27. Didactics - Learning and Teaching
Paper
Teachers’ Responses to Students’ Initiatives in Between-Desk Encounters in EFL Project Work
Marwa Amri
Mälardalen University, Sweden
Presenting Author: Amri, Marwa
With the advancement of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), many European countries quickly jumped onto the bandwagon of communicative language teaching approaches (Carlgren et al., 2006), thereby embracing a massive movement for reform of second language teaching from traditional, teacher-centered, and decontextualized teaching to the so-called student-centered approaches, notably task- and project-based language teaching. These approaches are motivated by the belief that, for second language acquisition to be possible, the target language should be used in ways reminiscent of the kinds of communication taking place in natural environments. The attempt to eschew traditional teaching approaches and methods was further enhanced by the rapid societal changes and the need to create an education that takes as its starting point students' needs and interests and is capable of equipping them with the knowledge and skills necessary for late-modern society (Säljö et al., 2011). To this end, learning a second language while doing projects has become a prominent staple in language education in recent years. Using project work, teachers aim to engage their students over an extended period of time in an active and interactive pursuit of knowledge while focusing on real-life issues, which enables them to use the language communicatively in authentic contexts to eventually accomplish a final product that may be in the form of presentation, debates, posters, written essays, etc.
Not only has project work transformed the topics and tasks into more authentic ones, but it has also modified the teacher's role in coordinating the project process. While the focus on teaching the language remains prime, much of the teacher talk in project work is devoted to helping students with the logistics of their work (Legutke & Thomas, 1991). Furthermore, since project work involves different constellations of students searching for knowledge and building up their project ideas, a great deal of classroom talk, including teacher instructions, happens at their desks. Therefore, constant visits to the students’ desks to supervise the students’ work, answer their questions and monitor their progress become a prerequisite for the accomplishment of the project tasks. This format of teaching constitutes a departure from traditional teaching and requires more demanding input from the teacher. Despite this rather substantial change in the teacher's role, there are barely any available studies that zero in on how teachers manage the project process that is mediated via a great deal of small group work and between-desk instructions (Amri & Sert, 2022). Surely, most teachers working with projects rely primarily on their common sense and experience repertoire to coordinate the process. Still, crucially, as researchers, we should contribute to an informed understanding of teaching strategies and practices that are consequential for accomplishing language projects. Based on this overarching aim, I intend to offer an understanding of – what is, in many ways, lacking from studies on second-language classrooms – teachers' responding strategies to students' initiatives. Therefore, I ask the following research question:
How do teachers respond to students' initiatives in the context of project-based instruction?
Given the lack of studies on teachers' strategies in answering students' questions in the context of project-based instruction, I attempt to use a qualitative approach that is based on the methodological tools of multimodal conversation analysis (henceforth MCA, Kääntä & Kasper, 2018; Mondada, 2018). MCA provides a fine-tuned interactional analysis of participants' turns-at-talk in order to shed light on the social co-construction of these interactions that is part and parcel of the entire social encounter. Such research is essential as more innovative teaching approaches that can cope with the rapidly changing societal and educational needs should be empirically investigated to help us pinpoint pedagogical practices that are consequential for language learning.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe data used for this study, a total of 32 hours, were collected in two upper-secondary-level English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes in Sweden that were audio- and videotaped using three high-definition cameras and multiple audio recorders. The two classes were taught by two experienced English language teachers and were both made up of 25 students whose ages ranged from 17 to 18 years. Using two different datasets emanating from two classes involving two different teachers, students, and projects is strategic to avoid creating categories of interactional trajectories of some strategies that are largely idiosyncratic to a single teacher. In other words, the categorization of the teachers' response strategies should depict the emergent responding strategies that are most frequently used by language teachers while working within this approach. In the first classroom (collected Oct/Nov 2019), the students were engaged in project work about 'Sports'. The main objective of this project is to gather information from various audiovisual sources on three perspectives of sports (Sports as a Role Model for Society, Gender Pay Gap, and Kids Dropping out of Sports), which will be presented in the form of formal discussions at the end of the project. The second project (collected Sep/Oct 2022) concerns 'Democracy' and targets several topics related to citizens' rights and responsibilities, political propaganda, political elections, and dictatorships. Consents from the teachers and students had been gathered prior to data collection and GDPR rules, as well as ethical research guidelines of the Swedish Research Council (2017), had strictly been followed. Participation was voluntary and the participants were informed that they could withdraw from the study at any time.
Stressing the central role of talk in organizing teaching and learning in the classroom, I use the theoretical and methodological framework of MCA to investigate how "daily activities in classrooms are produced as such in the first place, rather than having these 'in place' and then theorizing them" (Hester & Francis, 2000, p. 1). MCA enables us to understand teachers' strategies in answering students' initiatives in between-desk encounters, based on turn-by-turn analysis of their talk-in-interaction, taking the participants' own perspective in organizing these interactional encounters while paying close attention to micro-level interactional details, including suprasegmentals and embodied conduct. Furthermore, the use of this qualitative approach is driven by the theoretical belief that, in order to understand how people organize their social experiences, researchers should investigate the kinds of practical activities that people achieve while engaging in social interaction.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsAs mentioned above, project work is characterized by a great deal of group work where students, either in dyads or in larger groups, engage in researching a topic for the purpose of accomplishing a final product of some sort. Therefore, much of classroom talk happens between desks, thereby breaking from the “traditional” teacher-fronted approach. While students are collaboratively working on several tasks, the teacher is constantly visiting their desks to perform multiple actions, one of which is to answer their initiatives. A preliminary analysis of the students’ initiatives in the present dataset yielded the following categories:
- requests for clarifications or explanations of instructions matters (e.g., task procedures or instructional issues)
- questions on problem words or phrases located in source readings or in the teacher's guiding materials
- requests for new information
Since these initiatives are different in terms of content and the types of information needed by students, the teachers’ responding strategies vary accordingly. For instance, both teachers predominantly used direct responses when the students asked about grammatical/lexical items. In some instances, they used a counter-question strategy (i.e., responding with a question to a question, see Markee, 2004) when they wanted to locate the items in the source readings or in the guiding materials. On the other hand, when the students requested their teachers’ opinions on their work or their perspectives on their ongoing discussions of some issues of direct relevance to them, both teachers mostly responded with a counter-question turn constructed to direct the students to a specific answer or to allow them to notice their own thinking. While these are still preliminary results, the growing collection of the teachers’ responses is promising and shows clear patterns in relation to the students’ initiatives but also in accordance with the overall goals of the application of the project approach.
ReferencesAmri, M. & Sert, O. (2022). Establishing Understanding During Student-Initiated Between-Desk Instructions in Project Work. Cambridge Journal of Education. 52(6), 667-689 https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2022.2047890
Carlgren, I., Klette, K., Mýrdal, S., Schnack, K., & Simola, H. (2006). Changes in Nordic teaching practices: From individualized teaching to the teaching of individuals. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 50(3), 301- 326.
Hester, S., & Francis, D. (2000). Ethnomethodology and local educational order. In S. Hester & D. Francis (Eds.), Local educational order: ethnomethodological studies of knowledge in action (pp. 1-17). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kääntä, L. & Kasper, G. (2018). Clarification requests as a method of pursuing understanding in CLIL physics lectures. Classroom Discourse, 9(3), 205–226. https://doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2018.1477608
Legutke, M., & Thomas, H. (1991). Process and experience in the language classroom. Longman.
Markee. (2004). Zones of Interactional Transition in ESL Classes. The Modern Language Journal (Boulder, Colo.), 88(4), 583–596. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0026-7902.2004.t01-20-.x
Mondada, L. (2018). Practices for Showing, Looking, and Videorecord-ing: The Interactional Establishment of a Common Focus of Attention. In E. Reber & C. Gerhardt (Eds.), Embodied Activities in Face-to-face and Mediated Settings (pp. 63–104). Springer International Publishing.
Säljö, R., Jakobsson, A., Lilja, P., Mäkitalo, Å., & Åberg, M. (2011). Att förädla information till kunskap: lärande och klassrumsarbete i mediesamhället [Refining Information into Knowledge: Learning and Classroom Work in the Media Society]. Stockholm: Nordstedts.
27. Didactics - Learning and Teaching
Paper
Conscious Return to the Learning While Teaching Primary School Students the Native Language
Rasa Kulevičienė1, Liudmila Rupsienė2
1Klaipėdos valstybinė kolegija / Higher Education Institution, Lithuania; 2Klaipeda University, Lithuania
Presenting Author: Kulevičienė, Rasa;
Rupsienė, Liudmila
The presentation focuses on conscious return to the learning for primary school students during lessons of the native language. Conscious return to the learning is the essence of the ability to reflect on the learning. This is the process when a teacher encourages school students to consider what happened during the lesson, what they succeeded to learn, what was interesting or, on the contrary, what was boring, what were the feelings and emotions, what was successfully completed, what required more efforts, what was the value of the learnt matters, where will the acquired knowledge be applied and the like. Recent scientific research (Ebert, 2015; Zuckerman, 2018, Kazlauskienė, Gaučaitė, 2018; Papleontiou-Louca, 2019; Vrikki, Wheatley et al., 2019; Branigan, Donaldson, 2020; Jakavonytė-Staškuvienė, 2021 etc.) underlines conscious return of primary school students to the learning and reflective speaking and writing about it during lessons of the native language, which improves the understanding of the situation of learning (strengths and weaknesses), the ability to discover problems in the learning and to solve them, to consider autonomy, motivation, self-directedness, cognitive capacity etc. International European documents on education (recommendations of the European Council on general skills for lifelong learning, “Dėl bendrųjų mokymosi visą gyvenimą gebėjimų”, 2018 etc.) point out reflection on one’s behaviour, emotions while learning as one of general skills for lifelong learning because it provides opportunities for school students to effectively manage their time, information, to constructively learn individually and in group. On the ground of classical, fundamental scholarly theories (Dewey, 1933; Piaget, 1977; Flavell, 1979 etc.) as well as recent research (Klimovič, Liptakova, 2017; Perez, Herreo-Nivela, Losada, 2019; Jakavonytė-Staškuvienė, 2021), the best time for that is exactly the stage of primary forms.
Back in the twentieth century, L. S. Vygotsky (1978) and J. H. Flavell (1995) were discussing about significance of the language in processes of conscious return of children (at age from 5 to 10 years) to the learning. The language is underlined in this process because a poorly developed skill of reflection and still weak linguistic abilities are obstacles for children to express their thoughts of how they consider the learning. Still, thoughts that occur when reflecting should not remain in the children’s heads but rather be shared with a teacher and peers. Therefore, primary school students being enabled to reflect on the learning at the very beginning should expand their vocabulary by the concepts such as to know, to think, to believe, to guess, to remember (Larkin, 2009). While learning to read and write as well as how to reflect on it, children should start expressing their thoughts in a language that is characteristic to this process, but also to perceive the very reflexive thought, which is still complicated in such early age (Flavell, Green, Flavell, 1995).
The review of research works allows stating that enablement of primary school students to reflect on learning is needed and useful, guidelines for carrying this out are indicated. However, there is lack of systematic research based on empirical data that would clearly reveal what teachers specifically do while enabling students to reflect on learning, what instruments are used to support this process. There is lack of such systematic research in Lithuania, too. Thus, the research question is raised: how does primary school students’ conscious return to the learning during lessons of native language proceed?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedMethodology
The research employed the constructivist grounded theory by K. Charmaz (2006). A researcher is not treated as an independent and objective observer; on the contrary, one is viewed as a participant of the research process being constructed (ibid). The researcher is not tabula rasa, and while interpreting the data one grounds on obtained knowledge and experience, relationships with research participants and other sources of information (ibid).
The paper presents partial results of the research that was conducted in 2020–2022. The focus of the presentation is put on narratives of primary form teachers (n=15) talking about how they consciously turn primary school students back to the learning during lessons of the native language. According to the methodology of the constructivist GT, the sampling of the surveyed “reacts” to initial data, cannot be finally defined or set before starting the research (Charmaz, 2006). By applying a snowball method, first, interviews were conducted with 7 teaches, and later, by applying the method of theoretical sampling, interviews with additional 8 primary form teaches were conducted.
The research data was analysed by applying the methods proposed by K. Charmaz. First, the initial data coding was performed. The analysis was carried out following the logic: when reading an interview, initial codes were written sentence by sentence. In such a way, comparing the initial codes, we came up to an understanding of what data needs to be “observed”. During the focused coding, singling out of the most significant and/ or the most frequently repeated initial codes took place when classifying them into sub-categories and later into categories (Charmaz, 2006). Finally, during theoretical coding, the focused codes were repeatedly re-considered seeking to achieve a higher conceptual level. Theoretical codes are the most abstract. This is a stage when features (i.e. characteristics) of the theoretical categories are being saturated, while the researcher is provided with an opportunity to specify final categories of the theory and relate them with each other (ibid). Thus, this was the stage when it became clear that planned and reactive processes happen during primary school students’ conscious return to the learning during lessons of the native language. It should be noted that during an entire process of collection and analysis of the data, textual and graphic memos were being made and used as tools providing additional analytical opportunities (ibid).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsWhen analysing the data, it was revealed that conscious return to the learning can proceed in a planned manner (according to a teacher’s plan) or reactively (when reacting here and now to what is happening during the lesson), when specific instruments are used, students are given time in terms of various aspects (cognitive activity, sensual and emotional, making decisions on a problem of learning etc.) when considering the learning through reflective talking about and/ or writing. When dealing with the planning of conscious return of primary school students to the learning during lessons of the Lithuanian language, it was found that this is done by teachers in different ways. They can plan this for almost every lesson of the native language because they suppose that by being episodically planned and implemented this process will not be as beneficial as expected. However, there are teachers who consciously return school students to the leaning during these lessons when a new topic starts, after a cycle of 2–3 lessons on the same topic, at the end of a unit on that topic because usually various individual assignments, group work are arranged at around that time, new topics start and the like. Conscious return to the learning can proceed reactively, when a teacher reacts to the learning taking place during a lesson of the native language, when students’ behaviour, emotions, mistakes become obstacles for students to seek the set goals of that lesson. Further, it is worth conducting the research on the factors influencing teachers’ decisions to consciously return school students to the learning, stimulating their motivation to proceed with it or not.
ReferencesBranigan, H. E., Donaldson, D. I. (2020). Teachers matter for metacogni-
tion: Facilitating metacognition in the primary school through teacher-pupil
interactions. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 38(2). Accessed at www.
sciencedirect.com.
Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing Grounded Theory. A Practical Guide
Through Qualitative Analysis. London: Sage Publications.
Dewey, J. (1933). How We Think A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective
Thinking to the Educative Process. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co Publishers.
Ebert, S. (2015). Longitudinal Relations Between Theory of Mind and Metacognition and the Impact of Language. Journal of cognition and development, 16(4), 559–586.
Europos Parlamento ir Tarybos rekomendacija dėl bendrųjų mokymosi visą
gyvenimą gebėjimų. (2018). Accessed at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/LT/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018H0604(01)&from=GA. Accessed on 02.04.2022.
Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and Cognitive Monitoring: A New Area
of Cognitive Developmental Inquiry. American Psychologist Association,
34(10), 906–911.
Flavell, J. H., Green, F. L., Flavell, E. R. (1995). Young children‘s knowledge
about thinking. Accessed at https://doi.org/10.2307/1166124. Accessed on 19.06.2021.
Klimovič, M., Kresila, J., Liptáková, L. (2017). Factual text comprehension tasks as a tool for stimulating executive functions in 9-to 10-year-old children. Studies in Language and Literature, 17, 1–22.
Louca-Papaleontiou, E. (2019). Do children know what they know? Metacognitive awareness in preschool children. New Ideas in Psychology, 54, 56–62.
Perez, E. E., Herrero-Nivela, M. L., Losada, J. L. (2019). Association Between Preschoolers’ Specific Fine (But Not Gross) Motor Skills and Later Academic Competencies: Educational Implications. Accessed at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01044/full.
Piaget, J. (1977). Recherches sur l‘abstraction réfléchissante. Paris: PUF.
Sabnani, R.L., Renandya, W.A. (2019). A comprehensive approach to developing L2 speaking competence. ELTAR-J, 1(1), 16-25.
Vrikki, M., Wheatley, L., Howe, C., Hennessy, S., Mercer, N. (2019). Dialogic practices in primary school classrooms. Language and education, 33(1), 85–10.
Zuckerman, G. A. (2018). I Know What I Do Not Know: Toward the Reflective Elementary Classroom. Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology, 17(3), 260–277.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
27. Didactics - Learning and Teaching
Paper
Reading challenge in Professional Bachelor's degree programs
Unni Lind, Jakob Matthiesen, Rikke Stauning Klestrup, Ramanen Balasubramaniam, Anne-Marie Navntoft, Sanne Lehmann
University College Copenhagen, Denmark
Presenting Author: Lind, Unni;
Matthiesen, Jakob
University Colleges in Denmark provide education to a wide range of professions from basic education to continuing education. The Professional Bachelor's degree program is a 31/2-4 years medium-length higher education. This study takes place at the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences and includes four professional bachelor's degree programs: Pedagogy; Social worker, Administration and Disaster & Risk.
Students at University Colleges in Denmark has different educational experiences. Almost half of the students is from families where the parents do not have a higher education, and one in five students have primary and secondary school or vocational school as their highest completed education (Danske Professionshøjskoler 2022). In addition, over the past twenty years, there has been a significant increase in the admission of students in higher education. In professional bachelor's degree programs, there has been an increased admission of 45%. This has lead to a change in student composition. In 2009, students with the 25% lowest grades from primary and secondary school was 10% but in 2019 it was 20%. Students with the 25% lowest grades from high school have risen to 31%, and students from low-income homes and educationally alien homes have risen to 27% in 2019 (Falkencrone et al. 2022:17). In addition to this young people and adults' desire to read is declining (Hansen et al. 2021) and "Respondents, where one or possibly both parents have a long higher education, have better reading skills than respondents where both parents have an education at primary and secondary school level" (Rosendahl et al. 2013:31). This has given rise to a study of newly started bachelor students reading skills at the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences at Copenhagen University College. The study includes reading screenings and qualitative interviews.
Screening of the students’ reading skills at the start of their study shows that 75% of the students are untrained and weak readers. Only 25% can be described as safe and experienced readers. Whereas 60% of the students can benefit from training: reading speed, reading comprehension, and written language elements. Some students in this group read so insecurely that it affects reading comprehension and speed. This means that they probably will experience problems and challenges with large reading volumes. Finally, 15% read, but with big challenges. This group has a limited vocabulary and a lack of basic knowledge of e.g. grammar, spelling rules.
The qualitative interviews identify the students' reading strategies and first experiences with the study. The untrained and weak reader seems to be particularly challenged at the beginning of the study. Furthermore the students are preoccupied with efficiency in their study. The students' reading strategy, use of reading questions and perception of what they read, is about minimizing time and quickly get the points in the texts. They explains it by referring to the amount of reading material and a time pressure in the study and to obligations in their everyday lives. The students emphasis reading approaches, teaching and texts that quickly present the professional points, and that are be easy to read. Text reading emerges primarily as a means of quickly acquiring, what they think, is relevant skills. Finally help to the study is sought from family, girlfriend or friends, while no one mentions the possibility of seeking help from fellow students or teachers. They emphasize that a good teacher is structured and clear in his messages, but at the same time they point out that the teachers fail to include their prerequisites in the organization and implementation of the teaching.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe purpose of the Study is to provide input to the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, regarding development of education and training that can support the students' study skills and differentiated teaching. In the Study, the following two survey questions were formulated: What are the reading skills of the students when they start studying? And what are the students first experience of the educational reading requirements and what are their reading coping strategies? Methodologically, the study is organized as a Mixed Methods study (Creswell 2012). That included screenings and interviews. All students in the first semester were offered to participate. Participation was voluntary and all participants was thoroughly informed about the study and were asked for a written consent. This allowed us to combine data from their admission to the study, with data from the screenings. Interviews were conducted on basis of dialog with interested students, who were in the screened classes. All data is treated confidentially and anonymized.
The Quantitative Research part consisted of reading screening of 1979 students out of a population of 4400. These data were subsequently statically analyzed with admission data, such as admission basis, age and years since graduation. In the period 2021-2022, students in three admissions have been offered reading screening. The Reading Test for Adults 2 were used. This is an official reading test developed and approved by the Ministry of Children and Education (Undervisningsministeriet 2018). It is based on the following reading model: Reading comprehension = decoding x Language comprehension. The test consists of three subtests: Text reading (reading comprehension), Vocabulary and Word reading (decoding). The intention of the test is to give insight to the adult's general reading level (text reading). It operates with five steps, in the study these are divided into three color categories: Red: Reading, but with very big challenges (reading course levels 1-2); Yellow: uncertain reader (reading course levels 3-4); Green: confident in reading and writing. The Qualitative Research part consisted of 22 qualitative one hour individual interviews (Brinkmann 2013). The 22 students were from the four professional programs. The interviews were based on an interview guide, which included themes on previous study and reading experiences of the students, the students experience with text reading in preparation for lectures, their considerations regarding teaching, their reading strategies, reading motivation and how they are supported in their reading efforts by working in study groups and through personal networks.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe quantitative part of the study shows that the professional bachelor's degree programs: Pedagogy; Social worker, Administration and Disaster and Risk, are admitting a large group of students who can be described as untrained and weak readers. 75% are characterized by being uncertain and challenged readers. They have problems with reading comprehension, speed, limited vocabulary, etc. The interviews show that the students reading strategies and study experiences is not matched by their reading challenges when entering the program. Reading is regarded as a means of obtaining useful knowledge quickly. Efficiency is central in the students understanding of reading, and it can be understood as an instrumental response to both internal and external demands (Rosa 2014). The students are concerned with minimizing the use of time, quickly finding the academic points in the text, and that texts are clear and easily communicated. Reading is not seen as having other qualities than a means of quickly acquiring relevant skills. This interacts with other approaches, such as frequent testing, unclear test and requirement formulations, a large fragmentation of themes (Matthiesen, 2021).
University Colleges in Denmark admit a larger group of students with weak study prerequisites than earlier. This means that The Professional Bachelor's degree programs have a greater task in helping these students into in education, and supporting students with weak study prerequisites. However, the interviews point out that the programs is challenged. Involving the students' prerequisites in the teaching and organization of the teaching is a complex didactic challenge. It requires development and initiatives aimed at both the students and the teachers. The presentation sets the stage for a discussion on how to meet and teach this student group. How do we deal whit a differentiated student group, which is characterized by being untrained and weak readers as a general problem.
ReferencesBrinkmann, S. (2013): Qualitative interviewing, Understanding Qualitative research, Oxford university Press
Creswell , J. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4thed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Falkencrone, S.; Jørgensen, M. F.; Eilinberg, I. Ø.; Kristensen, K., B. B.; Jensen, N., K. (2022): Et uddannelseslandskab i forandring, Tænketanken Dea
Hansen, S. R., Hansen T. I. og Pettersson M. (2021): Børn og unges læsning, Akademisk forlag
Matthiesen, J. (2021): Undersøgelse af læsemængder for nystartede pædagogstuderende på to studiehold i efteråret 2021 over en periode på 5 uger.
Rosa, H. (2014). Fremmedgørelse og acceleration. København: Gyldendal.
Rosendahl, A., Friberg, T., Jakobsen, V. og Jørgensen M. (2013): Færdigheder i læsning, regning og problemløsning med IT i Danmark, SFI, 13:28; 31
Undervisningsministeriet (2018): Vejledning til vejledende Læsetest for Voksne 2 (VLV-2), file:///C:/Users/Unni/Downloads/190408-Vejledning-til-laesetest-ua%20(1).pdf
27. Didactics - Learning and Teaching
Paper
L1 and Translation Use in EFL Classrooms: A Quantitative Survey on Teachers’ Attitudes in Kazakhstani Secondary Schools
Aidana Smagul
Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Hungary
Presenting Author: Smagul, Aidana
The role of learners’ first language (L1) and translation have always been a hotly debated issue in the history of English Language Teaching (ELT). However, this ongoing debate mostly takes place in academic circles rather than in classrooms (Topolska-Pado, 2010). As contemporary language teaching is dominated by the communicative method, English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers still consider that English is best taught and learned without the use of learners’ L1, i.e., teachers are undoubtedly influenced by this monolingual view. As a result, many teachers are believed to disclaim the use of L1 and translation in their classes, in fear of receiving criticism or feeling guilty (Butzkamm & Caldwell, 2009; Macaro, 1997; Littlewood & Yu, 2011). In addition, there is an increasing recognition that theoretical statements of teachers do not necessarily reflect the actual teaching practices in the classroom (Artar, 2017). This conflict between theoretical statements and teaching practice shows the need to investigate the actual attitudes towards L1 and translation use in EFL classrooms.
A number of recent studies within ELT have investigated the use of L1 and translation in the classroom (Yavuz, 2012) and teachers’ attitudes towards it in different contexts, EU-wide and globally (Artar, 2017; Hall & G. Cook, 2013; Pym et al., 2013). The findings reveal widespread use of L1 and translation in EFL classrooms and a positive rather than negative attitude towards it. In the Kazakhstan context, there is an insufficient number of publications devoted to the use of learners’ L1 and translation in the EFL classroom (Sulkarnayeva, 2017). As preliminary literature review has so far shown, there are a few qualitative studies exploring teachers’ attitudes towards the modern practice of translanguaging which allows the use of several languages in a classroom (e.g., Akhmetova, 2021; Kuandykov, 2021; Tastanbek, 2019). The results of these qualitative studies, with a maximum of ten participants, have shown that EFL teachers mainly hold English-only beliefs in the context of Kazakhstan, meaning that they prefer using the target language more than their learners’ first language (Kuandykov, 2021). However, this is only true for higher education teachers. There is a substantial gap in understanding the overall attitudes of teachers in Kazakhstani secondary schools as well as factors influencing their attitudes.
In view of the above, this study aims to investigate Kazakhstani secondary school EFL teachers’ overall attitudes towards L1 and translation use in the EFL classroom, and examine the factors which influence their self-reported attitudes. The research questions are as follows:
RQ1. What attitudes do Kazakhstani secondary school EFL teachers hold towards some of the key arguments about the use of L1 and translation in language teaching?
RQ2. In which cases and for what purposes do Kazakhstani secondary school EFL teachers consider it appropriate to use L1 and translation in EFL classroom?
RQ3. What are the factors which influence Kazakhstani secondary school EFL teachers’ choice between using or avoiding L1 and translation in the classroom?
RQ4. How are Kazakhstani secondary school EFL teachers’ self-reported attitudes towards L1 and translation use affected by background variables such as experience, school type, qualification, the language proficiency of both teachers and their learners?
The quantitative survey research was chosen after having reviewed the research methods used in previous studies on similar topics. Since most research about attitudes towards L1 and translation use are qualitative in nature and limited to ten participants only, the large-scale quantitative study is seen to be particularly relevant in the context of Kazakhstan. The questionnaire was selected as the main data collection instrument due to its ability to collect information rapidly in a form that is readily processable (Dörnyei, 2007).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedData was collected by teachers’ attitudes survey (TAS) which is partly adapted from Hall and Cook’s (2013) global survey on teachers’ views about the use of learners’ L1 in ELT. The TAS consists of 40 items and is divided into two sections: the first section contains 32 items and asks teachers to evaluate their agreement/disagreement with arguments on the 5-point Likert scale. The items of the first section made up four scales such as “advocacy of L1 and translation” (S1), “opposition to L1 and translation” (S2), “possible ways of L1 and translation use in EFL classroom” (S3), “influences on teaching approach” (S4). The first section ends by an optional open question which asks respondents to write a further comment regarding L1 and translation use in ELT if they think it is relevant. The rest of the items are factual questions. They are regarded as background variables, e.g., experience, school type, qualification, the language proficiency of both teachers and their learners.
The only criterion for participation was that respondents are practising EFL teachers in any Kazakhstani secondary school. The sampling method chosen for the study is a non-probability sampling type in L2 research, opportunity sampling (Dörnyei, 2010). To ensure a wide coverage of different participants, different types of secondary schools (state, private, trilingual, international, etc.) from different parts of Kazakhstan were contacted and asked to circulate the online survey among English language teachers at the institution. A total of 100 English language teachers participated in the study. The teachers’ voluntary participation was the result of informed consent.
The version 20 of the SPSS was used to analyse the survey data. First, the reliability analysis was conducted to determine the internal consistency of the main four scales of the questionnaire, and showed an acceptable Cronbach Alpha coefficient for each scale, i.e., α >.70. Next, the descriptive statistics served to describe the participants. Paired-samples t-test was performed to calculate and compare the means of two survey scales: S1 and S2. It aimed at answering the RQ1. One sample t-test was conducted on S3 and S4 scales to evaluate teachers’ attitudes to different arguments regarding L1 and translation use in ELT (RQ2 and RQ3 respectively). ANOVA was used to see the effects of background variables on the survey scales (RQ4). Thematic analysis was used to analyse the open question answers. Open question responses helped to understand some controversial results and support study findings.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe results are presented in line with the RQs.
RQ1: Both supportive and opposition arguments scored almost equal in the sample. However, teachers’ attitudes reveal some degree of inconsistency, e.g., teachers consider translation as a useful skill to be practiced by language learners, but they also believe that English should be the only language used in the classroom. As a result, it is difficult to interpret whether teachers generally support or oppose the presence of L1 and translation in EFL classrooms. This contradictory attitude suggests that the longstanding debate surrounding the topic might also have produced some conflicting ideas among teachers on whether to allow or forbid L1 and translation use in their teaching practices.
RQ2 and RQ3: According to teachers, it is appropriate to use L1 and translation for teaching vocabulary and culture-bound expressions, and this practice is very useful with lower-level learners. Also, they reported that they are discouraged by the school curriculum and their colleagues to use L1 and translation in EFL class they teach. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that the stand many teachers have for English-only teaching derives in part from the work environment in which they are daily involved.
RQ4: Analysis of variance revealed that the extent of L1 and translation use in EFL classrooms depends on learners’ English language skills. Moreover, the results also suggest that teachers’ English proficiency influences teaching attitudes significantly.
The findings show a rather diverse picture in attitudes towards the use of L1 and translation in EFL classrooms, which may be relevant not only for the Kazakhstan but also for the European and international context. Furthermore, with a better understanding of teachers’ attitudes, the findings of this study can contribute to the reassessment and recognition of diverse, often unpopular, ELT methods such as L1 and translation.
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