Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Angelica Inostroza
Professor Poblete
9 August 2010
INTRODUCTION
to produce good teaching (i.e. that accountability should not end between
linguists and academic applied linguists, but should apply between all
Michael McCarthy
Teaching does not begin and end within the boundaries of a classroom. It is clear
that teachers do much more work than just delivering content and checking if this content
has been learned by students, at least in the view of the researcher of the present project.
and activities adaptable to the needs and concerns of their students. To do this, which is not
an easy task, the teacher must in a way become a practitioner applied linguist and a
sociologist as the needs and concerns of students do not only come from the need to learn a
The present classroom research project lies under the qualitative approach that
activity, transcribed it and then made the analysis. The problem that arose in the lesson was
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that of a student not understanding a lexicon item within an instruction. Therefore, this
research is based on the steps the teacher took in order to make not only the student in
The problem dealt with in this research paper considers the interactional view of
language because it relates to the interpersonal relations and the performance of social
This paper is organized into sections including the introduction which is the first.
Following, the reader will meet with the literature review to continue with the section
related to data, which has been separated into background information about the students,
and the school they belong to; the collection of data and its analysis. Finally the researcher
states her findings drawing her conclusions to the importance of a teacher doing research to
improve not only her teaching, but the performance of her students.
Literature Review
Research Method
Considering that traditionally any type of research falls into a binary distinction
between quantitative and qualitative research, it can be stated that the present classroom
paradigm. The study is cross-sectional as data were collected in one session, and it used the
participant observation method as the researcher actively participates and is involved in the
lesson.
According to Reichardt and Cook (cited in Nunan 1992 p 3) there are elements of
comparison between both research methods, where they state that a quantitative approach
seeks facts or causes of social phenomena without regard to the subjective states of the
individuals. On the other hand, they argue that a qualitative approach is concerned with
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understanding human behaviour from the actor´s own frame of reference. Another
Taking into account these differences, it is evident that the present research project
is of the qualitative kind because the research itself focuses on the understanding of the
behaviour of both teacher and students in the classroom, thus, the data collected are real
and rich in the sense that it cannot be replicated nor generalised in the outcome as it
Grotjahn (cited in Nunan 1992 p 4) states that research cannot be divided merely
into quantitative and qualitative research. Actually, he divides them into two groups,
that he presents, and the one to be used in the present paper, is the exploratory-interpretive
one. This paradigm, according to Grotjan (1987:59:60) and the types of research design
that he proposes, utilises a non-experimental method, yields qualitative data, and provides
an interpretive analysis of that data. The second paradigm takes into account that data are
collected through an experiment and that data are subjected to statistical analysis, which is
Views of language
According to McCarthy (2001), there are two ways of seeing language as an object
the analysis of this paper, it must be clarified that even though the topic of the lesson is
grammar, language will be seen through the social phenomenon rather than language as an
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abstract system. The study of language as a social phenomenon views language only under
the boundaries of social purposes, and although the activity of revising the structure of
passive voice given as homework may lead to think straight forward in grammar, the
analysis of this paper focuses exclusively on the steps the teacher takes to make students
understand a task and not to the grammatical explanation of the passive voice.
three levels of conceptualization and organization, which he called approach, method and
technique, Richards and Rogers (2001) found that Anthony´s proposal failed to give
sufficient attention to the nature of a method itself as his proposal does not mention the role
of teachers and learners assumed in a method or the role of instructional materials or the
form they are expected to take, for example. Therefore, Richards and Rogers (2001)
provide an improved model seeing approach and method treated at the level of design,
where the roles of teachers, learners and instructional materials are specified. Regarding
the level of technique in Anthony´s model they refer to it by the term of procedure. They
which the present paper will consider for the analysis of this project, as follows:
Richards and Rogers (2001) state that there are three main theoretical views of language:
the structural view, the functional view and the interactional view. Broadly put, the
structural view sees language as a system of structurally related elements for the coding of
meaning and therefore, deals with terms such a phonological units, grammatical units,
grammatical operations, and lexical items. The functional view emphasizes the semantic
and communicative dimension and the interactional view considers language as a way to
individuals. It is the latter to which the researcher will subscribe as it is exactly what she
seeks for in the steps she takes to help students understand an instruction.
Teaching/Learning
Language, learning and teaching are not isolated concepts. It must be recognized
that defining each of these three concepts is incredibly difficult and complex. Nevertheless,
it is important for a teacher to take a stand and try to subscribe to some sort of definition in
order to adopt a method in particular or an eclectic approach when trying to understand the
principles of second language learning and teaching. According to Brown (1987) teaching
cannot be defined apart from learning. Nathan Gage (1964:269) remarks that “to satisfy the
yield theories of teaching.” Brown (1987) states that “teaching is guiding and facilitating
learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting the conditions for learning”. Considering this
definition and analyzing the data collected in the project, it can be seen a straight forward
relationship between both. The teacher, in this research, carefully builds the steps to help
the students understand an instruction, and in so doing she guides and facilitates learning,
enabling the student to learn, and setting the conditions for learning during the class
activity.
Classroom research
proficiency tests. The interaction analysis tradition refers to the systems for the observation
and analysis of classroom interaction in terms of social meanings and an inferred classroom
climate. The discourse analysis tradition, which attempts to analyze fully the discourse of
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tradition, which attempts to interpret behavior from the perspective of the participants´
different understandings.
In this paper the researcher uses the discourse analysis tradition due to the fact that
Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) state that there are instances in the classroom where
the teacher and students conform to highly structured sequences. Thus, using the classroom
data collected in this project, it can be clearly seen the pattern of question/answer/follow
up. This pattern is also marked with discourse markers, which are indicators of the
structure of discourse. The teacher gives students a clear signal of the beginning and end of
cognitive support provided by an adult or other guiding person to aid a learner, and is
realized in dialogue so that the learner can come to make sense of difficult tasks” O´Keefe
et al. (2007). This is exactly what the researcher does when trying to elicit from the student
Data
Background
Subjects: This class is composed of nine male students of 8th Grade B of The
Mackay School. Their ages are between 12 and 13. These students are said to have a low
grammatical competence. The School separates students into levels according to their
linguistic performance. This group in particular is in the lowest level, and therefore they
have been separated from the rest of their class to reinforce and apply grammar structures
into different contexts. Three students suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). This
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ADD is established according to the medical certificates provided by their parents. The
assessment of the students is the same as other students who do not suffer from ADD, but
the school has the policy of including these type of students in reduced groups where the
teacher in charge has to give them more time for their test and further instruction, if
necessary.
The School: The school is located at 700, V.Mackenna Av., Reñaca, Viña del Mar.
It was founded in 1857 with the aim of providing schooling to the children (all boys) of
British and American settlers in Valparaíso. It serves 1.100 students from pre-school to
secondary school. The School building is divided into six floors with a total of 60
Course: The course is composed of seven teaching hours per week. Six of these
hours are devoted to the four skills of English – Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening.
Additionally, all 8th grade students have an extra hour devoted solely to speaking skills,
whatever level they belong to. They work fundamentally with the text book Passwords 1,
The classroom: The classroom has been designed for 30 students. Each student has
his own desk and chair. The classroom has a long white-board that covers the front wall
facing the students. The classroom is equipped with a TV set and radio cassette/CD player.
Pertinent information about the video: The video was recorded in a spontaneous
way. There was no rehearsing. The person who recorded it had no previous experience in
doing so, therefore, her technical inexperience can be seen especially in holding the
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camcorder steady in some parts. Otherwise, the video has a very good resolution and
sound.
Collection of data
The first thing done regarding the video was to explain the activity and ask for
permission from the Head of the English Department to video the lesson. She had no
The second thing done was to select the group to work with. The group chosen was
8th Grade B, because the researcher feels this group is a challenge in the sense that she has
some type of problem in making them learn English. She asked for the students´
In terms of the selection of the activity, it must be said that it was at random.
Students were told a week before that they would be recorded the following week in any
activity related to the grammar point that was being studied, in this case the Passive Voice
In terms of the video, there were no problems in recording. The researcher had the
school camcorder available and charged, and a student-teacher present and willing to record
the activity.
Data Analysis
Research Method
This study has been done under the qualitative paradigm using the Participant
Observation Method. It is a cross sectional approach as the data have been elicited in only
one session.
Scaffolding (O´Keefe et al., 2007), where the objective is to determine what the teacher
Language theory
The data were collected in one session video recording classroom interaction with
her own students. The unit of analysis is based on the structure of Question, Answer and
Follow up. What the teacher did was ask questions to her students, listen to their answer(s)
and then continue with a follow up. The analysis is embedded in the social and cognitive
Classroom interaction
The research question was: “What are the steps that a teacher follows in a grammar
lesson to help students understand a task”, which arose out of the analysis of the lesson
transcript. The research topic lies under the clarification of instructions given. What
analysis describes is how the teacher faces the difficulty that a student has to understand a
given instruction and how she (the teacher) confronts the issue and what theories support
her decision(s).
In order to show and differentiate the two different aspects of the lesson, the lesson
has been divided into two parts. Part 1 shows how the students follow the teacher fluently
and with least hesitation in the performance of the task using Question/Answer/Follow up
analysis. Part 2, in contrast, shows how the teacher takes more time and makes pauses to
help the student(s) to understand the task by means of questions and scaffolding. In this
part, it is clear the contrast between the first part of the lesson, where the activity is fluent in
change the strategy using scaffolding in order to make the student(s) understand the lexicon
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that appears in the instruction. The instruction was “write a sentence in the passive voice
using the following prompt”, which brought a problem to the student as he did not know
Part 1:
Analyzing the first part of the lesson, it can be seen how the Question (Q), Answer
(A), Follow up (F) structure works fluently in the development of this part of lesson. The
teacher initiates the lesson eliciting in question form the tense moving afterwards to the
Example:
Which is the clue that you have in this sentence [pause] (Q/F)
The above example shows clearly the fluency in Q/A/F format, there is no hesitation
on the part of the students to follow the task. In the next example the teacher continues the
homework revision moving from tense to passive voice form using a hypothetical question.
(HQ). It can also be noticed the use of discourse markers such as “ok” and “so” to start a
Example:
The teacher continues her lesson and recaps from tense to the elicitation of the form
of the passive voice. All this is done in a fluent interaction with students, there again using
Q/A/F structure.
Example:
Teacher: in the books. So, first of all…, I want to put this here (on the screen). (F)
First of all, the books… what happens with the books? (Q)
Teacher: ok (DM)
It can be appreciated that the follow up is done in three main ways, the first is
confirming what students say by discourse markers, the second is by repeating the correct
In the next example, the teacher completes the form of the passive voice using again
Example:
Teacher: enjoyed… their books or the books are enjoyed… ok Who enjoys the
books?
Student 6: by teenagers
Students: yes
At this point of the lesson students have followed the teacher easily and fluently
using always the target language mainly through the Q/A/F strategy. But, in the second
part of the lesson this situation changes completely when the teacher identifies a problem
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and walks the student through the understanding of lexicon that appears in the instruction
given.
Part 2:
Teacher: […] Ok, the next one. Ok. Who can read the instructions? Mr Pinto, read
the instruction
Student 7: d?
Teacher: yes
Teacher: these prompts. ok, what did you write? Let´s see
The teacher guides the student through the prompts in the book and writes them on
the whiteboard. Once this is done, the teacher decides to involve the rest of the class in
Example:
Teacher: Cristobal. Ok, before I explain, let´s see if Cristobal can explain to us [pause]
the instruction, and see why you didn´t understand. Pay attention to Cristobal
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In this part of the lesson, it is evident how the pace of the lesson slows down. The
teacher identifies the problem and using scaffolding continues helping students understand
Example:
Teacher: the sentence in order. Yes? (DM to confirm with the class)
The teacher has already elicited the explanation of “prompts”, but nevertheless
gives synonyms to make sure students understand the meaning of this word.
Example:
Teacher: You only have like… tips… clues… if I put this [showing the screen] in the
Student: No
Students raise their hand in order to put the sentence in order. The teacher does not
choose Student 7 (Mr Pinto), but chooses another student she clearly knows will give the
right answer. Once the answer has been given and its correctness confirmed the teacher
moves to the next prompts finding Student 7 eager to do the exercise himself demonstrating
Example:
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Teacher: [a student has provided the right answer] …yesterday. Excellent !Very
to comply with a grammar homework revision of the passive voice form, needed to be
changed. The teacher had to accommodate her teaching strategies to the needs of the
student(s). It is noticeable how the first part of the lesson flows, and the second part slows
down focusing on the problem a student had to understand an instruction. Once this
problem was solved – taking much more time than the first part of the lesson, the students
were able to continue the activity with no further problems and feeling more confident in
the fulfillment of the task. The teacher guides the students using scaffolding in the second
part to elicit expected answers. The lesson ends with all the students understanding the
instruction given, and thus, the homework was checked with no further problem.
Conclusion
As a conclusion of this classroom research project, where the aim was to find out
the steps that the teacher took to help students understand a grammar task, it can be said
that the focus lied mainly in the clarification of the given instruction to fulfill the drilling of
The teacher had to face the difficulty a student presented in understanding a specific
instruction. In this instruction the problem arose at the lexical level when the word
“prompt” appeared. Before the appearance of this word the class could follow fluently the
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drilling activity transforming the active sentences into passive ones. But, there was a
switch from there on, because the teacher felt she had to clarify this term (prompt) in order
to have her student understand the instruction and therefore fulfill the grammar task itself.
What had been a mere grammar drilling activity in the first part of the lesson, turned
into a more interactive and social function in the teaching and learning process. The
teacher focused in this second part of the lesson in the comprehension of the term “prompt”
It is noticeable how the teacher makes a real emphasis in trying to clarify a term that
appears in an instruction, considering that the grammar structure of the passive voice was
way more difficult to understand than mere lexicon in the development of the task. She
uses the structure of question, answer and follow up mixed with discourse markers as well
as scaffolding to help not only the student who had the specific problem, but to make the
whole class participate and help the student in question. In this way what was a more
structured lesson with a pedagogical function derived in a more participative lesson on the
part of the students, where they were able to show their knowledge and help others to
The steps that the teacher took seem clear, but something else arose from this
classroom research. The fact that a lesson has an audio- lingual approach does not mean
that it cannot have traces of a more communicative approach. The fact that the teacher
makes a switch in the lesson and devotes a great time (considering the length of the lesson)
to clarify lexicon and eliciting from other students the meaning and explanation of it, shows
clearly that the lesson is more than focusing in a grammar function or lexicon function, but
in the social phenomena as students participate in other aspects than the ones stated above.
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They got really involved and interacted spontaneously, not only with the prompts of the
teacher but with the answers and doubts other students provided.
This paper has contributed to the knowledge of the researcher in terms of realizing
how she conducted a lesson and used strategies and approaches accordingly to the necessity
of her students. Also, the researcher has realized that a grammar point not necessarily has
to be taught in terms of structure, but it can be made more interesting for students when
Finally, it can be concluded that there are a variety of strategies and approaches to
teaching English, but these must consider the need of the students. The need of a single
student contributed, in this case, to a whole class interaction. If necessary, a teacher must
stop a task and devote time to clarify doubts before continuing in order to have a full
understanding and performance on the part of the student. At the end what is important is
the student´s time to grasp a teaching point, and not the time the teacher takes in teaching it.
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References
Press, 1988
O’Keefe, Anne., and Michael McCarthy, and Ronald Carter. From Corpus to
Richards, Jack C., and Theodore S. Rodgers. Approaches and Methods in Language