experts to be consulted. - Robert Marzano et al. (2011), whose main idea is that, in order to engage students with the lesson, four main areas need to be considered: What do students feel?, Are students interested?, Is this (the topic) important?, and Can students do this?. These experts mention that after checking these areas, it is necessary to take into consideration different strategies to be used in order to keep students’ interest, confidence, feeling of importance (of the topic), and belief on themselves. - Jeremy Harmer, (2007) whose main idea is that an appropriate “English Language Teaching” methodology takes into consideration, among other things, the image students have of themselves, the feedback teachers and classmates give to students, and the expectations students have about themselves, including in this topic success and failure. The author considered these experts as the main support for this research because, in her teaching experience she has had to face the fact that many of her students do not engage with the lesson and she has discovered that it is because half of them have a self-efficacy concept that is not positive. During this research the author has discovered that there is plentiful information about self-efficacy but she has not found any book linking engagement with self-efficacy, but Marzano et al.’s (2011). That is why this topic interested the author of this paper, as she knows that what she is suffering in her lessons is something that other teachers are also suffering, so if she finds an answer to it, it would be helpful for them as well.. - 27 -.

(28) IX. Planning the Action. During this action research project, the author did not have the possibility to see her students very often (one class a week), so she did not have many opportunities to identify what the problem was. That is why she decided to benefit from every moment she had in and out-class to discover what was happening. In order to obtain enough data, she decided to use different methodologies, which the author will proceed to describe next. a. Questionnaires As the author did not count with much time to collect data (two hours a week), she decided to use questionnaires. These questionnaires had the purpose of revealing the real situation that the author was facing. They counted on a set of questions which aimed to answer the four questions stated by Marzano et al. (2011). The idea was for students to answer them in the most sincere way they could in order for the teacher to have a wider vision of their impressions about the lessons. b. Written work: The letter to yourself Considering that students were having an evaluation in which they had to create a letter, the author decided to use this task to foster students to analyze their own vision of themselves: their self-esteem4. During this task students had to write a letter in which they mention an intimate moment in which they reflected upon themselves, things they liked about themselves and things they would like to improve. This task had two objectives: to be able to follow a letter format and to analyze the person they are. This kind of task is not easy; actually students need to reflect upon what they appreciate about themselves and what they want to improve. Apart from that, they have to write it in English, something that they are not used to doing. In order for them to become successful in this task they will have to create a draft that the teacher will check before the delivery date and she will also provide them with correcting feedback which is focused on correcting and guiding students in the process.. 4. Concept explained in Glossary. - 28 -.

(29) What the teacher wants to achieve is what Jeremy Harmer mentions in the book The Practice of English Language Teaching (2007), “What students need to feel is a real sense of achievement, which has cost them something to acquire but has not bankrupted them in the process.” (p. 101) c. Oral work: Group presentations As students had finished with the written work, and their results were positive, the author decided to take into consideration what Vygotsky names as The Zone of Proximal Development. This is better explained in the text Psicología del desarrollo by Papalia, Wendkos and Duskin (2009) which mention that, [La Zona de Desarrollo Próximo] es la brecha entre lo que ya son capaces de hacer por sí solos y aquello para lo que todavía no están listos. […] Los niños que se encuentran en la ZDP de una tarea en particular casi pueden, aunque no del todo, realizar la tarea a solas. Sin embargo, mediante el tipo correcto de guía, pueden hacerlo de manera exitosa. (p. 38) These authors explain that when teachers give students tasks that require them to make a bigger effort to reach success, students can move from the zone of knowledge that they were before to a more complex one in order to become skillful on it and move to the next one. When the author presented students this new task, she had as the main purpose to foster students to notice little by little that they can perform successfully in different areas of the English language. In order to reach this objective, she asked students to show her drafts of what they were doing before presenting, for her to be able to guide them during the process. In order for students to know what was being evaluated, the author decided to give them a rubric in which what was expected of them was detailed. d. Feedback: Responding, face to face and classmates’ feedback As students needed to know how they were performing, the author thought that it would be necessary to provide students with three types of feedback: Responding, face to face and classmates’ feedback. Responding feedback refers to comments given to a person in which the reader or audience explains how they felt and declare if the person reached or not the objective. This type of feedback was given to students when they - 29 -.

(30) delivered the letters and when they presented and it was focused mainly on providing students with positive comments to give them the feeling of achievement. The purpose of these comments was for students to have a clear positive vision of the author’s opinion about their performance. Face to face feedback refers to comments which are given to students in a personal meeting. This type of feedback was given by the author through personal meetings she arranged with students who showed in the questionnaires that they did not have a positive self-efficacy concept. The purpose of this type of feedback was to show students how many things they are able to do in the subject (write paragraphs, follow a format, analyze themselves, present) in order to strengthen their self-efficacy concept. Classmates’ feedback refers to the comments given by students to a specific group about their performance. This type of feedback was used when students presented in groups. The purpose was for the class to get involved in advising their classmates about their work and to feel part of their classmates’ evaluation. The author thinks that these methodologies are appropriate to engage students with the lesson because they point to create rapport5 between students and the teacher (the author) and create a better classroom atmosphere in order for students not to feel afraid of making mistakes when participating. In order for this process to be successful, the author expects her students to answer the questionnaires sincerely because in that way there will be enough information to verify the results of the actions taken during the project. Also, the author expects her students to get involved in their own process of valuing positive aspects about themselves in order to motivate their positive self-efficacy concept. Furthermore, the author expects her students to participate in the face to face feedback sessions and in the classmate’s feedback providing their classmates with written feedback in order for the author to have a wider scenario of the students’ performance.. 5. Explained in Glossary.. - 30 -.

(31) 9.1 Methodology The following is a list of methods that the author created with the purpose of clarifying the steps that this project will contain. a. Worksheet Nº1: set of questions focused in the four areas mentioned by Marzano et al. (2011). b. Students write a letter in which they mention what they like about themselves and what they want to improve (to identify their self-image): The letter to yourself. c. Inform students about the research project and ask them for permission to show their work. d. Give them personal and responding feedback on their work. e. Worksheet Nº2: Specific questions focused on students’ self-efficacy concept. f. Students work on a speaking project. g. Students receive group feedback from their classmates (moderated by the teacher) and receive a personal written feedback from the teacher. h. Worksheet Nº3: results of the interventions. 9.2 Timeline In order for the author to have the time to carry this action research project out, she stated a timeline in which she included every evaluation and questionnaire used. This period lasted six months (May to October) where the first month was focused on finding the main problem affecting the teacher’s practice. The different phases of this period are described and specified in the following chart in which the reader can find the main methodologies used to find an answer to the question and solve the problem stated at the beginning of this paper.. - 31 -.

(32) CHART Nº1: Action research timeline Month Week 1 Week 2 May Specification Collecting of the information questions for (1st the first worksheet) worksheet. June. July. August September. October. Week 3 Analysis of the results st 1 worksheet. Week 4 Students create their letters to themselves Asking for permission Analysis of the results 2nd worksheet. Specification of the questions for the second worksheet Giving face to face and written responding feedback. Collection of information (2nd worksheet). Analysis of the results 2nd worksheet. ----. ----. Giving face to face and written responding feedback. Explanation of the project Giving group and personal written responding feedback Collection of information (3rd worksheet). Preparation of the project Giving group and personal written responding feedback Analysis of the results 3rd worksheet. Speaking project ----. Speaking project Specification of the questions for the third worksheet Creation of conclusions. Analysis of the results 3rd worksheet. As it was said before, this research lasted six months (May to October). During the first two weeks of May the author collected the information with the first worksheet focused on the 4 areas mentioned by Marzano et al. (2011). Two weeks later, the author analyzed the results she got. In the next month, the author specified the questions for the second questionnaire, and therefore gave it to her students to analyze the results afterwards. In July, students. - 32 -.

(33) were provided with written responding feedback about their letters to themselves, which had the purpose of fostering them to value themselves. As it was mentioned before, the author needed to meet with students, therefore, out-class time was required to meet this need.. - 33 -.

(34) X. Resources Needed. During the run of this action research project the author needed different materials, so she had to make sure if they were available or not at school. In the following list different materials are specified, verifying their availability at the school. - Questionnaires: These are a set of questions to help the author find the main problem she was facing in order to prepare strategies that could help her to solve it. Fortunately, the school counted with a printing machine to print series of test during the “global tests” period, but this machine was not provided for activities that did not belong strictly to the school and its members. - A room for personal meetings: This room was required for the personal meetings the author needed to have with students. Fortunately, the school counted with two rooms that were available specifically for that purpose and the author could count with them. - Camera: This is necessary to have a record of students’ progress and have enough data to check if the purpose of this action research project was fulfilled. As the school did not count with one to lend it to the author, she had to use hers. As two of the materials the author needed were not available at the school, she had to meet the expenses of them in order for this action research to be successful. As this project is focused on improving the author’s methodology to engage students with the lessons, and not on improving a specific area at the school, the author can foresee that there could be a problem when spending some class-time in answering the worksheets. If that is the case, the author will give students specific time to answer the questions in order for them not to lose track of the lessons.. - 34 -.

(35) XI. Planning the Analysis. The author will proceed to analyze the data focusing on the most chosen answer. With this she means that when she has to get an average of the results of the questionnaires, she will take into consideration the answer that students chose the most. During the first questionnaire the author asked students to answer a questionnaire in which there were different questions pointing to the four areas mentioned by Marzano et al. (2011). These questions were open because the author wanted to know what students had to say. She proceeded to classify their answers into positive or negative. Finally she separated them into four areas: How students feel with the idea of having English lessons, Students’ interest on English language, Importance students give to learning English, and Students’ self-efficacy concept. During the second questionnaire the author used more specific questions but still open. So she focused them mainly on students’ self-efficacy concept. She classified the results into positive and negative, so the results could be clear: students have a positive or a negative self-efficacy concept.. - 35 -.

(36) XII. Data Collection. During the process the author collected information using the tools previously described. This information helped her to find a suitable solution for the problem. In the following lines, the author will proceed to specify the objective of each worksheet, analyze their results and describe the actions that were taken in order to improve the situation. 12.1 Questionnaire Nº1 Objective The purpose for this worksheet was to find out what the aspect that was affecting students’ engagement was. This questionnaire counted with questions focused on the four areas mentioned by Marzano et al. (2011) in order to make it easier for the author to identify the specific area that affected students’ engagement. CHART Nº2: First questionnaire Focus. Question. Quién y cómo soy. 2 3 5 1 2 3 6 7 8 1 2 3 1. El Inglés en mi vida cotidiana. En la sala de clases Desafíos y metas personales Can I do this?. Positive answer 60% 60% 50% 70% 90% 30% 90% 100% 60% 50% 80% 50% 90%. How do I feel?. Does not know 10% -20% -----------. Negative answer 20% 40% -20% 10% 40% 10% --20% -10% --. Am I interested?. Does not answer 10% -10% -----30% ---10%. Not clear --20% 10% -30% --10% 30% 20% 40% --. Is this important?. - 36 -.

(37) Results The results of this worksheet are very revealing. The results show that the majority of the negative answers belong to the blue area (Can I do this?), what means that the majority of the negative answers are located in the area of the self-efficacy concept. As a result, half of the students did not know what their abilities were, what shows that they did not have a positive selfefficacy concept. Analysis When analyzing the yellow area (How do I feel?) it can easily be identified that the majority of the students felt comfortable inside the classroom. When analyzing the green area (Is this important?) it can be seen that the majority of the students thought that English was important for them. Furthermore, when analyzing the pink area (Am I interested?) it can be seen that the majority of the students felt interested in learning English. Nevertheless, when analyzing the blue area (Can I do this?) it can easily be identified that there is a big number of students who did not know how to answer the questions, did not answer the question, and gave a negative answer. This means that almost half of the students did not have a positive self-efficacy concept according to this worksheet. Actions taken The action taken after this analysis was to create a new questionnaire in which there were fewer questions, but more focused on answering the main questions stated by Marzano et al. (2011). In this way, the author can have a second chance to confirm her results and look for strategies to solve the problem. 12.2 Questionnaire Nº2 Objective This questionnaire was focused on finding the specific area mentioned by Marzano et al. (2011) that was affecting students’ engagement and corroborate the previous results.. - 37 -.

(38) CHART Nº3: Second questionnaire Area ¿Como te sientes con la idea de tener clases de inglés? ¿Estás interesad@ en aprender inglés? ¿Piensas que aprender inglés es importante para ti? ¿Creías que podías aprender inglés?. Positive answer ~36.4%. Negative answer ~36.4%. Not clear ~27.3%. Does not answer --. ~72.7%. ~15.2%. ~12.1%. --. ~78,8%. ~12.1%. ~9.1%. --. ~36.4%. ~27.3%. ~36,4%. --. Highest percentages. Results The results of this worksheet revealed that there were two main areas affected: How do I feel with the idea of learning English? and Can I learn English?. Analysis The fact that in the last area 36 % of the students answered not clearly and 27% of them answered negatively makes the author think that the main problem was that students did not believe that they can learn English and it could be because of that, that the answers for the first question were similar. According to Robert Marzano et al. (2011), the area How do I feel? is not just affected by what the teacher does, but also because of the perception their family has about the topic or because of a problem they are experiencing. (p. 21) That is why the author identified that the main problem affecting students (that can be solved by the author) was the self-efficacy area. Now that the problem was identified, it is really important to find a solution because, as explained in the article Cultivating Confidence (2010) where Arnold and de Andrés quote Herbert Puchta’s words, “Negative beliefs influence our students’ expectations. Low expectations lead to a low level of motivation and every failure is seen as a confirmation of the initial beliefs.” (p. s.num.) In fact, if students believe that they cannot learn English, probably they will not be motivated to learn it, therefore, if they do not reach the objective, this will be the confirmation of their feeling of incompetence when learning English. If the author finds a methodology to increase students’ self- 38 -.

(39) efficacy concept, it could become the solution to the engagement problem with which she started. Actions taken As Marzano et al. (2011) mention in their book The Highly Engaged Classroom, Verbal feedback is part of almost every lesson. Effective feedback helps students affirmatively answer the question “Can I do this?” Its effectiveness is important because verbal feedback helps set the stage for the self-theories the students will cultivate. (p. 149) In order for students to analyze themselves deeply and find positive characteristics that can make them value themselves more, the author decided to ask them to create a personal letter for themselves. As it was explained before, this is about asking students to describe an intimate situation in which they reflected upon themselves, mention things they like about themselves and things they would like to improve. This letter will contain intimate information that students will not be willing to share. That is why giving them face to face feedback would be a little rude. Instead of including that type of feedback, the author will include Responding Feedback6. 12.3 Questionnaire Nº3 Objective The purpose of this worksheet is to find how much students’ self-efficacy concept has changed throughout the project.. 6. Explained on page 19. - 39 -.

(40) CHART Nº4: Third questionnaire Area ¿Cómo te sientes con la idea de que tienes clases de inglés? ¿Estás interesad@ en aprender inglés? ¿Piensas que aprender inglés es importante para ti? ¿Crees que puedes aprender inglés? ¿Has aprendido algo de inglés?. Positive answer ~84,8%. Negative answer --. Not clear ~15,2%. Does not answer --. ~90,9%. --. ~9,1%. --. ~93,9%. --. ~6,1%. --. ~87,9%. --. ~12,1%. --. ~87,9%. --. ~12,1%. --. Highest percentages. Results The results shown in this chart are astonishing. Students’ self-efficacy concept has increased, and so did their feeling with the idea of learning English. Analysis In this chart it is clearly seen that students’ self-efficacy concept increased through the process. Therefore, their feeling when thinking about the idea of having English classes became positive, which makes them decrease their anxiety. This caused that students felt more comfortable when attending the lessons because they thought they were able to learn English. As explained in Escamilla and Grassi’s text A Brief Description of Second Language Acquisition (2000) when they paraphrase Krashen’s words, (...) all people possesses a “filter” which moves into one of two positions, low or high. A low position allows language to enter the person’s LAD [Chomsky’s concept of Language Acquisition Device] and be acquired. A high position prohibits language from entering the LAD thereby restricting acquisition. (p. s.num.) Here, the authors explain that when students have a high affective filter, it becomes almost impossible to acquire a language. As the same experts explain later, it happens because the learning environment is stressful. That - 40 -.

(41) is the reason why the author worked hard to make students feel comfortable with the idea of learning English, because if they did, it would decrease their affective filter making it easier for them to achieve the goal: to learn English.. - 41 -.

(42) XIII. The Feedback Sessions and Comments. The author of this paper has decided to use one of the different methodologies that Marzano et. al. (2011) propose to deal with engagement. Providing students with feedback was the most suitable methodology that the author is able to apply in her context, as she does not have much in-classtime to interact with students. There are at least three types of feedback that the author will use in order to improve the situation in her classroom. The first one is taken from the book The Highly engaged Classroom by Marzano et al.(2011) who mention that, “(...) verbal feedback helps set the stage for the self-theories the students will cultivate.” (p. 149). This is why it is really important for the author to arrange face to face meetings with students in order to let them know how they have been performing. The other two types of feedback are taken from the book “The Practice of English Language Teaching” by Jeremy Harmer (2007) who mentions that responding feedback (...) takes time, of course, but it can be more useful to the student than a draft covered in correction marks. [...] When we respond to a final written product (an essay or a finished project), we [teachers] can say what we liked, how we felt about the text and what we think the students might do next time if they are going to write something similar. (p. 148) This is the main reason why the author decided to use this type of feedback, because it is important for students to know what their teachers think about their performance, even more if it is positive because, quoting Jeremy Harmer’s words (2007), “(...) Adolescents need to feel good about themselves and valued.” (p.83), so more than criticize their work, teachers should focus on giving positive feedback on their work. Another type of feedback taken from the same text (The Practice of English Language Teaching, 2007) is the classmates’ feedback. Here, the expert mentions that “The more we [teachers] include them [students] to be involved in giving feedback to each other, or to evaluate their own work successfully, the better they will be able to develop as successful writers.”. - 42 -.

(43) (p.151) With this type of feedback students have the possibility to give their opinion (something that is not always taken into consideration at schools) about their classmates’ performance, but teachers need to be careful about it, because, as a quote from Coleman made by Karen Evans et al. in the book La comprensión del cerebro, published by the OCDE (2009), mentions “Los grupos de pares pasan a ser cada vez más importantes en la adolescencia, a medida que se desarrolla la búsqueda de identidad y de significado para los otros.” (p. 308) and, as Harmer (2007) says “[adolescents] are extremely vulnerable to the negative judgements of their own age group.” (p. 83) So any negative comment coming from their pears could damage their self-esteem and their self-efficacy concept. Therefore, in order to avoid negative situations for students the author decided to intervene in this type of feedback checking if the comments are appropriate for their classmates. In the following lines, an analysis of the methods used to provide students with the three types of feedback will be described. 13.1 Personal face to face feedback The first type of feedback is focused, as the author noted before, on providing students with verbal feedback which means that the teacher needed to meet with students in order to talk to them about their participation and performance during classes. As meeting with each student would take too much time, the author decided that she would prioritize meeting with the number of student who possessed a negative or undefined self-efficacy concept first. As the author expected to encourage students to better their self-efficacy concept and foster their participation in classes, she decided that this feedback session had to be positive. That means that the author had to give students positive comments on their in-class performance. To do this, the author reached students at any time during break time in order to ask them when they could talk to her in private. Most of the students attended these sessions showing a nice smile when leaving. 13.2 Responding Feedback This type of feedback is focused mainly on the teacher’s responding to students’ work. As it was mentioned before, this type of feedback takes time because it is necessary to give personal comments on each of the 45 students’ pieces of work. This type of feedback was provided to students through their first work which was the letter to themselves previously explained in this paper. The first stage of this assessment (the draft) counted - 43 -.

(44) with a virtual feedback because students had to send their first versions to the teacher before giving her the final version. During this part of the process, the teacher provided students with responding feedback (how successful they were reaching the objective of this work) and with grammar correction. The second part of this process counted with responding feedback (how the teacher felt reading the letter) more than remarking grammar mistakes. The purpose of this was to make students feel that they achieved the objective and that the teacher valued their job more than criticize its structure or composition. In the following illustrations it can be seen the type of feedback provided to three different students. ILLUSTRATION Nº1: Responding feedback on the letters Héctor, What was that accident about? Is everything OK? Can you see that every negative aspect can turn into positive? What does soccer make you feel like? What do you feel when you are with your girlfriend? Do you really want to change your impulsiveness? Do not you prefer to moderate it instead? Thank you very much for sharing some aspects of your life with me. Very Good Job!. - 44 -.

(45) ILLUSTRATION Nº2: Responding feedback on the letters Varinia, I can see that your brother is really important for you. How has your life changed since that time (The moment in which your brother was born)? How do you feel when you are with your family? It is great to know that you enjoy it. What do you want back? What is that you need from the past? Thank you very much for sharing some aspects of your life with me. Very Good Job!. ILLUSTRATION Nº3: Responding feedback on the letters Lissette, How do you feel when you remember your childhood? Who gave his/her opinion about you? Why was it important for you? I totally agree with you, you might enjoy the beautiful times that life gives you. This is a beautiful letter, and I thank you very much for sharing these moments with me. Very Good Job!. - 45 -.

(46) As it can be seen here, the author tried to foster students to question some aspects of their lives that were written in their personal letters. It did not have a bossy tone, but a friendly one. It was done in that way because the author did not want students to feel that she was forcing them to reflect in a specific way, but she expected them to reflect upon their life experiences as they could. The feedback also included thanks to students for sharing the information with someone they were recently meeting. This aspect was important because students need to feel that they can trust their teacher (the author) in order to tell her something that marked their lives, and as they were sharing private stories of their lives, they needed to feel that the teacher (the author) was valuing them. Furthermore, as it can be seen, there is no reference to the mark, so regardless of the mark they got, the comment refered just to their reflection, valuing the positive points they addressed and questioning the negative ones. During the second evaluation (presentations), the author provided students with more responding feedback. In this case, students were asked to present a certain topic, and the author provided them with personal comments on their performance pre-presentation and while-presentation. This feedback was given to students in a more private format for them to decide who they wanted to share their papers with. It was because as they presented in groups, the author needed to give them the group feedback and the personal one, so she called all the group’s members. Therefore, she decided to create cards which were sealed with staples. Below there are some illustrations for the reader to have a clearer vision of the delivery of the feedback. ILLUSTRATION Nº4: Example. ILLUSTRATION Nº5: ILLUSTRATION Nº6: Example Example. - 46 -.

(47) Some illustrations of the type of feedback given to students for this task are the following. ILLUSTRATION Nº7: Responding feedback on oral work Matías, You were responsible when showing me the roles you wanted to take and also when giving me the reasons why you were absent. You also tried to clarify doubts contacting me. During the presentation I was able to notice that you were a little bit nervous, be careful with your gestures because they can be disrespectful. Your comments to your classmates were objective, so I was able to use them to advice your classmates ILLUSTRATION Nº8: Responding feedback on oral work Anyela, You were responsible when sending me the information about your presentation, so I was able to check it beforehand. During the presentation I noticed that you were a bit nervous. Am I right? I assumed that was because one of your classmates was absent. This may have affected you because you used a low tone of voice. Even with that, your presentation was understandable. Your comments to your classmates are objective and clear, so I could use them to advice your classmates. - 47 -.

(48) ILLUSTRATION Nº9: Responding feedback on oral work Marcela, Dear, you were responsible when sending me the information because I was able to check it and advice you on it. During the presentation you used an appropriate tone of voice, and even when you read your language was really fluent, so I could understand what you were saying. Your comments about your classmates’ presentation helped me to see that you were paying attention, but please, try not to talk when someone is presenting!. In this opportunity, the author focused mainly on the positive aspects of the presentation because, as this was a more challenging task, she expected them to maintain their positive self-efficacy concept fostered with the previous activity. 13.3 Classmates’ feedback The author decided to use this type of feedback because, as it was seen before, students value their classmates’ opinion very much during the adolescence. The fact that many students do not feel good criticizing their friends’ work and that there are some students who take advantage of the written feedback to criticize their classmates’ work negatively made the author put herself in the position of a moderator of the feedback given. To do that, she had to check each comment from each student and select the positive ones and modify the negative ones for them not to sound rude and be more constructive. The following are illustrations of some of the comments from students given to a certain group.. - 48 -.

(49) ILLUSTRATION Nº10: Classmates’ feedback. Leen todo pero lo pronuncian bien.. ILLUSTRATION Nº11: Classmates’ feedback. Si bien se notó preparación hubo poca seriedad en un principio, una integrante con muy buena pronunciación y la otra hablaba con un tono muy bajo.. ILLUSTRATION Nº12: Classmates’ feedback. Realmente entendí muy poco, y que era del género de comedia.. ILLUSTRATION Nº13: Classmates’ feedback. Una habló muy fuerte y claro, la otra no tanto. Pero valientes de hacerlo sólo las dos y lo hicieron bien.. - 49 -.

(50) ILLUSTRATION Nº14: Classmates’ feedback. El dúo estuvo bastante bien pero una de las dos integrantes se destacó más, su póster no fue llamativo.. As it can be seen, some comments are really constructive, and others a little rude. That is why the teacher intervened and used those comments to give the classmates’ feedback to the group writing:. ILLUSTRATION Nº15: Classmates’ feedback mediated by the author. Good presentation girls! Some comments from your classmates were: Even when you were two, and that may have affected your performance, you did a good job. Your presentation was organized, well distributed, brief and fast enough. At the beginning of the presentation you were not so serious, but you corrected it. You spoke fluently and you showed good pronunciation, but a low tone of voice. Your poster was not really appealing but the presentation was understandable. 13.4 Effects of feedback on student-teacher relationship The effects of these three types of feedback on the teacher-student relationship were astonishing. The first type made the author realize that students trusted her and told her very important and shocking aspects of their lives. As a result, rapport was formed between these students and the author because, as Casassus mentions in his book La Educación del Ser Emocional (2009), - 50 -.

(51) (...) la interacción respetuosa entre del docente para con los alumnos se traduce en el respeto de los alumnos por el docente. Cuando los alumnos se sienten respetados – a diferencia de la espiral negativa de la escuela anti-emocional – se inicia una espiral nutritiva: ellos se sienten aceptados, lo que los relaja y con ello se sienten en confianza. (p. 245) With this, the author means that the fact that students trusted her, made them (students and the author) feel that they were coexisting in a safe place where students were able to express their feelings and the teacher (the author) would not judge or criticize them. This increases the possibilities of students’ engagement in the lesson. As Harmer mentions in his text The Practice of English Language Teaching (2007), “When students have confidence in the teacher, they are likely to remain engaged with what is going on.” (p. 102) The second type of feedback caused another positive effect in the rapport formed by students and the author. As the author did not judge students’ work but provided them with positive comments on what they wrote, their positive self-efficacy concept increased as they showed to be happy when receiving the written feedback. This was confirmed when students showed the same reaction when providing them with the second written feedback. Accordingly, students showed to be more engaged with the lesson, because they felt that they were achieving something in the English class (understand English and be successful on it). This is better explained by Arnold and de Andrés (2010) who state that, (...) our attitude about the self as a language learner includes what we believe (I am capable of learning the language or I can never learn), which leads to our feelings about the learning process (pleasure or pain) and this, in turn, will determine our behaviour (approaching or avoiding opportunities to further our learning). (p. 5) Therefore, in this situation students’ attitude changed because of the personal meetings and the content of the feedback, which led to a positive feeling about learning English. As a result students were more engaged and participative during the lessons. Certainly, it has to be emphasized that if students were more participative it meant that they were taking the risk of. - 51 -.

(52) making mistakes, so the author tried to encourage them not to feel incompetent if they made a mistake, but to encourage them to try again. The last type of feedback, even when intervened by the author, had positive results on students. As students did not know who wrote the comment, and as the author modified the comment into a constructive one, students accepted the comments and did not feel resentful with anybody. This type of feedback allowed students to have a more complete image of how their presentation resulted for their classmates. In addition, students had the possibility to comment on their classmates’ work. This had a tremendous effect on the rapport created by the teacher and students because they felt that the teacher (the author) valued them as able to criticize their classmates. Positively, this made students feel that the teacher (the author) trusted them when providing their classmates with comments on their performance. Furthermore, this activity helped the author to have a broader vision of her students’ presentations, which influenced the written feedback given to students making it more complete.. - 52 -.