TL BDTX 2018 môn Ngoại ngữ

Bài viết đề cập đến những chuyển biến tích cực của đội ngũ giảng viên Khoa Ngoại Ngữ trong việc ứng dụng NTT vào giảng dạy và đề xuất một vài phần mềm và trang web hỗ trợ tích cực tro[r]

Người biên soạn: Võ Văn hanh Nguyễn hanh Nga

Gia Lai, tháng 7 năm 2018

sinh động và hấp dẫn hơn? v.v… à đây là những gì bạn cần: Action

research

ction research là một quá trình giáo viên tìm hiểu, kiểm tra và thẩm định quá trình dạy và học để cải thiện, nâng cao chất lượng học tập của học viên Theo Sue avidoff và Owen van den Berg (1990), quá trình này cần được tiến hành theo bốn bước:

Lên kế hoạch (Plan)

- Xác định vấn đề

- Hạn chế phạm vi vấn đề để có thể giải quyết được

- Tìm hiểu vấn đề: ấn đề đó xảy ra khi nào? Nó ảnh hưởng tới những ai?

Nó xảy ra ở đâu?

- Suy nghĩ về những nhân tố có thể là nguyên nhân của vấn đề đó Hãy nói chuyên, trao đổi với những giáo viên khác để có cái nhìn đầy đủ và toàn diện hơn về điều này

- Suy nghĩ về (những) giải pháp và cách thực hiện (những) giải pháp đó

- Suy nghĩ về những thông tin/ số liệu m à bạn sẽ thu thập để xác định xem việc bạn làm có hiệu quả hay không Bạn sẽ thu thập những chứng cứ như thế nào? Bạn sẽ phải phân tích chúng ra sao?

quan sát được trên lớp, ghi chép của những đồng nghiệp khi họ dự giờ của bạn, băng ghi âm/ ghi hình giờ dạy v.v…

3

hẩm định ( eflect)

Phân tích những thông tin/ số liệu mà bạn thu thập được và xác đinh liệu vấn

đề đã được giải quyết triệt để hay chưa? Nếu vấn đề chưa được giải quyết thì bạn sẽ phải làm gì tiếp theo? Nếu vấn đề đã được giải quyết, bạn sẽ phải giải quyết vấn đề nào

trong thời gian tới?

Những câu hỏi cần được giải đáp nhờ action research có thể nảy sinh từ:

+ Một vấn đề/ khó khăn mà bạn hoặc học viên của bạn đang gặp phải:

í dụ, bạn phát hiện chỉ có một số ít học viên tham gia vào các hoạt động nhóm Trước khi tìm ra một giải pháp cho vấn đề này, hãy dành thời gian tìm hiểu kỹ vấn đề:

- Liệu học viên của bạn đã biết cách đưa ra và bảo vệ ý kiến của bản thân, cách thể hiện sự đồng tình hay không đồng tình, cách đặt câu hỏi cho người khác hay ngôn ngữ mà họ phải sử dụng khi làm việc theo nhóm?

- Liệu học viên của bạn có biết rằng chúng nên đóng những vai trò khác nhau trong khi nhóm hoạt động? ác hoạt động theo nhóm thường cần một điều phối viên (facilitator), một thư ký (recorder), một báo cáo viên (reporter) và một người kiểm soát thời gian (time-keeper)

- Những hoạt động đó liệu có phù hợp để làm việc theo nhóm hay học viên có thể tự làm một mình?

+ Những quan sát về quá trình dạy và học trong lớp bạn: í dụ, bạn có thể quan sát xem mình đã sử dụng những câu hỏi như thế nào trên lớp Ghi âm lại một bài giảng và nghe lại đoạn ghi âm đó để tìm ra câu trả lời cho những câu hỏi dưới đây:

- Bạn đã đặt bao nhiêu câu hỏi cho học viên?

- Bạn đã hỏi học viên những câu hỏi loại gì? (Who? What? Where? When? How? Why?)

- Bạn đã phải chờ bao lâu để nhận được câu trả lời từ học viên?Tùy thuộc vào những phát hiện mà bạn tìm ra, bạn có thể đặt thêm những câu hỏi “tại sao” hoặc cho học viên thêm thời gian để tìm ra câu trả lời Hãy chú ý xem những thay đổi đó ảnh hưởng như thế nào đến quá trình dạy và học trong lớp bạn?

+ Những điều bạn đọc được: í dụ, bạn đọc được một bài báo mà trong đó tác giả cho rằng để học viên sử dụng tiếng mẹ đẻ trong khi làm việc theo nhóm sẽ cải thiện chất lượng của các hoạt động nhóm

Bạn có thể thử nghiệm, kiểm tra ý tưởng này và tự hỏi: Liệu cho phép học viên sử dụng tiếng mẹ đẻ khi làm việc theo nhóm có ảnh hưởng như thế nào đến độ dài phần báo cáo của nhóm? số lượng ý tưởng được trình bày

trong phần báo cáo của nhóm hay độ chính xác của ngôn ngữ mà học viên sử dụng trong bản báo cáo?

+ Những nghiên cứu trước đây: í dụ, Rosh Pillay – m ột giáo viên

Nam Phi –đã tiến hành một action research để giải quyết vấn đề học viên của

cô không biết làm thế nào để tổ chức một bài văn nghị luận

Khi tìm hiểu vấn đề này, cô phát hiện ra rằng học viên không biết làm thế nào để phân tích các câu hỏi dạng tự luận Sau đó cô tiến hành một

action research khác để giải đáp câu hỏi “ Liệu chất lượng bài luận của

học viên có được cải thiện nếu cô dạy học cách phân tích câu hỏi tự luận?”

Nếu bạn chưa từng tiến hành action research nào trước đó, hãy thử bắt đầu

với những vần đề nho nhỏ mà bạn đảm bảo được rằng vấn đề đó bạn có thể giải quyết được húng ta hãy bắt đầu từ các hoạt động (activity) tăng cường

nhận thức và hiểu biết về action research

5

ACTIVITY 1 Read the following passage and note down 3 ideas that you find best answer the question “What is action research?” in the space that follows the passage

In the context of education, there are different definitions of AR by academics For example, McKeman (2008) sees R as “a form of procedural practical improvement” (p x) in which teachers aim to make positive changes in their professional contexts

According to Bums (2010), AR is referred to as a critical, systematic and, importantly, self-reflective approach to exploring teachers’ own practice in their teaching contexts, where teachers play both the researcher and participant roles Thus, doing AR requires that teachers be critical about their own teaching practice, questioning what they are doing and what is happening AR, as shown in its name, involves an action, i.e intervention,

to make change to the current situation It is also systematic, meaning that teachers need to collect information in a systematic manner for a solid basis

on which changes can be made and improvements can be observed One important feature of AR is that teachers need to be reflective on the AR steps they have taken, thinking about what has happened and seeing if it has moved in a desired direction

From a practitioner’s perspective R is defined as “a form of enquiry that enables practitioners everywhere to investigate and evaluate their work” (McNiff & Whitehead, 2006, p.7) Furthermore, it can be seen as a disciplined repeated process of identifying the problems and testing the solutions It is a flexible procedure designed to deal with classroom-related concerns so that improvements could be made to teachers’ teaching practice and students’ learning Thus, R is related to and informed by individual teachers’ own teaching contexts It aims to make changes to the teaching and learning practice in teachers’ classes, solving the problems or dealing with teachers’ concerns That is, by doing R teachers can improve their teaching practices Teachers, themselves, are the ones who best understand their problems in the classroom Doing AR helps them to take appropriate actions to overcome such problems

3 ideas to describe what action research is

ACTIVITY 2 ead Pam’s account of what she did to her students In the box that follows the account, note 2 things she did to change her teaching and what she found about her students’ reactions

Pam’s account

Pam worked with students who were enrolled in adult ESL classes in Australia

My group was diverse in all the ways that make adult immigrant classes

so interesting to teach Ages ranged from 22 to 58 with equal numbers of males and females They came from 15 different countries and spoke 17 different languages Most had come to Australia because their country of origin was now unsafe for them My concern was with the wide variation in the levels of spoken and written English I was uncertain how to manage the class and I felt my planning was very 'hit and miss

’ I decided to read the literature on managing mixed-ability groups and to talk to teachers in [my centre] and in community organisations and primary school education about strategies they used

As a result I decided to focus on developing materials and activities at different levels and to observe the response of the learners to these materials I documented these observations [using a journal and drawing

up diagrams of classroom interaction] and began to realise how much I tended to ‘control’ their learning by dispersing materials at 'appropriate ’ levels When I allowed the students to take control, they worked with the [materials] in different ways which they found personally effective

However, at this point I became concerned about another aspect of the class I observed that the students would not cooperate to undertake joint activities They were also starting to express exasperation, boredom, irritation and once, near hostility, as I brought to the classroom lessons and activities [aboutpersonal experiences] I thought were interesting and relevant, but which they were not

prepared to participate in I decided on a strategy of individual consultation I spoke to each student about what they were learning, how they were learning and how they could develop their skills I documented their comments and followed with activities designed to enhance their requested learning areas I also documented comments on their reactions

to my classroom activities

I began to see emerging patterns and to uncover the reasons for the rejected activities Student comments and reactions indicated that discussions that revolved around cultural or social difference were not acceptable On a class excursion, I learned that the students were aware

of deep ethnic, religious and political differences because of their

7

experiences of the part of the world they had just left [former Yugoslavia]

I suddenly realised how difficult it had been for them to maintain the

veneer of courtesy and civility when I was introducing activities which demanded that they expose and discuss the differences they were attempting to ignore! (Cited from Bums, 2010, pp 146-147)

Now write the 2 changes she made to her teaching and what she found about her students’ reactions

Pam’s changes to her teaching and her students’ reaction

Nam’s action research experience

Nam teaches English in an upper secondary school in a Vietnamese province Last year he participated in a workshop on AR and then, upon returning to his school, he observed most English teachers needed improvement in their pronunciation, particularly final consonants in English words Nam decided

to carry out a small- scale 4-week AR project to solve this issue with the teachers He wrote in part of his report as follows

English pronunciation skills of some English teachers, especially the final consonants are limited This means all implosive stops without an off-glide phase (phonation stopping in the midst of occlusion), that is to say they all belong to the category of consonants the recognition of which depends mostly

on the acoustic cues in the adjacent vowel segment The retention of a final [p] for example, is only a silence Th e noise made by the lips when closing is practically inaudible; the only acoustic cue that makes it possible to distinguish [p] from [k] and [t], is the particular formant bendings toward the end of the “preceding" vowel, an acoustic effect of the closing movement (underlined ours)

Effect: from restrictions in the pronunciation of the final consonant of the

teachers led to the student's pronunciation is wrong Mispronunciation or omitted final consonants gradually became bad habits in the process of learning

Nam hypothesised that daily practice of listening and speaking could help teachers improve their (and his own) pronunciation skills Thus, in his project, he worked with three other English teachers in his school, forming a research group

Addressing the concern about teachers’ English pronunciation skills and based on his hypothesis, he organised for the group, including himself, to listen to the recording of the listening section from unit 3 in the textbook used for students of grade 12 They then recorded their own voices reading the transcript of the listening section to see how well they pronounced words in the transcript, particularly final consonants Each teacher in the group then also selected different passages from the book to read out loud and recorded their voices The group of teachers met every week to listen to the recordings

of each and gave comments on the pronunciation and improvement There were 4 recordings for each teacher during the 4 weeks Nam wrote about the outcomes he observed as the result of the action, as well as what he learned from the project, as follows

The first results can be seen that teachers feel more confident especially the final consonant pronunciation Students are excited about learning English especially for students feel more confident when talking in English The quality of education is improved especially English communication skills of students improved Most English teachers the school are excited to this action research After the research, teachers become more and more confident

Now write your ideas related to the reading tasks

The problem Nam identified

The action Nam and his colleagues took

The improvements that Nam observed as the result of the action

Your comments on Nam’s use of English in the cited parts of his report

Your opinion about whether this use of English affects Nanis’ professional growth

Do you think Nam could have gained the same results if he had not collaborated with his colleagues in this project? Why?

9

ACTIVITY 4 Read the following passage Discuss with your colleague what might be involved in each step in one of the models described Present the result of your discussion to other colleagues

Action research model

There are different AR models described and applied in the educational context, which may involve different numbers of steps For example, McKeman (2008) suggests detailed procedures, including nine steps, as follows

- Step 1 Recognising the difficulty or problem;

- Step 2 Classifying the problem;

- Step 3 Conducting a situational analysis: Gathering data that might help answer some of the queries;

- Step 4 Creating action proposals/possible solutions;

- Step 5 Developing an action research plan and timeline;

- Step 6 Implementing and reflecting on the plan;

- Step 7 Collecting data;

- Step 8 Gaining situational insight and understanding: explaining the data;

- Step 9 Disseminating the results

McNiff and Whitehead (2006) describe AR as a cyclic process that involves six steps: observing, reflecting, acting, evaluating, modifying and moving in new directions For these writers, this cycle can be termed the action-reflection process

ACTIVITY 5 Read the following passage that briefly describes Kemmis and Mc aggart’s action research procedure with 4 steps iscuss with your colleagues what each of the terms included in the box that follows the passage means Then talk to your trainers about the result of your discussion

Action research steps in Kemmis and McTaggart’s (2008) model

Step 1 - Plan In step 1, different activities can be done, for example,

identifying an area of change or a topic of interest, formulating research questions, selecting a course of actions to change the practice, addressing ethical

issues, searching the literature, getting permission and support, and identifying participants Important issues include identifying an area of research, developing research questions, selecting action to take to make change, and addressing ethical issues

Step 2 -Act For this step, the teacher-researcher reconsiders the points in step 1

by putting them into action That is, the teacher takes action to change the current teaching practice When doing this, it is important that teachers need to know how they can collect data when they decide to take action or make change

to their teaching practice The data collected will help them evaluate the action and its impact on the teaching practice and/or their students’ learning Teachers need to consider the following issues: how to combine classroom teaching and data collection, how to collect information/ data, and what to see (observe) and what to know

Step 3 - Observe: In this step, the teacher observes the impact of the change he

or she is making to the teaching practice Step 3 involves the data/information collection phase For this step, teachers need to have designed a tool to collect information/data from which they can find the answer to the asked question They need to use the developed tool to gather information in appropriate procedures, and manage the information they have collected

It is important that step 2 and 3 needs to occur almost simultaneously That is, while teachers are implementing the action plan, carrying out changing actions

or interventions, they need to collect data or information so that they can see the impact of this course of actions on their expected improvements

Step 4 -Reflect In this step, teachers make sense of the data they collected to

see the impact of the action taken on their teaching practice It requires teachers

to analyseyse and synthesise the collected data, explain the results and draw out conclusions The action might have a positive or a negative impact, i.e it may improves the teaching practice or causes a problem This evaluation will help teachers amend their initial plan and enter a new cycle of action research Step 4 involves the analysis and evaluation of data, thus data analysis methods and techniques are important for teachers to master Teachers also need to reflect on the whole research procedure, to see how they could have done it better

Though action research is carried with 4 steps, these steps may overlap For example, while the teacher is implementing the action plan, they can also reflect

on what goes right or wrong with their initial plan and make appropriate amendments

Now note the ideas you include in your discussion

Terms related to action research steps

- Area of change:

- Research question:

- Taking action (in doing AR):

- Data:

- Data collection:

- Tool:

- Data analysis:

- Impact of the action taken:

- Reflect:

ACTIVITY 6 Read the extract from the case study: Hattingh,

S D (1998) Question -> Answer plus talk In I C Richards (Ed.),

Teaching in action: Case studies from second language classrooms (pp

311-315) Alexandria, VA: TESOL

Then, work individually to complete the table with information from the text

CONTEXT

Most English language schools in Japan have difficulty balancing education and business It is not unusual to find varying English education policies among conversation schools here The language school that I work for has a credible language program, commissioned from a language institute of a U.S university

The program consists of five levels ranging from beginning to advanced At each level, the students are required to take a number of prescribed classes (36 sessions) before they can progress to the next level At the lowere levels, one lesson consists of tow 50-minute sessions, the first taught by a Japanese English teacher and the second taught by a native speaker Students are not assigned to a regular class, nor do they meet with the same teacher on a regular basis They can select their lessons at random until they have completed their level As many as seven students are allowed to attend any one class The result is that the composition of the class varies with every lesson

As is common in the English language conversation business, a majority of the teachers have little or no experience and typically receive only superficial training To allow for the teaching staffs inexperience and the irregular constituency of the classes, my school has a structured lesson plan and prescriptive methods for teaching the class content This structure is provided

so that anyone with limited skills or experience can go into a class and teach and so that the students are able to prepare knowing that although they will not have the same teacher, there is not much difference in procedure from one class to the next Where the teachers have a measure of freedom is in how they present the exercises and manage the class

PROBLEM

After I had been teaching a couple of years, I noticed that I was teaching the way I had been taught throughout high school I realized, too, that students also brought with them the language learning class their past experience of school The students and I were conforming to the traditional classroom roles

of the teacher as class manager and source of all knowledge and the student as the one with a deficit that needed to be filled In this framework, playing the conventional role of a student inhibits the students’ willingness to speak and, conversely, in the role of the teacher I conducted wholly teacher-centered classes Often I was asking all the questions in pattern practices and playing a role play and only engaging one students while the others waited their turns I felt that this methodology was the only way to monitor and correct students’ errors It was frustrating to me as the teacher because the students did not seem to talk much or make any effort to make conversation On reflection, I realized that my dominance of the class was giving the students little time to talk and also conforming to their concept of the role of the teacher They, in turn, were encouraged by my teaching style to play the role of the student, which did not require them to talk much beyond giving the answer, much less lak freely and make conversation

Another result of this stifling teaching style was that the classroom discourse largely fell into the pattern of question and answer I noticed, too, that the students’ role plays conformed to a great extent to this pattern as well and concluded they must have been modeling themselves on what happened in the class (or in the sample dialogues in their texts, which were oversimplified and mostly question and answer) When I asked a student about himself, the most common answer was the most succinct possible reply - never any additional information Because I would then have to ask another question, any conversation attempts became interrogations

A third effect of the conventional classroom setting was that it fostered the idea

of English as a subject, something to be studied, instead of a means of communication I often find that students only use English to do the exercise and any interaction that takes place outside of that is done in Japanese, probably a throwback to their days of studying English as a subject at junior high and high school

SOLUTION

I want and try to teach students to communicate in English This means making them aware that speaking English involves more than asking questions or giving answers without volunteering information Volunteering additional information when making conversation is a form of solidarity building and makes a person seem friendly The person who answers too briefly is likely to

be misinterpreted as unwilling to engage in conversation In addition, without volunteered information, the conversation becomes one-sided and uncomfortable

Students also need to learn conversational discourse They need to learn to talk

on the topic, sharing similar experience or giving similar information without waiting for a question or just interviewing the other person Students’ discourse seems to indicate that asking a question is the only way they are able to relinquish a turn I found that even when I explained this phenomenon to the students, it did not register with them To illustrate this concept, I offer them

the following rubric: ? > answer + talk

This simplified definition of conversation adequately gets the message across To reinforce the point of this lesson, when I ask a question, I try to elicit more than just the answer by waiting with an expectant look on my face

or indicating with my hand that I am anticipating more At the higher levels, I

will write up varying combinations of the above formula substituting talk for other words that represent speech acts such as respond, suggest, give information I also encourage students to lead up to their questions by explaining what it is they have in mind before asking the question (e.g., Last month I went to this really good Indian restaurant near my house If you like Indian food, why don’t we go there this Saturday?)

When students do a role play, I encode their dialogue on the white board using the above equation to show them that their conversation is mainly questions and answers I have found that this technique works well at all levels, and when the students do the role play a second time, they try to give additional information

Thus, I have managed to steer students away from just asking and answering and into talking more

It is useless to insist repeatedly that students not speak Japanese in class and almost impossible to prevent Instead, when students do say something in Japanese, whether it is a comment to themselves or something said to another student, I take time to have class come up with a possible translation of the exchange that took place, teach them how to say it more naturally, and then have them repeat the exchange again I point out the value of trying to use English in these brief exchanges because they represent real communication and more than likey the language needed for these interactions is not taught

in any text I encourage the students to try to say what they want to say in English so I can teach them I think this supply-and-demand technique makes them realize that English is more than just a subject Since starting to provide students with the English for their conversational interchanges, I have found that some students accept the challenge and try to interact in English with their classmates even though some have said it feels strange to speak English

to another Japanese person

I intentionally do not get involved in the organizational dialogue that precedes or concludes an activity but allow the students to do it in English I supply them with the phrases they need to determine, for example, who will play which role in the role play Usually teachers control this aspect of the class, but doing so robs the students of a chance for some real negotiation

By applying the above approach in my conversational classes, I have had some success in reshaping the students’ concept of the role of a student in the language learning class, and I have had some very successful classes

(Hattingh, S.D,1998, pp.311-314)

List the activities the author did for each step in the action research cycle

Plan

Act

Observe

Reflect

ACTIVITY 7 Defining AR-Activity

Which example best describe an action research?

Example 1

A researcher wants to know whether the use of group work will improve students’

ability to speak English

1 She first reads the literature on this area of research

2 She then decides on the approach and methods to be used The

researcher’s hypothesis is: group work will increase the development of both fluency and accuracy in oral tasks

3 She divides her classes into two groups Group 1 is the experimental group, where they will use group work for a period of two months The control group is taught using the same curriculum through a whole-class teacher-in-the-front approach for the same period

4 To make groups with equal English levels, the researcher first gives everyone a test She then assigns students to the groups by the test results

At the end of the two months, each of the groups is given an identical test

in order to see whether the use of group work has resulted in higher