CECEARFLT, Ningxia
Teachers University, Guyuan 756000
Draft, May 2006.
My context
I
was a student in Foreign Language and Literature Department of Ningxia
University ten months ago. And now I am an English teacher in Guyuan Teacher's
College. I feel very lucky that I could choose my favorite major and engage in
teaching it after my graduation. When I was young I dreamed of being a teacher
in the future. Teaching is such an admirable cause I thought. Therefore, with
great excitement and strong enthusiasm I came to Guyuan Teacher's College, and
determined to be a qualified and acceptable teacher in my students'
eyes.
What
is a qualified and acceptable teacher? As Moira Laidlaw said in A Handbook
of Communicative English Methodology for The New Curriculum in China (2005):
The
mark of a good teacher in this methodology is one who learns flexibility in
managing the learning of all the students in the classroom. (p.5)
Different
students have different needs of learning, and:
a
good teacher should constantly adjust their methods and materials on the basis
of their identification of the local needs of their students (Tarone and Yule, 2000).
So
I sought a teaching style to suit the range of learners in my classroom. I deeply appreciate the
opportunity to engage in AR one month after I came to Guyuan Teacher's College.
AR helped me to know more about teaching and learning. According to Moira
Laidlaw (2005):
'[We need to think about] some rules for the
New Curriculum ... as everything you do in teaching, will be determined by what
it is the students are expected to be able to do. What they are able to do will
depend on your flexibility, initiative, insight, knowledge and interpersonal
skills. (p.8)
More
than a process of imparting knowledge to students, I realize that teaching is
such a challenging endeavour, which, when coupled with enthusiasm, also
requires my imagination, creativity and devotion.
What
is my concern?
My
chosen class for my research is from the PE department. Quite a large number of
students in the PE department come from the mountainous areas, and therefore,
English hasn't seemed very important in their eyes. Many students gave up
English when in middle school. Consequently their knowledge in English is
comparatively limited. When I asked them to give a self-introduction in our
first class, I found just a small number of them were
able to articulate, and express themselves or pronounce anything appropriately. Nearly half of them
were not even able to open their mouths and say something in English. At that
moment, I felt lost: how could I give any lessons to those students? Through
some subsequent individual talks with students and self-evaluation from them, which were often expressed by me as questions like "What do you think
about English?" "Do you think it is useful for you?" "What would you like to
obtain from English class?" I concluded from their original words as follows (exact transcriptions of which can be found
in my data archive (Ma, 2006):
1.
All of my students are not English majors. In some of their eyes, English is
not important, or they are not interested in it, so they will not try to
involve themselves in class.
2.
They are very tired after daily physical exercises, so it is easy for them to
fall asleep in classroom, esp. in an English class when they cannot understand
what I am saying.
3.
Some of them have totally given up English, English means nothing to them, and
they don't care about it.
After
realizing all of these aspects were affecting the learning in my class, I saw a
difficult project in front of me: how could I make my class improve? I
concluded it would be difficult and challenging, but I wasn't going to avoid
the problem. I made up my mind to try to solve the difficulties facing us. As a
teacher, I shouldn't give up on my students even if they have given up on
themselves. I should make them feel English is worthwhile, and accept it, be
interested in it, even be eager to learn it. To fulfill my goals, I realized
the very first step was to make my students in my class know there could be
something more interesting in English besides dull vocabulary and grammar.
Therefore, my AR question became: How can I attract my students' attention
educationally?
To
attract my students' attention educationally, the ways I have used the phrase
here means to make my students pay attention to what I was saying and involve
themselves more appropriately in the class. Four students, Zhang Yaping, Ma
Zhen, Wang Xuerong and Wang Liang were my main concern in the class. There are
reasons why I chose the four students to do my research with: during individual
talks Zhang Yaping said he had given English up when in middle school, and did
not care about English now. Wang Liang said he was not interested in English.
In self-evaluations from Ma Zhen and Wang Xuerong I got to know they were
interested in English but it was very difficult and frustrating for them to
learn it.
What
have I done to attract students' attention educationally in my class?
With
the above aim in mind, I began to search for feasible ways to attract my
students' attention educationally in class. I asked for advice from colleagues
who were more experienced about their methods than me. I visited their classes
and asked their students' opinions about what they were doing. All the
methods are put together as follows:
1.
Encouragement
What
the encouragement here means to encourage students to be self-confident, and
make them believe in what they can do but not despair about what they cannot
yet do.
In
other words, a student's performance will be described in terms of what s\he
can do, rather than what s/he can't. Under the old curriculum, students (and
teachers) were often measured by what they couldn't do, rather than what they
could do. The New Curriculum hopes to encourage teachers and learners through
celebrating what it is people are capable of, rather than pointing out what
they can't manage. It is a much more optimistic and
practical way. (Laidlaw, 2005, 11.)
On
20th October 2005, I visited Dr. Moira Laidlaw's class, from which I
learnt that encouragement was so vital in urging silent students to stand up
and speak out their opinions. Quickly I put it into practice in my class. I was
strongly impressed by the class when I first tried to encourage my students.
When I asked: Who would like to read the paragraph? as usual, they simply
kept silent. For the first time, I tried to encourage them with friendly eye- contact, smiles and
facial expressions, while saying words of encouragement like, "who would be
brave enough to be the first volunteer? I am waiting for you. It is a good
chance for you to practice and show yourself," and then gave students time to
develop their own courage. What I did next was wait carefully and patiently for
their reaction. A wonderful thing happened. One student stood up, so I applauded him.
Then every time after my encouragement there would be a student standing up. By the
third time there were three students standing up at the same time. To my
surprise, Tian Youcai stood up twice to read a paragraph, and he had always
kept silent in my class before. At that time, I felt very sorry that before
this class I had assumed the boy would inevitably refuse to open his mouth in
my class, but I was wrong.
In
another class, the text we were learning was a dialogue between a daughter and
her mother. For this part, I said I needed two students to read the paragraph,
one to be the daughter and the other to be the mother. Four students stood up
at the same time, including two boys. After the two boys had read the
conversation, I said:
'You two made it difficult for us
to imagine it is a conversation between a daughter and mother, but a son and
dad.'
Everybody
was laughing at that moment and I felt the air in the
classroom was very comfortable for I know my sense of
humor reinforced their relaxation and careful confidence especially for the two
boys. After
that class, I asked my students to write something impressed
to me. Wang
Liang wrote this:
老师，当我回答完你的问题，不管是好是坏，你都会笑着说
Good! Wonderful! 知道吗？这对我是非常大的鼓励，所以我就更有勇气起来回答问题了.
(My dear teacher, every time when I answered your
question, whether it was good or not, you always smiled: Good! Wonderful! You
know this is a powerful encouragement to me. I will be braver to stand up and
answer your question.)
I
was so surprised that such a few encouraging words could mean so
much to my students and that this alone might
build up their self-confidence and gradually help them to open their mouths. Furthermore, I affirmed
the importance of encouragement and the necessity of humor for improving the
atmosphere in my class.
2. Humor,
friendliness and forcefulness
19th
October, 2005, Moira Laidlaw observed my class, and in her notes she wrote:
I
like your manner with the students. It is humorous, friendly and interesting.
In
every class, I placed stress on creating a comfortable atmosphere for my
students. I took music to class very often, especially on sleepy days when it
was dark and gloomy. Pop and rock music are very effective in cheering students
up I find. When there was music with a strong rhythm I asked them to beat time
or dance. On one occasion, I was deeply impressed that many students were
dancing in class following Xie Tao.
It
is very common for some students not to work very well in the class. Sometimes
if they were sleepy, distracted, chatting with desk mates,
reading novels, or something like this, when I noticed such
behaviour, I wouldn't be angry with them, but try to use a communicative way to
recall their attention. Once Zhang Yaping was reading a novel during my class,
so I stepped up to his desk to hint to him several times, but it seemed that he
was not aware of the chance I was giving him to put the book away without my
commenting on it. At last, at the time when all the other students were
discussing something with their desk-mates I took the book out from his
drawer without the others noticing, looked through it and returned it without saying anything. It worked! He concentrated his attention on the class
again and I made eye-contact with him to suggest that I was not angry with him
but content with his later action. To my pleasure, Zhang tried his best to
cooperate with me, when I asked someone to read the paragraph, in fact he put
his hand up, instead.
In
her notes Moira also pointed out:
Stop
standing at the blackboard all the time, and walk around. This is the most
efficient way of getting to know students.
This
made me think more about my actions. From that day on, many times during class,
I stood at the back of the class to show I did care about the students on the
back rows. Yu Feilong sat at the back every class, and quite often I stood
beside him, so I was able to hear he was trying to say something more to show
his efforts to me.
Another means I adopted was that when I found
someone was distracted, I would call their name to force them to answer my
question in order to recall their attention, which
was repeatedly useful in my class.
3. Making
myself easily understood
From
the notes some students wrote to me, I learnt that a large number
of them believed that because of their poor basis in English, it would be
difficult for them to catch my meaning in class. Therefore, they would fall
asleep sometimes. When talking together, colleagues who were teaching college
English reflected this problem, too. They said their students frequently
complained to them that they could not understand the teacher's words. This is
a critical and common problem for students who are not majoring in English.
Consciously,
I slowed down my speaking speed, and repeated as often as possible in class.
From my perspective, some Chinese is necessary in an English class. When
listening to English, students have to concentrate their minds in order to
catch the words and seek for the meaning in their minds. For a long time, it
really can make them tired and even frustrated. From my observations, I found
when I suddenly spoke in Chinese after a long period of English, all eyes would
look up and focus on me, especially when I said something that had occurred outside class. I could see more relaxed experssions on their faces.
From this I have concluded when managing classroom activities, Chinese is
sometimes needed to make students clear about the rules and purposes.
Referring to language points, such as grammar, Chinese is efficient to facilitate students' understanding.
4. Saying
something more outside class
I
got to know that my students were eager to acquire knowledge of English
countries, so I tried to spice my class with cultural information. For
instance, when teaching a new word culture, I related stories to show cultural
differences in different countries. On this point, Zhang Yaping who had
asserted he does not care anything about English, raised a question: is there
any difference in showing love between China and America? Others were laughing at
the question, but it was obvious that they were quite interested in it, so I
related stories of a couple that were my teachers when I was at
university. I was quite sure, at that time, everybody was listening to me and
no one was sleeping!
Sometimes
I also talked about my experiences in learning and daily life, and my students
seemed very willing to share theirs. Something else arose about a new word,
'embarrass'. When teaching it I told them about my embarrassing experience and
my friends' too. Some of the students were trying to have the floor before the
others in a rush to share their embarrassing stories! When they had
difficulties in relating in English, I encouraged them to use a combination of
English and Chinese. Wang Xuerong and Gao Xia achieved it very well. Wang
Xuerong described the story like this::
'When
we have a PE class, a boy 扯了他trousers ( a boy's trousers were
torn in an PE class.)
Gao
Xia said:
'Yesterday
when I go shopping, I shouted to a man, when he looked at me I found我认错人了. (I went shopping yesterday. I shouted to a man but
when he turned back and looked at me, I realized I mistook him for one of my
old friends.)
5.
Games, Competitions among groups
(1) Writing words on
blackboard by turns
To
do this activity, I would divide the whole class into 3 or 4 groups by their
seats, and divide the blackboard into parts for every group. The rules were
that every group came to the blackboard at the same time and wrote any words
they knew, one by one. Then we checked the group had written the
most and the most correct after a set time would be the winner.
(2) Passing words from
ear to ear
Similarly,
to do this activity, I did not need to arrange the furniture. Seats from each
row could become a group. First I would show a word on paper to the first
student, and then the word was passed on from ear to ear. The winner should be
the group that had finished it in the shortest time and the word the last
member received should be exactly the same as the one shown on the slip of
paper.
These
kinds of classroom activities were apparently easily accepted by students.
Everyone was able to do it whether or not they were good at pronunciation or
expression. In order to win the competition, I saw everyone became very active
and tried his or her best to run to the blackboard and write the words in as
short a time as possible. To my satisfaction, Zhang Yaping and Wang Liang were
so excited, they ran to the blackboard very quickly and wrote several words.
Zhang wrote the words I you my, Wang wrote the words one he. The words they write
were simple but I saw excited smiles on their faces.
6.
Pair work or Group work
After
Moira's observation of my class, she pointed it out to me:
You
are a very gifted teacher using teacher-centered methodologies. However
now, the NC requires teachers to enable students to move from competence to
performance. In a students-centered classroom, it is the students' learning
that is at the centre. Why not ask the students to work in pairs or groups and
ask you questions about the text?
Realizing
this was a serious problem, I tried to divide my students into groups and asked
them to discuss something on a particular topic. To my frustration, it seemed
that my students were not willing to have free-talks in groups. I walked around
and urged them group by group, one by one, but they just sat and stared at each
other. Actually, some groups were discussing something, and when I listened to
it, to my disappointment, they were talking about something else. After some
encouragement and urging, the result still wasn't very encouraging. I racked my
brains for a solution to this problem. One day an idea struck me. On an
exercises-class, I assigned different exercises to various groups, and asked
them to check the answer in groups, and then give a set answer after a specific period of time. To my
satisfaction, the correct answer achieved a higher level; I even managed to get
some excellent answers. For example, once students were discussing translation
of a sentence in groups:
A
wise man thinks all that he says, a fool says all that he thinks.
After
discussion, Ran Longbo's group gave a wonderful translation, which was much
better than mine: 智者说话深思熟虑，愚者说话脱口而出。
My
translation: 智者说话思其所言，愚者说话言其所思。
What's
more important, I found everyone was involved in checking answers with others.
Some students who had finished the exercise were able to help the students who
hadn't. I got to know later in an AR meeting that this is called
peer-evaluation. In
the New Curriculum document
(Beijing, 2005), the fifth of the five basic concepts says: using different
evaluative methods in order to develop learning.
7. To the text-book
When
giving examples of sentences with a new word, to render it an easy sentence, I
read it and asked my students to try their best to interpret the meaning and
translate it. To make sure everyone concentrated their minds on it, I
heightened my speaking tone and said: 'my boys and girls please pay
attention to my next sentence, let's see who can give us a good translation.' Repetition here was
necessary. For difficult sentences, I wrote them on the blackboard and gave
indications and translated with them together. Sometimes we would guess a
word's meaning, which was very funny. For instance:
At
a snail's pace
I
told them a snail is a kind of animal. What is it? Please guess. I found my
students used their imaginations freely and they seemed fond of guessing. The
names of many kinds of animals came out of their mouths. When I came to the
next new word, first I would ask them to read the word by themselves. Not only
did it attract their attention to the next word, but also it gave them a chance
to practice and evaluate their pronunciation-skills. When teaching the context,
I would like to ask them to read by themselves at first and then say something
about the paragraph. After the reading, Ma Zhen and Gao Xia very often were
able to say detailed information from the paragraph, which was helpful for
others in understanding. To a paragraph beginning with these two sentences:
Soon
they departed, in a borrowed car. With money loaned by the groom's brother,
they could afford a honeymoon,
Ma
Zhen translated the sentences very exactly, and then I asked what other
information you got from the paragraph?
Wang
Liang said: They are too poor.
I
was very satisfied with the answer, because from it I saw he was really
thinking about the meaning appropriately.
l
Results so far
1. Here is
some students' feedback
Wang Liang:
老师每节课的耐心和宽容的笑脸让我深受感染，老师放心，以后上课我一定认真听讲。(I am deeply infected by
your patience and smile. Believe me, I can involve myself in your class in
future.)
Luo
Xiaodong:
老师的课非常有意思跟别的课完全不一样就是听不懂。(Your interesting class is so different from others but
it is difficult for me to understand.)
Yu
Feilong:
自从学习英语我就很少在英语课上不睡觉的，但是现在在你的课上我不睡觉了，老师的课很受欢迎希望继续努力。(Rarely, I did not sleep in English class before, but now the situation has changed.
We are contented with your class, keep on working hard.)
Zhang
Yaping:
我对老师每节课刚开始那一部分的对课外知识的介绍非常喜欢，我开始慢慢喜欢英语了。(I like the introduction of English countries at the beginning of every
class. It is gradually making me interested in English.)
2. Some students
who had affirmed they were not interested in English now began to speak and
concentrate on the blackboard.
3. Some
students no longer avoid eye contact with me: they seem to see me with
eagerness.
4. No body
falls asleep in my class. I am quite self-confident in claiming this.
l
Conclusion
After
an action research on the subject I found following ways are useful in
attracting students' attention.
1.
Encouragement
From
my research I found if a student's action in class was praised and applauded
s\he would try her\his best to be better afterwards. Besides encouragement, to
make a student speak out depends on teacher's sensitive observation.
Some students would not be brave enough to put up their hands
or stand up themselves, but you can see they were really had
own ideas in their minds. At such moment, they seemed having
sense of attempting or looking at you, you can call their names.
2.
Teaching in a communicative way
I
found Moira's advice in her handbook useful when teaching my class. She wrote:
We
believe that the teacher's own enthusiasm about his\her subject is what
motivates students the most. Á Your enthusiasm should not only be
communicated about the subject, but also about your students, about your
pleasure in spending time with them because they are worthwhile people. If you
show this in the way you act with the class, they will learn to trust you and
to expect fairness from you. (op.cit.)
To
some extent, the teacher's mood does affect the students' interaction in class.
So I try to make the air in classroom comfortable, such as playing music. A
friendly air in class is also important to gain students' trust. When there
were some students naughty, I have never appeared angry, even actually
sometimes I restrained my anger. Because I know they are adults now, there have
a strong self-respect and self-consciousness in their heart, so I mustn't
compel them to take part in my class but encourage them. Just as I did in
recalling Zhang Yaping's attention to my class from reading a novel, I must
find ways to help all the students feel useful and valuable members of the
class and be friendly with them. 'Friendly' here also means being considerate
towards every person in the classroom. It seems that the students sitting at
the back were the ones who were not very willing to become involved in class or
had worries about learning. Usually they were simply being ignored, so I
believe as teachers we should consider more about them, such as stepping away
from the platform and standing amongst them. In the notes Dr. Moira gave me
about my class on 19th October, 2005, she asked me questions:
The
girl sitting right at the back to your left on the aisle way in white, she has
got a cold. She's listening well and smiling at you. Are you smiling back? Do
you see all the students in your classroom? Sometimes, teaching is about
looking and thinking and feeling about your students. Try to get inside their
heads and hearts in order to understand what the lesson feels like to them. Do
you know how they feel? If you don't, why not?
These questions recall
me to a sense of consideration. Every student in a classroom is a unique
person: they have different moods, they are at different levels of learning, so
it is impossible to treat everyone the same. There is an anonymously-authored
poem in English, which ends:
Before
I teach you, I must first reach you.
This
expresses brilliantly, in my opinion, the role of a teacher. The NC guidelines
are very precise about this as well. The NC documentation, in the spring of 2005, states that teachers need to get to know their
students as individuals, in order to promote independence in learning, and pay
attention to the students' individual emotions and feelings as a springboard to
development. It is necessary to observe students when giving class, and ask
questions in your heart:
-
Is s\he bored?
-
Dose s\he find the work too difficult? (Do I need to think about the
language I am using in my explanations? Should I use a little more Chinese, or
a little more English? Should I be writing more\less on the board? Should I be
using more pictures to help some students follow the learning better?)
-
Should I make opportunities to find out how much is this student
understanding?
-
Are my teaching methods suitable for this student?
-
Could I present the material in a different way for different students, to
help support individuals' particular learning
styles?
-
Is student X unhappy?
-
Should I be strict or understanding with this student?
(Laidlaw,
2005)
These
questions are so subtle because there is no generalisable answer. However, if I
bear the above questions in my mind, this might help me work more efficiently
with my students. I believe it would give my students a feeling of been
considerate and discourage disruptive behaviors from starting.
What's
more, sometimes being forceful is necessary to attract students' attention.
When finding someone was distracted, calling them by name, and asking them
questions, was really helpful in reminding them to concentrate.
3.
Color the content of class
I
have heard one extremely experienced and very competent teacher of English
said:
Even if I were using a text I had written myself only last year, I wouldn't use it without modification.
This
means that English teachers should be observed busily developing change or
creating additional material for their students. From the notes students wrote
for me I learnt that they were curious about western countries. So I usually
began every one of my classes with an English saying, a story from world
literature or something about western culture. There is an old saying in China,
that a good beginning is half the battle. So beginning the class with such
things seemed a useful way to create a conducive atmosphere for learning. For
example, when I showed an English saying to them, firstly, I would let them
discuss it and give a good translation, which was really helpful in warming
students up and assuring appropriate actions later on.
'The
aims of learning a foreign language are not to be limited to mastery of the
knowledge and skills in the foreign language.Á Through learning a foreign
language, students can enrich their experience of life, broaden their world
vision, and enhance their thinking skills. Language learning is most effective
when students' interest, motivation and attitudes are taken into
consideration.' (VSO, 2005).
I
take this now, after my research process, to mean that to be a professional
teacher is it very important for me to make my class enjoyable by my students
and never a burden. Therefore, bringing something from outside classroom into
my class can be helpful in attracting my students' attention and
building their interest in English.
4.
Classroom activities
Careful
management of classroom activities was important in making the whole-class-feel
involved in the lesson. Whatever I was doing with them the activities should be
varied. I believe if one always does the same thing in the same way, the
students will get bored. What I always do in my class is conducted through pair
or group work, games and competitions. Especially, playing games and having
competitions among groups seem effective ways to relax students and cheer them
up.
5.
Critical thinking
The
last way of attracting students' attention I wanted to mention is I have found
how important it is to keep students thinking all the time and cultivate their
critical thinking capacity. Critical thinking has become an important criterion
in the New Curriculum guidelines and teachers are expected to promote critical
thinking in every aspect of their teaching. When teaching new words, let your
students guess the meaning of some new words in your example. As to the text,
ask them to read by themselves, then say what information they are able to get
from the passage and raise questions by themselves. These two ways I have found
to be necessary in helping me achieve a student-centered class. What's more
important, if they are thinking all the time they will always concentrate on
the class.
l
My claim
It
is time to end my first action research. From the process of doing the
research, I gained many valuable things. I am aware that, to be a teacher one
should be responsible for her/his students and oneself.
AR
is worthwhile in my experience. The process of thinking out a new way of
teaching and trying it out is a process to make my teaching wiser, more
systematic and enjoyable. AR is a process of teacher's self-evaluation and
helpful to improve teacher's professional skills. Just as Professor Jean McNiff
(2005) said:
It
is important to help teachers to make self-improvement in order to make
students learn better.
It
is a truth that no two English classes are ever the same. The process of
educating requires teachers to use their own intuitive awareness that there is
not one fixed methodology, which will work with all students, and that there is
not one set of materials which will guarantee successful learning for all. As
teachers we should never stop learning as we teach. We should be creative and
imaginative. We should seek various way of teaching in order to make the class
more interesting and effective.
During
the process of doing the research, I have established a good relationship with
my students. What a teacher also should be is considerate. The basis of the
progress I have made can be summed up by the phrase 'an educative relationship
between teachers and students'. This happens when you know more about your
students. I have some findings about it, and this really interests me because I
believe it's crucial to the development of my living educational theory, so my
next AR will begin with the question: How can I establish a more educational
relationship with my students?
l
Bibliography
1.
Elaine Tarone & George Yule (200), Focus on the Language Leaner, Shanghai:
Foreign Education Press
2.
Colleagues from China's Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research
(2004), A Handbook of Communicative English Methodology for The New Curriculum
in China, Ningxia: Guyuan Teachers College
3.
Moira Laidlaw etc. (2005), Handbook One 'From Competence to Performance:
English-Teaching Methodology for The New Curriculum in China, Ningxia: Guyuan
Teachers College
4.
Moira Laidlaw (2005), Notes from the Observation of Ma Lijuan's Class on 19th,
October, 2005
5.
Michael P. Breen & Andrew Littlejohn (200), Classroom Decision-Making,
Shanghai: Foreign Language Education Press
6.
Jean McNiff, Pamela Lomax & Jack Whitehead, (2002), You and you
action research project, London and New York: Hyde Publications.
7.
VSO, Beijing (2004), 'What's new in the New Curriculum?' VSO Newsletter,
March.
l
Acknowledgement
Firstly,
I would like to express my deep appreciation to Dr. Moira Laidlaw, who has
helped me a lot with my research. Under her guidance, I fixed my research
direction and set about carrying it out. Her devotion to the cause of education
in this area and warm-hearted enthusiasm urged me to go on when I was frustrated
in the process of my research. Secondly, I want to refer to my lovely students
whom I did the research on. Thanks for their cooperation and useful
suggestions. What's more, my colleagues and members in the Beginners Group have
helped me a lot through their follow-up to observations of classes and weekly
communications in our AR meetings.