WSIP
an exciting Educational voyage, which boosted students’ motivation towards
learning
Darvesh Karim
Aga Khan University
Institute for Educational Development
Professional Development Centre North, Gilgit
ABSTRACT
This paper reports the
case study of an action research, which was an exciting voyage of successful initiatives
taken to boost-up the motivation of students for learning. Apart from students’
aptitude, motivation is an essential key to students’ success. To improve
students’ motivation is far from solving the whole problem; however, it is
believed that various teaching methods and techniques work together to hold
students’ motivation, which, in my view, a singular method can never achieve.
For instance, a poor student may be motivated by several encouraging words,
whereas a good student may need more challenging questions. Secondly, teachers
are not always responsible for students’ motivation as that partly arises out
of the students. Through group/pair work, questioning from/to students, micro teaching,
encouragement in personal communication between teacher and students and
rearrangement of the classroom were the proven initiatives which resulted a
commendable motivation of students for learning.
Keywords: Action Research,
micro-teaching, students’ motivation, encouragement
INTRODUCTION
Being from a rural area
and having been exposed to the teacher-centered teaching methods during my schooling
period and afterwards in my own initial teaching career with the traditional
concept: “a teacher’s role is to deliver a moral, pass on knowledge and skills,
and help students solve puzzles,” (Confucius). In other words, my teaching methods in the
classroom were naturally traditional as I had adopted a teacher-centered
academic style from my past. This academic teaching style is characterized by
teaching techniques of grammatical explanation and translation, and so is
sometimes known as the 'grammar-translation method.' (Cook, 2000). In short
following is what I have done in past:
1.
Led the students through the text of
grammatical sentences step by step
2.
Provided some background information
concerning certain texts
3.
Paraphrase some difficult words on
grammatical points exist. Then paraphrase them, or translate them into first
language (Burushaski).
Through this style, I
believe I succeeded in delivering the necessary language knowledge as well as
giving cultural information to my students for almost ten years of my teaching
career. Furthermore, as a teacher, before the class, I sometimes use to prepare
my lessons very carefully and thoroughly. In the class, I did my best to pass
on as much knowledge as possible to my students. Once I fulfilled the
syllabus’s requirements, I was satisfied and my superiors were also satisfied.
Hence I believed that I was a good and responsible teacher.
Such a situation
remained until my selection for Masters in Education at Aga Khan University
Institute for Educational Development Karachi where I studied different
approaches of modern teaching learning processes, specifically Action Research
theory and practice for which I could say a paradigm shift in my understanding
occurred. I learned that Action research is an approach of teaching
methodology, also influenced by Socrates' dialectical method, characterised by logic
of question and answer, and concentrating as well on students' learning much
more than teachers’ methodology.
During the course of
two years master’s degree, this understanding developed in me about the
educational action research that it is a term, which refers to a practical way
of looking at your own work to check that it is as you would like it to be. … a
form of self-reflection practice. (McNiff, 2002). I understood that the basic
steps of an action research process constitute an Action Plan:
1.
we review our current practice
2.
identify an aspect that we want to
investigate
3.
imagine a way forward
4.
try it out and
5.
take stock of what happens
6.
we modify we are doing in the light
of what we have found, and continue working
7.
monitor what we do
8.
review and evaluate the modified
action (Whitehead, 1989)
All in all, Educational
action research is a self-reflective, problem-finding, problem-solving,
self-evaluative and self-improving process for teachers (McNiff, 2000, 2002).
With such a theoretical understanding gained within a period of two years, I re-joined
the practical field of teaching and learning and I began my journey as a professional
teacher-researcher with an esteemed university’s offsite campus in a remote
area of Gilgit-Baltistan.
Now, as a teacher
educator, in every session I conduct for teachers, parents or for students, I
always try to reinforce the understanding that whatever the efforts we make in the
shape of constructing huge school buildings with fully equipped modern
facilities, hiring qualified teachers and conducting training sessions for
professional development are just because to achieve the ultimate goal of
transforming the students and enhance their learning by providing knowledge and
skills and by building character and instilling virtue (Sergiovanni, 1991).
Students with various intellectual abilities, from diverse socio-economic
backgrounds are the object of this educational process. How can schools or
teachers ensure that all students, regardless of their social, economic, and
intellectual statuses, learn and become useful and productive members of the society?
Are all students motivated to pursue and achieve academic goals on their own?
How can schools enhance students’ motivation to learn? These are the big
question marks for all the schools and teachers today.
Among many other
questions, these were the ones in my mind when I was assigned a very
significant task to run Whole School Improvement Programme (WSIP) in a private
school of Gilgit from my institution Aga Khan University - Institute for Educational
Development - Professional Development Centre, North (AKU-IED-PDCN) which is an
institute totally dedicated for the capacity building of all the stakeholders
of schools with a special focus on teachers, head teachers and school
management committees, so that quality education and conducive learning
environment and opportunities could be provided to the students of
Gilgit-Baltistan.
THE PROJECT
Among other courses of
AKU-IED-PDCN, WSIP is the major program which is also called the flagship program
of PDCN. The main principle of WSIP is to treat the school as a unit of
learning rather than an individual, with the long term aim of development and
effective group dynamics and collegiality amongst teachers, students and
communities for the purposes of ongoing educational dialog and improvement. (Shafa,
Karim & Sultan, 2011). All the
stakeholders such as students, teachers, head teacher, school management
committee, parents, community and senior management of the system contribute
their complementary or interdependent roles in improving quality of education
in schools. In other words all mechanism
of the school machinery simultaneously takes part for a proper functioning of
the school system. The centre and focus of change in the program is the ‘child’.
All human, material and financial resources are utilized to achieve the
objective that is holistic development of the child.
The project school
which was assigned to me to run WSIP during the academic session 2009 – 2010
for one year school based rigorous input and two years follow-up support was a
private girls’ high school in district Gilgit. I was supposed to initiate and
ensure the following quality mechanism in the project school.
1.
Special attention to the areas:
on-going professional support to the project school teachers, selection and
development of appropriate materials/resources/handouts that accord with the
objectives of the program and with the instructional approaches;
2.
Timely feedback to teachers as well
as students on their written and practical work;
3.
Teachers’ progress to be closely
monitored, documented, and shared with them to bring further improvement;
4.
Inbuilt on-going formative and
summative assessment to be done through teachers’ reflective journals, pre-observation-session
collaborative instructional planning, meetings, post-observation-session
reflective dialogues, and informal and formal reflective dialogues with principal
and teachers;
5.
Conduct small/large scale action
researches with teachers as well as with students.
While initiating all above quality mechanisms for school
development through an extensive school development plan, my focus was on six
major areas and with the full cooperation of all the teaching staff and the
principal of the project school I intervened in an extensive action research
project.
Following
is the brief description of the focus areas and the relevant activities initiated
during the academic year.
Improvement
in quality of teaching and learning is the main focus of whole school
improvement model. Quality teaching is fundamental in the process of school
improvement especially to enhance students’ learning outcomes. It uses to be a
major pillar of WSIP and during the intervention phase, it digests a major
chunk of time to mould the teaching learning processes towards the desired
curve. To enhance the quality of teaching and learning following on-going
initiatives were taken.
|
·
Regular Lesson Planning
|
·
Quiz Competitions
|
|
·
Reflective Journals – Reflections
|
·
Reading Skills
|
|
·
Revised Timetable
|
·
Mental Math
|
|
·
Vocabulary Development
|
·
Co-operative learning
|
|
·
Presentation/Communication Skills
|
·
Creative writing.
|
2.
Curriculum
Enrichment and Staff Development
Curriculum enrichment and staff
development are the fundamental aspects of WSIP to ensure quality teaching and
learning. Efficient teachers use various means and ways to provide concrete and
ample knowledge about the different topics to the students, and they use to
integrate different resources and material to enrich curriculum and for better
understanding of their students. Following activities for the intervention in
the school development plan were initiated.
|
·
Use of resources in classrooms
|
·
Weekly workshops for teachers
|
|
·
Guest speaker
|
·
Use of Reference books
|
|
·
Provision of Library Books
|
·
Project work
|
|
·
Study tours
|
·
Lesson Observation & Feedback
|
|
·
Computers and Encarta
|
|
It is well understood and researched
that when we involve parents in education, children's learning positively
relates to higher achievements. So, the more intensively parents are involved
in their children's learning, the more beneficial are the achievements and
their effects with a long-lasting impact (Karim, 2010). Following activities
were planned to increase the parental involvement in school activities.
|
·
Parent+ teachers meetings
|
·
Sessions for mothers
|
|
·
Meetings with SMC.
|
·
Involvement of Influential people
|
|
·
Parents’ Day
|
·
Guest speakers in Monday Assembly
|
4.
Leadership
and Management
When it comes to leadership and
management, many people think of either a business or team environment, many
times overlooking the fact that school leadership is probably one of the most
important kinds of leadership. Leadership and management skills are important
in all walks of life. To enhance Leadership and Management practices in school
following initiatives were taken.
|
·
Students House System
|
·
House Coordinators
|
|
·
Classroom based Assembly
procession
|
·
House-wise Competitions
|
|
·
Additional responsibilities for
Teachers
|
·
Day Teacher
|
|
·
One day kingdom
|
|
|
·
Whole school cleanliness day
|
·
House-wise weekly cleanliness
|
|
·
Beautification
|
·
Setup Science Lab
|
|
·
Setup Computer Lab/Library
|
|
6.
Social,
Moral Development and Health Education
Social and
moral development of children is the prime goal of improving schools to develop
children as civilized and cooperative individuals of the society and WSIP’s
focus was also on this dimension of child development. We planned and initiated
the following activities.
·
Celebration of special events.
·
Student Counselling
RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
During
the baseline survey of the project school, my first step was to observe
classrooms as well as the students’ learning and teaching methodology, so that
I could be able to figure out the existing practices of teaching learning in
the project school. During classroom observations I found a lady teacher Miss. Aqlima
of grade 10
th who was teaching English which attracted my attention
as her teaching method was the same as I had been doing before my professional
degree at AKU-IED – the traditional method of teaching. Whatever I found during
my observation is really amazing which guided my action research.
During
the thirty five-minute-long class, the teacher kept talking, talking and talking
just like a lecturer, explaining difficult words, paraphrasing grammatical
points, telling students to do this or do that. She seemed to me as a babysitter
doing everything for the “babies”. I was reflecting on my own practices with a
smile as I had also been doing the same practice in my former school. Thus
students’ talking time was far less than teacher’s talking time. Secondly,
since she was a “dictator”, students became mere passive listeners. The
learning atmosphere was consequently inactive all the time: Thirdly, the
learning atmosphere itself was un-dynamic, controlled and intense, for students
never found enough freedom and space to speak, to communicate and to take part
in any activity. All these rendered students passive instead of active and
eager to learn. In other words, the teacher’s academic teaching style
restrained students’ motivation for learning.
As soon as I felt such
a problem, I asked the teacher right after the class for working together to
change in our teaching practice and on her agreement I developed it into my
first concern of Action Research, namely, how can I improve students’
motivation so they can improve their learning?
A BRIEF
EXPLANATION OF THE CONCERN
So, working jointly
with Miss Aqlima, how could I improve students’ motivation so they could
improve their learning? By students, I mean the whole class of grade 10th,
instead of individual students, for “any class teaching is a compromise to suit
the greatest number of students" (Cook, 2000). So I decided to concentrate
on how to improve the motivation of the majority of the whole class instead of
improving one or two students’ motivation. My understanding about motivation according
to the literature; "Motivation in second-language learning has chiefly
been used to refer to the long-term fairly stable attitudes in the students’
mind (Vivian, Cook, 2000, p97). Since
motivation can benefit students’ learning, I aimed to improve students’ motivation,
which, I believe, contribute a lot to students’ success in second or third language
learning.
My understanding about students’ motivation
Motivation is a
critical component of learning. Motivation is important in getting students to
engage in academic activities. It is also important in determining how much
students will learn from the activities they perform or the information to
which they will be exposed to. Students who are motivated to learn something
use higher cognitive processes in learning about it. Motivation to do something
can come about in many ways. It can be a personality characteristic or a stable
long-lasting interest in something. There are several theories of motivation
that exist. Some state that motivation is tied to the idea that behaviours that
have been rewarded in the past will be more likely to be repeated in the
future. Therefore past experiences will motivate a student to perform in future
ones.
Other theories prefer
to think of motivation as a way to satisfy certain needs. Some basic needs
people must satisfy are food, shelter, love and positive self-esteem.
Therefore, motivation to do something may be based on the achievement of these
needs.
How to enhance motivation?
The most important
types of motivation for educational psychology is achievement motivation,
peoples tendencies to strive for success and choose activities that are goal
oriented. The main difference in achievement is the difference in how someone
is motivated. Some people are motivated to learn, while others are motivated to
perform well and get a good grade. It is important that teachers should try to
convince their students that learning rather than grades are the purpose of
academic work. This can be done by emphasizing the interest value and practical
importance of the material that the students are studying and by de-emphasizing
grades and other rewards. There are also many other ways that a teacher can
imply that they have positive expectations for their students. These include:
·
Waiting for the student to respond
to a question.
·
Avoid making distinctions of
achievement among students.
·
Assessment and results should be a
private matter.
·
Treat all students equally. Call on
all students regardless of achievement levels, and spend equal amounts of time
with them.
How to become a motivation factor?
The teacher should get
to know his/her students, to start with. According to Ur (2000), a motivated
learner has the following characteristics: s/he makes an effort to handle tasks
and challenges and is confident in his/her success; s/he finds success in
learning important to promote and keep a positive self-image; s/he feels the
need to overcome difficulties and succeed in what he does; s/he is ambitious
and likes challenging, proficiency tasks and high grades; s/he is aware of the
goals of learning and of specific activities and directs her/his efforts to
succeed in them; s/he makes strong efforts to learn and is not discouraged by
obstacles or apparent lack of progress; s/he is not disturbed by temporary lack
of understanding or confusion and knows his/her understanding will come later.
Specifically talking, an
English teacher should be motivated to motivate his/her students. Maybe the
first question you should ask yourself is whether you are really motivated to
motivate. If you are, you will get motivation in return. If you are not, then,
teacher, you have two options: you can go with the flow, walking the path of
apathy which leads to nowhere, or you can seek motivation factors in your students
and yourself, so that you can be a happy and fulfilled professional, motivated
to motivate.
Why am I concerned about it?
Firstly, in terms of
the underlying values of some action research (Whitehead, 1989; McNiff, Lomax
and Whitehead, 2002), I learnt that what is most important for education in the
class should be students’ learning not teacher’s teaching (McNiff, 1993). No
matter how excellent a teacher’s teaching method may be, it is nothing if it
fails to encourage and improve students’ learning. The aim of education is to
improve students’ learning. Secondly, when I distract my attention from my own
teaching to students’ learning, students’ silence, non-participation and
passiveness really frustrated me. It led me to considering whether or not
I was a responsible and good teacher after all. I found the answer was “not
really”, I was trapped in my own living contradiction (Whitehead, 1989). This
was constituted thus: to be a teacher, teaching students well is most important.
However, what I observed and realized only proved that I had failed to fulfill
my expectation and goes against my educational value of empowering students in
their learning.
Accordingly, two
problems at least arose out of my former teaching methods and the current
teaching practice of Miss. Aqlima. One is the teaching style was actually
restraining students’ motivation and degrading their learning. The other was
students’ silence and non-cooperation, which in turn influenced by arrangement
and teaching in the class. I realized that things would go round in a vicious
circle, if no solution were provided for this phenomenon. Thirdly, I now knew
from my own experience and new learning from the recent masters’ course which I
had completed that an active, interesting learning atmosphere could improve
students’ motivation and thus their learning.
I still remember my own
classes as a school student. One of the teachers was so strict that punishment
and scolding words would swarm like wasps towards those of us who made a
mistake or failed to answer his questions. He was so strict that even we knew
the answer, but due to fear of being wrong and the consequences thereafter, we
use to remain silent. His attitude seriously affected our motivation. Most of the
classmates kept silent and refused to be active because of the fear of being
wrong and the consequent punishment from the teacher. The classes were a
nightmare for us. Even today, some scolding words from my memory can make me
shudder and when I meet this teacher the fear increases even today. If the
teacher is absent a day for the school, that use to be the most pleasant and
wonderful day for all of us.
Such experiences have
led me to believe that the teacher has a great influence on his/her students’
motivation as well as their learning. It also makes me believe that, I, as a teacher-educator,
can do something to make the teachers realize and change students’ passivity
and non-participation to active and participatory atmosphere.
Fourthly, the
questionnaire I devised at some point with my students in secondary section
showed that 99% students preferred to learn in an interesting, free, and
relaxed atmosphere. They don’t want to learn in a passive and silent
atmosphere. The questionnaire explored
that students prefer teachers who are slightly strict, fair, treat students as
individuals and who have a sense of humor.
Fifthly, from my own
teaching experience, I think an 'academic' style benefits teacher’s teaching
more than students’ learning. In such a class, the teacher talks while students
listen. As a result, the teacher becomes a fluent lecturer, while students
remain audience. Motivation consists of two main factors, it seems to me: the
prevailing attitude to the learning situation, i.e. to the teacher, and
integrativeness (Cook, 2000). I believe motivation should also include
students’ attitude to the class, namely, the learning atmosphere. Thus, my
first step to alter such a situation is to change the learning atmosphere of
the classroom.
Methodology
When realizing
students’ motivation was mainly restrained by the present academic style we
decided to alter our teaching method (Miss. Aqlima and myself), so as to
maximize student-participation and minimize teacher-domination - to offer
students much freedom to talk, to discuss and to communicate so as to change
the passive, silent atmosphere into an active and interesting one. In other
words, how can I improve students’ motivation towards learning?
Hypothesis
One -- pair/group work
To increase the
students’ motivation for learning our first imagined solution was to apply
group/pair work to the class. Instead of leading students to the text sentence
by sentence as befor by the teacher, we asked them to work in pairs or groups,
discussing with each other and then tell us their result. From the very
beginning, I found that this attempt was working. I walked around the class and
observed students’ behavior as they were doing their pair/group work. To work
in a group or pair seemed to come naturally, since they could face their
learning partners instead of the teacher. They usually held an animated talk,
and I could hear them arguing with each other, could see them smiling. This was really encouraging for me and I
sensed that students were also enjoying group/pair work. Initially students got
the freedom to talk for the first time in their class and they were very
excited to chat with each other.
Most importantly, they had
started questions such as, “Sir, what does this mean?" or “I can’t
understand this”. This was really impossible when I stood in-front of them and delivering/pouring
knowledge to them. Students’ questioning in groups/pairs together with my own
observations proved that the present learning atmosphere had stared to change a
lot and they were becoming active in raising questions.
Another thing I would
like to add to suggest group/pair work does indeed change the learning
atmosphere, which in turn to some extent improves students’ motivation. On one
occasion the teaching aim was for students to talk about their own future. Students’
were now required to talk about their future in pairs or as part of their group
work. Take Mariam[3] House as an
example. Their group created a story of Ulfat’s future. Here is an extract from
their story:
“ …after
two years she will have a lovely daughter who is good at dancing and singing, Ulfat
supports her daughter to learn more dancing and singing, while her husband was
not in a favour….”
This is a complete and
funny made-up story. I still remember when Sabila read it out, other students
laughed a lot. Such a story could not have resulted from my previous teaching
method, and I believe it proves to some extent that group/pair work liberates
students from the teacher’s control and direction, offering them much
opportunity and freedom to speak in the way they want to. In addition, it also
fosters their creativity and imagination. Miss. Aqlima was also witnessing this
change and she was very happy to be the part of this learning process and I
felt that she was attending school
joyfully.
Apart from this success,
I was also enlightened by such an idea----why not try another method of
“questioning” since students' actively questioning behavior seems naturally to
arise out of their pair/group work.
Hypothesis
Two -- questioning
Based on group/pair
work, I decided to put a more questioning method into practice and apply it
mainly to the teaching of text. Students were divided into groups/pairs,
discussing the text with each other and solving problems by themselves.
Whenever some difficult problems were beyond their understanding, they would
present it to me through questioning and I would ask other students to respond
or I would answer their questions. Alternatively, I sometimes supervised their
learning by questioning them. Thus the questioning-method was put into effect
in two ways: one was through students raising questions and teachers’/other
group students answering; another was teachers’ raising questions and students’
answering them.
To authenticate that
whether this method of questioning really comply with my action research
question, in other words, does it improve students’ motivation, I collected
students’ feedback/reflection in writing. According to that, most of them
agreed that questioning really improves their learning interest. When I collected
students’ feedback, I told them to decide to sign or not to sign their names
for I believe it can guarantee the validity of my evidence. Thus if some
students wanted to say something against the teacher, they might feel more at
ease if they didn't have to sign their names. These are some of their comments:
·
Samina wrote: “Your teaching way
fits me, especially the questioning. It not only makes me more active, but also
makes me learn it by myself. I found my study was much more improved than
before”.
·
Another student wrote: “I am very
appreciative about your methods of teaching, because you have a large change
than before, we can ask you and you answer us. We can understand it well. It is
better than before.”
Apart from this written
reflection, I myself also noticed that students were more active than before.
All this reassured me that questioning students on the basis of their
group/pair work actually helped improve their participation and motivation.
However, things always have two sides, just like a coin. Let’s listen to
several students’ voice that belongs to the minority in the class. An anonymous
student wrote: “I think it is good, but it doesn’t make some students
understand the text completely or clearly because some good students can follow
this way, they can understand the text easily. But others don’t pay much
attention to our lessons”
Likewise, Nazia wrote: “When
Miss. Aqlima gives lecture I felt very clear about the structure, content and
phrases of the articles. Thus it won’t take a long time for me to finish our
homework. With the questioning method though we can understand the words,
phrases very well, [but] we failed to understand its structure and content
completely. Thus we couldn’t finish our homework easily. Of course, questioning
really motivates us, activate the atmosphere, but I notice that some students
are busy with finding out questions instead of understanding the text, what’s
more, some students’ questions are too far beyond the text. Actually questions
have nothing to do with what we will learn. This is a waste of our time. So to
me, I still prefer teacher-centered method than questioning method, for I can
learn more by it.”
Nazia’s critical
comments were unexpected for me and they made me reflect and think a lot. It
seems that there should be a balance between questioning and academic style. A
teacher shouldn’t randomly force him/herself to adopt one teaching method while
utterly abandoning another or simply make a judgment that this teaching method
is better than that based on one experience. The adoption of a certain kind of
teaching method should be decided by two factors: students’ learning needs as
well as the teaching materials available. All in all, teaching methods should
alter with students' learning needs as well as the difficult degree of the
teaching materials. Cook also recommends that,
“it is rare to encounter a classroom that is a pure
version of one or other of these reaching styles as none of them fully satisfy
all the needs of any real class of students: nevertheless they provide
convenient reference points for the discussion on language teaching. (Cook,
2000, p.174)
Thus I believe that
teaching encourages a variety of methods. Take questioning as an example: it
seems to work well for me and the students if the teaching materials are less
difficult and individual student prefers them. Hence I tried to introduce
various teaching methods according to different teaching materials as well as
students’ learning needs. However, my next strategy was to change my teaching
methodology again.
Hypothesis
Three -- micro-teaching
“A Father’s Advice” (a
story from the English textbook we were using) is a
chapter of low difficulty. It is full of simple conversations and few difficult
grammatical points and the vocabulary is easy. This determines that students
are capable of learning and even teaching this text by themselves. Guided by
this idea, I asked students to work in a group of 5 or 6, solving difficult
problems and learning by themselves. In order to test my hypothesis, I required
each group to choose a group leader who would be in-charge of explaining on
behalf of the whole group’s understanding of certain paragraphs to the whole
class, while other groups were asked to raise critical questions. To my
surprise, they really did an excellent job. Most of them were good at
controlling their language and making sense of it. A typical example is Ulfat’s
explanation of a paragraph. I remember challenging her by questioning her
explanation and she presented very satisfactory answers, while her whole group
was also supporting her in responses. I felt an ownership by the students for
the topic they were talking about. Furthermore, students’ feedback also proved
that micro-teaching is really improving their learning. Here are some words
from students’ group feedback. Hawa House wrote:
“Our group thinks that this micro-learning is useful
for our self-study and enables us to think of questions by ourselves. And it
also improves our ability of teaching. In our group, we explain important and
useful points one by one. We can improve our skills of explanation. And by this
method, all of us must explain and teach the text, so the lazy people will be
“punished” by explaining."
On the contrary, the words from other
group are really funny. Fatima House wrote:
“We don’t think it is a useful way of learning a new story.
There are many difficult vocabulary and phrases even sentences. You should
guide us to learn every point”.
This voice states again
that applying a variety of teaching methods according to students’ learning
needs and the teaching materials is extremely necessary and important. After
these experiences I can say that action research should go side by side the
teaching so that we could be able to enhance students learning and cater
different learning styles.
Hypothesis
Four -- encouragement, personal communication between teacher and students,
rearrangement of the classroom
Now let’s abandon such
abstract theories, because I found ways to encourage students that weren’t
routines. One of those findings was giving encouragement to some students. Rifat
was usually a silent student. She seldom appeared active in my class. At first,
I guessed it was due to her poor English. However an interview with her changed
my mind. Here is a part of our talk concerning her study.
·
Me: in your
opinion, how can I help you to improve your learning?
·
Rifat: last year,
Miss Fouzia taught me the English course. She constantly asked me to answer her
questions. This made me feel that I was not ignored by the teacher.
Furthermore, whenever I raised a correct answer for a question, even a very
easy one, she would praise me a lot. Her attitude to me really encourages me to
learn a lot and I began to recover my interest in English.
·
Me: How about
your study now?
·
Rifat: Well, many
things have changed. Our head teacher was changed and another student took my
place of the monitor. You with Miss. Aqlima began to teach us. I felt I lost my
interest and confidence in English again.
Her words reminded me
of what I have done to her in my class. Whenever I asked her to answer my
questions, she did a bad job. Her broken sentences and murmuring voice made me
feel tired. Furthermore, I was afraid I wouldn't fulfill the teaching schedule
and syllabus since I had to spend lots of time correcting her mistakes.
Therefore, I often avoided asking her questions and usually commented on her
answers with simple words such as “OK, well, sit down, please”. As a result, my
conscious behavior possibly made her feel ignored by me and consequently she
seemed to lose her confidence and learning interest. This led me to believe
that teacher’s encouragement to students and personal communication with them,
especially the slow ones, are extremely significant factors in their
development. It can improve to some extent some students’ motivation.
Classroom
Management
Classroom management is
what I want to turn to next. On one occasion, I required students to make a
report on the topic of modernization. I was surprised that they were more
active in reading out their own reports than before. Their active participation
was only apparently due to a little change in classroom management. Usually,
they would give their reports standing on the platform, which accordingly
activated those seated in the front rows more than those seated at the back.
However, this time, thanks to a change of classroom management (students were
asked to turn back and show their reports in an open area at the back of the
class) they appeared more active in the face of such a novelty, especially
those sitting at the back. Students like Mah Noor, Sofiya, Shazia and Naila
seemed eager to listen. They even volunteered to read out their reports without
my constant asking to read, perhaps because all at once they felt themselves to
be a significant focus.
The outcomes
of the intervention
Through the
above-mentioned formative evaluation of every intervention and strategy, I may
claim that my adoption of various teaching methods has really motivated my
students to improve their learning. However, to further substantiate my claim,
I’d like to turn to some summative evaluation.
i.
My ways to collect evidence
Since Action Research
inquires a triangulation of evidence to validate a researcher’s claim (Winter,
1989), I tried various ways to collect data i.e. questionnaires, interview
individual studnets, students’ feedback/reflection as soon as the class is over,
journals/notes and observation.
ii. My standards to evaluate my research were; whether the learning
atmosphere is altered, examination
results, students’ attitudes to my teaching, students’ improvement in their
self-study ability, improvements in creativity and confidence.
iii. At the completion of one academic year’s intervention in this
school in general and class 10th in particular, I was able to achieve my target
of how can I motivate students towards learning as now I was confident to claim
that apart from above activity-wise achievements, I was also succeeded in
following;
1.
Students’ confidence level had
tremendously increased and they take very active part during lesson delivery by
the teachers as well as when the visitors visit the school. To respond the
questions from the visitors most of the students raise their hand. This rapid
change has also been brilliantly felt and expressed by the senior officials of the
school system and other teachers.
2.
As an indirect outcome, other teachers
of the school have also developed a caring attitude towards students and
corporal punishment has been totally abandoned, which has been very prominently
expressed through reflections of teachers as well as the students. Teachers are
now on the way to develop a positive and strong relationship with students.
3.
Students’ grades and pass percentage
has been now improved. Specifically in SSC-II examination overall result
remained 94% and grades have also improved than the earlier board results. Only
one student could not make it to qualify with one subject drop. While the rest
of the school result remained higher than the previous years.
4.
In secondary section (specifically
in class 10th), students have developed the capacity of creative writing as in
this focused class we initiated the practices on regular basis. Students are
confident now to write anything as they have been habitually and creatively
write.
5.
As teachers, we were successful to
build a strong and respectful relationship with students as well as teachers,
which reflect whenever we visit the school, through occasional gifts, greeting
cards and the welcoming behaviour, while students reflections and teachers
reflection were very much evident to prove that we were able to build a strong
relationship and attachment with the students, teachers, school and with the
community as a whole.
6.
In most of the students learning
attitude and a spirit of team work has been extended, which can be observed
while a group work, a competition, or during any task which involves the
houses.
7.
Students’ self-esteem has improved
as a result of presentations, freedom of asking questions for clarity and
sharing ideas in classrooms as well as outside classrooms. School culture has
been changed towards mutual understanding, respect and sharing ideas freely
without the hesitation of being wrong.
8.
Students’ handwriting and spelling
has improved to a greater extent which was weak before the intervention.
Finally, the
present exemplary situation in class 10th in particular and in
school as a whole and the conducive learning environment is evidently proving
and witnessing the success story of WSIP intervention 2009- 2010.
CONCLUSIONS
I believed that as long
as a teacher played the role of “delivering morals, passing on the knowledge
and skills, and helping solve the problems”, s/he was no doubt a good teacher.
I also believed that my previous academic style helped to fulfill my dream of
being a good teacher. Ironically, what I later learned from students was that I
actually denied my values in my actions (Whitehead, 1989). By this serious
teaching style I spoon-fed the knowledge to my students, which, far from
motivating them to learn, badly constrained their creativity and freedom to
communicate, as well as their insight and rights as individuals. It is Miss. Aqlima
and Action Research that have helped me realize what was truly happening in my
class. During my Action Research enquiry, I have simultaneously developed my
own living educational theory (Whitehead, 1989, 1993) which, in mainly
resulting from my own practice, is bound to enlarge my horizons, strengthen my
insight, and improve my knowledge towards second language teaching as a
professional teacher.
I have started to
regard education as a constantly developmental, sustainable process instead of
a static, passive 'thing'. Such practice and self-reflection, as well as
self-directing research have helped me enhance my own professional development.
I now feel capable of monitoring my teaching more flexibly, confidently and
wisely. Most importantly, I am able to concentrate my attention on my students’
learning not merely on my teaching. To sum up, what I have achieved will not
only improve my students’ learning but also will empower my teaching and their
learning.
Apart from students’
aptitude, motivation is an essential key to students’ success. To improve
students’ motivation is far from solving the whole problem, however. Owing to
different teaching materials as well as different students’ learning needs, a
variety of teaching methods are required to enhance motivation. Metaphorically,
this can be linked to a spider’s web or triangulation instead of a linear
pathway. In other words, various teaching methods and techniques work together
to hold students’ motivation, which, in my view, a singular method can never
achieve. For instance, a poor student may be motivated by several encouraging
words, whereas a good student may need more challenging questions. Secondly,
teachers are not always responsible for students’ motivation as that partly
arises out of the students themselves.
I remember once when
other students appeared active in my class, several seemed tired and one of them
even yawned. To start with I thought I had failed to motivate them. But why
were other students so active? Through a small talk with them (Samina, Sheela
and Fariha) during the break, I learned they had gone to bed too late the
previous night! (Live cricket match was on-air last night).
Another typical example
is Nosheen. She is usually inactive and silent in my class. Both Miss. Aqlima
and I supposed that she was not motivated. Miss. Aqlima once told me: “How can
you involve her in the learning? She is writing nothing in her book.” However,
an interview with her later proved that she preferred an “inactive and silent
learning style”. Other students’ active participation even made her feel
uncomfortable. She said her silence didn’t mean she was distracted from my
teaching:
She also told me that
my teaching methods were very good because in this way it can cater to
different demands of different students. Thus she always kept quiet and
inactive in my class, but she insisted that she was listening carefully. For
her seldom taking notes, she said she tried to memories what I said in my
lesson and her way did work. Thus her attitudes in my eyes were explained
properly. (Journal entry, May)
I believe what she told
me for she usually gained a decent score in examinations. In the light of that,
I am reassured that, students are also responsible for their own motivation and
that it reveals itself in different ways. Their tiredness and preference for
different learning styles may influence their motivation and learning.
Thirdly, I advocate
that, apart from the two types of motivations, namely, integrative and
instrumental, there is another type—emotional motivation. By it, I mean
teachers’ encouragement and conscious attention to some students, particularly
the poor, may motivate them to learn. Put plainly, emotional motivation
encourages a building-up of a friendly relationship between teachers and
students through such ways as chat, individual communication, personal talk or
even conscious attention, encouragement etc.
Another example comes
from Nazia. She is an active student. However I always used to ignore her
because of her very activeness because I believed more opportunities should be
offered to other inactive and poor students. What was beyond my expectation was
she was so sensitive that she felt my intentional avoidance of her. Without
sensing my true purpose, she once told me: “I don’t think I am motivated by you
and please give me a suitable explanation for why you always jump over me, only
me in the whole class, even I stand my hand to answer?” Her inquiry really
surprised me and assured me that emotional motivation actually exists among
students. No discrete teaching method would solve this problem. What I realized
was that I needed to have a talk with her, informing her of my true intention.
Furthermore, my
research has strengthened my insight into Action Research. I hold the following
opinion: Action Research is a self-reflective, problem-spotting,
problem-solving, evaluative, and self-improving process. It starts with a value
(McNiff, 2002), then encourages educators to spot their own living
contradictions (Whitehead, 1989), and try to solve them so as to generate their
living educational theories through their practice and research. As a consequence,
they can enhance their professional development. As a researcher, you have to
undergo the process, which looks like a black box in some ways. Action Research
focuses on student-centered teaching and students' learning needs. And the
individuals’ learning needs always come first. It seems a basic tenet of Action
Research (McNiff, 1993, 2000; Whitehead, 1989, 1993) that the whole class
consists of different individuals whose differences should be noted and
respected as human beings.
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