Microsoft Word 188 Do Van Trien doc Tuyển tập Hội nghị Khoa học thường niên năm 2019 ISBN 978 604 82 2981 8 676 NOTICEABLE FEEDBACK FROM STUDENTS AND SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING ENGLISH 2 USING MARK[.]
Trang 1NOTICEABLE FEEDBACK FROM STUDENTS AND SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING ENGLISH 2
USING MARKET LEADER
Do Van Trien1, Tran Thi Chi1
1 Thuyloi University, email: triendv@tlu.edu.vn
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Learners’ feedback
Feedback is an important factor in the business of teaching and learning Feedback
has significant impact on all the stakeholders
in obtaining their goals in a course As Yorke
states, “the act of assessing has an effect on
the assessor as well as the students Assessors
learn about the extent to which they
[students] have developed expertise and can
tailor their teaching accordingly” (2003,
p.482) From that view, feedback provides
teachers with useful guidelines for delivering
and shaping their instruction It helps teacher
to develop themselves, perfect their teaching
and build better learning environment This
view is also supported by Black and Wiliam
(1998) when they believe that feedback can
be used to modify the learning and teaching
activities in which stakeholders are involved
Feedback gives teachers a tool to have an
insight into their teaching, make appropriate
adjustments, and have a better understanding
about their students Thus, feedback can
reflect what a test cannot This is pointed out
by Ripley (2000): “While test scores can
reveal when kids are not learning, they can’t
reveal why” From the discussion, thanks to
feedback, teachers are able to see the course
from the side of learners; they are able to
make better assessment about the
effectiveness, and then they will be able to
make necessary changes to the rest of the
course or to another one in the future
1.2 The rationale of the study
As the discussion above, students’ feedback has a crucial impact on the work of teaching and learning Therefore, teachers are advised to collect their students’ feedback after every course This work has more significance to the course of English 2 because this is the first time that such course
is applied in the curriculum Thus, this kind
of information is valuable in evaluating the course It is also beneficial to other teachers when they are assigned to teach this course
2 METHODOLODY
In this study, the authors adopted a quantitative approach using the questionnaire surveys conducted with 40 students from 2 groups in combination with some instruments
of qualitative research including observations, notes and experiences The survey was carried out at the end of the course The students were given the questionnaire with 19 questions in Vietnamese including multiple choice and open-ended ones For some questions, students can select more than one answer The questionnaire focuses on getting students’ feedback on the textbook, learning, difficulties, problems and expectations Students were given much time to study the questions and complete the questionnaire Students were well informed about the purpose of the survey with thorough instruction on answering the questions From the results of data analysis, this paper focuses
on noticeable feedback
Trang 23 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Results
a) The most difficult part in a unit
To answer the question: “In a unit, which part do you find the most difficult?” 30
students chose listening, 14 students chose
vocabulary As a matter of fact, listening is
one of the most difficult parts in the text
book, and many questions in the listening
tasks are quite difficult for the students at low
level Besides, there are usually a number of
business words, terms and phrases, so this is
a real challenge to the students
b) The vocabulary in a unit Question 4:“What do you think about the vocabulary in each unit?” 14 chose B (many
new words and terms), 12 chose C (a
moderate number of new words and terms),
and 8 students chose C (a few) As the
students are put in the same class without a
placement test, a class can include students of
different level of English However, more
students have to struggle with new words
than those who do not
c) Case study and favourite part
The 6th question asked “How do you assess the Case study after every unit?” 24 chose A
(very interesting and useful), 12 chose B
(normal) and 4 chose C (boring) This is a
special part where students are required to use
English for real situations This gives students
chances to practice their English especially
speaking and writing These practical
activities are likely to inspire the students
These are the answers to the question “Which
part would you like to practice most?”
(Students can choose more than one answer)
28 chose listening, 20 chose “useful
language”, 16 chose speaking, 12 chose
vocabulary, 6 chose writing This is a matter
of personal joy and expectation However,
their favourites have some connection with
their need for the knowledge and skills that
they want to have more improvement
d) Giving feedback to homework Question 14 asked, “What do you think about correcting homework?” 14 chose “very
necessary”, 20 chose “necessary” In general, students expect to get feedback for their homework The fact is that most learners want
to get teachers’ comments on their work, and want to get the explanations for their mistakes
as well as things that they do not understand
e) Pronunciation and presentation skills
To answer the question: “Do you want the teacher to spend more time helping with your pronunciation?” 32 chose “yes” and 8 chose
“no” Pronunciation is a real problem with the majority of students at TLU because they usually mispronounce many words Pronunciation is an important part of learning and using vocabulary Therefore, when students have challenges with the vocabulary, they also have difficulty in pronunciation
Question 16: “Do you see it necessary for the teacher to spend some time teaching the basic presentation skills?” 30 chose “yes” and 10
chose “no” In the curriculum, students have
no course for presenting in English, so most of them do not have good presentation skills
f) Expectations for the course This is an open question: “What changes would you like to have for the course?” Here
are the typical answers: 18 expected more time for listening; 12 expected more practice for vocabulary; 10 wanted to have more instruction for pronunciation; 9 had expectation for writing skills; 6 wanted to have more focus
on speaking and presentation; 5 wanted more time for end-of-course revision This revision question helps to verify the students’ answers
to other specific questions The data has homogeneity with other relevant questions
3.2 Discussion
From the findings of the study together with the observations, notes and experiences gained from 2 courses, we would like to give out 6 suggestions for a more effective English 2 course using Market Leader
Trang 3a) Vocabulary and listening
To meet many students’ demand for more practice on vocabulary, teachers can give
them extra activities A good supplementary
book like “check your English vocabulary
for business and administration” (Rawdon
Wyatt), can be used To save time, teachers
can assign students homework then give
them feedback in the revision units For
listening, teachers should spend more time on
this activity as the majority of students want
more practice in a unit It is a good idea to
re-design some listening tasks to make them
easier and more interesting; use other
resources such as listening-bank for the
students to practice in class and at home
b) Giving feedback to homework
This gets special expectation from the students, so teachers need to have serious
consideration The first suggestion is that
teachers should spend time correcting
difficult exercises in the Practice File
Another suggestion is applying peer review
and peer discussion in checking homework
c) Useful language and case study
For “useful language”, teachers should give out different situations for students to
role-play in order to make it more interesting
and to make students be more flexible To
teach “case study” effectively, teachers ought
to give students careful instruction for them
to have preparation at home, and practice in
class in the next lesson
d) Pronunciation and speaking
For pronunciation, teachers should give more instruction on difficult sounds, words
and intonations during the course In
addition, teachers should require students to
have more practice at home, record their
pronunciation and send it to teachers For
speaking and presentation, the first
suggestion is to have more pair work and
small group work The second one is to get
students to have many mini-presentations during the course Another idea is to ask students to video their presentations at home and send them to teachers Furthermore, the resource bank for speaking can be used during the class
e) Writing
More peer-review should be applied in checking students’ writing Also, teachers should arrange time to correct typical mistakes in writing Besides, the resource bank for writing can be useful
f) End-of-course revision
English 2 for economics students is more challenging than other GE courses at TLU Because of this reason, students should have more time for end-of-term revision to revise learnt units and have more confidence on the test day
4 CONCLUSION
It is always useful to share the teaching experiences among teachers especially when
a new course with a new textbook is applied
in the curriculum This sharing helps teachers
to enhance their work of teaching The authors hope that this paper will make some significant contribution to the success of the future courses
5 REFERENCES
[1] Black, P and Wiliam, D (1998) Assessment and classroom learning
Assessment in Education 5 (1), 7-74
[2] Ripley, A (2012) Why Kids Should Grade Teachers The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archi ve/2012/10/why-kids-should-grade-teachers/309088/
[3] Yorke, M (2003) Formative assessment
in higher education: Moves towards theory and the enhancement of pedagogic
practice Higher Education, 45(4), 477-501