How Can I Can I Help My Students Become More Active in Class

8/9/2019 How Can I Can I Help My Students Become More Active in Class

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How can I can I help my students become moreactive in class? Liu Hui , Guyuan Teachers

College, Ningxia, P.R. China.June, 2004

Introduction: Action research is a name given to a particular way of researching you own learning. It is a particular way of looking at your practice in order to check whether it is

as you feel if should be. (McNiff, 2001) It was two years ago that I first found out abouteducational Action Research with the help of Dr. MoiraLaidlaw* in Guyuan Teachers College. I had justgraduated from Ningxia University and become one of the departments youngest language teachers. I foundAR to be a particular way of improving practice thatstimulated me to start my teaching career. Jack Whitehead (1985) describes a basic action processas follows:

I experience a concern when some of my educational

values are denied in my practice. I imagine a solution to that concern; I act in the direction of the imagined solution; I evaluate the outcome of the solution; I modify my practice, plans and ideas in the light of myevaluation.


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This systematic plan implies that I, as a researcher and practitioner, should do some research on myself andreflect deeply on my work. I am now sure that was theright way to do it, and constantly bear in mind thesewords:

Action research is a systematic self-reflective scientificinquiry by practitioners to improve practice. (McKerab,J. 1991: 3-5)

I therefore reflected on my teaching situation first. As usual, every head-teacher [1]waits for the freshmen toenroll in the colleges multifunctional hall in September of each year. It was last September that I first made anacquaintance with my students. Most of them camefrom the nearby countryside in the Xihaigu [2] Area. Inoticed that quite a number of students seemed to bevery timid, even with their parents. They followed their

parents every move as they carefully pulled out moneyfrom inside pockets to pay the different fees for variousdepartments of the school. I also noticed that these

parents wore color-faded clothes; their faces wereheavily winkled, maybe due to years of hard work in poor conditions. I fully understand how hard it is for the parents in Xihaigu, where the natural conditions are so bad, and people greatly depend on suitable weather toharvest corn for the whole family. Parents always placetheir hopes in their sons and daughters to change the

poor situation by finding a good job after their college
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education. However, since the government policy of enrollment expansion five years ago, many graduatesfrom universities as well as colleges are now confrontedwith a highly competitive job market. There are moregraduates from universities each year. In contrast, thestudents from our college face an even gloomier situation because of the status of this place. How can wetry our best to help students be self-supportive in thisintensely competitive society? In answering this

question, I feel a strong responsibility to help to developmy students self-confidence and arm them withknowledge. As I still remember, I was encouraged withslogans like Knowledge is power, Knowledge iseverything, in my own educational experience. My class consisted of a group 28 students who had justfinished their high school and were now majoring inEnglish Education. Im not only their head teacher, butalso their teacher for teaching the course IntegratedSkills of English (Books I and II), compiled by ZouWeicheng. The aim of this course is to developstudents abilities in listening, speaking, reading,

writing and translation skills. When I was teachingthem, I found a lot of problems, such as studentslistening and speaking skills, their heavy reliance on theteacher, and their negative attitudes towards learningEnglish. Ma Huiling [3], my target student, is a quiet, frank but arather introverted girl.
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From the very first contact with this student, I found shewas very poor in English grammar and pronunciation.In my class, when I was teaching, she seldom responded

to me, except that I called her name and asked her toanswer the question. Later, I got some reasons: MaHuiling is from a special family, whose parents aredisabled and her two elder sisters have got married. Shecared for her parents while still studying in the school.But, because of her poor mastery of her English coursein senior high school she fell behind. She felt Englishwas quite difficult for her, and she felt sorry for her

parents. So, I realised I should help Ma Huiling makeimprovements in her learning in order that she couldcomfort her parents by a good performance in college. Bearing my students in mind, I started teaching by

placing a significant emphasis on bringing knowledge tothem. As the same time, I found my students were so poor in English grammar both in their homework and intheir classroom teaching, I developed my original AR question: How can I help the first-year English majorswith their poor English grammar?


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Why I came to realize that I should do some changesin my teachingThe students themselves needed changes in myteaching. I once came across Ma Huiling in front of my office; Iasked how her parents were. She was glad to tell methey were well and thanked me for my caring. Then Iinvited her to my office and we had a relaxing talk. I

found out that in fact, she wants to keep pace with myteaching, but she doesnt have time to take in what Imteaching and sometimes she finds herself drifting awayinto her own thoughts. It seemed that it was me whowas controlling the students too much and not givingthem enough space in which to develop themselves. With my AR question, I focused my teaching on howmuch grammar knowledge I was teaching the students.Thus, it was me who did all the work, explainingeverything and talking for 90% of the class time. Thestudents took an increasingly passive stance inclassroom activities. They become more and more

reluctant to ask and answer questions. Even in their homework they still made the same mistakes that I hadcorrected several times already. I was aware that I needed some urgent adjustments tochange the current situation. I also wanted to hear thestudents opinions about my teaching and what theywanted to change most in my teaching. Therefore, I


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conducted an opinion poll. I communicated with thestudents in the way friends might in order to find outwhat about my teaching, how I could help them, andwhat I should be worried about. I then asked them tovoice their opinions. I asked each student to write downtheir suggestions and expectations for teaching andlearning. To my great delight, I accumulated valuable suggestions

from their writing. Some said even though they hadunderstood what they had learnt in the class, theycouldnt make use of it while doing exercises, so theywanted me to introduce efficient learning strategies for them; some hoped I could tell them some funny storiesor sing songs at intervals in my teaching in order toavoid a boring atmosphere! Zhao Caihua, a diligent girl wrote to me: Miss Liu, I really feel you are a patient and kind teacher. Somehow I easily lose interest in your teaching. Could you help me?

Some suggested to me that I should ask more questionsto make them keep pace with my teaching; some askedme to trust them and give them keys to the exercise;they said they could check by themselves and so on.The students were also very kind and gave me manycompliments as well. I felt so moved while I was


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reading their opinions as this was real communicationand heart-to heart talk. As soon as I finished reading their writing, I expressedmy gratitude for their valuable suggestions. I read someof their advice and told them of my revised teaching

plan according to their suggestions. In that moment, Iunderstood more about how much the students neededto be respected, valued and encouraged, because I saw

many students smiling happily with shining eyes when Iread suggestions they put forward. They must have feltvery proud of themselves. Furthermore it was their smiles that motivated me as well, just like the NewCurriculum of English says:

2 (The New Curriculum of English, 2002) [4]

Colleagues comments for improvements of mylessonMy colleague and teacher as well, Miss Liu, who taught

a methodology course for grade three students, visitedmy lesson. She talked with me after her observation:Miss Liu: I was very surprised you talked so much inthe class. I found some students seem to be bored.Liu Hui (me): When I found this passage (the teaching material I taught that day) was quite difficult for the

students to understand. I wanted to explain it clear.


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though my practice denied it. Finally, Dr. Laidlaw saidto me that she wholly believed that I realized our education is aimed to foster lifelong learning and enablethe students to transfer knowledge and abilities to their lifes experience. She was also kind to suggest me tochange my question into How can I help my students to

become more active in their learning? I realised thiswas the path I needed to take now.

My planning actionsIn order to help the students become more active inclass, I made up my mind to give them learningstrategies with detailed instructions, help them becomeconfident with themselves and assign tasks based on the

principles of cultivating cooperative learning spirit, self-study learning abilities and competence in language use. Class Report

Ask the students to prepare a five minutes speech

about any topics before my teaching started.

offer them a chance to show themselves Build up their self-confidence by the way of

speaking in public Group work Divide the whole class into 7 groups. Four studentswere to be in each group. Every group would have a

group leader, who would check the students activities


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and take some records of their groups work. Theactivities they were required to do were the following: Class discussion : to motivate the students to speak more and share ideas Oral homework: to encourage them to consolidatewhat has been practiced in the class and cultivate inthem a sense of cooperation.

Checking written homework : to offer a chance for thestudents to find out the common mistakes bythemselves, such as He glance round the room to seewho was there, He studies music plays piano well.Then they were asked to hand their homework in. Supervising retelling: It is self-evident that languagecan take place when the learner has enough access toinput the target language. (Hu Zhuangling, 2001). So,retelling, as one of the most efficient way to languagelearning is very helpful for student target languageinput.

Grammar teaching: each group was asked to prepare agrammar item and select a representative to make useevening class to give a lecture in 30 minutes and 20minutes to feedback about teaching contents, teachingmethods, teaching language and so on.


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Notes for group work: the group members werechanged every 3 or 4 weeks. At the end of the last

period of group work, students and teacher will have ameeting to evaluate each groups work. Then, the bestcooperative group would be awarded with 4 gifts,financially supported by the combined contributionsfrom the class itself. Creative drama:

As the New Curriculum of English suggests,. [5]

I guided students to adapt the teaching materials to the

plays, and encouraged them to act in order to, on theone hand, practice their writing with soundunderstanding of the text, and on the other hand, toenjoy themselves with humorous acting. Meanwhile, thestudents were required to take notes and give commentsfor each groups performance. As a result, I hopedstudents would become more confident aboutthemselves and have a sense of achievement.

Western Cultural Knowledge CompetitionIn order to motivate every student know about cultureknowledge, I reorganized the group work and ask 28students to make up four teams. Here are the rules:

Work out a rule for competition.


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Over two weeks time, have a knowledge

competition of western culture, which every groupcan prepared in advance.

Find the top group and provide also the single prizes for the other three groups.

Teachers assistant

Before the new teaching unit begins, students in

each group will work together, preparing a review

note of what they have learned in the last unit.

Each group will take over some responsibilities from the teacher and prepare a mini lesson in 5minutes or more to help their classmates review thelessons effectively.

Every group leader has to give the teacher groups

feedback for the teaching.Much help made my Action Research possibleAs Montaigne the French writer said: No wind blows in favour of the ship that has no port of destination.

Without the Experimental Center for EducationalAction Research in Foreign Languages Teaching atGuyuan as our strong support, we would not have

become involved in this practical research. Manyexcellent teachers in the department are helping me withmy work.


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Dr. Moira Laidlaw helped me in formulating my AR question and gave me valuable suggestions aboutcollecting data through a journal. This helped me takemy work in the right direction. Her visit to my class notonly motivated me a lot, but also encouraged mystudents to be confident. When she had finished her observation of my class, she told my students they wereexcellent. She really understood what they said, and alsogave me 5 A4 pages of notes with suggestions for my

improvements and her assurance of my work. (Seeextracts from her notes in the next part.) Ling Yiwen , an English teacher with 16 years of teaching experience, often led me to insights into myteaching and students feedback. On May, 15 th she and Italked about my responses to her teaching after I hadobserved her. She told me that she was surprised to seethat one of her students asked her a question after hehad finished answering the teachers question. It wasquite rare for a Chinese student to take the initiative inthis way. This context raised the level of the language-transaction between teacher and student. Her remarks

reminded me of the same thing in my class. Li Jin gave her class report on 8 th May directly after our May holiday. The moment she had finished speaking,she turned to me and asked, Miss Liu, how about your holiday? I felt a little surprised. Actually I would rather share details about my holiday with the students after the class report. But I had neglected the students


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willingness to communicate with me and missed achance to encourage my students. After the talk withMiss Lin, I dont think I would miss the chance again toencourage my students to speak to me. Tao Rui, who taught the same course with me for theGrade-II students, kindly allowed me to observe her lessons. She showed me a widely-used questioningmethod in her teaching. Here are some of my notes on

her teaching: You show the students your questions after they make

sure they havent questions. I like the way you use here,because on one hand, you draw something important out of the text, on the other hand, you promote the

students skill of asking questions. AR meetings offer me a chance once a week to shareviews with colleagues and a chance to learn. When Ifound my students were becoming active in class, butthey were still poor in mid-term-examinations, Idoubted whether the data I collected to show my

students were improving, could be convincing to anyoneelse. I told my worries to Miss Zhao Xiaohong in AR meeting on a Thursday afternoon. She patiently gave mesuggestions: Your data shouldnt just be connected closely with

students scores in exam papers. Your question is howto make your students become active in class. The


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active students mustnt have been the students who are good in exams. So, your assessment should focus on thelearning process with your question and gather information on daily basis in order to understand individual student learning and needs, namely,language assessment should place emphasize on

formative assessment. At that moment, I knew I had made a mistake in the

way I had evaluated my students. I almost neglected the process of students active involvement in languagelearning, which is also in line with New Curriculum. How will I ensure that any judgments I make arereasonably fair and accurate?As my action plans goes on, Im trying to collect data,and here is the evidence: Notes of individual and group performance to myfocus of question.6th April: In todays TV talk show, to my surprise, MaHuiling acted as the hostess of the program. Shes

always a good listener! Maybe she was just interested inthe topic, however, because something significanthappened. I wrote this in my journal: 15 th April: My observation on Ma Huiling in-groupdiscussion: she argued with Wang Yongshou (arelatively good student) about the structure of a certain

sentence and believed herself right. Then they wanted


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my judge. I asked each of them to show their ownopinions and the answer was on Wangs side. But Madidnt nod until she asked me twice of explanation.12 th May: Ma volunteered to show her ownunderstanding when I asked the students help to Wang Yonglings question. Though her answer was not complete. But I do believe she was thinking and trying to participate the class discussion. I can also see she isconfident enough. (See ealier for her photo and the

other photos of students activity in a class discussion.) Students oral homework As I assigned the oral homework for the students, theywould bring their creative adaptation of teachingmaterials and act out something in the class. They took some simple stage props; they changed expression in theacting to demonstrate their feelings; they madecostumes for their dramas, which Moira sang high

praise for in their performances when visiting my classon 21 st April, 2004. (See Appendix II for studentsrewriting of the text.)

Students written homework also represents someanswers to my questions.After a month, with the group checking their homework,I asked the students to hand in their homework to medirectly. I found some general mistakes, which I hadcorrected several times in class, were now occurringless frequently. For example, A grandmother andgrandson stand at the rail wait (and wait or, waiting) for


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someone. He taked (took) the umbrella when shewent out in the morning, and the like were seldom seenin their written exercise. I believe, with the help of eachgroups teaching grammar knowledge and checkingeach others homework, the students began to be moreresponsible for their homework and were learningactively rather than passively. Students notes for group work

In each class, if there were groups performances or students own prepared teaching, I would give eachgroup several minutes to show their comments or suggestions about the work they had done. And also thegroup leaders were required to take notes about thediscussion. Then after 3 or 4 weeks, there was a meetingfor selecting the best cooperative group. I collect thedata in this part mainly from the regular evaluation-meetings for group work. The group-leader showedtheir self-evaluation and peer-evaluations as follows:

Group A (16 th March): We group almost finished

our assignment well, especially our groups

grammar teaching work (Present Tense) not onlybenefited our classmates, but also offered ourselvesa chance to be a teacher.

Group B (16 th March): We think the Oral

homework in our group is the best. We four are so fond of this way to review what weve learned inthe class and prepare for the new. But our retelling


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work was not good. We should improve accuracyand fluency.

Group C (18 th April): In our group work, we found

we spared much time than we learned by ourselves.We enjoyed with exchanging our views and what we got from group discussion was impressing.

Group D (28 th May): We four debated several times

in the process of group work on the analysis of sentence pattern. Though all of them were solved in

the class, our group cooperative relationship started with quarreling and ended up withquarreling.

Group E (31 st May): Evaluation for the other groups prepared teaching: Lu Wenjis voice isloud and clear enough and she also corrected the

students mistake in pronunciation in time. Wang Yongshou can kindly point out the students mistake, but as a teacher, he should be more

serious. Because we saw he was always smiling.Ma Lingfangs teaching is very clear and knowledgeable, she can teach us something wedidnt know, such as the phrases complain of sth.,

remind sb. of sth. and congratulate sb. on sth.

Group F (31 st May) Evaluation for the other groups prepared teaching: Group II should give students enough time to read the exercise bythemselves. They also should correct the mistakesand explain the reasons clearly. Group IV made a

good use of blackboard, but their writing is not very clear. We group like Yang Xiaoxias teaching


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best, because she asked us to practice with the keywords in the passage.

Dr Moira Laidlaws comments on my teachingI invited Moira Laidlaw to visit my classroom to seehow my actions help the students to become more activein learning? Her note included these comments: As I walked around the class, I was impressed by thelevel of activity of the students. Each one of them was

deliberating about the task and talking it very seriouslyindeed. They were arguing and discussing actively,many of then in English too, which is very impressive. Your students are eager to share your knowledge and their knowledge with you. I can see this through their

facial expressions, their smiles, their diligence (Note thenoun form)* and their assiduous taking of notes. In this lesson I have seen evidence of an active class,in which mistakes are tolerated, evaluation isincreasing owned by the students, chances to try are

prolific-reading, speaking, writing, listening, critical

thinking, emotions recognized and respected, and theatmosphere is one in which students can rather thancant do something. During the process data collecting, I also got otherinformation . I often had a chat with my students whenwe take a ten-minutes break.


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Wang Youshou : I feel I have to do a lot homework,which takes most of my spare time.Lu Wenji: I am fond of doing some acting. But thelanguage in the acting isnt challenging. We mainlyexpress our ideas by body language. Can I improve my

speaking by this way?Cheng Yabing: You encourage us to ask questions of the text, and dont do further explanation if we havent questions. But I dont feel safe. I prefer to explaining

the passage sentence by sentence.Dr. Moira Laidlaw : They are so delighted with what they are seeing. Lets use this delight in helping themlearn more. Use this youthful energy for their developmentIn terms of making the students moreactive, I think you can extend the use of the following:

self-evaluation (in more detail, with you giving guiding questions to help them); getting the students to ask youquestions, rather than the teacher-centered method of

you asking all the questions; what about some reporting work back? For this you will need to give them a

structure: what to look for in a performance- for example, intonation and pronunciation; clarity of

expression; acting skills; vocabulary- especially newand appropriate vocabulary; structure of ply; accuracyof the story according to the passage (if this is relevant

for exercise); and finally, perhaps, what have the student learnt from their classmates performance? This structure will help the students extend their experienceand become more active in evaluation, writing, listening and watching skills. It will also increase their ability to


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collaborate, which is important in the NewCurriculum. So far, my action plan is still ongoing as I start thisreport and some aspects of it still need to wait in order to gauge the influence on the students learning. Thus Ihavent yet developed a comprehensive sense of myown living educational theory yet (Whitehead, 1989).As this research has helped my students become active

in learning, however, it also has raised some newquestions for me, such as: how can I help my students become much more active in learning? How can I helpthem develop their self-study ability? How can I helpthem with skill of asking questions? How can I helpthem to improve the conversational skills. These will

become the beginning of my new action enquiries fromwhich I will develop my own living educational theory. Bibliography

New Curriculum, (2003), National Education Bureau of P.R.CMcNiff, J., ( 1996 ), "Action Research for Professional

Development", LondonMcNiff, J., with Whitehead, J., (2002), "ActionResearch: Principles and Practice", Routledge, Londonand New York.Laidlaw, M., (2002), "A Handbook of CommunicativeMethodology", Guyuan.Hu Zhuangling, Lingustics, Peking University Press,(2001)


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Appendix I ( Unit8, Secret Messages to Ourselves,Integrated Skills of English, Book II)He dreamt that he had been captured by a tribe savageswhose king threatened to kill and eat him unless hecould build a perfect sewing-machine. When he tried todo so, Howe ran into the same problem as before. Thethread kept getting caught around the needle. The kingflew into a rage and ordered his soldiers to kill Howe.

They advanced towards him with their spears raised.But suddenly the inventor noticed something. There wasa hole in the tip of each spear. The inventor awoke fromthe nightmare with a start, realizing that he had justfound the solution to the problem. Instead of trying toget the thread to run around the needle, he should makeit run though a small hole in the center of the needle.This was the simple idea that finally enabled Howe todesign and build the first really practical sewing-machine. Students Play Sample:Narrator: (Xie Juan) An American inventor called

Elias Howe is working all night on the design of a sewing-machine, but he runs into a very difficult problem.Inventor: (Zhou Peng) What should I do? What should

I do? How can I get the thread to run smoothly around the needle?Narrator:(Xie Juan) For a moment, he doesnt knowhow to solve this problem. Then he falls asleep.


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King: (Ma Jia) Come here! Come here! I order you to go to catch that modern man.Follower: (Chao Boxiao) Yes, your majesty.Narrator:(Xie Juan) For a moment, a follower comesaround Howe.Follower : (Zhao Boxiao) You! Follow me!Inventor: (Zhou Peng) Whats wrong with me? Why I

should I follow you?Narrotor:(Xie Juan) The follow catches the inventor to

the king.Follower: (Chao Boxiao) Your majesty, please look at this guy you want!King: (Ma Jia) Very good! I command you to design a

sewing-machine for our use in three days.Inventor:(Zhou Peng) Three days?King:(Ma Jia ) If you dont finish it in three days, Ill kill you. Kill you! Go away!Inventor:(Zhou Peng) Yes, Sir, Ill try!Narrator:(Xie Juan) Three days later, the inventor cant design a sewing-machine, because he meets the

same problem as before.Follower:(Chao Boxiao) Have you finished?

Inventor:(Zhou Peng) I cant. I dont know how to get the thread to run smoothly through the needle.Follower:(Chao Boxiao) What? I ll kill you!Inventor:(Zhou Peng) Oh, Oh, I know! I know! I knowhow, how , how to get it through


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[1] At colleges and schools in China, teachers are designated to be head-teachers of particular classes to takecare of their pastoral as well as academic needs.[2] This refers to the Xiji, Haiyuan and Guyuan areas, all of which are very poor.[3] I have asked permission to show her picture and also to write something about her background.[4] New Curriculum, (2003): to build up pleasant and democratic ways for teachers and studentscommunication; to be with the students to reflect on the learning process and learning results often; to encourage

each other and to help each other in order that teaching benefits teachers as well as students. [5] New Curriculum, (2003): to design promising learning activities to develop the students practical abilityand creative thinking.
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How Can I Can I Help My Students Become More Active in Class