OBSERVATION AND RESEARCH IN THE CLASSROOM

I am providing through an example an idea of how to develop a project research in the classroom, selecting a topic that I consider interesting for a group of students I am familiar with in order to look for solutions to a specific problem.

This analysis has been developed based on the following key points:1. Clearly outline the population for your adapted case study.2. How would you adapt the structure of the case study to fit in with your target

group and teaching context?3. What sort of data would you generate and how would you generate it?4. How would you analyse the data?

PROJECT – Mónica Torres C.

MOTIVATING PRE-INTERMEDIATE LEARNERS IN DEVELOPING WRITING SKILLS: A PROJECT

1. IDENTIFICATION OF THE PROBLEM

One of the priorities the modern society is looking for is the mastering of the English language, since it is being used around the World. Academic, scientific and technological information; panels, seminars, training programs in all areas, Internet pages business magazines and so on, are available to people who are able to use the English language in oral and in written form.These points make us think of the issue that the learners of English should develop all of the skills of the language, so that they can use it to face successfully what the modern society demands.Students are not motivated to write in English. Among all of the skills of the language this is the most difficult for the students to acquire and master. So this activity will help them to improve their way of writing. Teacher will make contacts through internet and by phone with language institutions and language academies from United States, specifically with languages teachers to look for people who are interested in establishing pen friends relationship. He/she will provide students with a list of pen friends from two institutions with different interests (music, sports, spare time activities, pop stars, hobbies, reading preferences) and different ages, who may be contacted by e-mail. Once the students chose a partner, they start writing letters and receiving responses in English. Subsequently they write letters to get in touch with their new pen friends. This activity will empower their motivation to write in English and develop this skill.Throughout this activity the students will have the opportunity to use the vocabulary and grammar they have learned in something interesting and creative. On the other hand it will prepare them to future learning since this activity includes taking notes, make summaries, describe people, places, character, etc.

2. HYPOTHESIS SYSTEM AND VARIABLES

HYPOTHESIS: The development of a pen friends project will motivate pre-intermediate learners to build up writing skills.

DEPENDENT VARIABLE: The pen friends project

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE: Motivation of pre-intermediate learners to develop writing skills.

3. POPULATION

The group involved consists of 30 students of a Pre-Intermediate English Course, who come from different cultural backgrounds, who have never been abroad. They are about 16 and 17 years old. They are not skilful when writing in English and commit many mistakes when they do it.

4. THE SAMPLE

As the population is not too big, the project will be developed with each one of the students who belong and work in this group.

5. THE FOUNDATION OF THE INSTRUMENTS FOR THE GATHERING OF DATA

The approach of this project is experimental since the researcher is deciding in advance what to investigate, on the basis of predictions generated by theory. This is why it is being formulated a research hypothesis and then we will collect data in order to validate or disprove the hypothesis. It is believed that students have the skill of writing less developed than the other three language skills due to the difficulty that to acquire it presuppose and lack of practice. Making students use the skill in real life situations like exchanging correspondence with real people and about real things will motivate them and result in improvement of this skill. However we are conscious that there are a number of other variables that will be impossible to control such as lack of pen friends¡¦ interests, lack of resource (no computer available), lack of economical resources.

This project will be developed with the following objectives:

Provide these learners a source of motivation to start writing in English in current and real life situations.

Have the opportunity to practice grammar, lexis, functions and linguistic abilities so that they continue to develop their communicative competence.

Improve the students’ skills of writing through the interaction with foreign people from United States through the organization of pen friends system using internet or the normal post.

To ensure that the collecting research data will be reliable another perspective will be used. That is the triangulation to obtain an accurate picture of the investigation. In this case it is going to be used Methodological Triangulation because it will be used different methods to collect the data: Students will develop self-report surveys on pen friends progress (social skills). They will also present printed letters for the teacher to analyze them and get information about how well they are using the language.

The results of the research should be reliable and valid so that it can be applied in other contexts. In this case the project will be given consistency along the data collection and analysis A monitor group will be organized to prove this reliability; and we also prove validity by applying the outcomes of the experiment to the treatment applied to the experimental group.

Diaries will be used as a technique to collect data, to know how well they are using the social skills, grammar, lexis and functions of the language, if they are improving their writing skill or not. Even though it seems to be a subjective tool, it can provide very important clues about how the learners feel and about how they process information. They will be able to report on the learning strategies they are developing to succeed or on those problems they have so that the teacher can help when necessary.

6. THE APPROACHES FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF THE DATA

Being aware of the high priority that the learning of English for communication has and being conscious that the students need to develop a higher resource of motivation that push them to start writing in English, it is going to develop this project as a way to encourage learners to exchange letters and write in English as well as to learn things about the culture of the speakers of the language they are learning and share things about their own.

The development of this Project will let them get worth experiences in using real life language, which will lead them to improve their writing as it is expected and lately they will develop their communicative competence.

The sort of data that will be generated requires to follow a series of steps in organizing the project and then in carrying it out.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIES

Get in contact with the President of Partners of the Americas, who lives in Boise to ask her support in this aim.

Encourage students to start and maintain communication through internet or normal post with pen friends from an English speaking country to improve their writing skill.

Get the names and electronic mails of language teachers in Charter School in Nampa and South Jr. High in Boise.

Ask those teachers to start with a pen friend activity mentioning the benefits both parts can gain through e-mail.

Invite them to generate a list of students who are interested in establishing pen friends contact through e-mail, or normal post, specifying their interest.

With the list on hands, the teacher will classify it according to interests and let students choose to whom they want to start this correspondence.

METHODOLOGICAL STRATEGIES

Students will receive information about how to write letters by developing some lessons on formats of how to write letters.

They will also receive training on how to create their e-mail address and how to use it. A person in charge of the computers laboratory will be asked to support students to

achieve this goal. Along the development of the project the teacher will be available to provide assistance

to the learners in their requirements: providing explanations on grammar, vocabulary, social skills and so on; correcting drafts and developing classroom feedbacks.

Along each unit the teacher will introduce social language and grammar to ensure an appropriate practice of production so that they are able to express their own ideas, opinions and feelings accurately and fluently.

At the end of each week students will be asked to print their letters and share information with their classmates.

They will also be asked to present a final written report on the information that has been exchanged.

7. THE ANALYSIS OF THE DATA COLLECTED

To know to what extent the objectives that we predetermined have been achieved; and to check if the hypothesis formulated can be confirmed or not, the qualitative research data will be analyzed.

The learners were asked to perform a diary about learning strategies they are deploying to write the letters, problems they have in writing, vocabulary, grammar, lexis or social skills; as well as the meta cognitive strategies they deploy. The teacher will identify the most important segments of the text which will report how the learners are improving their writing skill. If the categories would have not been predetermined before starting to read the diaries, they will emerge from the data.

It will also be possible to get in touch with the teacher of the other institution through e-mail to know about his/her own impressions and his/her student's impressions and by observing models of learner¡¦s letters performed by their own, at least one for each month. This is qualitative data that can be analyzed systematically but not rigidly making comparison one with another to notice the progress they have gained. The raw material will be condensed and summarize to get the objective.

8. THE CONCLUSIONS

Certainly, what happens in the second language classroom is decisive in the language acquisition and not only that but what is happening outside the classroom too. So it is urgent to focus classroom research to find out how extra class activities can help and motivate students in improving their language skills.

As far as I¡¦m concerned carrying out the pen friend project can provide good results in the training main aim that is to help students to develop their communicative competence.

Well, since in my particular case I have implemented this activity with a group of students in a real context and I got e-mail address from students in the two schools mentioned above, I¡¦d have to say that my students felt very well motivated to write in English and they have improved this skill considerably.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALLWRIGHT, R., (1988), Observation in the classroom, New York, Longman.

FRIED-BOOTH, D., (1996), Project Work, New York: Oxford University Press.

NUNAN, D., (1992), Research Methods in Language Learning. New York: Cambridge University Press.