ELTWeekly Newsletter Vol. 3 Issue#96 | August 29, 2011 | ISSN 0975-3036
Vahid Rahmani Doqaruni holds an M.A. in TEFL from Mazandaran University, Iran. He has been teaching English in private language institutes and Entrepreneurship Center of Mazandaran University in Iran during the last 5 years. His major research interests are: Action research and discourse analysis.
This article reports on an action research on increasing the Iranian EFL students’ confidence in speaking. Although speaking skills are an important part of the curriculum in language teaching and the ability to speak in a foreign language is at the very heart of what it means to be able to use a foreign language, some of the students keep silent all the time in class. 12 female university students from different fields of study participated in this study. The method used in this study was based on a student-centered approach that incorporated more participation and challenged traditional teacher-student relations. As a result, the students’ confidence increased because of incorporating additional speaking activities into the classroom.
1. Introduction
Speaking skills are an important part of the curriculum in language teaching and the ability to speak in a foreign language is at the very heart of what it means to be able to use a foreign language. Our personality, our self-image, our knowledge of the world and our ability to reason and express our thoughts are all reflected in our spoken performance in a foreign language. Being able to speak to friends, colleagues, visitors and even strangers, in their language or in a language which both speakers can understand, is surely the goal of very many learners (Luoma, 2004). So we have to devote a high proportion of class time to developing oral productive skills. There are several purposes in oral practice:
1) the students can learn to grasp the main ideas and important points of the text through oral practice;
2) they will understand the text better including some new words and expressions;
3) it’s also a good chance for them to review the words and expressions that they have learned before;
4) and the most important, they can learn how to describe events or express their own ideas logically and clearly.
For accomplishing these purposes, two different and, at the same time, complementary roles are assigned to both students and teachers. Our students should realize that learning English does not mean just listening to the teacher and making notes. The learners have to be taught to speak as well as to listen. If they want to learn a language better, they must use it. Therefore, in class they should be active participators not passive listeners. They should do a lot of work by themselves if they want to learn more from the text. I want to help my students to become more satisfied with what they are learning and speak more successfully. So, students should be encouraged and helped to work cooperatively so that they could have opportunities to progress in achieving their academic objectives (Ainscow and Tweddle, 1988). When engaged in oral productive activities, the students can also help to each other. Only in this situation, they can share ideas and structures with each other. This will lead them to a more successful class activity.
Yet, as a teacher, I would like my students to know that a teacher has to play many different roles at different times. In class, a teacher may be a facilitator, a guide, a helper or an assessor in different situations (Richards and Rodgers, 2001). Sometimes a teacher takes a major instructional role in class but sometimes he takes only a minor helping role. Therefore, the students should be responsible for their own learning and they should not depend on the teacher all the time.
In my teaching experience, however, some of the students keep silent all the time in class. They don’t want to speak English. Even when they know the answer to a simple question, they hesitate to open their mouths. Although they know clearly that they should know English well in order to qualify themselves for the current competitive society, they are indifferent to talking in English. It’s really a hard job for me to arouse the students’ interest in speaking. Thus, I want to look at this problem and find out a solution to the issue through doing an action research.
The first thought that comes into the mind when you hear the term “research” is that the researcher should spend months or even years and go through many difficult steps in a process to create a scholarly piece of work. In this way, many teachers consider research an extra burden in their regular schedule unless the word research is used in a new sense. However, many teachers are so concerned with their routine activities that they are left with almost no time for research whatsoever (Salmani Nodoushan, 2009). Here is where action research comes into play. It is more practical and user-friendly than research defined in traditional senses and does not necessitate some essential features of the traditional research such as sizable sample of participants or time limitations. It is conducted research for one main purpose: to improve teaching and learning (Slavin, 2006). On the whole, due to its less formal nature, teachers will find action research by far the easiest form of research to conduct.
2. Context
12 students involved in this project were all university students from different fields of study. They were all female and had participated in a private general English classroom related to Entrepreneurship Center of Mazandaran University in Iran. The students had an intermediate level of English, as determined by their TOEFL test taken by the institute. The students had a reasonable knowledge of English grammar but were reticent to speak or produce the target language.
3. Problem
The problem I identified in my classroom is that most of my students are not active enough during the class and do not speak most of the time. Following informal talks to my students, I discovered that most of them had problems with speaking English. They wanted to speak but they lacked confidence to speak. Investigating students’ attitudes toward learning English, I asked the question “Which skill do you want to improve most?” I found that most of them wanted to improve speaking but they were not brave enough and did not know how to express their ideas. However, I thought that informal conversation was not enough to confirm that, so I decided to investigate students’ attitudes toward speaking skill through collecting data from a needs analysis questionnaire (see Appendix) I had designed for this purpose. Based on the questionnaire, I found out that most of the students were really interested in speaking.
In order to investigate this problem, I found it necessary to determine what speaking activities I currently use and the amount of interaction and language use my students generate. For that, I made use of audio recordings of my class (three sessions) as tools for aiding my research. The first issue to be investigated was the type of speaking activities I used in my class and the students’ response to those activities. In addition, I wanted to know about teacher and student talking time and the amount of my students’ speaking.
Listening to the recordings, I found out that my teaching was not as effective as I hoped it to be. The evidence for that was that my students were silent during speaking activities most of the time and it seemed that they didn’t have enough confidence for speaking. Regarding the activities, only a small portion of my teaching was devoted to this skill because I was only performing based on the book I had to cover in that semester in which all of the skills were worked on simultaneously and no especial attention was paid to oral productive skills.
4. Possible reasons
The reasons why this problem arose have been justified through my preliminary investigation and are listed as follows:
Firstly, the students’ language levels are different. Some of them are good at English, but some others are not. Their attitudes toward learning English are different as well. Some of them work hard, but the others are just opposite. Some of them even show indifference about English. In their opinion, learning a foreign language like English is not useful because only a few of them will have a chance to communicate with native speakers. In this way, they ask themselves why they should devote so much time and effort to study a foreign language and improve their speaking skill. The more discouraged they get, the less they practice and the worse their speaking skill becomes.
Secondly, some students are introvert and they are afraid of making mistakes. Though some of the students want to improve their spoken English, they are too shy to speak English in class. They always keep silent during the classroom activities, which really makes me disappointed. Sometimes, I’m confused. What can I do to help them to voice their opinions? It is really a demanding and challenging task.
Thirdly, some of the students lack oral practice, as they come from a traditional educational background. They usually used to focus their attention on the language structure, not speaking when they were at high school. In other words, they are the products of a deficient educational system that didn’t allow for active participation of the students in the classroom. In these situations, teacher is the only reliable resource leading to successful English learning and nothing else.
Fourthly, most of the students don’t spend so much time to review orally what they have learned. They pay much more attention to written work. This has led some of the students to this belief that even practicing spoken English in class is a waste of time. Again, it seems that it is related to the ill educational system in Iran that educates students in a way to prepare them for just passing the university entrance examination which is in the form of multiple choice test.
Fifthly, sometimes the teacher’s instructions are not detailed or clear enough and the teacher’s methods in handling exercises perhaps lack variety. If we accept that non-understanding of instructions lead to demotivation of students, the importance of this issue becomes more apparent. How can we expect the students to participate in the classroom activities when they do not know what they are supposed to do?
5. Action
In this study, the most important aspect of my research emphasized students’ cooperation, interaction and participation in pairs and in groups. Since I wanted to increase their confidence in speaking, they had to have more opportunity to practice working together with their friends.
Therefore, the method I used was based on a student-centered approach that incorporated more participation and challenged traditional teacher-student relations, where students listened passively while the teacher gave instruction and primary decisions were carried out by the teacher based on his/her priorities (Richards, 2002). In this approach, I encouraged students to participate in the activities, by making activities easier for them, making them believe that they will be able to speak if they think they can speak, enabling students to achieve their goals, and praising them when they succeeded in their speaking.
Previously, both students and I did not pay much attention to speaking activities in the text book. The students only read the instructions in speaking exercises and tried to use some pre-fabricated patterns determined for that especial exercise and situation in the book. When the students were asked to express ideas, most of them were quiet and did not respond. From the evidence, I assumed that students lacked the opportunity to practice speaking, which is one of the main factors to promote confidence in speaking English. I thought it may be the sort of activities in the text book which did not allow the students to express themselves and just wanted them to follow the instructions in the exercises. As a result, I tried to find a way to motivate them to speak English through a series of materials and activities. I made use of one of the authorized books on speaking on the market in which activities were based on real-world events. The topics in these activities were both interesting and familiar to students so they could make a better relationship with them. These activities and related materials were used to promote students’ confidence in speaking English.
In order to gain a better idea of the activities and materials covered in the classroom, it seems necessary to provide a general picture of the book and its organization, from which these activities and materials were taken. Speaking Extra (Gammidge, 2004) is a resource book containing photocopiable materials for supplementary classroom work. The activities provide self-contained lessons for teacher. Each activity consists of a page of clear, step-by-step instructions for the teacher and a photocopiable page for the students.
The book helps the learners to speak with confidence to carry out the most basic social transactions, like asking directions or ordering food. They can also develop their speaking skills to fulfill more sophisticated needs like making friends, impressing people and arguing their case. The book’s variety of task types reflects the variety of situations that learners will meet in the real world. In general, the aim of the book is to make the students actually want to communicate.
Regarding the book’s organization, Speaking Extra is divided into 18 units, each focusing on a different theme. Each unit approaches the theme from an interesting and original angle. The themes cover many of the popular themes found in standard course books. Therefore, the activities can be used to supplement existing course material, offering diversity and a refreshing approach to these familiar themes. The themes I selected for my classroom activities were titled “Personal Information”, “The Family” and “Daily Activities” which all of them were covered in “Interchange” (the book I taught in my class).
Now, a detailed description of the processes (warm up, main activity, and follow up) I went through one of these activities (personal information) is provided. In the case of warm up, I wrote some questions on the board and asked the students to talk with their neighbors about the questions. The questions were all related to the theme. I took the questions one by one and asked the students if their neighbors had any interesting answers. I tried to encourage comments and questions from the class.
After providing the scene, I moved to the next section that was the main activity. I told the students that they were going to talk to each other about their lives and experiences. Then, I put them in pairs and gave out the photocopies which were composed of two different sheets, making sure that both partners have the same sheets: student A with student A, and student B with student B. I asked them to interview each other using the questions on the sheets. I explained that they should write a short title for each of their partner’s answers in the correct place on the life map on their sheets. When they had finished, I asked them to exchange sheets, so they each had the map of their own life. I told them to check they understand the titles given by their partners and then I asked the students to find a new partner with the opposite sheet: student A with student B. I told them to exchange their life maps and ask each other questions about the titles on their partner’s map and find out what they mean. When they had finished, I asked them what was the most interesting or surprising information they heard from their partner. In this way, I tried to encourage comments and questions from the class.
Finally, in the follow up section, I asked the students to use the headings from the question sheets and write their own questions. Then, practice their questions with their partners and try to speak with each other.
6. Rationale for incorporating activities into classroom
What is the rationale behind incorporating these activities and materials into my classroom? So far, many researchers in their studies have proposed that students’ confidence is enhanced through 1) increasing students’ communicative competence, 2) motivating activity, 3) non-threatening activity, and 4) providing a positive atmosphere. These activities and materials act as tools for accomplishing these purposes.
Regarding the first factor, increasing favorable self-conceptions of L2 competence is one of the main factors to promote students’ confidence in language learning (Dornyei, 2001). Students may discover that as they acquire greater skill, their confidence will grow and, as they become more confident in their ability to speak, they will take advantage of new opportunities to speak, which will enable them to gain greater skill. In other words, the more students have communicative competence, the greater confidence they have. These activities and materials are a means to accomplishing this aim.
The second factor is motivation which emphasizes basic human need. More specifically, the key to learning is motivation (Edge, 1993). In my response to students’ performance, I offered motivational feedback to encourage students to keep going whether their performance was good or unsatisfactory. Motivational feedback in my project meant praising them not only when students were able to reach their goal but also in the process of their performance and overlooking little mistakes. Brown (2002, p. 17) points out, “Motivation is one of the most important factors in your success in English”. In the same line, I believe that when students are interested in the activities (like the ones used in this study), they will be very creative in terms of speaking and develop intrinsic motivation to be life long learners in the future.
Using learner-centered approach, the non-threatening activities in this study were one of the main factors to encourage students to participate in the class. This approach is a subtype of the humanistic approach which is defined by Richards (2002, p. 13) as:
a. the development of human values
b. growth in self-awareness and in the understanding of other
c. sensitivity to human feelings and emotions
d. active student involvement in learning and in the way learning takes place.
Since I wanted to promote students’ desire to express their ideas and to reduce their anxiety toward speaking, it seems that principle “d” is more relevant to this project than the others. In other words, to promote students’ confidence in speaking English, non-threatening activities can be seen as a tool to promote students to be aware of their performance and feelings (Legutke and Thomas, 1991).
The atmosphere for teaching and learning is also a major factor to promote students to learn (Baird, 2002). A good and encouraging atmosphere can promote students’ confidence in language learning. I assumed that if students feel more relaxed or comfortable while learning, they feel more confident to speak English. In other words, I realized that promoting the students’ positive attitude toward language learning was assisted by providing positive atmosphere.
7. Observation
In this section, I want to answer the question “how did the students’ confidence increase as a result of incorporating additional speaking activities into my classroom?”
As it was mentioned earlier, the main aspect focused on in all of these activities was the students’ interaction. In this study, I found that students had more opportunity to practice speaking and were more willing to participate in the activities than the past. As a result, they obtained more knowledge of speaking.
While doing the activities, students gradually decreased dependence on the teacher and some of them even developed as autonomous speakers. In the classroom setting, the students were brave enough to ask both the teacher and their friends. This meant that students’ confidence in language learning, especially speaking, increased. The atmosphere at that time was positive because I tried to give positive feedback to help the students to reach their speaking goals.
Students’ responses to these activities were also positive. It was obvious from changes in their knowledge. For example, in the “personal information” activity, the students reported that they had more understanding of this specific topic. They also acknowledged that their linguistic competence increased in terms of vocabulary. Being aware of learning something encouraged them to have more confidence in speaking. I concluded that because they were aware of knowing something, they could reach their goal. In other words, it could promote them to speak.
In addition, the students’ attitudes to speaking changed. Students enjoyed participating in the activity. Working with their friends was fun. Moreover, students could learn from each other. They were also enthusiastic and were very willing to participate in the activities. The feeling of enjoyment and enthusiasm motivated them and provided a positive attitude towards speaking English.
Besides, some students reported that they liked activities because they had a chance to practice speaking. At the beginning of the study, I assumed that if I provided the opportunity to practice, students’ speaking skills might be increased. It seems that I was right and most of the students began to realize the value of interaction in the language even if they were not too good.
8. Reflection
I believe that curriculum would be better developed if teachers acted as action researchers. Elyildirim and Ashton (2006) support that action research can improve the current teaching situation in terms of boosting teachers’ professional development, teacher training and presenting to an institution evidence of the need for change. This was my own experience after I undertook action research. At first, I tried to get information about the problems of the course in terms of students’ feelings toward language learning, especially speaking. I did it through a needs analysis questionnaire I had designed and speaking with my students informally. After that, I understood that students would like to speak but they lacked confidence in speaking English. Thus, it made me think of how to provide interacting and participatory activities, materials and the opportunity to practice speaking. Fortunately, based on my literature review, I could find the answer and that was learner-centered approach.
The learner-centered paradigm in language teaching curriculum emphasizes on an interactive, participatory and collaborative approach to speaking. In my project, the interactive approach was used to increase students’ performance in terms of pair work and group work. They had more opportunity to practice speaking due to some additional activities, because the main aspects of activities focused on an interactive approach. I used the participatory approach with students because it was very important to me to comprehend students’ responses in the activities. I acted as teacher, helper, encourager and facilitator to help students to reach their goals and develop their confidence. In my opinion, the best ways to know what learners need are close interaction and participation with them as much as possible. As a result, teachers who do action research in the class with learners are a significant factor in developing language curriculum which is one of the main factors to promote students’ confidence in language learning, especially speaking.
I tried to practice as a teacher and a researcher simultaneously. If I know about classroom and educational information, I will have the potential to reflect on and analyze my own teaching in real situations, which are very important for teachers who have more opportunity to create curriculum by themselves.
As a teacher and researcher, I gained significant benefits from students’ feedback to improve my teaching. I could understand students’ responses and their behavior in terms of passive and active learners after I had a chance to talk informally and get feedback from them. Although it was very difficult for me to consider students’ responses to my language teaching, it was worth doing as I discovered in my study.
References
Ainscow, M., and Tweddle, D. A. (1988). Encouraging classroom success. London: Fulton.
Baird, A. (2002). More speaking please! Guidelines, 24(2), pp. 29-33.
Brown, H. D. (2002). Strategies for success: A practical guide to learning English. New York: Longman.
Dornyei, Z. (2001). Teaching and researching motivation. Harlow: Longman.
Edge, J. (1993). Essentials of English language teaching. Singapore: Longman.
Elyildirim, S., and Ashton, S. (2006). Creating positive attitudes towards English as a foreign language. English Teaching Forum, 44(4), pp. 2-11.
Gammidge, M. (2004). Speaking extra. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Legutke, M., and Thomas, H. (1991). Process and experience in the language classroom. London: Longman.
Luoma, S. (2004). Assessing speaking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, J. C. (2002). 30 years of TEFL/ TESL: A personal reflection. RELC Journal, 33(2), pp. 1-35.
Richards, J. C., and Rodgers, T. S. (2001). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Salmani Nodoushan, M. A. (2009). Improving learning and teaching through action research. The Modern Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(4), pp. 211-222.
Slavin, R. E. (2006). Educational psychology: Theory and practice. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Appendix: A Sample of Designed Questionnaire
Age: Field of Study:
1) Do you like to learn English by: Reading Writing Listening Speaking
2) Do you like to: Study grammar Learn new words Practice the sounds and pronunciation
3) Do you like to learn English by: Cassettes Games Conversation Studying English books Watching T.V.
4) Do you like to learn by talking to friends in English? Yes No
5) Do you like to learn English words by: Seeing them? Using them?
6) Do you like to learn English with the whole class? Yes No
7) Do you like to learn English by talking in pairs? Yes No
8) Do you speak English out of the class? Yes No
9) If yes, who do you speak with in English?
10) How much do you understand?
11) Do you watch T.V. or listen to the radio? Yes No
12) If yes, how much do you understand?
13) How do you learn best? Alone Pairs Small group Class Outside class
14) What do you feel are the most important things for you to learn in the:
Short term:
Long term:
15) How much time is available for study now?
Per day:
Per week:
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