FACULTY OF EDUCATION

(ED 220)

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
(EDU 630)

ACTION RESEARCH

MOHD ZULFAHMI BIN AB SALAM

2006145895

BTSL 8A

Prepared for:

Dr Sujatha Menon
 An Action Research on Student Talk in Third Language Classroom

Background to Action Research

The rapid development of informational technology and instant communication has given

educators or teachers nowadays more exposure towards new ways and techniques of teaching.

However, every teacher must bear in mind that most of the new techniques may not be

applicable to be implemented in certain classroom settings. For instance, journal writing has

been proven by Chatalansy and Moskalis (2002) to be beneficial for the acquisition of English as

a second language for the Serbo-Croatian and Laotian third graders. However, it is uncertain that

Malaysian students can cope with the journal writing technique. Therefore, teachers themselves

must determine the effectiveness of the techniques by doing researches and experiments on their

own. According to Bills (2001), teachers are the most qualified to do research and experiments

as they know the real situation of a classroom. Teachers would know what techniques that most

worthy to be test out, what problems to be solved, and limitations that will appear during

research.

One way of doing research is by conducting an action research. An “action research is

classroom-based research conducted by teachers in order to reflect upon and evolve their

teaching” (Chamot, Barnhardt & Dirstine, 1998) where it is also known as classroom research.

According to Menon (1998), action research is carried out in order to investigate the happenings

inside the classroom, instead of looking at the syllabus, teaching materials and test scores.
Chamot, Barnhardt & Dirstine (1998) laid out the guidelines of the process of action research:-

1. Choosing a research question

a) it should be precise, answerable, and lead to beneficial information on an aspect of

teaching or learning.

2. Data collection

a) What data and how to collect?

3. Data analysis

a) Data must be organized

b) Use correct calculations

4. Research write up

a) This is for presentation of data to an audience

5. Incorporation of result into classroom practice

a) Problem solving

With training and support from fellow teachers and other materials, a teacher can become an

excellent classroom researcher and will be able to develop an effective teaching technique and

helpful environment for learning.

 PURPOSE

In order to kick off an action research, it is essential to have a specific issue in mind because if

one does not have a clear goal or purpose, the action research will be a total waste of time. For

this action research, the focus is on the students’ interaction in a third language classroom.

Murray and Lang (1997) had proven that active classroom interaction is beneficial in acquiring

new skills, knowledge and critical thinking. Through interaction, learners will be able to clear

out confusions on the lessons, gain more confidence in verbal communication and give the

teacher knowledge on the students’ real achievement level. Thus, it is very important for third

language learners to interact more during lessons.

However, are third language learners given the opportunity to interact during lessons? Do the

teachers allow more choral answers? How much time do they talk during lessons? What

language do they use to interact in the classroom? These are among the questions that will be

answered by the results of the action research.

By observing their students’ interaction pattern in the classroom, teachers will be able to alter

their ways of teaching. For instance, if the interaction level is low, teachers can modify their

teaching habits by making the students communicate more by asking questions and encouraging

them to voice out their own opinions out loud. The results from the research might help teacher-
researchers to provide ideas to create alternatives to increase students’ learning ability and

language acquisition.

METHODOLOGY

For the observation on student talk in a third language classroom, it is advisable that one shall

adopt the FLINT (Foreign Language Interaction) observation by Moskowitz’s (1971). The

Moskowitz observation form is divided into 22 categories which includes Teacher talk (indirect

influence and direct influence), Student talk (learner talk) and general interaction that occur

between the proponents of the classroom. However, I will be using the modified version of the

observation form. The modified version was created by Menon (1998) where she adopted the

Moskowitz observation form and modified it in accordance to the suitability for application for

her own action research – “One Hour Classroom Observation of a Writing Lesson”. Similar to

Moskowitz’s, Menon’s is divided into a few sections which are Teacher talk, Student talk and

general. Since the sole purpose of this research is only to observe student talk, the Teacher talk

part of the Moskowitz observation form will not be used.

On the observation sheet the areas in which will be used for this research include the area

number of 1 - 8 deals with the student talk-direct influence. 9 - 23 will deal with the general

areas of classroom interaction. I also added a few changes to Menon’s observation form which

are number 20 and 22 in order to determine whether the students use or not their second
language (English) in the third language classroom. The tally is divided into 4 X 30 minutes

interaction.

OBJECTIVES

The specific objectives of this research on classroom interaction were:

1. To observe the amount of student talk time

2. To find out the type of language students use to response to teacher

3. To find out how students interact with each other

4. To find out whether students are motivated to interact during lesson

THE LESSON

On Friday, 20th August 2010, I observed a class of 22, part 1, Universiti Teknologi MARA

students. 12 of them were taking Degree in International Business while the other 10 were taking

Degree in Accountancy. All of the students were Malay and their second language was English.

It was a two hours class of ‘Learning Mandarin as the Third Language’ with the objective of

learning how to use Mandarin for travelling purposes. This lesson was a follow-up to a previous

lesson which had dealt with how to use Mandarin for travelling to the countryside. There were

four phases to the lesson where each phase was done in 30 minutes.
In the first 30 minutes, the teacher told the students about their coming written and listening test

next week and recapped the previous lesson, orally, by asking questions and giving prompts.

Then, the teacher started the lesson by taking the students to the text book. He started off by

asking the students to look at a list of Mandarin words related to travelling. First, he uttered those

words one by one and then gave out their definitions. Students were asked to try to memorize

those words and their meanings. Students were not punctual where most of them came as late as

20 minutes after the lesson started and that interrupted the lesson.

The next 30 minutes, the teacher asked the students to utter out the model sentences available in

the text book. Every time the students finished uttering a sentence, the teacher would ask them to

translate the sentence into Malay or English language.

In the third phase, the teacher asked the students to do some exercises related to the lesson.

While the students tried to finish those exercises, the teacher walked around the class to check on

the students and assist them. The teacher also checked on the students’ previous exercises.

During the last 30 minutes, the teacher held up a discussion on the exercises that the students had

done earlier.
 ANALYSIS

As a whole, in the entire 2 hours lesson, the amount of individual student-talk was rather

minimal as they often interact chorally. The classroom was also silent most of the time for there

was little interaction while the teacher was giving instructions.

In the initial 30 minutes of the lesson, there was minimal student talk occurred with only 4 tallies

as most of them came in late and most of the 30 minutes were spent explaining about the

incoming tests by the teacher.

For the second 30 minutes, I found that the students preferred to play safe by not taking any risks

during interaction. Learners only answered questions when they were really sure of the answers

while those who were not sure kept quiet. Most students only interacted chorally. But still, the

student talk was minimal for there were only 9 tallies checked in the learner talk section of the

observation sheet.

The next 30 minutes, there was a decrease in student talk for only 6 tallies recorded.

The situation in the last 30 minutes was quite similar for there were only 5 tallies recorded.
The type of student talk used the most was answering the questions chorally with the total of 11

tallies for the whole 2 hours. Students also spent their time answering questions with 9 tallies. 1

tally was marked for giving inappropriate answers. Learners gave choral response to agree with

teacher with 3 tallies.

In the general area of the classroom interaction, there was much period of silence when listening

to teacher instruction (7 tallies). Little confusion after instruction present for only 1 tally marked.

Students seldom interrupted other students’ answer to teacher (5 tallies). 2 tallies marked for

disruption – learner interrupted teacher. There were little jokes and laughter available during the

lesson. Students joked only one time for there was only one tally marked and learners laugh a

few time with 4 tallies. Most students relied heavily on Bahasa Malaysia (their first language) to

communicate with each other (6 tallies) and with the teacher (9 tallies). Only a few students used

English (their second language) to communicate with the teacher (3 tallies).

DISCUSSION

For the whole 2 hours lesson, the students clearly didn’t interact much with each other and with

the teacher. Most of the time, most students kept quiet and even if they responded, they did it

with such low voices. Most of the interaction came from answering the questions which only

happened when teacher directed the questions to them none of them ever volunteered to answer.

When the teacher asked question generally, most answers would be chorally spoken by the

students. The teacher often used prompts to elicit more interaction from the students.
In the first 30 minutes, the teacher cleared up things on tests. Minimal feedback was given by the

students during this time for most of them came in very late and there was not much of confusion

present. Then, the teacher went on with introduction of Mandarin words and their definitions.

Little voluntarily and natural interaction occurred in all 4 phases of the 2 hours lesson for the

students only answered questions and uttered Mandarin sentences when being asked to by the

teacher.

I assumed that the minimal interaction was due to lack of understanding and mastery of

Mandarin. Students did not understand the Mandarin sentences and because of that, they needed

time to congest the instructions given, hence the excessive amount of silent periods. The lack of

understanding came from lack of practice in using Mandarin which could be clearly seen during

the lesson where most of the time, Bahasa Malaysia and a bit of English language were used for

interaction among themselves and with the teacher.

Furthermore, there was a high affective filter environment in the classroom as there was little

laughter and joking. Affective filter is good for lowering apprehension among the learners and

helping in the language acquisition (Menon, 1998). The high affective filter environment could

be the reason to the lack of interaction from the students.

 Strengths of Classroom Interaction

1. Though scarce, interaction (learner talk) indeed happened because the teacher tried so

hard to elicit interaction by giving out prompts, questions and reading activities.

Weakness of Classroom Interaction

1. Too little learner talk. The students were clearly reluctant to participate in classroom

interaction for their lack of understanding of Mandarin. Understanding of Mandarin can

be developed by the students if they do enough revision and practice.

2. There were too many choral answers. Choral answers meant that the students were not

confident enough to answer questions on their own. The lack of confident was obvious

because even when answering chorally, their voices were really low. I could hardly hear

them. Confidence can be developed from mastery. Therefore, revision and practice are

very essential.

3. The students interacted with the each other and the teacher using their mother tongue and

a bit of English. No Mandarin was used to communicate. Again, this is due to lack of

understanding of the language. Of course, they certainly could not use it because they

didn’t know how.

 CONCLUSION

This observation had managed to enlighten me with the fact that learner talk is scarce in third

language classroom. With further research, I would most probably be able to dig out the solid

reasons of why such things occurred. By finding out the reasons, the probable solutions would

soon be discovered thus ways of improving learners’ interaction can be developed. The purpose

of this at the end is to be aware of what learners can do to increase their own level of interaction

in the third language learning and to increase purposeful learning opportunities.

 Bibliography

Chatalansy, S & Moskalis, S. (2002). Improving Language Acquisition through Journal Writing.
Retrieved on 20th August 2010 from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED466104.pdf

Murray, H & Lang, M. (1997). Does Classroom Participation Improve Student Learning?
Retrieved on 20th August 2010 from http://www.stlhe.ca/pdf/Does%20classroom%20participatio
n%20improve%20student%20learning.pdf

Sujatha Menon (1998). Action Research – One Hour Classroom Observation of a Writing
Lesson.

Uhl Chamot, A, Barnhardt, S & Dirstine, S. (1998). Conducting Action Research in the Foreign
Language Classroom. Retrieved on 26th August 2010 from http://www.nclrc.org/about_teaching/
reports_pub/conducting_action_research.pdf
APPENDICES
 Student Interaction

Tallies
No Areas Total
30m 30m 30m 30m
1 Learner answers question.
Learners give inappropriate
2
answers.
Learners agree with teacher
3
– choral response.
Learner Learners disagree with
4
Talk teacher – choral response
5 Learners answer chorally
Learner interrupts teacher –
6
for explanation.
Learner questions another
7
learner.
Learner answers another
8
learner.
General Learner asks questions –
9
related to task.
Period of silence when
10 listening to teacher’s
instruction.
Period of silence when
11 watching a video or
listening to a tape.
Period of confusion after
12
instructions.
Learner/s interrupt/s other
13
learner’s answer to teacher.
Learner/s add/s to other
14
learners question to teacher.
15 Learner interrupts teacher –
disruption.
16 Learner interrupts other
learners – disruption.
17 Learners joke.

18 Learners laugh.

19 Learners use Bahasa

Malaysia to discuss or talk
among themselves.
20 Learners use English to
discuss or talk among
themselves.
21 Learners use Bahasa
Malaysia to communicate
with the teacher.
22 Learners use English to
communicate with the
teacher.
23 Learner responds non-
verbally to teacher’s
request.