STUDENTS’ CLASSROOM PARTICIPATION FOR IMPROVED LEARNING IN AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILLS COURSE: An Action Research Report

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This research focused on students’s behaviour in paired discussions. Students are required to undergo a number of assessments, including written tests, assignments, discussions and participation. There are three specific methods that are adopted to determine the outcomes: the ‘one book referral strategy’, the ‘instructor monitor strategy’ and the ‘own book strategy’. It was observed that unmonitored paired activities led to less intensive interaction. It seems was due to lack of initiative or a general reluctance to interact.

Student-student and teacher-student interactions in the teaching and learning process work in many rewarding ways. First, it enhances the learning process and secondly facilitates a good relationship between the teacher and the learner and amongst learners. If applied in right doses and at appropriate occasions, it reinforces learning through peer interaction. In this study, it is established that teacher-pupil interaction is very important to create the positive attitude in the learner.

The results show that when students used one book to do paired discussions, there was 100 percent interaction, which implies that the students were interacting at all times during the discussion period. This is an obvious result as one book reading in itself meant cooperation and interaction. When allowed to use own books, generally showed reluctance to work in pairs. They tended to do the activity on their own without much interaction with one another. Students spend more time interacting while doing the task under instructor-monitor strategy and one-book strategy compared to own book strategy. As a result of the higher level of interaction, the students performed better.

This study has also shown that target questioning is useful in getting the student response. That is, personalized questions compel the student to participate positively. A host of things get to work when a targeted questioning technique is applied. First, the student anticipates questions and remains alert in the class and second, the student maintains a close relation with his peers for keeping abreast of the subject and assistance. This also leads to student-student interaction.

Source: STUDENTS’ CLASSROOM PARTICIPATION FOR IMPROVED LEARNING IN

AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILLS COURSE: An Action Research Report

by Rina D. Kumar, University of the South Pacific

Working Paper No. 21 October 2007

ISSN-1176-7383