Tác động của chương trình tutoring lên quá trình học lý thuyết môn thiết kế giáo án của sinh viên sư phạm

The research concentrated on the impact of a tutoring program on the theory comprehension by a group of preservice teachers as they attend a lesson planning course. During the tutoring program, they had to design the lesson plans merely based on their past experience without any theoretical instructions. After the process of both quantitative and qualitative data analysis process which deeply involved the thorough examination on the participants’ lesson plans as well as the summary of questionnaire responses, the researcher was eventually able to establish the answers to the research questions. In general, the Tutoring program was an effective experience for the tutors. To be more specific, by following the procedure of the programs, the students had the opportunities to experience the task of designing lesson plans with various related skills and contents ranging from writing the lesson objectives to sequencing the class activities and henceforth. Thanks to the experience gained from the Tutoring program, the learning efficiency in several aspects of the Lesson planning course were enhanced. To be more precise, most of the students found it more straightforward to realize and understand the terms introduced in the course as well as envisage the lesson planning paradigm. However, due to the nature of this program, constraints and limitations were inevitable as claimed by most of the participants. To be more specific, there were two main drawbacks of the Tutoring program namely the lack of the theory introduction prior to the microteaching and the inadequate opportunities of practices. Therefore, with a view to continue ameliorating the quality and the effectiveness of this potential program, further research could be done to figure out the impact of this program on inclass teaching skills.

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

THE IMPACT OF TUTORING PROJECT ON

PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ THEORY COMPREHENSION WHEN ATTENDING

LESSON PLANNING COURSE

Supervisor: Phạm Thanh Thủy, M.Ed

Student: Dương Nguyễn Anh

Course: QH2014.F1.E1

HA NOI – 2018

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

TÁC ĐỘNG CỦA CHƯƠNG TRÌNH TUTORING LÊN

QUÁ TRÌNH HỌC LÝ THUYẾT MÔN THIẾT KẾ

GIÁO ÁN CỦA SINH VIÊN SƯ PHẠM

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Ths Phạm Thanh Thủy

Sinh viên: Dương Nguyễn Anh

Khóa: QH2014.F1.E1

HÀ NỘI – 2018

Acceptance page

I hereby state that I: Duong Nguyen Anh – QH2014.F1.E1 being a candidate for the degree of

Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use

of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should

be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions

established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Signature

Date

Abstract

The research concentrated on the impact of a tutoring program on the theory

comprehension by a group of pre-service teachers as they attend a lesson planning course

During the tutoring program, they had to design the lesson plans merely based on their

past experience without any theoretical instructions After the process of both quantitative

and qualitative data analysis process which deeply involved the thorough examination on

the participants’ lesson plans as well as the summary of questionnaire responses, the

researcher was eventually able to establish the answers to the research questions In

general, the Tutoring program was an effective experience for the tutors To be more

specific, by following the procedure of the programs, the students had the opportunities

to experience the task of designing lesson plans with various related skills and contents

ranging from writing the lesson objectives to sequencing the class activities and

henceforth Thanks to the experience gained from the Tutoring program, the learning

efficiency in several aspects of the Lesson planning course were enhanced To be more

precise, most of the students found it more straightforward to realize and understand the

terms introduced in the course as well as envisage the lesson planning paradigm

However, due to the nature of this program, constraints and limitations were inevitable as

claimed by most of the participants To be more specific, there were two main drawbacks

of the Tutoring program namely the lack of the theory introduction prior to the

microteaching and the inadequate opportunities of practices Therefore, with a view to

continue ameliorating the quality and the effectiveness of this potential program, further

research could be done to figure out the impact of this program on in-class teaching

skills

List of abbreviations

VNU: Vietnam National University, Hanoi

ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies

FELTE: Faculty of English Language Teacher Education

Table of content

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION OF THE RESEARCH

1 Rationale of the research 9

2 Aims of the research and research questions 10

3 Research goals and objectives 10

4 Significance of the study 11

6 Organization of the study 12

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.2 The Tutoring program of BA honors program QH2014 21

1.3 Lesson planning and Materials development course 22

1.4 Selection of participants 23

2 Data collection instruments 23

2.1 Lesson plan collection 23

3 Data collection procedure 25

3.1 Lesson plan collection 25

4 Data analysis instruments 27

4.1 Quantitative analysis – Questionnaire 27

4.2 Qualitative analysis - Lesson plan analysis 27

5 Data analysis procedure 29

5.1 Lesson plan analysis 29

5.2 Questionnaire analysis 30

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1 Findings from data analysis 31

1.1 Experience of the participants in the Tutoring program as

demonstrated through the lesson plans

31

1.1.1 The experience of the participants in the lesson planning process 31

1.1.2 The content coverage presented in the lesson plans for the

Tutoring programs

33

1.1.3 Lesson plan evaluation 34

1.2 The impact of the Tutoring program on understanding the theory

presented in the Lesson planning course

36

2 Major findings and Discussions 37

2.1 Research question 1: What aspects of lesson planning did the BA

Honors program students experience during the participation in the Tutoring

program?

38

2.2 Research question 2: In what way does the experience of attending

the Tutoring program affect the theory comprehension in official lesson

planning course as perceived by the BA honors program students?

40

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

2 Contribution of the study 44

3 Limitations of the study 45

4 Suggestions for further studies 46

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION OF THE RESEARCH

This chapter presents an introduction of the study including the rationale of the

research, research questions, the goal and objectives, the scope of the study, the

significance of the study and the organization of the study

1 Rationale of the research

Since the brightest dawn of the history, the work of preserving and transferring the

knowledge to the next generations has been greatly considered to be one of the most

noble career paths Those whose duty is to convey and deliver the values to ameliorate

and strengthen the next generations can be called by a respectful name “teacher”

Therefore, in order to become a fully trained and well qualified teacher, it is

indispensable that all the pedagogy students be required to experience formal training

with a wide range of skills and knowledge to be equipped Among such enormous array

of diverse aforementioned requirements, one of the most significant pedagogic skills is

lesson planning Such preparations are crucial to any teacher on the grounds that they will

provide the teacher with the guideline and guarantee the successful delivery of a lesson

(Richard, 1998 as cited in Farrell, 2002)

Notwithstanding the fact that learning and practicing lesson planning skills are of no

effortless matter, there was a particular case of teacher training which remarkably stood

apart from the conventional paradigm that was going from the theory to practice It was

the case of QH2014 3C* and QH2014 4C* courses conducted in the second year of

QH2014 BA Honors program – Faculty of English Language Teacher Education

(FELTE) at University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS) During the two

courses, all pre-service teachers in the education program were required to participate in a

teaching program named “Tutoring project” in which they had to design lesson plans and

execute their own microteachings without prior formal training or theory introdution In

other words, their assignments were delivered completely based on their personal

experiences acquired outside official classes Even though the tutoring activity is a

reportedly effective method in enhacing students skills (Hock, Pluvers, Deshler &

Schumaker, 2001), its impacts have been proven from the perspectives of merely the

tutees There has not been sufficient research done on the effectiveness of tutoring

activity on teacher education It is also reported that microteaching is a fruitful activity to

train pre-service teachers (Aydin, 2013) Nevertheless, the reverse approach of

microteaching in which the pre-service teachers conduct the lesson before receiving the

theory has not been fully investigated Also given the fact that in the third year, the

students of QH2014 BA Honors program would participate in an official lesson planning

course named “Lesson planning and materials development”, I would like to obtain a

deeper insight into this “Tutoring program” and explore whether this experiential method

will be of any assistance to the students when they learn the theory as well as practice

lesson planning skills

2 Aims of the research and research questions

When conducting this research, the researcher’s main aim was to investigate the impact

of the Tutoring program on third-year pre-service teachers’ level of theory acquisition

when they do the official Lesson planning course As a result, this research was

conducted with the view to establishing the answers to these following questions:

1 What aspects of lesson planning did the BA honors program students

experience during the participation in the Tutoring project?

2 In what ways does the experience of attending the Tutoring project affect

the theory comprehension in the official Lesson planning course as perceived by the

BA honors program students?

3 Research goals and objectives

The purpose of this research was to explore whether or not the past experience of

attending a tutoring project and conducting microteaching without any formal training

could be of any assistance in terms of knowledge absorbance when the pedagogic

students actually receive the formal training course Through the results of this research,

the effectiveness of this teacher training activity could also be reflected As a result, it

was expected that the findings of this research would provide an empirical base for the

courses designers to evaluate the success of the tutoring project then draw educational

conclusions in terms of teacher education approaches and eventually make further

decision on the admendment to the current content of teacher training courses

In order to accomplish such goals, two objectives in particular were set for this research

To be more specific, this research would (1) demonstrate the experience of what skills

and knowledge related to lesson planning that the students acquired during the tutoring

project and (2) reflect the students’ opinions of the effectiveness of the Tutoring program

on helping them learn and comprehend the theory of lesson planning later on

4 Significance of the study

The researcher strongly believes that this research would provide a closer and deeper

analysis of the efficacy of this reverse teacher training approach As far as it concerns, the

findings of this research were expected to offer several benefits to the community of

teacher educators To be more specific, from the perspective of lecturers or course

designers, the research may propose several suggestions in order to expand the land for

enhancing this experiential approach and learner-centered approach in English language

teacher education and teacher training in general Also the researcher hoped that the

findings of this research could make a certain contribution to Vietnamese academic

current settings as well as the research literature on the field of pre-service teacher

training

5 Scope of the study

The research was expected to explore the skills and knowledge related to lesson planning

gained by the pre-service teachers during the Tutroing project and the impact of the such

experience on their studies As a result, the focus was closely put on the process of lesson

planning in lieu of the whole microteaching

The research was executed with the intention of concentrating entirely on the QH2014

students of BA Honors program– FELTE – ULIS – VNU (Vietnam Natinal Univiersity)

who participated in the QH2014 3C* and 4C* courses These two courses were designed

with various novel features One of which was the introduction of the Tutoring project

As a result, all the students who were directly involved in this Tutoring project were the

unique population to conduct this research

6 Organization of the study

The research paper consists of 5 chapters respectively with its own distinctive role The

description of each chapter is demonstrated as follows Chapter 1 is the introduction to

the research in which the rationale, the research objectives, the significance and the scope

of the study are presented Chapter 2 covers the literature review which includes the

definition of all the related significant terms and the research gap pointed out from the

previous research In Chapter 3, the researcher concentrates on the methodology with the

meticulous description of the participant and the selection process This chapter also

illustrates the data collection as well as data analysis instrument and procedure The next

chapter (chapter 4) can be considered one of the most essential part on the grounds that it

reports the results of the study in detail and the discussions as well as implications

withdrawn from the findings The fifth chapter (Chapter 5) is the conclusion of the whole

research providing the readers with a brief summary of the major results and discussions

It also reflects on the research limitations and thereby providing the suggestions for

further study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides the literature review as the grounds for the research All the

background information and the key concepts are explained in this chapter Also, from

the literature review, the research gap is presented, which helps the readers to

understand the reasons leading the researcher to this study

1 Key definition

As the study is designed to investigate the impact of a tutoring program on the degree of

theory comprehension among pre-service teachers as they attend a lesson planning

course Therefore, it is explicitly of great essence that the relevant terms are defined

1.1 Pre-service teachers

Pre-service teachers can be perceived as student teachers who take and finish education

courses or training before they begin teaching (Richards & Schmidt, 2002 as cited in

Rahimi, 2015) In another way, Balderas and Gonzalez (2016) described pre-service

teachers as those who are enrolled in and required to finish a teacher education course but

have not yet completed the full qualifications for being a teacher The two definitions

may sound similar to a certain extent on the grounds that they both mention the role of

the teacher training program Nevertheless, Balderas and Gonzalez’s perception reflects

the nature of the term more explicitly because it accentuates the fact that pre-service

teachers are those who have not completed the training and not yet become teachers As

the result, the researcher has decided to adopt the latter definition proffered by Balderas

and Gonzalez (2016)

1.2 Tutoring

The definition of the term “tutoring” as well as its potential benefits for pre-service

teacher training have been written in a wide variety of published papers Tutoring can be

defined as the interaction between different individuals in which one person fulfills the

purpose of helping the others in a particular field (Topping, 2000, as cited in Wu &

Guerra, 2016) Looking at this term from another perspective, the intention of tutoring is

also to assist the students and guide them towards the level at which they become

independent learners with no further tutoring required (South Central College, n.d.)

These two ways of understanding the term have actually supplemented each other on the

grounds that they mention two major aspects of the term “tutoring” namely its character

description and expected outcome Nevertheless, such definitions are merely sufficient to

clarify the general concept of the term “tutoring” In order to gain a deeper insight into

the meaning of this educational activity, it is of enormous importance to categorize and

analyze different models of tutoring Within the tutoring continuum, according to Hock,

Pluvers, Deshler and Schumaker (2001), there are three distinguishable models of

tutoring which would be suitable for different types of respective needs and requirements

The first tutoring model is the one-on-one instructional tutoring This model requires two

participants as one tutor and one tutee The focus of this model is put on the

individualized support and scaffold from the tutor to help the student to practice several

literacy skills (reading, speaking, writing, etc.) or improve content knowledge (Lepper et

al., 1997; Merrill et al., 1995; Simmons, Fuchs, Fuchs, Mathes, & Hodge, 1995; Vadasy,

Jenkins, Antil, Wayne, & O’Connor, 1997 as cited in Hock, Pluvers, Deshler &

Schumaker, 2001) The second paradigm of tutoring is called the assignment-assistance

tutoring (Carlson, 1985 as cited in Hock, Pluvers, Deshler & Schumaker, 2001) Unlike

the previously one-on-one model, the assignment-assistance tutoring may involve the

interaction between one tutor with a group of tutees ranging from one to six students who

have difficulties with their in-class assignments The typical purpose of this model is to

assist the tutees to complete their homework from school The third pattern of tutoring is

called the strategic tutoring The nature of this model is claimed to be the combination of

the two previous types (Hock et al., 1995 as cited in Hock, Pluvers, Deshler &

Schumaker, 2001) Participating in this strategic tutoring, the tutees would not only

receive the assistance to complete their school assignments More importantly, they

would be instructed the skills or strategies so that they would be able to independently

solve the similar problems later on (Hock et al., 1995 as cited in Hock, Pluvers, Deshler

& Schumaker, 2001)

Based on these aforementioned backgrounds as well as the factual features of the

investigated Tutoring project, the researcher proffered an his own explanation for this

term The “tutoring” as conducted in the Tutoring project is the strategic tutoring which

involves educational interaction between individuals in which a group of tutors provide

academic assistance such as literacy skills practice or test preparations to students and

lead them towards the level of independent learners

1.3 Microteaching

Microteaching can be understood as a pedagogical activity in which pre-service teachers

can apply both the theoretical and empirical knowledge into practice (Amanda & Tangen,

2010) In another study conducted in 2012 by Uzun, the term microteaching was defined

as a technique in teaching especially applied in pre-service teacher’s education

systematically with a view to offering the teacher candidates the opportunities to

experiment in-service teachers’ behaviors This term can also be perceived as a method

aiming at the preparation for pre-service teachers in the real classroom organization

(Brent & Thomson, 1996 as cited in Uzun 2012) The three given definitions have

successfully covered and clarified one aspect of the microteaching activity that is to

prepare pre-service teachers in the real classroom setting and to allow them to perform

and practice in-service teachers’ behaviors However, it can be clearly seen that the

definition proposed by Amanda and Tangen (2010) mentions the feature of applying the

pedagogic theory into practice whereas the other two do not have such coverage As a

result, Amanda and Tangen’s definition was adopted in this research

1.4 Lesson planning

There can be a wide range of definition to the term “Lesson planning” According to

Woodward (2002), lesson planning can be perceived in a simple way as several

preparations and thoughts prior to the class Similarly, Clark and Peterson (1986)

compare the role of lesson planning to a “mental map” which serves as a guidance for

teachers’ instructional performances (as cited in FELTE 2017, p.10) On the other hand,

Scrivener (2011) asserted the idea that planning skill itself is a pivotal cognitive skill or

“thinking skill” as he claimed (as cited in FELTE, 2017, p.12) Planning means

imagining and visualizing what is going to happen before the lesson actually takes places

Therefore, it may involve the sequence of the content, the organization of the class and

activities, the prediction and anticipation of the in-class outcomes even in various senses

such as how it would look, feel or sound like And yet all of such thinking and visualizing

are done prior to the real performances in the lesson (Scrivener, 2011 as cited in FELTE

2017) Considering the three perceptions proposed by Woodward (2002), Clark and

Peterson (1986) and Scrivener (2011), the researcher realizes that the definitions by both

Woodward (2002) and Clark and Peterson (1986) are very straightforward statements that

sufficiently demonstrate the nature of lesson planning in the most concise and direct

manner Nevertheless, that by Scrivener (2011) has provided a more detailed and

comprehensive description of what is involved in the planning process and thereby

complementing further research Therefore, the researcher chooses to base his research

on Scrivener’s definition

The planning phase of a lesson is not a straightforward process On the other hand, it is a

complicated combination between various skills and components following a set of

underlying principles To be more specific, there are three core principles that any

teachers should memorize and comply while they prepare for their class (FELTE, 2017)

The first principle is the guarantee of the variety in their lessons A typical lesson that

satisfies this principle would include diverse types of activities which involve different

kinds of materials and class formations such as group work or pair work, etc The variety

in a lesson may also require a wide coverage of different skills as well as various topics

The ultimate aim of this principle is to help avoiding the monotone during the lesson so

that students will have the opportunities to be exposed to different approaches to the

knowledge The second principle requires the teacher to allow a certain degree of

flexibility while they conduct lesson planning A teacher should be aware that it is

completely normal if the progress of the actual class may not follow strictly what has

been scheduled As a result, in such cases, it is indispensable that the teacher allow

flexibility in their plans The last principle may originate from the external factors It is

the consideration of the class management In many cases, the teacher may have planned

all the activities for their classes in a logical and time-based order However, when it

comes to the real situations, there may be some classes that need more motivation booster

than the others Vice versa, there may be some classes that take more time to settle down

than the others Al of such management related issues should also be considered during

the planning process

In order to create comprehensive lesson planning effectiveness, there can be a large

diversity of components and factors to cover depending on the requirement of each

individual educational institution However, there are still certain required contents for

the teachers to describe and detail in their planning According to Scrivener (2011 as

cited in FELTE, 2017), these following elements are essential for teachers, which require

certain respective skills, in order to conduct their lesson planning The researcher has

classified such elements into three major categories:

 Aims: this might be the most crucial factor to consider for any teachers before they start

making a plan for their lesson Such aims can be understood as the expected outcomes of

the lesson which represent the achievement both students and teachers would like to have

after the lesson Falling into this category, there are three particular factors The first

factor is the general aim It is the reflection of the abilities that the teachers expect their

students to achieve after the lesson The second type of aim is rather similar to the

previously described and yet in a narrower sense That is the skill and language focus

Thanks to examining these focuses, we can figure out the specifically targeted language

or skills on which students will concentrate in the lesson Lastly, teachers may also

include their personal aims in their plan These aims, on the other hand, illustrate the

teachers’ personal expectations with respect to their own skills improvement after the

class

 Class context: in order to prepare for a lesson thoroughly, it is of great importance that

the teachers familiarize themselves with their own class Therefore, the class profile is

highly recommended to be included during the planning process This profile will be of

enormous help on the grounds that it can reflect the description of the class members as

well as their anticipated personality and behaviors It also contains the teacher’s

assumption of students’ prior knowledge and abilities before the class

 Procedure: this factor is essential for every teachers during their planning process for the

fact that the procedure will represent the whole sequence of the lesson including the order

of activities coming along with the respective time allotment and interaction required

Moreover, during the lesson, problems may arise unexpectedly therefore a list of

potential problems with the proposed resolution should also be included as the teachers

plan their lessons

1.5 Lesson plan

The outcome of lesson planning can come in numerous forms According to Scrivener

(2005 as cited in FELTS 2017, p.15), there is a type of lesson plan named “jungle path”

lesson Following a “jungle path” lesson (Scrivener, 2005 as cited in FELTE 2017, p.15),

the teacher literally plans the lesson by not planning it In other words, both the teachers

and the students would not know what will happen in the class, they just follow the

progress which stems from the conversational or situational flow of the class There can

also be the course book lessons in which the teacher follows the content of the course

book strictly with little adaptation Some other teachers may prefer using the mental

lesson planning in which all the preparations and the flow of the class are visualized in

their mind It is explicit that there are a wide range of lesson planning continuum each

with its own advantages and disadvantages Nevertheless, the researcher concentrated on

the lesson plans which were written in an official and formal manner as the target in this

study because it is one of the main requirement for all the tutors in the Tutoring program

Lesson plans can be understood as the written description which demonstrates how

students will do in order to achieve a certain objective It also includes the behaviors of

teaching that will trigger students’ learning (Yinger, 1980 as cited in Farrell, 2002) A

lesson plan can also be defined as a written document used to guide the teachers and

inform them of what to do and how the students will learn during a class This document

contains specific activities prepared by the teachers themselves (Cox, 2018) The two

definitions have covered the nature of lesson plan thanks to the fact that they both

mention the role of teachers and students Nevertheless, there are still some differences

between them While Yinger’s explanation does put the learning objectives as one factor

to define the lesson plan, Cox put more emphasis on the guidance and the flow of the

activities that helps the teachers Pondering the nature of the Tutoring program, which is

the main focus of this study, the researcher has come to his own definition based on

Yinger’s and Cox’s Lesson plans are written documents which serve as a guidance for

the teachers by describing the what specific activities the teachers and the students will

do in a class to achieve a certain learning objectives

2 Previous research and research gap

The effectiveness of tutoring has been well reported in a large number of documents It is

evident that tutoring is a great source of help for students to keep up with the school work

or to consolidate the knowledge in class According to Hock, Pluvers, Deshler, and

Schumaker (2001), the strategic tutoring was proven to be effective in enhancing the tests

and quizzes performance among tutees The tutoring is also a flexible opportunity for the

tutors to adjust the content to make it the most suitable for the needs of students (Ireson,

2004) As a result, the students’ improvement would be made on an individual level

Moreover, thanks to the close personal interactions, more encouragement and better

progress monitor can be guaranteed (Woodman, 1981; Hedrick, 1999 as cited in Wu &

Guerra, 2017)

From the teacher’s perspective, tutoring can offer the pre-service teachers a better sense

of confidence and accomplishment due to the fact that they do not have to deal with a

whole big class This teaching model can also help teachers develop their academic skills

(Wu & Guerra, 2017) Especially in the case of one-on-one instructional tutoring, the

tutors in such setting are given a wonderful chance to strengthen and optimize their

instructional techniques and skills such as giving on-spot comments or problem-solving

skills (Merrill et al., 1995, as cited in Hock, Pluvers, Deshler & Schumaker, 2001)

In general, the effectiveness of tutoring activity is reported in various ways Nevertheless,

there still exists certain gaps which have not received sufficient research To be more

specific, the efficacy of the strategic tutoring has been confirmed However, the findings

are mostly focused on the improvement of the students There are still research gaps into

the impact of tutoring on pre-service teachers

Moreover, it can be seen from the literature that in most cases, the effectiveness of

“tutoring” is perceived within the context of one-on-one instructional tutoring This

model merely involves the interaction between a teacher or tutor who offers the

assistance to a student in an informal and personal manner Nevertheless, in the actual

case of Tutoring program delivered by sophomores of BA honors program QH2014 –

FELTE, the tutoring activities were conducted in a formal manner through a series of

microteachings Each of them was organized in a form of an official classroom with a

group (from 2 to 3) of pre-service teachers working with approximately 10 students to

help them with their skills and knowledge This novel model of teaching has not received

sufficient research on its effectiveness on the tutors

Also it can be seen that the practice of microteaching is an effective way to enhance

pre-service teachers’ skills because it can point out their strengths and weaknesses (Aydin,

2013) Most importantly, there is one significant feature of this technique that it offers the

opportunity for pre-service teachers to implement the acquired theory from the training

into real situations (Amanda & Tangen, 2010) However, during the “Tutoring program”,

all the students participating in this activity did not receive any theory or official training

They designed and delivered their lesson plans based completely on their former

experiences outside the classroom It can be seen that all the participants in this program

were experiencing a reverse process of training in which the practice were performed

prior to the theory Given the fact that microteaching is one effective way to apply the

theoretical knowledge into reality (Amanda & Tangen, 2010) This newly reverse

approach has received neither sufficient attention nor research on its effectiveness as well

as its washback on the pre-service teachers themselves

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the methods employed in the research It includes choice of

participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedure, data analysis

instruments and data analysis procedure

1 Participants and the selection of participants:

1.1 Participants’ description

The research was designed to exclusively investigate the QH2014 students of BA Honors

program– FELTE – ULIS – VNU who participated in the QH2014 3C* and QH2014 4C*

courses All the sellected students were directly involved in this Tutoring project As a

result, they were the unique population to conduct this research To be more specific,

there were 38 pre-service teachers belonging to two classes namely QH2014.E1 and

QH2014.E2 To specify the number, at the time when the Tutoring project was

conducted, there were 18 students in QH2014.E1 and 20 students in QH2014.E2

1.2 The Tutoring program of BA Honors program QH2014

The Tutoring project was a compulsory component of two teacher training courses

namely QH2014 3C* and QH2014 4C* conducted in semester 1 and 2 respectively

during the second year of BA honors program QH2014 – FELTE The whole Tutoring

project consisted of two fifteen-week experiential microteaching projects that were

conducted in each semester

When participating in this project, students were required to prepare the lesson and

deliver the microteaching without formal training of such pedagogical skills The main

aims and content of all the microteachings within this project were designed towards the

preparation for the VSTEP (Vietnamese standardized test of English proficiency) This

orientation for the project was initially determined by the course designers The

microteaching activity was conducted on a weekly basis by a group of two or three

students In order to prepare for the delivery of each lesson, it was compulsory that the

group in charge send one lesson plan and all the related materials to the supervisor, who

was the in-class lecturer at that time, at least one week in advance to receive feedback

and consultant Based on the given comments and suggestions, the tutor group would

make all the necessary amendment with a view to guaranteeing a better preparation for

the class There were two microteachings conducted in two semesters of the second year

separately As the result, each pair or group of tutors would design two lesson plans in

total During the lesson, the in charged tutor group or pair would execute the lesson plan

and teach English (with VSTEP orientation to be more specific) to a group of

approximately 10 to 17 tutees The tutees were both the tutors’ classmates as well as

other students from outside of the Fast-track program After the actual in-class

performance of each group, feedback session was organized which involved both peer

assessment and supervisor’s comments (Fast Track Division, 2015, 2016)

1.3 Lesson planning and Materials development course

This is a course in the whole teacher training program of FELTE The course was

designed to be conducted in the third year of BA Honors program QH2014 The main

content of this course, as the name suggests, concentrates on two major pedagogical skills

namely lesson planning, which occupies the first half of the course, and material

development taught in the latter half of the course During the first half of the course, the

students will learn about the theory of lesson planning and apply such knowledge into

practice To be more specific, the main content of the lesson planning module constists of

7 units which cover the overview of lesson planning, the introduction of the components

of a lesson plan, the instruction on writing lesson objectives and sequencing a lesson and

how to evaluate a lesson plan In terms of course objectives for lesson planning skills,

after the completion of this course, it is expected that the students would be able to

familiarize themselves with the concept as well as the structure of a lesson plan Also

they would know how to apply the plan and deliver it into a real lesson for teaching

English in schools (FELTE, 2016)

1.4 Selection of participants

As regards the sampling strategies, the whole procedure will be conducted in 4 major

stages Due to the differences with respect to the aims and the expected data received

from each step, the sampling methods will vary to fit the stage’s goal

In stage one, the main purpose of this stage is to examine the lesson plans designed for

the Tutoring program within the whole student population Pondering the fact that during

this Tutoring program the students are required to do deliver the lesson in pairs or groups

of three, the researcher has collected and analyzed all 18 lesson plans for the Tutoring

program designed by 18 groups formed by all 38 pre-service teachers in two classes

QH1014.E1 and QH2014.E2 All the contact as well as collection work was conducted

via online means particularly Email and Facebook (more specific description of the data

collection procedure is provided in Section 4 Chapter 3) These evidences will provide

the grounds for the questionnaire and interview that will be applied in the later stages

In stage two, the researcher aims at analyzing more in-depth opinion from all the students

about the Tutoring program As a result, a questionnaire will be distributed to all 38

students from BA honors program in order to gain a better insight into the matter The

questionnaire is designed to gather and analyze the students’ personal opinion Therefore,

each student will receive a questionnaire and answer it individually

2 Data collection instruments

As aforementioned, with a view to gaining comprehensive data from various

perspectives, both qualitative and quantitative methods were utilized in this study

Therefore, the researcher proposed to apply two instruments to collect data namely lesson

plan collection and questionnaire All the personal information and related materials

would only be publicized with the participants’ approval

2.1 Lesson plan collection

First, lesson plan analysis was executed mostly by the researcher himself with the help

from his supervisor and from other lecturers in the Faculty of English Language Teacher

Education The main purpose of this work was to scrutinize and evaluate the strong

points and the weaknesses of the lesson plans designed by the participants in the Tutoring

project of the QH2014 3C* and QH2014 4C* courses By looking into the designs of all

the lesson plans, the researcher’s aim was to explore the common pattern applied as well

as the components covered in the plans Such findings would be of essential help in order

to investigate the lacking factors in their lesson plan as compared to a lesson plan

assessment rubric proposed in the third-year official course book “Lesson planning and

material development” course (FELTE, 2017, p 67-68) (The lesson plan assessment

rubric is provided in Appendix 1)

Following the Feedback Rubric for Lesson Plan Design (FELTE, 2017, p 67-68), the

researcher concentrated on examining 8 criteria which were categorized into 6 factors

which concern the objectives and the outcome of the lesson (1), the opening and the

ending of the lesson (2), the instructional strategies reflected in the plan (3), the use of

materials (4), the assumption of students’ prior knowledge, skills and attitudes (5) and the

means of assessment (6) For each individual criterion, there are 3 degrees of evaluation

namely “Not yet” if there is no evidence of the examined factor in the lesson plan (1),

“Getting there” if there is evidence of the examined factor in the plan yet not sufficiently

elaborated (2) and “Met expectations” if the criteria are clear and satisfactory

This stage’s expected result was to accumulate the empirical evidences in order to

determine what components of a lesson plan had and had not been covered when the

students based entirely on their personal experiences outside the classroom as compared

to the official theory that was instructed in the formal Lesson planning course The

analysis was expected to reflect vividly the skills and the knowledge of the participants

before they received the official training from the Lesson planning course Based on that

grounds, the researcher would be able to acquire more in-depth information and profound

understanding about research topic as well as the participants’ background knowledge,

which would be of great value to make further analysis and implication However, as this

method can merely show the written data, another method will be required as a

complement

2.2 Questionnaire

Second, the use of questionnaire will be of great assistance to collect data from a larger number

of participants (Debois, 2016) This feature would allow more ability to examine different perspectives from different students As a result, this method was expected to enhance the credibility and the reliability of the findings

There were 26 questions in total divided into three sections in the questionnaire Section A’s main aim was to gather several personal information about the participants including their names, their class, email addresses and telephone numbers Such information was used for further contact in the later stages of the study and exclusively preserved within the research purpose In Section B, the researcher designed 12 questions in order to accumulate the reflections of the participants on their experiences during the Tutoring program The findings from this section would be helpful for the investigation into the content and skill coverage offered in the Tutoring program By employing three major items namely multiple choice questions, open-ended questions and Likert scale questions, the aim of the researcher was to offer the most flexible condition for the participants to reflect on their experiences Lastly, Section C concentrated on the participants’ opinions on the impact of the Tutoring program on their Lesson planning course There were 9 questions in total with 8 Likert scale questions and 2 open-ended questions in this section The chosen forms of question were expected to be the most suitable in order to gather the participants’ opinions (FELTE, 2016)

With a view of guaranteeing the higher degree of convenience for the participants in any conditions, the questionnaire was conducted both via online Google form as well as on direct written paper-based form (The full format of the questionnaire can be found in the Appendix 2)

3 Data collection procedure

3.1 Lesson plan collection

The whole procedure of lesson plan collection was completed in two major steps:

- Step 1: Contacting the students to gather the lesson plans

The study was conducted during the second semester of the fourth year in the university,

during this time it was typical for the senior students to pursue their own work

independently; therefore, it was of great difficulty to meet all the participants in person

As a consequence, the researcher made contact with the participants directly and

personally through the means of E-mail or Facebook to ask for their lesson plans

- Step 2: Gathering the lesson plans

The participants sent the soft version of the lesson plans to the researcher in a voluntary

manner Most of the collection process was performed via email or Facebook All the

collected documents were saved for later analysis

3.2 Questionnaire

- Step 1: Design the questionnaire

Considering the fact that there is hardly any similar research about this unique type of

Tutoring project in the literature, the researcher has managed to design the questionnaire

on his own with the consultant of his supervisor The first draft of the questionnaire was

neither successful nor effective due to the lack of logical organization and insufficient

content coverage After perpetual consultant and revison, for the second draft, the

researcher managed to divide the content of the questionnaire into different sections with

separate purposes It was expected that it would be of better help to bring back valid and

meaningful data for the study

- Step 2: Pilot the questionnaire

After the completion of the second draft, the researcher distributed the questionnaire to 7

participants to conduct the pilot collection The whole process was performed via online

tools namely email and Facebook Based on the comments as well as the reported

confusion of the pilot participants, the researcher made all the necessary adjustment in the

third version of the questionnaire so that it would be more comprehensible The final

version was completed and changed into a Google Form Survey to maximize the

convenience for the participants

- Step 3: Administering the questionnaire

The research sent the survey to all the participants via email and Facebook The whole

process took about two weeks due to the differences in time availability of each

individual participant All the received data was gathered and saved for further analysis

4 Data analysis instruments

In order to receive comprehensive results from the data, the researcher proposes to utilize two data analysis methods namely qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis for the two aforementioned data collection instruments: lesson plans collection and questionnaire Each instrument received its own specific data analysis methods to unravel the results and findings as demonstrated below:

4.1 Quantitative analysis – Questionnaire

Having completed designing the questionnaire by Microsoft Word originally, the researcher decided to change the format of the questionnaire into a Google Form and sent it to the participants As a result, all the data gathered from the responses were stored in that online site The researcher chose to utilize Google Forms as the main tool for questionnaire’s quantitative analysis thanks to 3 reasons First and foremost, it is an online site with hardly any restriction

on the users in terms of access Therefore, it was of no difficulty to examine the responses regardless of the time and place Second, the storage capacity of this tool was impressive It was well able to store an enormous amount of data without dysfunctions More importantly, after the collection process, the gathered data from all the responses were synthesized and illustrated in different types of charts This was the most useful function of this tool to conduct the data analysis on the grounds that it would hugely save the time as compared to the traditionally manual method

4.2 Qualitative analysis - Lesson plan analysis

After the collection process, 18 lesson plans were gathered from the participants and stored into one file for later reference In order to keep track of the materials in an organized manner as well as to help refer back easily, the researcher wrote the name of the designers on the title of