PDF superior The Influence of Power Relations on Teenagers’Learning Process in an EFL Class

In fact, during the initial class observations, the teacher-researchers’ first impression of the oppressed learners was that they apparently did not like the English class because they made unhappy and frowny faces and showed expressions of boredom, stress, and apathy (Field notes, February 28). However, when field notes were triangulated with students’ comments in the journals, it was discovered that students’ discontent and poor investment on the English class were caused by the oppressive and unequal control inflicted by the dominant and conceited attitudes of some classmates. In consequence, subjugated participants’ voices and opinions about their low investment was a salient finding in this research because they would have never informed teachers about the oppressive power relations imposed in the classroom, if they had not been given the opportunity to write freely and confidentially in the journals about their experiences of repression and fear. This finding led the researchers to conclude that many times we, English teachers, think that our students do poorly in the class because of lack of responsibility, low English level, or poor interest. However, we almost never realize that the unfair and unequal relationships established among teenagers themselves can impact negatively on their disposition to learn. In fact, Lightbrown and Spada (2006) assure that power relations “can affect motivation, attitudes, and language learning success” (p. 65).

On the other hand, Ferlazzo & Sypnieski (2012) insist that students from different levels of proficiency can be an advantage for working in class. The authors believe that students of a low level of English will feel obligated to catch up to the others of higher levels which can result in quicker learning. The authors mentioned above, say that when working in activities, teachers can make groups of students from high and low levels to encourage interaction. Besides these students can support each other in different skills, for example, one could be better at reading and another at writing in English. Consequently, teachers can work effectively with students from different levels of proficiency.

individually on a task it was because students were able to prepare their personal ideas, views or arguments in response to a problem or a piece of stimulus material. It makes sense for this kind of preparation to be undertaken before the session, but there may also be times within a class when it is helpful to give students an opportunity to work alone. If students are given time to prepare an answer rather than being obligated to provide immediate responses, they are more likely to produce a considered response and likely to benefit from the time spent working out an appropriate answer. After teachers have been with a student for a few lessons, they should start to pick up on their strong and weak points. Some people learn best when they can see the language while others do better hearing it. Once teachers know which type of learner a student is, they can focus on the materials in their own style. For large classes where there are a variety of learning styles, they will also need to use a variety of materials to ensure everyone receives what they need.

Khaki (2010) focused his study on finding out the very common expectations of students in the classroom where they are learning English at a variety of different paces and besides, the class is large in number of students. The study is mainly focused on six different areas: classroom management, establishing collaboration, range of tasks, giving feedback, classroom English and home assignment. 60 students of tenth grade from government-aided school were selected to get required information. They were sampled using purposive non-random sampling procedure. To collect data, one questionnaire containing nineteen closed-ended questions was developed. This study revealed many findings at a time regarding the expectations of students in large multilevel classes, for example more than 90% of students like to be called by their first names. This study also proves that an English teacher should move all around the class. Sharing experiences like activity is highly preferred by a considerable number of students (40%). It shows that the sharing of experiences of teachers and students highly motivates the students. Besides, this study revealed that more than 90% of students reported that they expected additional activities over which the ones of the textbook. This study also focused that limited use of mother tongue in English classroom it is bearable and accepted, but the teacher should introduce some new words every day in simpler and shorter expression. In case of feedback, feedback at a personal level in the classroom is more preferable. The study reveals that most of the students like challenging activities, neither too easy, nor too difficult. Thus, it is essential to provide different tasks to different students, so that they can adapt them at their own pace.

The instructions in the classroom are presented as one of the critical cores of action in each learning activity. It is mandatory to ensure clear and concise instructions as well as the class time management system. When planning, an experimented teacher understands that there is a great number of circumstances that can affect or interrupt the work to be done, therefore, a correct approach in the time management is the one that always procures to have available material whether for an unexpected closure or extension of the class. Throughout the class the instructions should seek to ensure the right timing for the activities and the transition from one to another. Coetzee (2008) explains that the best way to keep the class under control and prevent the stress in the completion of the activities, is an adequate time planning. Investing a few minutes on pulling some tasks together under a time table will really make a difference.

The graph above shows that all teachers being interviewed sustained employing many teaching resources on their daily teaching. For instance the graph represents the percentage of the 15 teachers as the 100% of instructors that use teaching resources in their classrooms. Based on the results it is acknowledged that educators consider teaching resources as an important tool that helps to reinforce learning. Teachers pointed out several benefits of incorporating different teaching resources in their classroom. For instance resources are of great assistance when differentiating instruction. These tools also contribute to improve students skills such as reading, writing, comprehension, listening. In addition teaching resources help learning by keeping students engaged by presenting information in different and exiting ways. Additionally Kottler & Kottler (2002), asserted that educators should be very mindful taking into account a number of specific considerations when selecting resources, approaches and methods to be used within ESL classroom, since these aspects will affect the language acquisition process and will have a direct incidence on the final results.

argue that in smaller classes, instruction is given more effectively and efficiently. In large classes, on the other hand, students will tend to drift and not pay as much attention as they should because they will not have that attention from their teacher, may not be interested in the subject matter, and have more distractors. This might cause the class to be noisy and interrupt the lesson. Other problems that Woodward (2001) outlines are that space and materials are likely to be more limited if there is a large number of pupils, and, if those students share a common language, it is less likely that they will use the target language. However, both Blatchford (2003) and Woodward (2001) point out that in classrooms with a large number of students, they can be organized into collaborative groups pairs and can learn from their peers when working in this way. Furthermore, Basset (2007) states that relations between the students have been found to be poorer in smaller groups, and the students come to expect immediate attention, causing more disruptions.

was represent by teachers in schools, become the medium for exposure to concepts and communicative functions of language. For Vygotsky, the above-mentioned zone is a gap between what a child can do alone and with the help of others. Self-regulation starts in this gap and enhanced within the teacher-student relationship. Vygotsky also mentioned the socio- cognitive framework, which posits that reading has a strong sociocultural backup. Moreover, language learning and classroom management have an important influence on the learner´s decisions, which fosters self-assessment, self-awareness and metacognition (Biancarosa & Snow, 2004). Likewise, Lv and Chen (2010) define metacognitive strategy as an executive function used to “manage, monitor and evaluate” the learning process (p. 136).

The fourth study was developed by Shamin (1993) to study teacher and learner behavior and class development in large classes in Pakistan. For this study, 232 classes, 20 teachers and 21 groups of learners were observed. The research process included classroom observation, teachers’ interviews and students to get complementary data on classroom events and as a kind of data checking classroom observation were done. There are several results found. First, participants perceive numbers as necessary but not sufficient in defining large classes, other factors, such as the physical conditions in the classroom and the opportunity and learning in the classroom. Second, participants reported difficulties in teaching and learning in large classes. Third, particularly in large classes, the space in the classroom is defined by the participants not only in terms of physical space per students but in terms of students location vs the position of the teacher and the blackboard in front of the classroom. Fourth, it was found that even well – trained teachers, introduced innovations in their classrooms only within the framework of core activity types. Finally, the author concluded that large classes have an effect on teacher – learner behavior and classroom processes at the interpersonal level, for example social aspects of the classroom event. In addition, some innovations are more difficult to introduce in larger than smaller classes. On the other hand, the author concluded that

teachers develop their own style of teaching according to their personality. Gower & Walters (1995) give some practical advice to follow when referring to instructions. They suggest to primary create a center of attention in the student to make sure everyone is listening and watching, to employ simple language and short expressions, and to use language at a lower level than the language being taught. Furthermore, teachers should use visual or written clues whenever possible utilizing real objects, pictures, gestures and mime. Making demonstrations if possible, illustrating what to do; break down instructions if the activity requires a series of procedures, provide simple commands in sections and check for understanding, rather than giving out all instructions at the start of the activity. It is also a good idea to target instructions in the sense of explaining the content only to the students who need it, instead of giving complete directions to the class as a whole. In addition, discipline is a very important issue in the classroom. It depends on a number of factors such as: age of students; evidently children require more discipline than adults. Usually young teenagers are considered to be the most complex when it comes to classroom control. Discipline is intimately related to the causes for learning and student motivation whether they are forced to be in class or whether they are there voluntarily. Class size plays an important role, as it is more difficult to keep an orderly atmosphere in a large class than in a smaller one.

Concerning large classes, some previous studies have shown that this type of classes create an impact upon both students and teachers. A research paper was completed in Thailand by Todd (2012) who set out to answer questions about the connection between the size of the class and learning, and at what size a class loses the ability to learn effectively. He found that students in larger classes get lower grades as compared to those in smaller classes, making a defining correlation between the size of a class and academic results. This theory maintained its integrity over all courses examined and held true regardless of what the class objectives were. The author claimed that the research had restrictions in respect to grading. There was the possibility that teachers unconsciously awarded higher grades to students in smaller classes because there was a stronger relationship between teacher and students.

possible results. As researchers, we implemented for classification of the cognate words the Alonso’s perception, defining it to this research: Substitution as the Literal use of the native language instead of the foreign one and the over extension of analogy as the misuse of vocabulary because it is similar; thus, we had a main point to contrast the data collected. As a next step, closing up to the specific similarities English-Spanish we have the contribution of Chacón (2006), with her article “Towards a Typological Classification of False Friends (Spanish-English)”. Here was presented the diachronic relationship from the origin of cognate words in a second or third language; it has been useful in the creation and application of the different activities which were implemented in this research taking advantage that Chacón established some formal and semantic affinity. It was implemented considering the Colombian context to complement the activities applied into classroom. As a reflection made during the investigation's process, we concluded that cognate words can facilitate the foreign language learning process; bearing in mind that they have similar meanings and they can support the acquisition and learning of a non-native language using those advantages in the narratives which were produced. However, Chacon (2006), Cabrera and others (2014) assure, these words can also have a deceptive meaning due to the semantic change and the development in the second and third language; they may be misleading to cognate words or false friends.

The above-cited authors have all emphasized on the frequent and long-felt problems of large classes. In this sense, each has framed solutions to the problem from a different point of view. Though any of the suggested solutions do not encompass the three aspects might be achieved for the good of large classes. Naturally, problems will not disappear once of a sudden, but teachers and students will be benefited from these solutions in a gradual way as much as possible. Therefore, the studies that come up will support our thesis statement at the time that they prove that each of the recommended solutions make an evidence that they are efficient and workable enough, which constitutes a must and a challenge for the class actors to try them all.

Students live and experience the teaching-learning process every day, and as active participants they have enough information about the different activities and strategies that teachers use. McBride (2009) carried out a research on students’ perceptions on the teaching approaches used in EFL teaching in which the pupils were asked to answer a questionnaire that highlighted 5 categories (grammar study, small group work, acting pre- made conversations, memorizing and repeating and writing and present small acts). The main findings showed that students think that grammar practice is beneficial for their learning, but they consider that those grammar exercises should then be put into practice through writing or communicative activities. In contrast, memorizing did not get high results, students considered memorizing as a loss of time and as an activity not really related to learning, just a repetition of concepts that they may not even understand.

The data for the questionnaire was collected according to feedback from the students at An-Najah. The researcher asked the students an open – ended question about the effect of large classes on them. After gathering the data, the answers were classified into three major areas: instructional, psychological and social which were considered as the study instrument by the researcher in the form of a questionnaire. The researcher distributed the questionnaire to the sample study students (230 students). The questionnaire included two versions (Arabic and English). The subjects responded to the questionnaire in Arabic on a 5-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree; 2= disagree; 3=undecided; 4=agree; 5=strongly agree).The questionnaire contained 46 items and was divided into the following sections:1-Items (1-19) showed the instructional effects of large classes on non- English major EFL students. 2-Items (20-32) showed the psychological effects of large classes on non- English major EFL students. 3-Items (33-46) showed the social effects of large classes on non-English major EFL students.

Before keep on indicating the results obtained in the survey, it is necessary to state that there are students that never raise their hand when a teacher asks them a question despite the fact that they know the right answer. This sometimes happens because some students are shy and are also afraid of being embarrassed if they make a mistake. This limits their participation in EFL classes and does not enable the teacher to give feedback when needed. As a result, the teacher cannot use questions as a means of identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the students who are shy and who do not like to participate in class very often.

management is the process of working with and through people to accomplish organizational goals. Management deals with the establishment of rules and regulations as well as planning activities that aim at fulfilling the objectives of a particular organization. This condition refers to the most exhilarating quality that a person can show to another and that is none other than the unconditional positive regard. This is reflected in the continuing messages, verbal and nonverbal, that teachers send their students. Sometimes by mistake more often this lack of consideration and the belief that student has to do something to earn it. However, on other occasions it has been proven howpowerful mutual acceptance and tolerance of individual differences in the relations between teachers and students can be.

concordant with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and this makes it difficult to keep the rhythm and pace of the lesson. They get distracted very easily and frequently and it is hard for them to avoid drifting off the lesson into any other topic, which makes it even more difficult for the teacher to bring them back on track with the lesson. Also, each student has a different kind of attention focus; one or two get easily distracted by things they can touch with their hands; other students are very talkative; another student gets very distracted with others’ conversations and/or noise; other students are more visual and tend to focus their attention on things that they can watch or observe.

Cabrales and Cáceres (2013) developed a study that aimed to describe how autonomy evolved when learning English with undergraduate students at Universidad de San Buenaventura. This studied considered student´s learning role and curriculum dynamics. As it was a descriptive- comparative research, results showed that autonomy sense increased slowly from one to another level in the learning category. About cognitive control processes, it could be observed that students still answer to a behaviorist perspective despite having implemented other kind of strategies. Another finding from the study showed that students´ autonomy does not necessarily develop with the advance of learning levels. Some authors´ reflections explain that many efforts are needed to provide students conditions which allow them to increase bigger levels of autonomy, and therefore, more time is required to succeed in this process.

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