EXPLORING CLASSROOM METHODOLOGIES AND PRACTISE

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EXPLORING CLASSROOM METHODOLOGIES AND PRACTISE Saleena Shad Gil*1 *1English

Lecturer, Direct English, New Horizon, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

ABSTRACT Speaking is a very important part of Language learning. It is considered to be the most sought skill for an individual to be accepted competent in a foreign language. Speaking is not just forming grammatically correct sentences; it rather covers broad areas of mechanics, functions, pragmatics and social interaction.

Consequently, any foreign language teaching methodology used in the classroom throughout history has always sought to develop ways to improve the competency of learners in these areas. However, it does not always result in the acquisition and the ability of learners to communicate fluently in real-life. I encountered this problem in my teaching practise in a private language school for monolingual adult learners. In this assignment, I review and experiment with different approaches to teaching both speaking skill and practise opportunities. I have also discussed the effectiveness of the approaches in facilitating the acquisition of speaking skill in a classroom.

Keywords: Critical evaluation, Interaction, Methodology, Material design, Observation, Reflection, Scaffolding.

I.

INTRODUCTION

I teach at a private language school in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. All our learners are Arabs from the Middle East, predominately from Saudi Arabia with the second-highest proportion from Syria. They are mainly young adults with some older learners and are divided into six levels (Beginner to Advanced). Learners join courses with a range of goals in their mind, which include improving career opportunities, obtaining an internationally recognized English certificate and improving language proficiency for travel or recreational purposes. However, for this study, I am focusing on objective KET for Adults, a course offering students complete preparation for the Cambridge Key English Test (KET) examination. This exam is a beginner-level English language exam. It shows the learner’s ability to use simple English to deal with real situations that they are likely to encounter in the future.

Li (2003) holds that speaking remains the most difficult skill to master for the majority of English learners.

How I can help my learners to speak fluent English? This question has interested me for years and consequently, prompted me to choose this topic for this study. The focus of my developmental record is the methodology of teaching speaking skills – when and how to teach it and the best way to encourage learners to speak fluent English. I chose this topic for multiple reasons: Firstly, teaching speaking skills is an important and inevitable part of my teaching context. Not only we are required to cover certain conversations topics in the KET syllabus, but our students are also required to be able to speak simple English i.e. to be able to answer familiar questions about themselves and question formation skills to pass the KET speaking test. I also believe learning English as a second language is very important in today’s life and because English is not my first language, I can understand the struggle and hard work behind speaking in a second language. Speaking fluent English is a basic prerequisite of Arab students for multiple reasons e.g. job interviews, university’s admission requirement, visa requirement etc. Although beginners can’t be fully fluent, I would like to explore methods and strategies with sufficient language input and speechpromotion activities which can gradually help learners speak English fluently and appropriately. Input in this assignment is understood as any ‘sample of L2 that learners are exposed to’, while the output is ‘the language that learners produce, in speech/sign or in writing’ (Saville-Troike, 2012, p.79). Thus, the input is used as a general term to include both reading and listening texts used to contextualise the target speaking tasks, as well as any speaking instruction used at any stage of the lesson. Student output is used to refer to spoken and written language produced by the learners within the task settings. As this topic is quite broad and I cannot explore everything, so I am only going to focus on areas which are most relevant to my practise, which I will discuss later.

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Ellis (2009), notes the acquisition of L2 can be assisted best by a variety of approaches. However, when it comes to my own development, I feel a weak area of my speaking teaching is that it tends to be too repetitive in my methodology. Consequently, my previous teaching approach was very teacher-centred i.e. I used to present and explain language/grammar and repeat myself few times to ensure students’ understanding, which used to consume most of the lesson time. At the end of the lesson, I used to ask questions and correct the students. I never had enough time to give students the production task. Consequently, this methodology leads to long periods of teacher talk time rather than S-S interaction or T-S interaction. It also demonstrates a passive model of learning whereby students are presumed to learn something because it is explicitly explained to them by a teacher; the students are not taking an active part in their own development either. In this research, I intend to find ways for students to take a more active part in their learning of speaking skills through reflecting on my own teaching practise and observing fellow colleagues using a classroom observation instrument (see Appendix 4.1).

I kept reflective notes to record lesson elements e.g. TTT, groupings, task types etc. and their relative success of a week of lessons as Dewey (1997) notes, we do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience. While reviewing these notes later, I noticed through this reflecting process, I became more aware, proactive and confident in my teaching (Farrell, 2013). Consequently, I gained an understanding of my current teaching practise to make decisions about which aspects of practise to develop for the benefits of students’ learning needs (Farrell, 2013). For example, I realised my handling of vocabulary was weak. Before this project, my approach to teaching vocabulary had been rather unplanned i.e. teaching it as it was presented in the book or even assuming that students were familiar with the vocabulary and consequently, not providing pre-task support of vocabulary. I was reviewing vocabulary very rarely. According to Hammer (1997), “Without grammatical competence, it is difficult to organise language effectively, but without being able to use a wide range of words, there is nothing there, except empty structures.” This implies, by helping my students to learn more words, I would be helping them to communicate more effectively.

Having decided the main objectives, I researched the topic and chose vocabulary, collocation and phonemes as sub-objectives for teaching speaking. I decided to focus on vocabulary as pre-task support to reduce the use of L1 in the classroom and to help students to increase their vocabulary. In terms of collocation, Schmitt (2000), believes that collocational knowledge is something that normally distinguishes native speakers from non-native speakers. This implies that using collocation helps learners to sound less ‘foreign’. I decided to focus on collation because students were struggling with it e.g. ‘I made shopping’ or ‘I do the bed’. I also wanted to focus on how I can teach English phonemes effectively, as a foundational aspect of speaking language is being able to produce the sound patterns instrumental in contributing to meaning and intelligibility (Burns & Seidlhofer, 2010). Carter & Nunan (2001), and O’Connor (2003) noted that the pronunciation mistakes made by English learners as a foreign language are systematic and they fall into a certain pattern where learners, for instance, replace /p/ sound with /b/. According to Ahmad (2011), these unintelligible sounds cause barriers and boundaries to effective communication amongst speakers. Arab learners struggle with some phonemes because they do not exist in Arabic e.g. the aspirate /p/. I tried to help my students by providing them with the opportunity to practise the problematic phonemes as a pre-task activity (See Appendix 12.2).

Finally, I would like to explore, how materials design, task types or groupings appears to impact on learning because teaching materials are a key component in most language programs. Whether the educator uses a textbook, institutionally prepared materials, or makes use of their own materials, instructional materials generally assist in much of the language input learners obtain and the language practise that occurs in the classroom (Richards & Renandya, 2002). I tried to focus on gap fill, information gap, matching tasks etc. Group work is a teaching strategy that promotes academic achievement and socialisation (Baines, Blatchford & Chowne, 2007; Gillies, 2003; Johnson & Johnson, 2004; Oliveira & Sadler, 2008; Summers, Beretvas, Svinicki & Gorin, 2005). By interacting with other students learn to inquire, share ideas, clarify differences and construct new understandings. They thereby learn to use language to explain issues, which in turn helps them construct new ways of thinking (Webb & Mastergeorge, 2003). Consequently, I decided to focus on group/pair work as groupings are important for developing output opportunities for beginner learners.

Since the methods and techniques, I have been relying on has proven inefficient in enabling my learners to produce target like utterance, in this project I attempted to take a step back from the traditional approach and www.irjmets.com

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reconsider my speaking skill teaching practise. Thus, this assignment attempts to address ways to improve my teaching of speaking skills. Consequently, enabling me to help my students to achieve native-like fluent speaking skill (Saville-Troike, 2012).

My reflection research objectives included: •

• •

How I can provide efficient and effective input (pre-task support e.g. how I could introduce vocabulary etc.) to accommodate output i.e. non-native oral fluency at this level. How materials design, task types e.g. role-plays etc., or groupings appears to impact on learning.

How I can scaffold a particular type of speaking e.g. modelling.

How do learners respond to different approaches to supporting speaking tasks at the pre-task phase or during tasks?

My observation research objectives: With the view of further developing my practise to observe; • •

How experienced peers set up and carry out oral group work tasks in their classes.

How teachers provide input to accommodate output.

•

The type of speaking tasks used in the classroom. How learners respond to different approaches to supporting speaking tasks at the pre-task phase or during tasks.

II.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Section A: My reflection topic Input: Input in language learning is the language data which the learner is exposed to. According to Ellis (1985), there must be two prerequisites for second language acquisition to take place i.e. L2 input available to the learners and a set of internal mechanism to account for how L2 data are processed. Krashen (1985), suggests that the right level of input is attained automatically when interlocutors succeed in making themselves understood in communication. In his view, the Input Hypothesis is central to all of the acquisition, i.e. L2 acquisition depends on the comprehensible input. In the classroom, then, the teacher’s main role is to ensure that learners receive comprehensible input by providing them with listening and reading materials. On the whole, the input is absolutely necessary and there is no theory or approach to SLA that does not recognize the importance of input.

Consequently, I decided to reflect on the input approaches I use in my teaching practise. Surprisingly, I discovered my pre-task set up needed reconsideration e.g. as discussed earlier, I was not explicitly explaining vocabulary before setting up the task. In Schwartz’s view (1993), the input nurtures an innate system to aid its growth. But input alone cannot facilitate SLA until it gets involved in the interaction.

Interaction: Learning may take place during the interaction i.e. speaking activities. According to Allwright (1984), interaction is a vital element of classroom pedagogy because everything happening in the classroom happens through a process of live person-to-person interaction. During such kind of interaction, learners make efforts to generate comprehensible output, which turns out to be sources of input for other interlocutors. Confusions occur frequently in interaction due to different factors, which can be, on different occasions, phonological, syntactic, vocabulary, contextual or cultural, to name only a few. Thus, I now try to scaffold learns through pretask activities and during the task as well. The feedback the learners get from their teachers and peers drives them to test their hypotheses and refine their development knowledge of the language system (Hedge, 2000); hence functions as a facilitator of language development. In sum, input and interaction i.e. practise speaking skills may facilitate the development of the natural route of SLA in that comprehensible input resulted through interaction adjustments by the native speaker or more competent interlocutor.

Output: The output is the language a learner produces. According to Swain (1985), comprehensible input alone is insufficient to L2 learning process except when learners are “obliged” to produce comprehensible output. She also pointed out that there is no better way to test the extent of one’s linguistic knowledge than to have to use that knowledge in some productive way i.e. speaking activities e.g. roleplays. However, prior to her important paper in 1985, output was traditionally viewed as a way of producing what had previously been learned and www.irjmets.com

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the idea that output could be part of the learning mechanism itself was not seriously contemplated (Gass & Selinker, 2001). The last significant function of output is to create greater automaticity with little effort, which is one pedagogical goal in SLA. Mclaughlin (1987), claimed that automatization involves a learned response that has been built up through the consistent mapping of the same input to the same pattern of activation over many trials. Here this notion is extended to output, meaning that consistent and successful mapping or practise speaking for fluency to output results in automatic processing (Loschky & Bley-Vroman, 1993). Fluency represents the ability to speak quickly, accurately, and without undue hesitation, then automatic execution of certain aspects of L2 performance such as pronunciation, grammatical processing, and word recognition would, by definition, promote fluency (Skehan, 1998).

Scaffolding: Vygotsky defined scaffolding as the “role of teachers and others in supporting the learner’s development and providing support structures to get to that next stage or level” (Raymond, 2000, p.176). Therefore, the goal of the educator when using the scaffolding teaching strategy is for the student to become an independent and selfregulating learner and problem solver (Hartman, 2002). As the learner’s knowledge and learning competency increases, the educator gradually reduces the supports provided (Ellis, Larkin, Worthington, 1994). Scaffolding as a teaching strategy originates from Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and his concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The ZPD is the distance between what children can do by themselves and the next learning that they can be helped to achieve with competent assistance (Raymond, 2000). The scaffolding teaching strategy provides individualized support based on learner’s ZPD (Chang, Sung, & Chen, 2002). In scaffolding instruction, more capable other scaffolds to facilitate the learner’s development. The scaffolds facilitate a learner’s ability to build on prior knowledge and internalize new information. The activities provided in scaffolding instruction are just beyond the level of what the learner can do alone (Olson & Pratt, 2000). The more knowledgeable other provides the scaffolds so that the learner can accomplish the tasks that she could otherwise not complete, thus helping the learner through the ZPD (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000).

Section B: My observation topic Designing an observation instrument from scratch can be quite a difficult task. Simpson and Tuson (2003), and Wallace (1998), suggest adapting an existing schedule to suit one's needs. As I had no experience of making classroom observation instrument (COI) before, I found it expedient to adapt the COI according to my research needs.

Groupings: The Vygotskian Socio-Culture Theory (SCT) argues that SLA is a socially mediated process that emphasizes the learning environment rather than the individual learner (Cook, 2008). Vygotsky also argued that, through scaffolding and interacting with more capable peers, learners could achieve more than they are capable of independently, including language development. He termed this metaphorical place as ZPD (Lightbown & Spada, 2006). Consequently, I designed a COI to observe, how experience peers carried out group work tasks, which could possibly influence my own teaching practises, which was missing in my pilot COI (see Appendix 4).

I modified my COI to include additional focus on group work set up, group work types and post group work feedback, areas that have been brought to my attention through reading in this subject and highlighted by Johnson and Johnson (2012). Pre-task group work setup and post-task group work feedback categories were recorded in the form of tally charts as a way to visualize a data. Categories were chosen based on my background reading, my experience of observing fellow teachers, and suggestion of Furtwangler (1992), Richards & Lockhart (1994), Long (1976) cited in Nunan (1999), Paul (2003), and Willis (1990). Field notes were also taken to record observations that would not fit in a predefined category chart (Richard & Farrell, 2005).

Materials design: Rodgers (1986), have emphasized the importance of teacher and learner roles in an understanding of language teaching, and in an understanding of learning content through materials and tasks. According to Garton and Graves (2014), materials are fundamental to language learning and teaching, but materials cannot be viewed independently of their users. Choosing a specific coursebook is a challenge in itself because before choosing it, www.irjmets.com

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this book has to be assessed and evaluated. However, Harmer (2001, p.301) suggests that “a problem with such assessments is that however good they are, they may still fail to predict what actually happens when the material is used.” Coursebooks have benefits and drawbacks. On one hand, as Harmer (2001, p.304) explains: “Good coursebooks are carefully prepared to offer a coherent syllabus, satisfactory language control, motivating texts, tapes and other accessories such as videotapes, CD-ROMs, extra resource material, and useful web links.”

On the other hand, the vast majority of these kinds of books are organised in this way: presentation, practise and production; which makes students lose enthusiasm.

Harmer (2001) suggests a solution i.e. “do-it-yourself” approach. It can offer students a dynamic and varied programme but for the teacher, this approach can lead to a very time-consuming lesson. At the same time, as pointed out by Harwood (2010), quoting Allwright (1981), "(...) no pre-prepared teaching materials can meet the needs of any given class precisely; some level of adaptation will be necessary".

Based on this background study, I added a column for the instructional material used in my COI to observer experienced peers and what types of material they use in the classroom, which could possibly influence my own teaching practises.

Type of speaking tasks: According to Al-Hosni (2014), and Alharbi (2015), learners do not get enough time to practise using the target language in context due to the loaded curriculum, a large number of students in the class, students’ low proficiency and cultural related. Consequently, it encourages the use of traditional teaching approaches by teachers because these approaches enable the teachers to cover the syllabus in good time (Lumala, 2007; Njagi et al, 2014).

According to Talley and Hui-ling (2014), a curriculum for teaching speaking skill should endeavour to expose learners to authentic, practical settings for speaking English and encourage active learner involvement in the lesson. Besides, Njagi et al (2014), recommend that a curriculum should be designed in a manner that it recognizes the enhanced learning outcomes. The Communicative Language Teaching approaches require that learners actively participate by sharing ideas, speaking freely, thus every speaker plays the role of listener and speaker (Tuan and Mai, 2015).

According to English language scholars, use of learner-centred classroom activities including group discussions, speeches, storytelling, drama, debates, poem recitation, songs, and tongue-twisters could alleviate the problem of low oral skills (Johnson, 2006, Villegas and Lucas, 2002, Gathumbi and Masembe, 2005; Okech, 2005). These classroom activities improve student’s active participation, motivate and expose students to the authentic use of the English language in context. Many researchers have also proven that students are much more ready to interact with each other with more complex responses than with their teacher, as ‘students feel comfortable working, interacting and making mistakes with their partners rather than with their teachers and corrective feedback from peers are found to be less daunting than the correction by teachers(Achmad and Yusuf, 2014).

Consequently, I added the type of activity in my COI to observe types of speaking tasks used in the classroom and how learners respond to different approaches to supporting speaking tasks at the pre-task phase or during tasks. Which can possibly influence my own teaching practise.

Teacher talk time: To increase students’ second language practise time in the EFL classroom, teacher talk time (TTT) has been critically evaluated (Willis, 1990 & Paul, 2003). Allwright (1982), stressed that teachers who ‘work’ too much in the classroom were not teaching effectively. He also pointed, a good language teacher should be able to ‘get students to do more work’ in the classroom. Excessive TTT during lessons does not significantly improve students listening comprehension and communication skills (Ross, 1992). According to these studies, the amount of TTT might be inversely correlated with the degree of students’ active learning opportunities in the L2 classroom. However, many researchers emphasised the quality or effectiveness of TTT rather than the quantity (Paul, 2003; Ellis, 1984; Van Lier, 2001). This background study brought my attention to observe experienced peers’ talk time as a teacher in the classroom. Consequently, I noticed TTT through the following categories in my COI which were missing in my pilot COI to observe how experienced peers manage their TTT during the lessons, which could possibly influence my own teaching practises. a) Management of error correction (Willis, 1990; Allwright & Bailey, 1991; Richards & www.irjmets.com

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Lockhart 1994) Management of responses and elicitation (Chaudron, 1988; Skehan, 2001; Van Lier, 2001) Sufficient wait-time after elicitation (Richards and Lockhart, 1994; Paul, 2003), The clarification of instructions and expectations for the students (Rosenshine and Stevens, 1986; Mercer, 2001).

Being a new researcher, I was keen to use my observation instrument, but I realised that I had minimal knowledge about the ethics of research. In order to fulfil the compliance of ethical research, a research ethics proposal form was created and sent to Sheffield Hallam University (see Appendix 1). The purpose of the ethical form was to ensure the maximum benefit of the research while keeping the risk of harm to a minimum.

According to Gabrielatos (2004), One of the biggest risks in observation is the psychological effects on the person being observed. The teachers were each given a consent form (see Appendix 2) informing them of the aim of the research, the methods being used, steps taken to ensure their anonymity and impartiality. Once all risks and benefits had been discussed they were asked to sign a consent form, which guaranteed their right withdraw at any point. The participants were also reassured that they would be in no way evaluated during the course of this project. The decision was made to sit in a location that was far enough to not interfere with groups, but close enough to hear the majority of what was said. The institution was also made aware of the agreed-upon observations outlined in a verification form. However, the signed forms are not provided in the research to ensure the anonymity promised (see Appendix 4.1). By following a standard of ethics, I am able to ensure professionalism while developing my skills for composition instruction and minimising the risk of psychological effects on my experienced co-workers.

III.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Section A - Reflective Teaching Throughout this project, I carried out a series of five reflective lessons to the effect of implementing techniques, gained through the reading of teaching the speaking skills, with different types of speaking activities in the KET speaking class. The reflective lessons took place with five different classes of the KET students ranging from the age of sixteen to forty. As some lessons built on from previous lessons, a decision was made to show these lessons in chronological order to highlight my development as a teacher.

Lesson 1 One of the objectives of my lesson was to familiarise my learners with the format of the KET speaking test. As Arabs have longer surnames and spelling their surnames is a part of the KET speaking test, students were given the opportunity to practise spelling their surnames. I want to put my learners at ease and help them improvise when answering familiar questions about themselves, as most of the learners can only answer these questions in L1 and some learners don’t have an answer to these questions e.g. some learners neither work nor study, or they don’t have any hobbies. I also wanted my learners to practise question formation skills as I noticed they were struggling with forming a question e.g. ‘what the price’ instead of ‘what is the price’? Arab students question the rationale behind the activities they do in class and how these tasks can assist them in SLA. Before this project, I assumed that learners don't need to know the rationale behind the activities. However, after working on this project and reflecting my own teaching practise which I never did before, I discovered through background reading that I need to explain explicitly to the learners, the rationale behind the tasks. According to Cunningham & Cunningham (2002), learners need cognitive clarity about what they are learning. I noticed that the learner struggled with some of the vocabulary, collocation and phonemes. However, I was planning to project synonyms of vocabulary on the board and to encourage the use of the dictionary in class. Generally, the students do not feel comfortable and confident in speaking to the whole group for role plays (See Appendix 5.1, 5.2).

Lesson 2 The rationale for this lesson was to familiarise my learners with the possible topics of the KET Speaking Test Part 1 and to give them the opportunity to practise question relation these topics. Learners were provided with the opportunity to practise spelling their surnames and to practise giving their date of birth, first, because celebrating a birthday is forbidden in Islam. Secondly, because the Arabs don’t follow the Georgian calendar but the Islamic calendar. So, the learners need to know and practise their date of birth according to the Georgian www.irjmets.com

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Calendar. I noticed that in the previous class, most of the learners were struggling with some phonemes. Thus, in this lesson, I scaffold learners with phonemes related pre-task activity. A foundational aspect of speaking language is being able to produce the sound patterns instrumental in contributing to meaning and intelligibility (Burns & Seidlhofer, 2010). The phonemes activity appeared to be about the right level and it was particularly useful to elicit phonemes students were struggling to pronounce. I was much happier with all the tasks however, I felt in matching the task, it would have been better to avoid one-word answers and put sentence answers as it would have given students more appropriate practise. Whilst the phoneme activity was fun and engaging but it didn’t accurately achieve what I wanted. Even after modelling and drilling, I found the students were still pronouncing ‘P’ as ‘B’. I’m not sure if this is productive or not at this stage. Probably, I need to work on my classroom material more wisely to achieve my classroom objectives. Generally, I also need to improve my whiteboard writing (See Appendix 6.1, 6.2).

Lesson 3 The main objective of this lesson was to familiarise my learners with one of the frequently used topics in KET speaking test i.e. hobbies. As most of the students don’t have any hobbies or they don’t know how to describe their hobby in English. Learners also practised sentence formation using like/love or enjoy. I was happy with the lesson and achieved most of my lesson objectives. Students completed the group task in too fast which made me think that probably the tasks were too easy for the student level and maybe I need to plan a bit more challenging task. Whilst it was a fairly simple lesson, I was happy with my own performance and now feel confident to teach speaking classes because I’m more aware of problems students may come across and how to address most of those problems. However, I still need to keep reflecting on my own teaching to improve myself as an English teacher. Generally, the students do not feel comfortable and confident in speaking to the whole group for role plays. In a group situation, it appears learner participation is better when students are speaking chorally. Students using L1 in class because they find it easy to communicate with others using L1. I will need to plan smaller groups to encourage the students to speak (See Appendix 7.1, 7.2).

Lesson 4 The rationale of this lesson was similar to previous lesson i.e. to familiarise my learners with one of the frequently used topics in KET speaking test i.e. describe your house. In this lesson, I tried to scaffold the learners with house relating vocabulary and how to describe different rooms in the house in English with correct pronunciation and collocation. Consequently, helped learners, building up some fluency in their spoken language and confidence. Whilst it was a fairly simple lesson, I was happy with my own performance and now feel confident to teach speaking classes. However, I think the lesson could have been better if I would have added other kinds of questions e.g. types of houses i.e. flat, terraced, detached/semidetached house, or villa etc.

I could also add vocabulary relating to the part of the house other than rooms e.g. balcony, car park, terrace, garden, driveway etc. Some students asked me the difference between a house and a home. Which made me feel a need for another lesson which is both hard work and time-consuming. Thus, reflecting on my own teaching practise brought my attention to material designing and task types i.e. proper material designing, and the correct choice of task type can help in achieving the lesson objectives on time. Thus, I will only make one thorough lesson plan for the next batch to cover one topic in one lesson. Thanks to this project and reflecting my own teaching practise (See Appendix 8.1, 8.2).

Lesson 5 The objective of this lesson was to prepare the learners for KET speaking test Part 3. This lesson was about language for casual everyday conversations on the wings and in the association. This lesson could provide learners with the language required to start a conversation, interrupt, ask open and closed questions, change a subject, keep a conversation going and end a conversation. There were plenty of opportunities to build on and extend language learners know already. I, as a teacher, could focus on the language areas relevant to my learners, with open-ended exercises and practical speaking and listening games and role-plays. I also created a task to practise phonemes. I also noticed some phonetic and collocation issues, which I tried to overcome in the last activity of the class i.e. phonemes task. Regarding my whiteboard writing, I have decided to type on Ms Word and project on the whiteboard. However, there are still areas to improve my lesson planning and task choice. I will need to plan more group work to encourage the students to speak as they are still reluctant to www.irjmets.com

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speak to new people and if they have a different partner in the exam, then this will affect their performance in the test (See Appendix 9.1, 9.2).

Section B – Peer Observation Findings: In order to show my personal development as a teacher, I have decided to focus on observations in chronological order. As part of my reflective teaching project, I have observed an experienced colleague during the course of four English speaking-focused teaching sessions of approximately one hour each. The observed classes were of various groups of the KET course. While observing the teacher in the first lesson, I was piloting my observation instrument, however, there were many things to be learned even during that phase. It would be unwise to generalize solely on the basis of three observed lessons as the number of observed classes are not sufficient to draw any reliable statistical conclusions regarding the observed teacher’s practise, which was not the intended purpose of the observation. However, it is possible to trace certain patterns in the observed speaking teaching sequences, which I believe could be beneficial for the development of my own practise.

Firstly, it was useful to observe how teacher group tasks. It became clear that in group tasks, members have a higher chance of straying off the task if the clear instructions and check questions are not used before starting the task. I also noted that the experienced teacher wrote the task procedure on a whiteboard in a clear way.

However, explained the task in stages i.e. explained stage two when the first stage of the task is completed, meanwhile the whole task procedure was written on the board for the learners who were behind in the task.

When giving task instructions, before starting the tasks, it is vital to build learners’ interest in the task, breaking it down into smaller steps, demonstrating the idealized version of the task and reminding learners of the task goals (Cameron, 2001). This observation led to a change in my own teaching practise where I now project the task procedure on a whiteboard instead of writing because my whiteboard writing is not good. Also, I now explain the task in stages in a clear way.

Secondly, regarding the occurrence of interaction patterns in the classroom, I noticed that individual and pair work were quite common in the input and practise stages. I observed a general inclination to allow the students to work individually at the first stage to complete the task and then encourage them to compare the answers in pairs. I also noticed the teacher-fronted interaction was common in the input and practise feedback stages for weaker students in the groups. However, I only observed three instances of teacher-led interaction due to the focus on learner autonomy and self-study skills in that class. According to Lewis and Hill (1992), Oral work, pair work, and group work are not optional extras, they are essential to improve the students’ spoken language. This background study and observation of experienced peer-led to a change in my own teaching practise where I now allow students to work individually at the first stage of the tasks and then encourage them to compare their answers in pairs or smaller groups. This has helped me to motivate the students to interact with other classmates and reduce the hesitation of speaking English in the class. Which leads to better output i.e. non-native oral fluency at this level. Also, I now tend not to make large groups but will do eventually once the students are more confident to interact with other class members in English.

Thirdly, the type of speaking tasks implemented in all of the observed sessions followed a similar categorisation, which started with contextualizing the target language/grammar with the help of written or spoken input, followed by a formal focus on grammar, vocabulary, collocation in the form of teacher presentation or a student-centred activity. After that, the teacher would provide opportunities for controlled practise of the speaking skills. The observed sequences ended in a production task to enable the students to apply the learnt skills in communication. The production tasks included activities such as role-playing games, storytelling, the information gap and other simulation games that require changing roles of students. According to Savignon (1971), learners of all ages can also enjoy numerous language games or activities for the variety and group interaction they provide. Another noticeable feature of the observed practise seems to be the fact that the teacher tends to allocate an equal amount of time to the activities. Focus on pronunciation is less pronounced and seems to depend on the students’ level of proficiency. This background study and observation of experienced peer-led to a change in my own teaching practise where I now provide the chance of practise speaking English to my students by adding a variety of tasks in my lessons e.g. role-playing games, storytelling, the information gap and other simulation games that require changing roles of students. This has helped me to motivate the students to interact with peers in English and reduce their hesitation in speaking English in front www.irjmets.com

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of the class. Which leads to better output i.e. non-native oral fluency at this level (See Appendices 10.1, 11.1 and 12.1 for the completed classroom observation sheets).

IV.

REFLECTION AND CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE PROCESS OVERALL

Research and observation conducted within this assignment have allowed me to reconsider previously held perceptions and practises regarding various aspects of teaching speaking, as well as observe and experiment with a range of approaches and techniques. Below are the key findings from the project: •

•

•

•

•

•

•

According to Scrivener (2011), there is no universal approach during formal instruction stages that would prove effective for all speaking skills. The optimal solution is to adopt the ‘principled eclecticism’ approach as long as the choice of techniques and activities is theoretically informed and aimed at addressing students’ language acquisition needs.

The importance of clear instructions of the whole task and explanation of success criteria before staring the task was a surprising revelation made during this study. Before embarking on this study, I tended to give all the instructions at the beginning of the task. Which led to the task relating confusion and misunderstanding. Now, I have realised that this may also have diminished the purpose of group activities and led learners going off task. Johnson and Johnson (2012), argue that teachers need to clarify procedures, criteria for success and what is expected of learners in the group. I have now adapted my teaching practise in this regard, by projecting the explicit instructions on the whiteboard.

According to Lewis and Hill (1992), Oral work, pair work, and group work are not optional extras, they are essential to improve the students’ spoken language. I have now adapted my teaching practise in this regard, by preparing more group work. This has helped me to motivate the students to interact with other classmates and reduce the hesitation of speaking A certain amount of controlled practise might be necessary to facilitate explicit knowledge of the language structure e.g. grammar, vocabulary, phonemes, colocation etc. Swain (1988), maintains that learners need to practise in producing the comprehensible output using all the language resources they have already acquired (Cited in Hedge, 2000).

Peer observation, while providing an excellent opportunity to observe approaches and techniques used in teaching speaking skills, can also promote critical thinking and research skills (Psalla, 2013), which are essential for my further professional development. For that reason, I am willing to invest more time in such observations and peer collaboration on various aspects of teaching practises in the future. As noted by Bell (2005), peer observation of teaching offers many benefits such as improvements in teaching practise and the development of confidence to teach and learn more about teaching.

At my current language school, peer observations are carried out every three months and are principally evaluative in nature. This project and classroom observation reading have changed the way I view peer observation from evaluative to reflective one (Cosh,1999; Richard & Farrell, 2005). I also got valuable experience in designing COIs which I never had before. I am also intending to do research into designing one for our school’s peer observation and submit it to the branch manager for approval.

According to Farrell (2007), Jay & Johnson (2002) and Valli (1997), reflective practise occurs when teachers consciously take on the role of a reflective practitioner, subject their own beliefs about teaching and learning to critical analysis, take full responsibility for their actions in the classroom, and continue to improve their teaching practise. I am intended to continue reflecting my teaching practise in my teaching career to develop my teaching practise.

In conclusion, I believe that carrying out this research project has had a beneficial effect not only in terms of evaluating and reviewing my teaching speaking skills practises but also by ‘adding a research dimension’ to my teaching work in general (Richards & Farrell, 2005). Keeping a written reflective record of my work made it possible to single out and address particular issues of my practises, while research through reading, observation and implementation of discovered ideas has, by all means, contributed to my development as a teacher. Overall, carrying put this research has enabled me to develop my teaching practise far more than I have envisaged. In short, this project has been a truly transformational experience.

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