How can I can I help my students become more

active in class? Liu Hui, Guyuan Teacher’s

College, Ningxia, P.R. China.
June, 2004
Introduction:

“Action research is a name given to a particular way of

researching you own learning. It is a particular way of
looking at your practice in order to check whether it is
as you feel if should be.” (McNiff, 2001)

It was two years ago that I first found out about

educational Action Research with the help of Dr. Moira
Laidlaw* in Guyuan Teacher’s College. I had just
graduated from Ningxia University and become one of
the department’s youngest language teachers. I found
AR to be a particular way of improving practice that
stimulated me to start my teaching career.

Jack Whitehead (1985) describes a basic action process

as follows:
I experience a concern when some of my educational
values are denied in my practice.
I imagine a solution to that concern;
I act in the direction of the imagined solution;
I evaluate the outcome of the solution;
I modify my practice, plans and ideas in the light of my
evaluation.
This systematic plan implies that I, as a researcher and
practitioner, should do some research on myself and
reflect deeply on my work. I am now sure that was the
right way to do it, and constantly bear in mind these
words:

Action research is a systematic self-reflective scientific

inquiry by practitioners to improve practice.(McKerab,
J. 1991: 3-5)

I therefore reflected on my teaching situation first.

As usual, every head-teacher[1]waits for the freshmen to

enroll in the college’s multifunctional hall in September
of each year. It was last September that I first made an
acquaintance with my students. Most of them came
from the nearby countryside in the Xihaigu[2] Area. I
noticed that quite a number of students seemed to be
very timid, even with their parents. They followed their
parents’ every move as they carefully pulled out money
from inside pockets to pay the different fees for various
departments of the school. I also noticed that these
parents wore color-faded clothes; their faces were
heavily winkled, maybe due to years of hard work in
poor conditions. I fully understand how hard it is for the
parents in Xihaigu, where the natural conditions are so
bad, and people greatly depend on suitable weather to
harvest corn for the whole family. Parents always place
their hopes in their sons and daughters to change the
poor situation by finding a good job after their college
education. However, since the government policy of
enrollment expansion five years ago, many graduates
from universities as well as colleges are now confronted
with a highly competitive job market. There are more
graduates from universities each year. In contrast, the
students from our college face an even gloomier
situation because of the status of this place. How can we
try our best to help students be self-supportive in this
intensely competitive society? In answering this
question, I feel a strong responsibility to help to develop
my students’ self-confidence and arm them with
knowledge. As I still remember, I was encouraged with
slogans like “Knowledge is power”, “Knowledge is
everything”, in my own educational experience.

My class consisted of a group 28 students who had just

finished their high school and were now majoring in
English Education. I’m not only their head teacher, but
also their teacher for teaching the course – ‘Integrated
Skills of English’ (Books I and II), compiled by Zou
Weicheng. The aim of this course is to develop
students’ abilities in listening, speaking, reading,
writing and translation skills. When I was teaching
them, I found a lot of problems, such as students’
listening and speaking skills, their heavy reliance on the
teacher, and their negative attitudes towards learning
English.

Ma Huiling[3], my target student, is a quiet, frank but a

rather introverted girl.
From the very first contact with this student, I found she
was very poor in English grammar and pronunciation.
In my class, when I was teaching, she seldom responded
to me, except that I called her name and asked her to
answer the question. Later, I got some reasons: Ma
Huiling is from a special family, whose parents are
disabled and her two elder sisters have got married. She
cared for her parents while still studying in the school.
But, because of her poor mastery of her English course
in senior high school she fell behind. She felt English
was quite difficult for her, and she felt sorry for her
parents. So, I realised I should help Ma Huiling make
improvements in her learning in order that she could
comfort her parents by a good performance in college.

Bearing my students in mind, I started teaching by

placing a significant emphasis on bringing knowledge to
them. As the same time, I found my students were so
poor in English grammar both in their homework and in
their classroom teaching, I developed my original AR
question: How can I help the first-year English majors
with their poor English grammar?
Why I came to realize that I should do some changes
in my teaching
The students themselves needed changes in my
teaching.

I once came across Ma Huiling in front of my office; I

asked how her parents were. She was glad to tell me
they were well and thanked me for my caring. Then I
invited her to my office and we had a relaxing talk. I
found out that in fact, she wants to keep pace with my
teaching, but she doesn’t have time to take in what I’m
teaching and sometimes she finds herself drifting away
into her own thoughts. It seemed that it was me who
was controlling the students too much and not giving
them enough space in which to develop themselves.

With my AR question, I focused my teaching on how

much grammar knowledge I was teaching the students.
Thus, it was me who did all the work, explaining
everything and talking for 90% of the class time. The
students took an increasingly passive stance in
classroom activities. They become more and more
reluctant to ask and answer questions. Even in their
homework they still made the same mistakes that I had
corrected several times already.

I was aware that I needed some urgent adjustments to

change the current situation. I also wanted to hear the
students’ opinions about my teaching and what they
wanted to change most in my teaching. Therefore, I
conducted an “opinion poll”. I communicated with the
students in the way friends might in order to find out
what about my teaching, how I could help them, and
what I should be worried about. I then asked them to
voice their opinions. I asked each student to write down
their suggestions and expectations for teaching and
learning.

To my great delight, I accumulated valuable suggestions

from their writing. Some said even though they had
understood what they had learnt in the class, they
couldn’t make use of it while doing exercises, so they
wanted me to introduce efficient learning strategies for
them; some hoped I could tell them some funny stories
or sing songs at intervals in my teaching in order to
avoid a boring atmosphere!

Zhao Caihua, a diligent girl wrote to me:

‘Miss Liu, I really feel you are a patient and kind

teacher. Somehow I easily lose interest in your
teaching. Could you help me?’

Some suggested to me that I should ask more questions

to make them keep pace with my teaching; some asked
me to trust them and give them keys to the exercise;
they said they could check by themselves and so on.
The students were also very kind and gave me many
compliments as well. I felt so moved while I was
reading their opinions as this was real communication
and heart-to heart talk.

As soon as I finished reading their writing, I expressed

my gratitude for their valuable suggestions. I read some
of their advice and told them of my revised teaching
plan according to their suggestions. In that moment, I
understood more about how much the students needed
to be respected, valued and encouraged, because I saw
many students smiling happily with shining eyes when I
read suggestions they put forward. They must have felt
very proud of themselves. Furthermore it was their
smiles that motivated me as well, just like the New
Curriculum of English says:

“建立融合、民主的师生交流渠道，经常和学生一起
反思学习过程和学习效果，互相鼓励和帮助，做到
教学相长” 2 (The New Curriculum of English, 2002)[4]

Colleagues’ comments for improvements of my

lesson
My colleague and teacher as well, Miss Liu, who taught
a methodology course for grade three students, visited
my lesson. She talked with me after her observation:
Miss Liu: I was very surprised you talked so much in
the class. I found some students seem to be bored.
Liu Hui (me): When I found this passage (the teaching
material I taught that day) was quite difficult for the
students to understand. I wanted to explain it clear.
Miss Liu: But you neglect your students’ potentialities.
You do all the work for them. But some you don’t need
to. Would it be better if you ask the students to discuss
about the passage, then you use different questions for
different students to draw their attention to the
language points? If we just work ourselves with a fret
over the paraphrasing the passage, we would run the
risk of failing to the ‘forest’ for the ‘tree’.

I affirmed the educational values I hold.

I am always thinking. I received 11 years of English
language education. That should mean I could speak a
very fluent and pure English. Actually, it doesn’t mean
that at all. I still feel embarrassed when I can’t express
myself completely with native speakers, and I still felt
embarrassed when I couldn’t explain something
complex with more clear, simple and understandable
language in the class. I knew something about how to
do this, so what was wrong? There was something
wrong with my own ways of learning. I too am on a
learning journey. There’s never an end to it, but there’s
improvements on the way. Couldn’t it be the same for
my students?

I exchanged my views with Dr. Laidlaw on the morning

of 27th March, 2004 in the office, which was full of
sunshine that day. When she asked me how my AR was
getting on, I told her about my concern, showed my
foundations in the teaching, and expressed my
understanding of education which I maintained, even
though my practice denied it. Finally, Dr. Laidlaw said
to me that she wholly believed that I realized our
education is aimed to foster lifelong learning and enable
the students to transfer knowledge and abilities to their
life’s experience. She was also kind to suggest me to
change my question into ‘How can I help my students to
become more active in their learning?’ I realised this
was the path I needed to take now.

My planning actions
In order to help the students become more active in
class, I made up my mind to give them learning
strategies with detailed instructions, help them become
confident with themselves and assign tasks based on the
principles of cultivating cooperative learning spirit, self-
study learning abilities and competence in language use.

Class Report
• Ask the students to prepare a five minutes speech
about any topics before my teaching started.
• offer them a chance to show themselves
• Build up their self-confidence by the way of
speaking in public

Group work
Divide the whole class into 7 groups. Four students
were to be in each group. Every group would have a
group leader, who would check the students’ activities
and take some records of their group’s work. The
activities they were required to do were the following:

Class discussion: to motivate the students to speak

more and share ideas

Oral homework: to encourage them to consolidate

what has been practiced in the class and cultivate in
them a sense of cooperation.

Checking written homework: to offer a chance for the

students to find out the common mistakes by
themselves, such as “He glance round the room to see
who was there”, “He studies music plays piano well”.
Then they were asked to hand their homework in.

Supervising retelling: ‘It is self-evident that language

can take place when the learner has enough access to
input the target language.’ (Hu Zhuangling, 2001). So,
retelling, as one of the most efficient way to language
learning is very helpful for student target language
input.

Grammar teaching: each group was asked to prepare a

grammar item and select a representative to make use
evening class to give a lecture in 30 minutes and 20
minutes to feedback about teaching contents, teaching
methods, teaching language and so on.
Notes for group work: the group members were
changed every 3 or 4 weeks. At the end of the last
period of group work, students and teacher will have a
meeting to evaluate each group’s work. Then, the best
cooperative group would be awarded with 4 gifts,
financially supported by the combined contributions
from the class itself.

Creative drama:
As the New Curriculum of English suggests,
“设计探究式学习活动，促进学生实践能力和创新思
维的发展”. [5]

I guided students to adapt the teaching materials to the

plays, and encouraged them to act in order to, on the
one hand, practice their writing with sound
understanding of the text, and on the other hand, to
enjoy themselves with humorous acting. Meanwhile, the
students were required to take notes and give comments
for each group’s performance. As a result, I hoped
students would become more confident about
themselves and have a sense of achievement.

Western Cultural Knowledge Competition

In order to motivate every student know about culture
knowledge, I reorganized the group work and ask 28
students to make up four teams. Here are the rules:
• Work out a rule for competition.
 • Over two week’s time, have a knowledge
competition of western culture, which every group
can prepared in advance.
• Find the top group and provide also the single
prizes for the other three groups.

Teacher’s assistant
• Before the new teaching unit begins, students in
each group will work together, preparing a review
note of what they have learned in the last unit.
• Each group will take over some responsibilities
from the teacher and prepare a mini lesson in 5
minutes or more to help their classmates review the
lessons effectively.
• Every group leader has to give the teacher group’s
feedback for the teaching.
Much help made my Action Research possible
As Montaigne the French writer said:

‘No wind blows in favour of the ship that has no port of

destination.’

Without the Experimental Center for Educational

Action Research in Foreign Languages Teaching at
Guyuan as our strong support, we would not have
become involved in this practical research. Many
excellent teachers in the department are helping me with
my work.
Dr. Moira Laidlaw helped me in formulating my AR
question and gave me valuable suggestions about
collecting data through a journal. This helped me take
my work in the right direction. Her visit to my class not
only motivated me a lot, but also encouraged my
students to be confident. When she had finished her
observation of my class, she told my students they were
excellent. She really understood what they said, and also
gave me 5 A4 pages of notes with suggestions for my
improvements and her assurance of my work. (See
extracts from her notes in the next part.)

Ling Yiwen, an English teacher with 16 years of

teaching experience, often led me to insights into my
teaching and students’ feedback. On May, 15th she and I
talked about my responses to her teaching after I had
observed her. She told me that she was surprised to see
that one of her students asked her a question after he
had finished answering the teacher’s question. It was
quite rare for a Chinese student to take the initiative in
this way. This context raised the level of the language-
transaction between teacher and student. Her remarks
reminded me of the same thing in my class.

Li Jin gave her class report on 8th May directly after our
May holiday. The moment she had finished speaking,
she turned to me and asked, ‘Miss Liu, how about your
holiday?’ I felt a little surprised. Actually I would rather
share details about my holiday with the students after
the class report. But I had neglected the students’
willingness to communicate with me and missed a
chance to encourage my students. After the talk with
Miss Lin, I don’t think I would miss the chance again to
encourage my students to speak to me.

Tao Rui, who taught the same course with me for the
Grade-II students, kindly allowed me to observe her
lessons. She showed me a widely-used questioning
method in her teaching. Here are some of my notes on
her teaching:

‘You show the students your questions after they make

sure they haven’t questions. I like the way you use here,
because on one hand, you draw something important
out of the text, on the other hand, you promote the
students’ skill of asking questions.’

AR meetings offer me a chance once a week to share

views with colleagues and a chance to learn. When I
found my students were becoming active in class, but
they were still poor in mid-term-examinations, I
doubted whether the data I collected to show my
students were improving, could be convincing to anyone
else. I told my worries to Miss Zhao Xiaohong in AR
meeting on a Thursday afternoon. She patiently gave me
suggestions:

‘Your data shouldn’t just be connected closely with

students’ scores in exam papers. Your question is how
to make your students become active in class. The
active students mustn’t have been the students who are
good in exams. So, your assessment should focus on the
learning process with your question and gather
information on daily basis in order to understand
individual student’ learning and needs, namely,
language assessment should place emphasize on
formative assessment.’

At that moment, I knew I had made a mistake in the

way I had evaluated my students. I almost neglected the
process of students’ active involvement in language
learning, which is also in line with New Curriculum.

How will I ensure that any judgments I make are

reasonably fair and accurate?
As my action plans goes on, I’m trying to collect data,
and here is the evidence:

Notes of individual and group performance to my

focus of question.
6th April: In today’s TV talk show, to my surprise, Ma
Huiling acted as the hostess of the program. She’s
always a good listener! Maybe she was just interested in
the topic, however, because something significant
happened. I wrote this in my journal:

15th April: My observation on Ma Huiling in-group

discussion: she argued with Wang Yongshou (a
relatively good student) about the structure of a certain
sentence and believed herself right. Then they wanted
my judge. I asked each of them to show their own
opinions and the answer was on Wang’s side. But Ma
didn’t nod until she asked me twice of explanation.
12th May: Ma volunteered to show her own
understanding when I asked the students’ help to Wang
Yongling’s question. Though her answer was not
complete. But I do believe she was thinking and trying
to participate the class discussion. I can also see she is
confident enough. (See ealier for her photo and the
other photos of students’ activity in a class discussion.)

Students’ oral homework

As I assigned the oral homework for the students, they
would bring their creative adaptation of teaching
materials and act out something in the class. They took
some simple stage props; they changed expression in the
acting to demonstrate their feelings; they made
costumes for their dramas, which Moira sang high
praise for in their performances when visiting my class
on 21st April, 2004. (See Appendix II for students’
rewriting of the text.)

Students’ written homework also represents some

answers to my questions.
After a month, with the group checking their homework,
I asked the students to hand in their homework to me
directly. I found some general mistakes, which I had
corrected several times in class, were now occurring
less frequently. For example, “A grandmother and
grandson stand at the rail wait (and wait or, waiting) for
someone.” “ He taked (took) the umbrella when she
went out in the morning,” and the like were seldom seen
in their written exercise. I believe, with the help of each
group’s teaching grammar knowledge and checking
each other’s homework, the students began to be more
responsible for their homework and were learning
actively rather than passively.

Students’ notes for group work

In each class, if there were groups’ performances or
students’ own prepared teaching, I would give each
group several minutes to show their comments or
suggestions about the work they had done. And also the
group leaders were required to take notes about the
discussion. Then after 3 or 4 weeks, there was a meeting
for selecting the best cooperative group. I collect the
data in this part mainly from the regular evaluation-
meetings for group work. The group-leader showed
their self-evaluation and peer-evaluations as follows:

• Group A (16th March): We group almost finished

our assignment well, especially our group’s
grammar teaching work (Present Tense) not only
benefited our classmates, but also offered ourselves
a chance to be a teacher.
• Group B (16th March): We think the Oral
homework in our group is the best. We four are so
fond of this way to review what we’ve learned in
the class and prepare for the new. But our retelling
 work was not good. We should improve accuracy
and fluency.
• Group C (18th April): In our group work, we found
we spared much time than we learned by ourselves.
We enjoyed with exchanging our views and what
we got from group discussion was impressing.
• Group D (28th May): We four debated several times
in the process of group work on the analysis of
sentence pattern. Though all of them were solved in
the class, our group cooperative relationship
started with quarreling and ended up with
quarreling.
• Group E (31st May): Evaluation for the other
groups’ prepared teaching: Lu Wenji’s voice is
loud and clear enough and she also corrected the
students’ mistake in pronunciation in time. Wang
Yongshou can kindly point out the students’
mistake, but as a teacher, he should be more
serious. Because we saw he was always smiling.
Ma Lingfang’s teaching is very clear and
knowledgeable, she can teach us something we
didn’t know, such as the phrases “complain of sth.,
remind sb. of sth. and congratulate sb. on sth.”
• Group F (31st May) Evaluation for the other
groups’ prepared teaching: Group II should give
students enough time to read the exercise by
themselves. They also should correct the mistakes
and explain the reasons clearly. Group IV made a
good use of blackboard, but their writing is not
very clear. We group like Yang Xiaoxia’s teaching
 best, because she asked us to practice with the key
words in the passage.
Dr Moira Laidlaw’s comments on my teaching
I invited Moira Laidlaw to visit my classroom to see
how my actions help the students to become more active
in learning? Her note included these comments:

“As I walked around the class, I was impressed by the

level of activity of the students. Each one of them was
deliberating about the task and talking it very seriously
indeed. They were arguing and discussing actively,
many of then in English too, which is very impressive.”

“Your students are eager to share your knowledge and

their knowledge with you. I can see this through their
facial expressions, their smiles, their diligence (Note the
noun form)* and their assiduous taking of notes.”

“In this lesson I have seen evidence of an active class,

in which mistakes are tolerated, evaluation is
increasing owned by the students, chances to try are
prolific-reading, speaking, writing, listening, critical
thinking, emotions recognized and respected, and the
atmosphere is one in which students can rather than
can’t do something.”

During the process data collecting, I also got other

information. I often had a chat with my students when
we take a ten-minutes’ break.
Wang Youshou: I feel I have to do a lot homework,
which takes most of my spare time.
Lu Wenji: “I am fond of doing some acting. But the
language in the acting isn’t challenging. We mainly
express our ideas by body language. Can I improve my
speaking by this way?”
Cheng Yabing: “You encourage us to ask questions of
the text, and don’t do further explanation if we haven’t
questions. But I don’t feel safe. I prefer to explaining
the passage sentence by sentence.”
Dr. Moira Laidlaw: “They are so delighted with what
they are seeing. Let’s use this delight in helping them
learn more. Use this youthful energy for their
development…In terms of making the students more
active, I think you can extend the use of the following:
self-evaluation (in more detail, with you giving guiding
questions to help them); getting the students to ask you
questions, rather than the teacher-centered method of
you asking all the questions; what about some reporting
work back? For this you will need to give them a
structure: what to look for in a performance- for
example, intonation and pronunciation; clarity of
expression; acting skills; vocabulary- especially new
and appropriate vocabulary; structure of ply; accuracy
of the story according to the passage (if this is relevant
for exercise); and finally, perhaps, what have the
student learnt from their classmates’ performance? This
structure will help the students extend their experience
and become more active in evaluation, writing, listening
and watching skills. It will also increase their ability to
collaborate, which is important in the New
Curriculum.”

So far, my action plan is still ongoing as I start this

report and some aspects of it still need to wait in order
to gauge the influence on the students’ learning. Thus I
haven’t yet developed a comprehensive sense of my
own living educational theory yet (Whitehead, 1989).
As this research has helped my students become active
in learning, however, it also has raised some new
questions for me, such as: how can I help my students
become much more active in learning? How can I help
them develop their self-study ability? How can I help
them with skill of asking questions? How can I help
them to improve the conversational skills. These will
become the beginning of my new action enquiries from
which I will develop my own living educational theory.

Bibliography
New Curriculum, (2003), National Education Bureau of
P.R.C
McNiff, J., ( 1996 ), "Action Research for Professional
Development", London
McNiff, J., with Whitehead, J., (2002), "Action
Research: Principles and Practice", Routledge, London
and New York.
Laidlaw, M., (2002), "A Handbook of Communicative
Methodology", Guyuan.
Hu Zhuangling, Lingustics, Peking University Press,
(2001)
Appendix I (Unit8, Secret Messages to Ourselves,
Integrated Skills of English, Book II)
“He dreamt that he had been captured by a tribe savages
whose king threatened to kill and eat him unless he
could build a perfect sewing-machine. When he tried to
do so, Howe ran into the same problem as before. The
thread kept getting caught around the needle. The king
flew into a rage and ordered his soldiers to kill Howe.
They advanced towards him with their spears raised.
But suddenly the inventor noticed something. There was
a hole in the tip of each spear. The inventor awoke from
the nightmare with a start, realizing that he had just
found the solution to the problem. Instead of trying to
get the thread to run around the needle, he should make
it run though a small hole in the center of the needle.
This was the simple idea that finally enabled Howe to
design and build the first really practical sewing-
machine.”

Students’ Play Sample:

Narrator: (Xie Juan) An American inventor called
Elias Howe is working all night on the design of a
sewing-machine, but he runs into a very difficult
problem.
Inventor: (Zhou Peng) What should I do? What should
I do? How can I get the thread to run smoothly around
the needle?
Narrator:(Xie Juan) For a moment, he doesn’t know
how to solve this problem. Then he falls asleep.
King: (Ma Jia) Come here! Come here! I order you to
go to catch that modern man.
Follower:(Chao Boxiao) Yes, your majesty.
Narrator:(Xie Juan) For a moment, a follower comes
around Howe.
Follower: (Zhao Boxiao) You! Follow me!
Inventor: (Zhou Peng) What’s wrong with me? Why I
should I follow you?
Narrotor:(Xie Juan) The follow catches the inventor to
the king.
Follower: (Chao Boxiao) Your majesty, please look at
this guy you want!
King: (Ma Jia) Very good! I command you to design a
sewing-machine for our use in three days.
Inventor:(Zhou Peng) Three days?
King:(Ma Jia ) If you don’t finish it in three days, I’ll
kill you. Kill you! Go away!
Inventor:(Zhou Peng) Yes, Sir, I’ll try!
Narrator:(Xie Juan) Three days later, the inventor
can’t design a sewing-machine, because he meets the
same problem as before.
Follower:(Chao Boxiao) Have you finished?
Inventor:(Zhou Peng) I can’t. I don’t know how to get
the thread to run smoothly through the needle.
Follower:(Chao Boxiao)What? I ‘ll kill you!
Inventor:(Zhou Peng) Oh, Oh, I know! I know! I know
how, …how , how to get it through…
[1]
At colleges and schools in China, teachers are designated to be ‘head-teachers’ of particular classes – to take
care of their pastoral as well as academic needs.
[2]
This refers to the Xiji, Haiyuan and Guyuan areas, all of which are very poor.
[3]
I have asked permission to show her picture and also to write something about her background.
[4]
New Curriculum, (2003): to build up pleasant and democratic ways for teachers’ and students’
communication; to be with the students to reflect on the learning process and learning results often; to encourage
each other and to help each other in order that teaching benefits teachers as well as students.
[5]
New Curriculum, (2003): ‘to design promising learning activities to develop the students’ practical ability
and creative thinking.’