Assignment – FP002 ORC

Name and surname(s): Samson Alexander Nkhalamba

Login: MZFPMTFL2431631
Group: 2017/02
Date:25/03/2018

OBSERVATION & RESEARCH IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

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 Assignment – FP002 ORC

Index

Introduction.................................................................................................................................3

Population...................................................................................................................................4

Structure of the case study......................................................................................................4

Research Instruments...............................................................................................................5

Techniques for data analysis....................................................................................................6

Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7

Reference...................................................................................................................................8

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 Assignment – FP002 ORC

Introduction
Conducting research in the classroom could be one of the difficult tasks as no-one
knows exactly what goes in the classroom. This paper adapts one of the classroom
research problems with the title: Getting EFL students to speak: an action research
approach that research faces in the language teaching.
As English is for communication, one of the problems of teaching English is getting
students to speak in the classroom activities. This could be due to the types of activities
and the teacher himself/herself- that’s lack of motivation. Therefore this paper gives a
proposal on how to investigate this lack speaking fluency and accuracy in students
which could be due to lack of motivation. The proposal uses the action research
method where it combines both qualitative and quantitative research approach with
interviews, questionnaire and observation. It proposes to analyze the quantitative data
using the descriptive data analysis technique and and the qualitative using the
deductive analysis technique.

Considering the situation I am presently in, I would rather choose the area of speaking,
case study number 3: Getting EFL students to speak: an action research approach.

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This case coincides with what my present students are facing and so it is important and
requires further investigation.

1. Population
60 students of grade 11 equivalent to one class from Escola Secundaria Aberto
Moçambicano, ranging from the age of 14-16 years of age, coming from a
monolingual and a low economic group and their teacher will be involved as subjects
of the research in this investigation.

2. Structure of the case study

The case study I have chosen to investigate involves students participating in a
situation where English is a demand for their success and so involved students in more
L1 support, direct instruction of pragmatic strategies, and frequent assessment of
spoken English in order to speak English which is a challenge for them which in my
case needs to be put forward to reveal the reality of what could be done to motivate
them. Having in mind that my students’ fluency and accuracy level of speaking is lower
than expected then speaking is a great challenge in conversations and in participating
in the classroom activities. I will mainly evaluate the motivational aspects which could
lead students to speak fluently and accurately. Motivation as we already know is the
central part that leads to success in foreign language learning.

The main goal in my case is to analyse how students could become more motivated to
speak fluently and accurately in the English language classroom activities

The method that will be applied in this research is a classroom naturalistic action
research. It will be conducted to observe the students’ improvements in speaking
through classroom motivation in activity based conversations.

According to Ferrance, E. “Action research is a process in which participants

examines their own educational practice systematically and carefully, using the
techniques of research”.
Therefore, the development of this research will consist of four phases:
Phase 1- plan of action
Phase 2- action
Phase 3- observation
Phase 4- reflection

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The four phases aims at observing students’ improving fluency and accuracy
(speaking) through motivation in the classroom based activities.
In this research two variables will be considered:
Independent Variable
This research will use motivation as an independent variable. The motivation aspects
the teacher will use in the classroom during teaching and learning process.
Dependent Variable
This research will consider fluency and accuracy as dependent variables
As the age and level of the students in the case study I am comparing with are totally
different from mine, the scope of investigation will also be different. This will involve
varying in instruments of data correction and activities to that will be employed to have
accurate data.
3. Research Instruments

Both qualitative and quantitative data will be collected and used to measure motivation
aspects. The qualitative data will generate numerical information and the qualitative
data will generate non-statistical data. According to DeFranzo, S.E (2011), “Qualitative
Research is primarily exploratory research. It is used to gain an understanding of
underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations. It provides insights into the problem or
helps to develop ideas or hypotheses for potential quantitative research. [...]
Quantitative Research is used to quantify the problem by way of generating numerical
data or data that can be transformed into usable statistics. It is used to quantify
attitudes, opinions, behaviors, and other defined variables – and generalize results
from a larger sample population”. (www.snapsurveys.com/blog/qualitative-vs-
quantitative-research/ ). By using the two approaches it will be possible to provide
objective evaluation through quantitative study and subjective evaluation with
qualitative investigation. It is worth mentioning that this data is present in the
classroom. The teacher, students and the setting are the sources of information of this
data.

In order to collect this data the researcher will use the interviews, questionnaire and
observation.
The interviews and questionnaire will be used to gain a full insight of the students’
social context and their individual characteristics. For this purpose, open interviews
questions will be administered to have a great deal of freedom in responses in order to
analyze the students’ individual characteristics/ cognitive styles students use or prefer

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to use in speaking activities and semi open questionnaire will be used to discover the
students’ social context.
To evaluate the students’ motivation level, an observation will be carried out to observe
the relationship between the teacher and his/her students. In order not to intervene with
the normal classroom behavior, an ethnographic approach will be used. That’s the
classroom lessons will be recorded. The researcher will observe and record the
students’ activity based conversations which in turn will reflect the relationship between
the activities and students’ motivation to speak.
As the teacher is one of the sources of motivation, he/she will be interviewed as he/
she is the integral participant of the lesson in order to find out about his/her beliefs and
practices about teaching speaking. The teacher’s scheme of work/curriculum plan and
day to day lesson will also be analyzed in order to evaluate the planned activities and
how these activities are dealt with in the classroom situation. That’s to build a
relationship between the planned activities and what is done in the classroom. To
observe and measure teacher/student interactions, the FLINT model will be used. This
model will be used to be sure that interaction between the teacher and the students is
not the source of lack of motivation.
4. Techniques for data analysis
Due to the nature of research and the methods that will be used to collect data, there
will also be a need to include different techniques for analyzing the data. Quantitative,
qualitative and multivariate techniques of data analysis will be used.
The data collected through questionnaire will be analyzed using the descriptive
analysis to provide statistical data of the cognitive styles/ students preferred learning
styles. The qualitative data collected from students’ interviews- the subjects, teacher’s
interviews, Flint model interaction analysis and the ethnographic recorded data from
students’ classroom activities will be analyzed using the deductive qualitative data
analysis to evaluate the data.That’ a taxonomy will be applied to measure the data.
Finally, the multivariate discriminant analysis will be applied to analyze the teacher’s
scheme of work/curriculum plan and day to day lesson in order to build a relationship
between the curriculum plan, day to day lesson and the level of motivation in the
classroom situation.

Conclusion

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 Assignment – FP002 ORC

In order to be aware of what actually happens in the classroom and in order to solve
the day to day lesson problems, teachers need to become familiar with the different
methods and tools that are used to conduct research in their professional practices.
The research movement or trends are now moving towards reflective practitioner and
action research. Therefore, teachers should realize that they are the primary
researchers in their day to today professional practices rather just being imposed to
react on theories which other researchers who doesn’t even have the classroom
situation problems knowledge. In this sense, conducting action research helps to gain
insight into the teaching and learning experience and the classroom provides wealth
situation for conducting investigation in their work experience. This means that the data
is present in the classroom and it is just a matter of taking action to improve the
problematic classroom situations.

Reference

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DeFranzo, S. E. (2011) what’s the difference between qualitative and quantitative

research? www.snapsurveys.com/blog/qualitative-vs-quantitative-research/

Ferrance, E, Action research, Northeast and Islands Regional Educational

Laboratory At Brown University.
https://www.brown.edu/academics/education-
alliance/sites/brown.edu.academics.