How can I improve students' learning by
increasing their interest and confidence in learning English... A case study of
AR into College English by Wang Ying
Abstract:
How can I
improve the studentsÕ learning by increasing their interest and confidence in
learning English? This
report shows how I changed my teaching methods in order to help my students
learn more effectively. As the New Curriculum in China for the teaching of
English demands, I had to change from didactic lecturer to facilitator and
organizer. I show how my imagined solutions to improving the living situation played
a big role in helping my students learn better. The results are encouraging, as
students begin more and more to play an active role in their classroom
learning. The most significant achievement is the studentsÕ new ability to
learn by, and think for, themselves, which I think will benefit them all their
lives. At the same time, I learn a lot and develop new methodologies for
teaching. My paper reveals how I have used the connections between my research
process and the New Curriculum values like studentsÕ interest, motivation and
attitudes, to enhance the learning process.
My context:
When I was in
junior school, I admired my English teacher very much for his fluent spoken
English and profound knowledge. From the time he taught us, I was determined to
devote myself to English teaching, so I strove to realize my dream. Fortunately
it was in 1996 that I was enrolled in Ningxia University and just as I had
expected, majoring in English teaching. During the course of my studies at the
University, I made great efforts to catch every chance to listen to my
excellent teachers' lectures. I was very grateful for God's blessing that He
sent such good teachers for us.
All my teachers
were diligent, strict and knowledgeable, and they imparted their knowledge to
their students as much as they could. Therefore I had to be engrossed in
listening and taking notes during the whole class, because most teachers spoke
so fast and seldom wrote the main points on the blackboard. In those four
years, I almost spent all my time learning English. Consequently I won several
prizes, which made me feel my hard work had been worthwhile. After graduation,
I came to Guyuan Teachers' College and became a college teacher. I was assigned
to teach college English in the first two years. Seeing that I was deeply
influenced by my teachers, I believed that good teachers were those who passed
on all their knowledge to the students as much as they could. However, I gradually
found that I restricted my students' imagination and initiative in learning
English while imitating my teachers' teaching patterns. Their performance in
class showed that they learned English mechanically and passively but not
actively.
Just at that time,
I began to know something about action research with Moira Laidlaw's help, and
this guided me to improve my teaching and students' learning. Action
Research is an enquiry by the self into the self... It is always to do with
learning, and learning is to do with education and growth (McNiff, 2002). It works through a
systematic cycle of reflection and action, called the action plan, which reads
like this:
. I
have a concern/ what would I like to improve?
. Why
am I concerned?
. How
might I improve it?
. Who
can help me and how?
. How
will I know it has improved?
(Whitehead, 1985)
The theory was so
convincing that I did believe that my students and I could benefit from it, so
I started the project.
What was my concern?
Before I was aware
of the seriousness of the situation in class, I had believed that I was a good
and responsible teacher because I spent so much time preparing my lesson and
teaching my students what I had learned as much as I could. However, I worked
very hard only to meet failure in class. Students' silence, poor speaking and
writing pervaded each class so that I did was unable to see their unique
learning needs.
Why was I
concerned?
I've often felt
frustrated and disappointed in myself after finishing my class. During a
lesson, most students just kept silent and acted as my audience. They seldom
spoke English or raised their hands to answer my questions voluntarily, and
some even fell asleep. It seemed that they were attaching little importance to
their English lesson. Such an unbearable situation made me feel suffocated so I
had to reflect on my teaching by asking following questions:
áDid I
pay enough attention to my students while giving a class?
áDid I
know whether my students understood or digested what I have taught?
áDid I
know something about my students, such as their English levels and interest in
learning English?
The answers to
these questions were "No". At the same time, I made a survey among
students in order to understand their indifference to our English class more
fully. The questions I designed in the survey were as follows:
There were two
main reasons for their non-participation: one was that some students had lost
interest in learning English when they were in high school, and the other was
others lost hope in learning English due to their poor rudimentary knowledge.
I've realized that if I continued teaching them like this, I would be negating
my educational values. I was mistakenly thinking that the teaching methods my
teachers applied were not suitable to my students. If I continued teaching like
before my students might not say "Hello" to anyone in English in the
future, for they were just learning "Dumb English". For the moment I
was experiencing myself as a living contradiction (Whitehead, 1989), in that I believed my
students learned well and I taught well yet I was systematically denying these
values in my practice. Under Dr. Moira Laidlaw's help, I finished filling in
the action plan and identified an aspect I wanted to improve. Therefore my
question was: "How can I improve students' learning by increasing their
interest and confidence in learning English?"
What could I
do?
Stephen Kemmis and
Robin McTaggart have said: "The linking of the terms action and
research highlights the essential feature of the method: trying out ideas in
practice as a means of improvement and as a means of increasing
knowledge....", so I
was determined to find ways to change this dull situation so that my students
and I felt at ease in class. The following was what I imagined according to the
present situation:
. The relations between teacher and students
. Teacher's encouragement and students' self-confidence
. Their participation in discussion and class
activities
. Their interest in learning English
. Their homework
What did I
do?
Guided by the
imaginary solutions, I started to work on specific actions. The following
points are what I have done:
After my survey, I
found out a lot about my students, especially their psychological aspects.
Either because of their uninterested factors or because of feelings of
hopelessness, students feared to lose face. Under such conditions, if the teacher
were too strict and serious, they would lose their confidence, and not
participate voluntarily. Considering this, I tried to put myself into my
students' place, thinking about their difficulties in learning English. I tried
to be more active, thoughtful, and humorous while giving a class. For instance,
I once taught my students a proverb, "Love me, love my dog." While I
interpreted the meaning to students, I asked them,
"OK,
class, before understanding this proverb, you'd better answer my question: 'Do you
like me?' "
"Of
course, we do,"
answered my students.
"That's
great. If you like me, you'd better like English. So that's the meaning of this
proverb," I said.
Finally, all my
students nodded their heads with a smile. From then on, I realized that teacher's
words and actions influence students very much. My students started to make
jokes with me sometimes, which had never happened before. I still remember that
once I gave them a topic about the equality between men and women for
discussion. Most girls considered that women were still unequal to men in
society, but boys disagreed with them. One boy named Ma Yue said:
"If women
are not equal to men, why am I always seeing Mr Zhang (my husband) do the
cooking whereas our English teacher was just standing aside?"
(Because of the
old Chinese tradition, it was wives but not husbands who were always cooking,
which showed that men had high status in family.)
Hearing his words,
the whole class burst into laughter. Consequently, I was really building a good
relationship with my students. One girl wrote to me:
"You are
not only my teacher, but also my friends, even elder sister."
Just as the New
Curriculum (2002) says, teachersÕ role has to be changed from that of knowledge
distributor to facilitator, organizer, participant and advisor, so changing my
role was an indispensable part in improvement the living situation.
Writing, to some
extent, is closely related to speaking (at least I think so), so I always encouraged
my students to write English articles, that could improve their abilities of
thinking in English patterns. In addition, the New Curriculum requires that writing is one of the
language skills students must grasp. At first some of them were not even able to write a
complete sentence. Their articles were piled with many disordered words. Their
sentences were like the following:
Even though it was
hard for me to correct their writing, I still made corrections carefully and
added some encouraging words like these:
"I can
understand your article very well. Don't worry about it, I can help you improve
your writing if you would like to keep on!" "Your handwriting is so
beautiful! Hope your essay is as beautiful as your handwriting."
"I've never read such an interesting story!"
Although my
comments were so ordinary, I believe they really influenced my students deeply.
For example, they were able to finish their homework on time, and some students
even wrote "Thank you " (from Zhao Xiaohong) at the end of my
comments, which showed that they cared about teacher's remarks.
I was anxious to
motivate my students to speak English in class so that they could get rid of
the dumb English. I told students to prepare a short report in turn. Before I
gave them the class, I would assign one student to do a daily-report. Let's
take one student's report as an example. The girl whose name is Zhang Rui told
us a story about the theft happening on the bus. After her report, students
asked such questions:
Such a method
could really motivate students' participation in class. They asked questions
voluntarily, and with my help, the reporter answered their questions
successfully. Her answers were the following:
"No, it is
not a real one."
"No, never!"
As for
group-discussion, I designed a topic related to the text or some contemporary
issues before explaining the text, then divided students into several groups to
discuss. Usually each group appointed one person as a representative to show
their opinions on the platform. (They could not choose same person each time.)
Students who performed on the platform constantly received teacher's praise and
classmates' applause, which made them more confident. The New Curriculum
requires that students are encouraged to experience the language, participate
in discussion and negotiation activities, and the speaking is also one basic
skill students must grasp.
The New Curriculum
targets stress the significance of studentsÕ interests, confidence, and
participation. In order to build up students' interest in learning English,
especially understanding of the text, I told them to make a performance
according to the text we've learned before. After class, they had to make a full
preparation for it. Not only did they make-up dialogues but they also kept them
in their minds. In this case, a very long and difficult text became simple
dialogues. If it was in the next class that they would do a performance,
students usually made a proper setting before class for the purpose that they
had enough space to show their performances. Every time I watched their
performances, I was touched by their elaborate preparation. They even recorded
the warning sounds and made some props by hand. That's why their performances
were so vivid and wonderful, which were much better than I had expected.
Gradually more and more students participated in this activity.
The appeal
of marks (ways to
remember words)
Students were
always complaining that nothing was more difficult than reciting new words in
English. I made an investigation among them. My question was "What's
your main purpose of learning English?" I found that 80% students wrote "passing
examination". In other words, most students were concerned about their
marks in examinations, which could force them to learn new words by heart. As
soon as I completed one unit, I would give them a quiz about new words.
Everyone had to prepare for it, because I would appoint any student to write
words on the blackboard, giving them marks face to face. In the New Curriculum, the evaluation
should be designed and administrated to encourage the learners rather to
frustrate them. It should be carried out in terms of what students can do rather than what they cannot do.
Therefore, I usually read different words to different students. Students who
were good at memorisation wrote more difficult words than those who were slow
in learning English. Gradually, because of increasing self-esteem and the
appeal of high marks, students consciously started to remember more words; some
students even rushed to the blackboard to get high marks, such as Zhang Rui,
Zhu Chao, Chen Chunyan, and Liu Liang. To my delight the method turned out to
be effective in the Mid-term examination, in which word dictation counted for
30%. The result was that six students got full marks; ten students' scores were
between twenty and thirty; the others' scores were between ten and twenty.
After having put
all these into practice, I found that my students no longer kept silent in
class. They gave active responses to my questions and participated in
discussion enthusiastically. Sometimes they even stood up and showed their
opinions half in English and half in Chinese. For instance, there was one time
when we were learning the text about "Trends for the 21st century". I
confined their topics to population, food production, energy, and health;
moreover, they were allowed to imagine any possibilities that might happen in
the 21st century. As they talked about these topics, their views became quite
interesting. For instance, Liu Liang's views on health:
"In the future we do not need any doctor, a kind of machine can directly diagnose our diseases."
Speaking of energy
and population, Zhang Guoyong said:
"The cars
in the future are made from waste paper and driven by a computer, so we can
have our breakfast and read newspaper into the car. With the increase of
population in China there is no enough space for us to live in. Thus, living on
the moon and 'haidi' is the best solution to it." (He did not know how to say 'haidi' Ð
Ôsea-bedÕ in English.)
Gradually, they
were no longer timid and scared of losing face while answering questions.
During this process, I chose three students at different levels of proficiency
as the participants--these are the people who were going to be part of my research
project. One of them, Zhang Wenbo, was probably the poorest and most silent
student in this class. With my encouragement and help, he has changed a lot.
Although it is still difficult for him to speak fluently, at least he began to
read new words or answer questions voluntarily. (See later on for more
evidence.)
What
evidence could I produce to show my actions were influencing my situation?
I collected a
great deal of data during my project, not only the raw data relating to
activities, but also feedback from a variety of sources. My data-gathering
techniques included the following:
1. Students'
self-evaluation report
At the end of the
term, I required my students to write a short report about their English
learning. My question was "What have I learned in my English class this
term?" I chose three
students' reports. (They are my research foci.) Their reports included these
comments:
"In my
heart I felt Miss Wang taught us very well. First of all, her pronunciation
influenced me so much that I gradually improved my oral speaking and
listening... Although it is still difficult for me to understand the whole text
thoroughly, I begin to take great interest in learning English since Miss Wang
have taught us..."
(Comments from Zhang Wenbo)
"Before I
came to the college, I learned English by rote, so learning English was a heavy
burden for me, and I learned it passively. After I came to college, college
English was totally different from high-school English. At first, in English
class my English teacher Miss Wang talked with us in simple English. Her
teaching method completely broke up the traditional one-'Dumb English.
Secondly, before we were going to learn a new text, she often gave us some
topics related to the text, which not only made us develop our imagination
bravely but also provided a good chance for us to communicate. Thirdly, to
consolidate and deepen the understanding to the text, she also organized us to
make up short play so that a long and boring text became a vivid and
interesting play, so we had deep impression on each text. Therefore I have
learned English easily and relaxed for a whole year and I've made much progress
in English reading, writing, speaking and listening. English is no longer a
burden for me; on the contrary I 'm eager to learn it every day."(Comments for Wang Huiyuan)
2. Colleague's
comments
Colleague Liu
visited my class. Comments from him were these: "The students were more
active than any other classes. Some of them had an excellent pronunciation and
their dialogue was almost perfect. Teacher's guidance was proper and teaching
methods were suitable to those students. In all, this class showed high
involvement and participation."
3. Students'
E-mails
I received my
students' E-mails after I put an end to my research. Maybe their words can have
some significance here. Remarks from Li Chengmei:
"I almost
did not learn English in high school so that my English was so poor. At the
beginning of the last term I still disliked English, but I liked your
character--lovely and active. I began to like English under your influence. I
said to myself, ' There is no reason for me not to learn English well because
of such a good teacher.' Now I spend much time learning English and I will
never give it up. "
Another comments from Zhao Xiaohong: " Thank you for your teaching us
so well. I like English very much, but I can't study it well. Can you help me?"
I believe that
what I have done really contributed to an enhanced learning experience for the
students and for myself. Through my research I was able to evaluate the
students' learning and my teaching. I believe I encouraged and motivated my
students to learn English willingly and voluntarily so that they could reflect
critically on their own work, and make decisions how to learn and improve their
English. As it says in the New
Curriculum, new learning strategies should be incorporated into the language
curriculum so that students can become autonomous learners, which is
fundamental for life-long learning.
For myself, I have
moved from a position of judging my work in terms of testing to assessing it as
a form of praxis--Praxis is informed, committed action that gives rise to
knowledge rather than just successful action. (McNiff, 2002) I judge my
practice in terms of whether I am fulfilling my values of teaching and
voluntary learning. StudentsÕ interest and confidence play a critical role in
their learning and teacher's teaching. I think all these aspects are evident in
my work as it impacts on the quality of learning of the students.
The research has
also raised interesting new questions for me, such as
áHow
do I improve students techniques of grasping the main ideas in the paragraphs
so that they could understand the text effectively?
This question
becomes the beginning of new action enquiries. Now that I am on my learning
journey, there is no stopping me.
In short, action
research spurs me to reflect on my previous teaching thoroughly and acquire
some understanding of teaching and learning. Teaching is concerned not only
teaching but also learning, and the methods put into the class are not constant
but pliable. Now I firmly believe that teaching is much like a flowing river.
If the water in the river cannot flow, it will fester. Teaching is like this.
Teaching methods should be changed with the circumstances. Otherwise teaching
is a dead river, which will dry up gradually. In addition, the evaluations on
teachers' work should be based not on how much the teacher has taught but on
how much the students have learned. As for students' learning, especially
foreign language learning, their confidence and interest have unforeseeable
effects on it. As the saying goes: "Failure is the mother of
invention." If it possible, I would like to say, "Interest is the
father of success."
The New Curriculum
says that language leaning is most effective when studentsÕ interest,
motivation and attitudes are taken into consideration. This is what I have found too. Anyhow, I now believe that action research
can help everyone reflect on their actions critically and enhance their
professional development.
References:
McNiff, J., with
Whitehead, J., (2002), Action Research: Principles and Practice, Routledge, London and New York
McNiff, J., Lomax,
P., Whitehead, J.,(1996), You and Your Research Project, Hyde Publications, Dorset, U.K.
Petty, G., (2001),
Teaching Today, Nelson
Thornes Ltd, U.K.
Richard, C. Jack,
and Rodgers, Theodores S. (1989), Approaches and Methods in Language
Teaching, Syndicate of the University of Cambridge