Franchesca Jones

FL694 Professor Angus

Fall 2016
Action Research Project
I.

Problem Formation
For the most part, I feel great about what goes on in my class on a

daily basis. My students are actively involved in the lessons that I plan, and
through various activities and formative or summative assessments they
demonstrate their comprehension of what I teach them. There is a positive
atmosphere in my classes, and the learning environment is an organized,
productive, and respectful zone. I do my best to integrate a diverse range of
exercise types which are engaging and integrate the use of technology when
applicable. It seems to me that my class is running smoothly, and that the
students and I are on the same page.
I walked into class one day, with the aforementioned perspective in
mind. I was proud of the previous days work, and eager to build on what we
had already learned. After everyone was settled in I addressed the class and
asked them, so, what did we do yesterday? The sound which followed was
a shock to my system, and a much needed awakening. That deafening
sound which followed, was utter and complete silence.
I reflected back on the previous days class and remembered how the
class participated in all my planned activities. I had introduced a new
grammar point, comparative adjectives, and the beginning was a little rough.
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Towards the beginning of the lesson, they left out the than which is an
essential part of using comparative adjectives. Some students kept
forgetting the er ending, another essential component. However, after
various identification, fill-in-the-blank, and multiple choice activities, my
students were able to demonstrate correct application of the rules for
utilizing comparative. After so much work on comparative adjectives the
previous day, how was it possible, that when questioned one day later about
what they did, the students were unable to answer. I realized that there was
definitely an issue here, and something I was doing, or not doing, was the
cause of this.
II.

Question Formation

Despite working hard and completing the tasks I assign to them, the
students demonstrated to me that they were unaware of the class objectives
of the lesson. I thought about what I do in my role as the stage director and
chief actor as Cazden puts it, to direct the attention of the students to the
main purpose of each lesson. Just as actors need direction in knowing what
emotions they are trying to convey and elicit, students need to know what
objectives they are trying to meet and demonstrate competency in. Even if
they understand directions and goals of an isolated task which is a piece of
the whole, are they aware of the overall goal they are trying to accomplish?
It is nearly impossible to build a puzzle without having the visual of the final
product one is trying to create, so how can students be expected to

consolidate and apply various tasks if they dont know what their overall aim
is?
Upon reflection and analysis of video footage of my classes, I realized that
the only consistent thing I do to emphasize the days objectives is to simply
write them on the left hand side of the board at the start of the class. More
often than not, I do not even read or say the objectives aloud; I just go
straight into the lesson and the sub-components of the overarching
objective. I thought about the impact this lack of direction could be having
on the overall educational experience of my students. Without having a clear
and stressed direction, it could be deduced that students would not only
under appreciate the value or purpose in each individual task, but be blind to
the connection between previous and future lessons. While as the designer
of a sequence of activities which lead to a function and purposeful aim I am
aware of the direction of each class, I could see how the lack of emphasizing
this path could result in students interpreting this path differently. Perhaps
they would interpret each task as a part of random series, and not even be
aware of the intention behind each one.
If as the director of the class, I do a better job of highlighting the purpose
of each lesson for my students, I can aid in giving shape and purpose to the
learning experience [] which would raise learners awareness about [] the
secret of the lesson by showing them clearly where they are, what they are
doing and where they are going (Scrivener, 2012). Not only does this
practice orient the students, but also gives them a benchmark to refer to,
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leading to self-awareness and self-assessment in analyzing their competency

or lack thereof. As Tudor (1996) suggests, heightened involvement on
behalf of the students in their learning process by making them more able to
access the objective demands of a given situation of language use in class,
will additionally activate their schemata as to their current abilities with
respect to these demands. If a lesson is a series of stages that engage its
learners in learning the new language, a good lesson sets about actively
involving them in decisions regarding the materials, content and tasks that
are selected or designed for them (Davies, 2006). Thus it can be seen
again that by making it clear and known what students are expected to do
before each lesson, students will not only take a more active role in their own
learning processes, but also develop a greater sense of learner autonomy
(Krish and Wong, 2009).
I can be seen clearly that student awareness of objectives has a plethora
of positive outcomes on their educational experience as a whole. Students
feel they have a purpose, they develop links between activities and lessons,
and not only develop self-awareness but also self-assess their competency in
the objective at hand. Students become more actively engaged and
involved in their learning experience and even develop a sense of
responsibility to accomplishing the aim of the class. As a teacher whose
students are clearly unaware of the learning objectives, and who upon
reflection, does very little to emphasize said learning objectives, how can I
do a better job of raising learners awareness of learning objectives?
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III.

Developing a Plan for Intervention

In addition to writing my objectives on the board, I will adapt my classes

to incorporate various strategies and activities to heighten students
awareness of the learning objectives. Over the course of a two week period,
I will meet with my IELTS class seven times, totaling 15 hours of instruction.
During these 15 hours I will trial various strategies, and reflect upon the
effectiveness and relevance of each one. I will also utilize student feedback
to determine the efficacy of these adaptations. I plan to continue to write
the objectives on the board each class as usual, but begin each class by
verbally announcing to the class what the objectives of the lesson are. I will
also focus on creating objectives which are SMART. As ONeill and
Conzemius (2006) argue, setting clear learning aims is an important in
helping students themselves to be goal-oriented, so that they can see and
enjoy their own palpable progress and accomplishments. Therefore, I will try
to make aim which are Specific (so that they will be clearer and more
understandable to the learners), Measureable (so that the learners can easily
think and justify my teaching methods that will help them to deal with the
aims and therefore get on track towards their learning), Achievable (so that
they respond to their abilities in English, their educational contexts and
function as extra motivation for learning after they have been achieved),
Realistic (so that they respond to my teaching circumstances but also help
the learners relate them to real-life communication outside the classroom)
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and Time-bound (so that the learners achieve them within our lessons time
limits to prevent them from leaving the classroom with gaps or questions).
Additionally, I will provide the students with verbal reminders throughout the
class what the focus of the lesson is. Lastly, I will obtain feedback from the
students at the closing of lessons via a questionnaire about the lessons
objectives. Through my personal reflections and the student feedback both
oral and written on the questionnaire, I will be able to determine if the
aforementioned strategies aid in heightening student awareness of learning
objectives.
IV.

Data Gathering

In this section I will provide the details for each of the seven strategies,
including: lesson objectives, what I trialed, the learners response, and my
evaluation of overall efficacy. Reflective notes, questionnaires and teaching
materials are located in Appendix A, B, and C.

Strategy 1: Announcing Objectives

Lesson objectives: By the end of the lesson, students should be able to use
appropriate speech fillers (i.e. let me see/think, thats a good question,
to be honest, its difficult to say etc) in the IELTS Speaking exam.
What I trialed: In my attempt to help my students get a clearer idea about
the reasons why I choose particular materials and activities for my lessons
with them, the first day I started the lesson by writing the objectives on the
board as usual, but this time also verbally announcing the objective by

saying today, we will practice speech fillers to use in the speaking part of
your IELTS exam in order to gain some thinking time to come up with a good
answer . This is something that had not previously done in my lesson.
How the learners responded: The students all immediately focused their
eyes and attention on me. The lesson flowed well, the students participated
actively in the activities, learned a few time fillers and used them
appropriately in the questions they needed time to answer. Ten minutes
before the end of the lesson, I asked if the students found that days lesson
helpful, especially for their speaking exam. The answer I got came
completely out of the blue, because the more vocal students said: This is
easy. We need more vocabulary. I felt a little disappointed not only because
of the fact that the students did not find my lesson as helpful and easily
applicable as I would have liked them to, but also because they completely
ignored what the activities and materials for that particular lesson were
leading to. Instead, the students indirectly suggested a very vague aim
regarding vocabulary, which I am not sure if they could narrow down to a
more particular learning objective, for example, useful travel vocabulary,
adjectives to describe human appearances etc.
Evaluation: Upon receiving this feedback, I realized that there could be a
link between helping the students firstly in understanding the logic behind
what we learn in class and secondly, being able to evaluate their own
performance in class and relate it to their performance in an out-of-class
task, such as the IELTS exam.
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Strategy 2: Creating SMART Objectives

Lesson aims: By the end of the lesson, students should be able to identify
what tenses to use in the IELTS Speaking exam. (i.e. Describe an open-air or
street market which you enjoyed visiting. You should say: a. where the
market is, b. what the market sells, c. how big the market is Present
Simple / d. and explain why you enjoyed visiting this market Past
Simple, Past Perfect etc.)
What I trialed: This time round, I thought of focusing on how clearly the
aims of my lessons are portrayed towards the students. I tried to create a
SMART objective, to put more clarity on the purpose of the class. I
announced that we would focus on identifying which tenses to use in a
number of IELTS Speaking, part 2 cards in the exam. The questions on the
cards included phrases like where would you like to.., what is the best
present you have ever got.., who used to be your favorite relative and
why.., etc. I purposely highlighted the fact that in the lesson the students
had to only identify what kind of tenses they could use for each of those
questions and perhaps think of one or two example answers to show me how
well they use the tenses they had identified. I also clarified that in case the
students did not know the name of the tense, I wanted them to just give me
a suitable example answer to the question. I gave the students twenty
minutes to view and discuss the cards while monitoring to ensure they were
clear about our task. While monitoring, I kept reminding the students that
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they did not have to answer the questions on the cards in full as the focus of
the activity was to only identify the tense of the question and think of short
example answers using the same tenses. At the end of the task and after
the students reported their answers in an open class, I asked the students to
tell me how they could use this strategy in their life.
How the learners responded: They all responded that in their daily life it
is very important to be able to identify quickly what tenses the verbs used
must be, especially when responding to other peoples questions, for
example the questions in the IELTS Speaking interview.
Evaluation: I think that setting SMART goals in class was definitely
extremely helpful not only towards the students performance in the
activities through which my learning aim was achieved, but also towards the
learners understanding of the real-life extent of the learning that they
achieved within a lessons limited amount time.

Strategy 3: Prompting Student Reflection

Lesson aims: (as mentioned in Strategy 2)
What I trialed: As vocal and confident in speaking as the Arabic students
can be, I saw that when I verbally announced the lessons objectives, the
students were unable to remember them by the end of the lesson. In
addition to stating the days objectives, today, we will study X because of Y,
I closed the lesson with the objectives in mind. A few minutes before the

end of the lesson, the students were asked to tell me what we had done on
the day and the reason why.
How the learners responded: Everybody stared at me surprised, as I
dont usually do this. It is often a challenge for me to get everything done
within the allotted time, and there is less of a conclusion or closing to class.
On this day, when I asked the students what they learned, only a few brave
students repeated in detail what they had been asked to do in each activity
of the lesson.
Evaluation: By that time, I realized that I should look into adopting
alternative methods to remind the students of how each activity is linked to
an overall learning aim to be achieved by the end of each session. I think I
should have considered writing the aims on the board while also announcing
them orally. I think it would also be a good idea to keep mentioning the
objectives throughout the lesson so that the students do not lose track of the
learning focus.

Strategy 4: Requesting Students to Rationalize Objective

Lesson aims: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to use
adjectives to describe peoples personalities in the IELTS Speaking exam.
What I trialed: I thought it would be a good idea to observe if the students
understand my reasoning for asking them to do activities that I think could
contribute to their learning needs as a group. The aim is to review, practice
and use adjectives to describe peoples personalities to be used in part 1, 2
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and 3 of the IELTS speaking exam. For this purpose, I gave the students a set
of photos of people in their daily life and asked them to think of a few
adjectives to describe them. After working in pairs and reporting their
adjectives in an open class, I asked the students to tell me the reason why
this activity was selected for them.
How the learners responded: The students said that this would help them
in all parts of the IELTS speaking exam and therefore I wrote on the board,
practice adjectives to describe peoples personalities for IELTS Speaking
part 1-3. Next, I gave the students a set of questions of some past IELTS
speaking tests to use the adjectives they mentioned earlier and after they
finished doing the task in pairs, I asked the class to tell me what they did and
how many of the adjectives they used. The students listed the adjectives
they used one by one. Ten minutes before the end, I asked what the lesson
was about and the students replied that they learned, reviewed and
practiced adjectives to describe personalities to be used in the IELTS
speaking test.
Evaluation: My attempt to help the students understand the rationale
behind the lesson was successful. Perhaps, I could also try to gather the
students reactions to what I trialed on paper so that they get a few extra
moments to reflect on how well they did in class and how useful what they
learned in the lesson was.

Strategy 5: Questionnaire
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Lesson aims: (as mentioned in Strategy 4)

What I trialed: Immediately after the previous lesson, I asked the students
to complete a questionnaire (appendix A) in order to evaluate how well they
think they performed in the previous tasks and whether they found the
activities helpful and relevant to their individual learning needs. I tried to
allow as much time as the students needed to complete the questionnaire
fully, as this was my first attempt to get them to reflect on themselves in
written form. There were a few questions as to how them answering the
questions is relevant to their IELTS exam. Next, the students asked why they
should complete the questionnaire and I must confess that at the beginning,
I thought that it would be difficult for me to give them an answer that would
appear satisfying, but I said that this is to help me as your teacher to see
what the best way for you to learn is and also to help you become more
aware about how you learn best. And then I turned the question back to the
students: why do you think I am giving you these questions?.
How the learners responded: The best answer I got was I think you want
me to build my learning. I think the students have finally started to
understand that throughout my trying to test my two objectives for this
project, I have also tried to guide them into their evaluating their own
attempts to learn.
Evaluation: I thought that in an Arabic context, such as the one that I am
working in at the moment, lessons tend to be more teacher-centered.
Therefore, initially I was not sure that the students could comprehend the
12

aim of the questionnaire I had given them. Despite the fact that I thought it
would be very difficult to get the students be more aware of well they
achieved the aims of our lessons, they proved me wrong as they all agreed
that I was interested to see how well they built their own learning. This was
quite unexpected coming from a group of learners who were used to simply
attend teachers and lessons which did not require a lot of their feedback.

Strategy 6: Discussing the Process of Reflecting on Objectives

Lesson aims: (as mentioned in Strategy 4)
What I trialed: After the usual announcing or writing my learning
objectives on the board, and continuously encouraging the students to
remind me what we were learning, students demonstrated appreciation for
the reflective process. A few students asked to complete another
questionnaire and hand it back in to me. I smiled and I asked why they
wanted to do it and their response was that because in their previous
experience writing down what they learned, it helped them to remember the
material better. I rushed quickly back in the teachers room, got a few more
copies of my questionnaire and gave it to the students.
How the learners responded: They very happily completed it again and
gave it back to me. I think the students are indirectly urging for some sort of
a learning journal that perhaps I should not keep in my records.

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Evaluation: It would be a great idea, if they were given these

questionnaires back to keep and review at their own time. I will make more
copies and hand them out as journals in the next lesson.

Strategy 7: Encouraging Continuous Student Reflection

Lesson aims: (as mentioned in Reflections 1, 2 and 4)
What I trialed: The students response during the previous lesson, made
me realize that students reflect better on how well they achieve a learning
aim, if they are given time and guidelines to note it down. I think this is
drawn by the fact that in the Arabic societies and schools, students take
writing thinks down more seriously than just reflecting on them. Which is why
in this lesson, I distributed little booklets I made by copying and binding the
questionnaire I gave out a few days ago.
How the learners responded: The students appeared happy to have them
and in the lessons that followed they kept reminding me at the end of each
lesson that they also had to write their journal before leaving my class.
After they completed each page, they wanted me to look at their answers
and correct their mistakes but I replied that this is not a form of homework
and I did not need to correct anything. But as the time went by, I thought
that there was no harm in me seeing what the students thought of their own
learning. On the contrary, when they felt that they did not perform well, I
could help by motivating and support them with extra help in case they
wanted me to. In addition, the students started getting used to my drilling at
14

least once after I had given them the learning objectives, to remind me of
them. They started confirming the aims themselves before I even asked, by
asking questions like so miss, these [adverbs of degree when expressing a
like or dislike] are going to give me a higher mark in the IELTS speaking
exam, right?.
Evaluation: I think it might have taken some effort to get the students used
to the idea of the learning objectives being repeated in class, but it slowly
became a habit the students liked adopting.
V.

Analysis and Reflection

In the short time that I adapted my teaching in terms of structure,

organization, and delivery, I immediately noticed the effect of applying

strategies to improve student awareness of learning objectives. Not only
did these changes allow my students to better understand the necessity
of the planned lessons, it also allowed them to better appreciate that each
task was in response to fulfilling a particular need with a specific purpose.
These changes also served as hooks to engage students at the beginning
of class, and as tools to maintain students focused and engaged
throughout class. The greatest benefit I found as a result of these
changes, was the noticeably increased self-awareness and autonomy the
students began to develop as a result of these adaptations in my
teaching. As the project started, I was the person initiating reflection from
the students not only on what the objectives were but if the felt they
achieved the objectives. By the end of the project, the students were
15

requesting the opportunity to have the time to reflect at the end of the
lessons, as a time to self-assess their achievement for the day, and as a
tool to retain the information they had learned throughout the lesson.
The benefits of focusing time and energy to emphasizing the lesson
objectives were shared for both the students and for the facilitator of the
instruction. Participating in the project has given me access to important
practices which I plan to incorporate from now one, as I have seen that
they are not time consuming, and are very effective in contributing to an
organized, aware, analytical, and efficient learning environment.
VI.

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References
Cazden, Courtney B. Classroom Discourse: The Language of Teaching and
Learning. Heinemman: Portsmouth, NH, 2001.
Conzemius, Anne, and Jan O'Neill. The power of SMART goals: Using goals to
improve student learning. Solution Tree Press, 2011.
Davies, Alun. "What do learners really want from their EFL course?." ELT
journal 60.1 (2006): 3-12.
Krishnasamy, Pramela Krish N., and Bee Eng Wong. "Malaysian learners and
their perceptions towards online English language courses." Turkish Online
Journal of Distance Education 10.2 (2009): 203-224.
Maolida, Elis Homsini. "The Influence of Teahers Instructional Objectives on
Variaions of Exchange Patterns in an EFL Classroom." Indonesian Journal of
Applied Linguistics 3.1 (2013): 68-80.
Scrivener, Jim. Classroom management techniques. Cambridge university
press, 2012.
Tudor, Ian. Learner-centredness as language education. Vol. 279. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996.

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Appendix A:
Student
Questionnaire

18

Name:________________________________________________
1 What did you learn in the previous lesson?
2 What activities did you use it in? (i.e. general
writing, IELTS reading etc).

3 How well do you think you did in the activities?

(Please circle)
1: very bad
2: bad

3: good

4: very good

5: excellent
4 What do you think you would do differently
next time?
5 Was what you learned today useful? Why?

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Appendix B:
The Teaching
Materials

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1. Worksheet used in lesson 1

Speaking advice: Use fillers

Its always recommended that you use some kind of gap fillers to
speak fluently. Fillers are kind of words or phrases that you use while
speaking. For example, hmmm , Oh, let me see. and there are
so many of them. You almost inevitably use them when youre talking
about some complex issues or when youre discussing something.

English Speaking fillers

You use fillers even in your language without noticing them. Native
speakers always use them in speaking when they are thinking about
some complex issues. This allows them to carry on speaking without
pausing much.
Today, Im just giving you few fillers that can mostly use at the
beginning of a sentence and they will allow you some time to think
about a topic. If used properly, they will be very helpful in making your
speech sound natural. So, lets take a look at few and their usage in
IELTS questions.

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English language fillers

1. Well
Now, it may look very short and simple filler. However, when used
naturally, it will create a huge impression. Many students however fail
to understand the tone of this word and they speak as if they are using
it forcefully. Listen to its natural use and then use it in your speaking.
What are your main job responsibilities?
Well, As I said, I am an electrician. So, I try to maintain all the
electrical panels and note down electrical power consumption
throughout the day. I also manage most of the emergency switch overs
to emergency battery supply in case of power failure.
2. Hmmm, Thats a tough one.
You can use it mostly in the part 3 questions because there youll find
some very complex questions and they may be hard to respond to
immediately.
Would you say that in the future, there will be less job
opportunities due to technological advancements?
Hmmm mmm, Thats a tough one. I guess there will be less jobs as
far as manual work is concerned because we tend to use machines for
22

hard labourious tasks. On the other hand, there will be more

opportunities for software and IT professionals as more and more
automated systems make way into our households and offices. So, Im
not really sure.
3. To be honest,
When youre expressing something in detail and especially when you
want to express an opposite point of view.
4. Unfortunately,
When you want to say something that didnt happen due to luck.
Because of your bad luck, you failed to get something.

Do you like this job?

No, actually I hate this job. To be honest, its not so much rewarding
and exciting as my previous job. Unfortunately, as we moved to San
Fransisco, I had to take up this job.
5. All in all
Its a short phrase that could be used to sum up your talk. This can be
used in part 2 or part 3 mostly because thats where you need to sum
up your talk very smoothly.
When youve spoken about your memorable journey you can end
that particular talk by simply saying: All in all, it was an experience of
a lifetime and I would never ever forget this trip to Philadelphia.

Now, as a part of your study, you can collect such expressions and
phrases for your English speaking and note them in your notebook.
Review them and use them in your speech with your speaking partner.
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Look at your list with your friends, review them and make a
commitment to use them for a week while you practise speaking. That
way you will start using them naturally. Can you find any other filler?
Which are they?

Materials adapted from: IELTS Resource a blog for IELTS study, last day
accessed: 11th November 2015
2. Worksheet used in Lesson 2

IELTS Speaking Part 2: Describe a Market

Describe an open-air or street market which you enjoyed visiting.

You should say:
- where the market is
- what the market sells
- how big the market is
- and explain why you enjoyed visiting it.

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Materials adapted from: ielts-simon.com, last date accessed: 10 th

November 2015

3. Worksheet used in Lesson 4

25

Materials adapted from: McCarter, S. 2010. Ready for IELTS. Oxford:

Macmillan Publishers

Appendix C:
26

My Informal
Reflective Notes

Reflection 1, Lesson 1
In my attempt to help my students get a clearer idea about the reasons why I
choose particular materials and activities for my lessons with them, I went in the
classroom the first day, started a lesson by verbally announcing the objective, i.e.
today, we will practice speech fillers to use in the speaking part of your IELTS exam
in order to gain some thinking time to come up with a good answer . The lesson
flowed well, the students participated actively in the activities, learned a few time
fillers and used them appropriately in the questions they needed time to answer.
However, ten minutes before the end of the lesson, I asked if the students found
that days lesson helpful, especially for their speaking exam. The answer I got came
completely out of the blue, because the more vocal students said: This is easy. We
need more vocabulary. I felt a little disappointed not only because of the fact that
27

the students did not find my lesson as helpful and easily applicable as I would have
liked them to, but also because they completely ignored what the activities and
materials for that particular lesson were leading to. Instead, the students indirectly
suggested a very vague aim regarding vocabulary, which I am not sure if they could
narrow down to a more particular learning objective, for example, useful travel
vocabulary, adjectives to describe human appearances etc. At this point, I realized
that there could be a link between helping the students first understanding the logic
behind what we learn in class and secondly, being able to evaluate their own
performance in class and relate it to their performance in an out-of-class task, such
as the IELTS exam.

Reflection 2, Lesson 2
This time round, I thought of focusing on how clearly the aims of my lessons are
portrayed towards the students. I made this decision to ensure that when I give the
aims the students are not confused about what they were going to learn. Perhaps, I
was unclear regarding the learning aims in the first lesson when the students did
not relate the language practice in class to their IELTS speaking exam or even real
life communication. I tried to make this lessons aims as Specific, Measureable,
Achievable, Realistic and time-bound as possible. For this purpose, I announced that
we would focus on identifying which tenses to use in a number of IELTS Speaking,
part 2 cards in the exam. The questions on the cards included phrases like where
would you like to.., what is the best present you have ever got.., who used to be
your favorite relative and why.., etc. I purposely highlighted the fact that in the
lesson the students had to only identify what kind of tenses they could use for each
of those questions and perhaps think of one or two example answers to show me
how well they use the tenses they had identified. I also clarified that in case the
students did not know the name of the tense, I wanted them to just give me a
suitable example answer to the question. I gave the students twenty minutes to
view and discuss the cards while monitoring to ensure they were clear about our
task. While monitoring, I kept reminding the students that they did not have to
answer the questions on the cards in full as the focus of the activity was to only
identify the tense of the question and think of short example answers using the
same tenses. At the end of the task and after the students reported their answers
in an open class, I asked the students to tell me how they could use this strategy in
their life. They all responded that in their daily life it is very important to be able to
identify quickly what tenses the verbs used must be, especially when responding to
other peoples questions. As a result, I think that I personally present the lesson
aims quite clearly, so this is not getting in the way of the students clear
understanding of what is happening in class.

28

Reflection 3
As vocal and confident in speaking as the Arabic students can be, I saw that when I
verbally announced the lessons objectives, the students were unable to remember
them by the end of the lesson. During my first sessions with this particular class,
before warming up I would just say today, we will study X because of Y. A few
minutes before the end of the lesson, the students were asked to tell me what we
had done on the day and the reason why. Everybody stared at me surprised and
only a few brave students repeated in detail what they had been asked to do in
each activity of the lesson. By that time, I realized that I should look into adopting
alternative methods to remind the students of how each activity is linked to an
overall learning aim to be achieved by the end of each session. I think I should
have considered writing the aims on the board while also announcing them orally. I
think it would also be a good idea to keep mentioning the objectives throughout the
lesson so that the students do not lose track of the learning focus.

Reflection 4
This time I only focused on the first objective of my project. I thought it would be a
good idea to observe if the students get me when I choose and ask them to do
activities that I think could contribute to their learning needs as a group. The aim is
to review, practice and use adjectives to describe peoples personalities to be used
in part 1, 2 and 3 of the IELTS speaking exam. For this purpose, I gave the students
a set of photos of people in their daily life and asked them to think of a few
adjectives to describe them. After working in pairs and reporting their adjectives in
an open class, I asked the students to tell me the reason why this activity was
selected for them. The students then told me that this would help them in all parts
of the IELTS speaking exam and therefore I wrote on the board practice adjectives
to describe peoples personalities for IELTS Speaking part 1-3. Next, I gave the
students a set of questions of some past IELTS speaking tests to use the adjectives
they mentioned earlier and after they finished doing the task in pairs, I asked the
class to tell me what they did and how many of the adjectives they used. The
students listed the adjectives they used one by one. Ten minutes before the end, I
asked what the lesson was about and the students replied that they learned,
reviewed and practiced adjectives to describe personalities to be used in the IELTS
speaking test. My first attempt to make my students understand the purpose of my
lesson was successful.

Reflection 5
Immediately after the previous lesson, I tried to focus on the second objective of
this project. For this reason, I asked the students to complete a questionnaire (see
appendix) in order to evaluate how well they think they performed in the previous
tasks and whether they found them helpful and relevant to their individual learning
needs. I tried to allow as much time as the students needed to complete the
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questionnaire fully, as this was my first attempt to get them to reflect on

themselves and the way the learned or not. There were a few questions as to how
them answering the questions is relevant to their IELTS exam. At the beginning, I
thought that it would be difficult for me to give the students an answer that would
appear satisfying, but I said that this is to help me as your teacher to see what the
best way for you to learn is and also to help you become more aware about how you
learn best. And then I turned the question back to the students: why do you think I
am giving you these questions?. The best answer I got was I think you want me to
build my learning. I think the students have finally started to understand that
throughout my trying to test my two objectives for this project, I have also tried to
guide them into their evaluating their own attempts to learn. So far, I would say the
second objective was achieved, too.

Reflection 6
I had a few surprises in the lesson today. After the usual announcing or writing my
learning objectives on the board, and keeping encouraging the students to remind
me what we were learning and why, a few students asked to complete another
questionnaire and hand it back in to me. I smiled and I asked why they wanted to do
it and the response I got was because last time they noted down what they learned,
it helped them still remember it. So I rushed quickly back in the teachers room, got
a few more copies of my questionnaire and gave it to the students. They very
happily completed it again and gave it back to me. I think the students are indirectly
urging for some sort of a learning journal that perhaps I should not keep in my
records. It would be a great idea, if they were given these questionnaires back to
keep and review at their own time. I will make more copies and hand them out as
journals in the next lesson.

Reflection 7
The students response during the previous lesson, made me realize that students
reflect better on how well they achieve a learning aim, if they are given time and
guidelines to note it down. I think this is drawn by the fact that in the Arabic
societies and schools, students take writing thinks down more seriously than just
reflecting on them. Which is why in this lesson, I distributed little booklets I made by
copying and binding the questionnaire I gave out a few days ago. The students
appeared happy to have them and in the lessons that followed they kept reminding
me at the end of each lesson that they also had to write their journal before
leaving my class. After they completed each page, they wanted me to look at their
answers and correct their mistakes but I replied that this is not a form of homework
and I did not need to correct anything. But as the time went by, I thought that there
was no harm me seeing what the students thought of their own learning. On the
contrary, when they felt that they did not perform well, I could help by motivating
and support them with extra help in case they wanted me to. In addition, the
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students started getting used to my drilling at least once after I had given them the
learning objectives, to remind me of them. They started confirming the aims
themselves before I even asked, by asking questions like so miss, these [adverbs of
degree when expressing a like or dislike] are going to give me a higher mark in the
IELTS speaking exam, right?. I think it might have taken some effort to get the
students used to the idea of the learning objectives being repeated in class, but it
slowly became a habit the students liked adopting.

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