SUMMARY OF ETHNOGRAPHIC INVESTIGATION 1

Farhana Amalya Islamiati

21170140000002
Qualitative Research in Language Education
Tuesday, 10 October 2017

An Ethnographic Investigation of Activity Modifications in EFL Classrooms

Emrah Cinkara
Gaziantep University, Turkey

In An Ethnographic Investigation of Activity Modifications in EFL Classrooms,

Emrah Cinkara talked about identifying potential sources of EFL teachers’ activity
modifications by exploring the teachers’ perceptions of the natures, aims, and requirements of
a given language-learning activity. This study is designed to address the following three
research questions: (1) the types of modification done in the classes, (2) the number of
modifications change with years of teaching experience, and (3) the themes pertaining the
underlying reasons for activity modification.
The participants for this study were six EFL teachers selected on the basis of
convenience sampling and they participated voluntarily. Two ethnographic research
techniques were employed in the data collection procedure; classroom observations and
interviews. The participants were four females and two males, and their teaching experiences
ranged from one to twenty years with a mean of 10.66 years. All instructors held BA degrees,
four in English Language Teaching and two in English Language and Literature.
The procedure of the study was intended as an ethnographic research paradigm to
analyze the activity modifications in foreign language classes. Emrah Cinkara generated data
for this study in the form of classroom observations and interviews. Cinkara filled out the
Activity Modification Sheet whenever the teacher modified an activity while teaching in
classroom observation. The semi-structured interview format was employed and served two
major purposes in the study: reviewed the checklist together with the participants and unearth
the underlying reasons for the modifications which were agreed upon in the first part.
The findings are organized based on research questions of the study. For question
research one, it is revealed that English language instructors make several different types of
modifications, including rephrasing the instruction, re-wording the items, simplifying parts,
changing cultural elements, accommodating new parts-ideas, removing parts-ideas, and
changing the activity type. For question research two, there is not a significant relationship
SUMMARY OF ETHNOGRAPHIC INVESTIGATION 2

between age and the number of modifications. The reason for this because of the fact that all
the instructors were full-time teaching staff at the institution, and they all had similar
backgrounds except for the number of years they had been teaching. In line with this, the
results revealed that all the instructors made similar categories of modification types and
more or less the same number of modifications.
Emrah Cinkara then centers the discussion of the study on four different themes
underlying activity modifications in EFL classrooms: clarification, time management, student
feedback, and professional collaboration. First, clarification makes the instructor modified the
activities to make them more comprehensible for students corresponds with the theoretical
foundations of language teaching. Second, time management affects teachers to be flexible
and accommodating to the changing atmosphere of language classrooms. Third, low
motivation and interest, sitting uncomfortably, and yawning were seen by instructors as
indirect student’s feedback; therefore modification is needed to put students at ease. Fourth,
professional collaboration helps teachers to exchange their views and experiences on a
number of issues in teaching. It might shape ways of thinking and affect teaching practices.
All things considered, it seems reasonable to assume that the instructors in this study
had required skill sets for effective activity modification and had developed these skills
through their pre-service training at teacher education institutions and improved them with
experience. Further research in this area may include understanding the nature of
modifications, and the interactions that necessitated the modifications. Thus, there can be
more knowledge so that the desired outcomes of teaching activities can be achieved.

Reference:
Cinkara, E. (2016). An ethnographic investigation of activity modifications in EFL
classrooms. International Online Journal of Educational Sciences, 8(1), 107 – 117.