Description of instructional improvement projects carried out

                                                      

 Do power point presentations on writing paragraphs help students to successfully complete the writing task for each unit compared to standard handouts.

 

Background: With the advent of technology, many teachers use it in the classroom. Just because one uses technology to deliver instruction does not mean that it will improve the quality of instruction or learning for that matter. If one uses an iPad in the classroom to deliver the same paper handouts electronically, there is no change in the approach to instruction, just in its delivery. This instructor was curious if short power point presentations (PPT) (5-7 minutes) on writing an email and on descriptive, listing, order-of-importance, time-order, process, and advantages and disadvantages paragraphs would help FE1 students to complete each writing task within the allocated class time compared to standard handouts.  Methods: This observational study investigated the use of PPTs to teach the writing tasks of the Freshman English program at Kyungpook National University with the goal of increasing student writing performance by being able to complete the task within the allocated time period.  Using convenience sampling, 168 university students enrolled in the Freshman English 1 course were included in the study. Five classes received instruction via PPT for the first 5-7 minutes of class for that week’s writing task while the other 4 classes received paper handouts which contained the exact same information as the PPT. To ensure that the exact same instructions were given to all students, recorded instructions for each lesson was played to both groups of classes. Completion of the writing tasked was recorded when the students informed the instructor they were done before beginning the peer editing. Results: Both groups of classes completed the assigned writing task within the allocated time period. There was no difference between the two groups. It appears that the use of PPT in the classroom to deliver writing instruction had no advantage over the standard paper handouts in this limited small sample. In fact, this instructor observed that one of the disadvantages of using PPT for delivering writing instruction in the classroom was an increase in teacher talk time moving the class away from the prescribed student-centered approach to a more teacher-centered approach. The students who received the standard paper handouts began there writing tasks immediately. If a student or group of students needed help, they were addressed on an individual basis. Additionally, the use of handouts allowed the instructor to tailor the lesson to the needs of each individual student whereas the power point was a general fit all solution. Of note, the use of the computer with internet and a big screen TV did allow for the use of multimedia such videos which seemed to engage the students in their writing task. This question on whether multimedia engages the student needs to be addressed in the near future. Outcome: The following semester, the use of power point for instructional purposes was stopped and handouts were used instead. The computer with internet and a big screen TV were used solely for multimedia purposes to engage students in the task at hand; for example, a slow motion video on rotting  food was shown to engage students in writing a process paragraph on decomposition (unit 7 how to, students wrote about how to make Kimchi).

 

Research Question: Which is easier in dealing with students, showing up to class a few minutes early and staying a few minutes after class, or using Kakao talk to deal with class issues such as attendance and questions about tasks and homework?

 

Background: When a class period is very short (50 min.), one always struggles with managing the classroom time and all the administrative and learning related issues that come up. In student-centered learning, one wants to allow the maximum class time to students learning how to learn when completing tasks during the class and not waste time on administrative matters. Thus, the instructor decided to determine which communication approach students preferred, face-to-face time before and after class or electronically via Kakao talk to deal with class issues such as attendance and questions about tasks and homework. Methods: This observational study investigated the use of face-to-face communication versus Kakao talk in the Freshman English program at Kyungpook National University with the goal of increasing positive affect when dealing with class issues such as attendance and questions about tasks and homework.  Using convenience sampling, 178 university students enrolled in the Freshman English 2 course were included in the study. Five classes received face-to-face communication before and after class when dealing with class issues such as attendance and questions about tasks and homework while the other 4 classes received helped via Kakao. It should be noted that if a student in the second group requested helped via face-to-face communication, it was given to the student. Since this was only a pilot study, a simple questionnaire on satisfaction was given to the students. Results: In the face-to-face communication groups, the students were very satisfied with the communication method for all class issues. In the Kakao group, students were satisfied with the communication method for homework questions but were not satisfied when dealing with attendance issues. In fact, most students in the second group requested face-to-face communication when dealing with attendance issues. Outcome: The following semester, I made time before and after class to deal with students face-to-face. The students seem to prefer communicating verbally with a native speaker face-to-face giving them extra opportunities to use their L2 language.  I used electronica communication, Kakao talk, as an emergency form of communication, for example, students asking questions about homework over the weekend. In the future, a study with a larger sample and a validated instrument on satisfaction will be carried out.

 

Research Question: Does a video-based process-oriented syllabus ease student anxiety

 

            Background: Since the advent of current communicative language teaching practices, task-based learning has been integral in the ESL classroom in which the primary focus of the classroom activity is the task and language is the instrument that students use to complete the task. A traditional language syllabus usually specifies the vocabulary students need to learn and the grammatical items they should master while a process-oriented syllabus focuses on skills, functions, or tasks. Although video syllabi have been used in distance learning courses, they have not been used much in an ESL context, especially for task based syllabi.  Method: This observational study investigated the use of a video-based process-oriented syllabus (VBPOS) for the Freshman English program at Kyungpook National University with the goal of reducing student anxiety.  Using convenience sampling, 178 university students enrolled in the Freshman English 2 course were shown a video-based process oriented syllabus via the internet on the first day of class. Videos for various assessments and tasks were shown during the course introduction and throughout the semester before each task. In addition to the verbal and written instructions for each task, videos were used to demonstrate the tasks that students needed to complete. The videos showed tasks being done by previous FE students. A questionnaire survey was used to measure the effectiveness of the VBPOS in terms of reducing student anxiety. Results: The results suggest that the VBPOS eased student anxiety. Interestingly, students preferred multimedia over written text when receiving instructions on tasks. A full scale study will be done in the future using an instrument such as the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) (EK HORWITZ, et al., 1986).

 

Future action based research

Based on the goals of the FE program at KNU, I would like to develop assessments for writing tasks that no longer assess grammar, topic sentences, organization, etc. but instead assess writing tasks in terms of content and vocabulary in terms of the students’ sociocognitive, affective, and learning growth with continuous assessment in the form of a writing journal or portfolio.  Studies have shown that the problem is not writing in itself, it is thinking (Jenkins, S., Jordan, M. K., & Weiland, P. O. (1993)).  It seems to me that the goals of the FE program support this idea of focusing on the thought process through the writing process. It seems the analytical and holistic rubrics for writing do not seem to fit well with the goals of the program.

 

2014

 

Research Question: Does a flipped classroom help to accomplish the goals of the Freshman English Program (FEP) at Kyungpook National University (KNU). Furthermore, because the pedagogy of the FEP at KNU is student centered learning employing task based learning, do flipped classes ease student anxiety and lower barriers to learning when completing tasks in the classroom?

 

Background: Since March 2012, there has been a revolution in the FEP at KNU. The entire philosophy of the program shifted from a linguistic approach only to a holistic approach where helping students learn how to learn to become lifelong learners is the main goal of the program with the linguistics taking on a secondary role. To implement this new philosophy, the classrooms have shifted from teacher-centric to student-centric classrooms. Now learner-centered language teaching is the new pedagogy. Of course, this means less teacher talk time and more student talk time. In other words, no more lectures and droning on. Moreover, to help implement this new pedagogy, task based learning (TBL) has been employed in the FEP at KNU using the Freshman English 1 second edition  and Freshman English 2 second edition textbooks written by Dr. Andrew Finch, a professor at KNU, and published by KNU press. It only seemed natural that in a country with the fastest internet and LTE network in the world with 97% saturation of smart devices, that the flipped classroom would be perfect to help carry out the goals of the FEP at KNU.  The core idea is to flip the common instructional approach: with teacher-created videos and interactive lessons, instruction that used to occur in the classroom is now accessed at home or anywhere, prior to the class. The classroom becomes a place to carry out task based learning and engage in collaborative learning. This allows teachers to best maximize the scarcest learning resource—time. The most important benefit of the flipped classroom is that now, teachers have time to work individually with students. They can talk to every student in every classroom every day.

 

Method: This observational study investigated the use of instructor created videos and webpages to complement the FEP at KNU following the model of the flipped classroom. At the beginning of each class, students were given homework in the form of completing the assigned steps on a web page. Students were given a handout that included the web address and QR code of the web address as well as a picture of the web page with the steps on it (Figure 1). The web page layout consisted of simple headings of step 1, step 2, step 3, etc. The student was required to complete each step before coming to the class.