Exploratory task 1.7

Play a Ping-Pong game with your partner each time “serving” a technique of teaching English grammar. Complete the grid.

Player 1	Player 2

Awareness-raising helps to elicit the field of excellence in teaching, i.e. the teaching area or techniques where the teacher feels especially successful, confident and safe. Usually these professional areas give a start to successful exploratory teaching because teachers feel especially motivated to self-assert in their “field of excellence”. In other areas of teaching the teachers can be less motivated to go though change.

Exploratory task 1.8

Work with your partner and complete the “field-of-excellence” grid indicating your most successful areas of professional work. One of you will be completing the “dark” field and the other will be writing in the “light” field. Start with the row nearest to you. The winner is the one who get first to the opposite row.

An important stage is getting convinced that the problem chosen for exploratory teaching really exists and is indeed topical. To prove that the problem really exists one needs classroom evidence and other people’s opinions. To assert that the problem is topical, one needs to indicate what resources of effectiveness the teachers and learners lose by not addressing the problem.

Exploratory task 1.9

Prove or disprove the following statements by conducting a mini opinion poll among your peers and providing your own classroom observations.

Statements	Prove	Disprove
Nobody likes to teach phonetics at school
Learners do not like role-play activities
Problem-solving activities in the lesson are a waste of time
Major skill to be taught is “reading”
English course-books for schools are very difficult
Teaching English at school should start the earlier the better
School learners do not know English grammar

Input reading 2

Organization of exploratory teaching

Warming up discussion 2.1

Discuss among your peers the following items: good language teacher, good language learner, good teaching method. Complete the grid given below and share the results in your peer group.

Good language teacher	Good language learner	Good teaching method

Exploratory teaching is organized by stages. Stage A is identification of the puzzle. The teachers identify the problem. They make concrete what they wish to explore. They anticipate what they hope to discover. The anticipation of what the teachers want to discover is usually formulated as the “hypothesis”. Hypotheses are of the several types, e.g. “The teaching will improve if…”, “The reason for the failure in teaching can be either… or… “, “The universally accepted belief that … will be proved/disproved”.

Exploratory task 2.1

You are given five research puzzles. Formulate the hypotheses for your research in the space provided.

Puzzles	Hypotheses (EITHER … OR…; … IF …; …WILL …
Role-play does not work in my class
The dictation results are poor again
Pupils are silent in discussions
Pupils do not know Past Participles
Homework has not been done again

While going through stage A the teachers try to find the answers to the following questions: “What is the problem that worries me?”, “What do I know about the ways to resolve the problem at present?”, “Have I read enough about the previous attempts to resolve this problem?”, “What innovation do I want to introduce?”, “How will I introduce the innovation?” “In which way might the innovation differ from my present teaching practice?”, “What possible effects can the innovation bring upon my teaching situation?”, “Is there any danger in using the innovation?”, “What do I hope to discover after the innovation is piloted in my class?”, “What if the hypothesis does not prove correct?” etc. Stage B is implementation of innovation is teaching. The teachers will draw up lesson plans with the innovative element. They will carry out the plan of implementing innovations. The teachers can ask the following questions at this stage: “How can I give a lesson with the innovative element?”, “How can I carry on observation in my classroom?”, “How can I make use of the lesson transcripts?”, “How can I interview my students of what they feel about the innovation?”, “How can I interview my colleagues of what they think about the innovation?”, “How can I make use of the teacher’s and students’ diaries?”, “How can testing be used for the purpose of data gathering?”, “How can I use the questionnaire technique in data gathering?”. Stage C is interpreting the data. The teachers examine the information that they were able to gather to discover more of what actually took place in the process of innovative teaching. At this stage the following questions are to be asked: “Have I gathered enough data to draw my own conclusions?”, “Do my data really give a fair picture of the reality?”, “In what order shall I start interpreting the data?’, “What data can be analyzed qualitatively?”, “What data can be analyzed quantitatively in numbers?”, “What data support each other?’, “What data contradict other data?’, “What conclusion have I actually reached by using my data?” (Ozdeniz, D. 1996. Introducing innovations into your teaching. In Challenge and Change in Language Teaching. Willis, J and D. Willis. Eds. Macmillan Heinemann. P. 114-124). This process of exploratory teaching is shown as a flow chart

Identification of the problem

Implementation of the innovations

Interpretation of the data

Exploratory task 2.2

What problems to you expect to come across during your exploratory teaching? Rate the following in order of importance for you (After Allwright, D. 1993. Integrating “research” into “pedagogy”: appropriate criteria and practical possibilities. In Teachers Develop Teachers Research. Edge, J. and K. Richards. Eds. Heinemann. P. 129-130)

Problem	Rank
Classroom research is time consuming
I will need to alter my lessons
I risk to change the well-proven activities
The results can be disappointing
My students might not like the change
I will need to learn the research skills
Research can take me away from teaching
Research is a one-time effort and can’t be used later
I can discover unpleasant things about my teaching
My administration can be against my research
My research can damage the self-esteem of my school

Exploratory task 2.3

Hold a survey of opinions among your students or in your peer group. Report the findings in the chart. What proposition is the most puzzling or controversial? Can you make it a subject of your research? What innovation can you introduce in your lesson in the attempt to find the solution to the puzzling statement?

Opinions	Yes %
Language comes first in teaching and communication follows
Learners need to memorize vocabulary and grammar
Learners find learning grammar rules more useful than examples
Learners find examples more useful than grammar rules
Learners can’t read a text if there are unknown words in it
Learners can easily guess words from context
Learners prefer to do activities first and then to focus on language
Details of language make the learners feel boring
Learners easily use my imagination in role-plays
Listening is easier for the learners than reading
Learners enjoy discussions because creative thinking is easy for me
Learners find the course-book of English difficult
Learners find the topics of teaching in the course-book boring

The major method of exloratory teaching is action research. Action research is a form of self-reflective inquiry carried out by practitioners, aimed at solving problems, improving practices and enhancing understanding of the problem (Nunan, D. 1993. Research Methods in Language Learning. CUP. P. 229). Action research is organized in the following steps: initiation, baseline studies, hypothesis, intervention and evaluation. Initiation is setting the problem for research, baseline is the studies into the existing situation and proving that the problem really exists, hypotheses is anticipating the solution, intervention is using the innovative experience, evaluation is the analysis of the results. These steps are shown in the chart

Initiation	Baseline	Hypothesis	Intervention	Evaluation
A teacher meets with a problem	Data are collected through observations, surveys etc.	Suggestion is made that the problem can be improved if …	The teacher introduces innovation in the lesson	Data are collected again after intervention is over

Exploratory task 2.4

Suppose you have noticed that a number of students in your class are apparently not involved in the activities and do not seem to be motivated to study English. Could you describe your action research steps in the chart below?

Initiation	Baseline	Hypothesis	Intervention	Evaluation
Problem:		… IF …

Action research includes non-manipulative and manipulative methods of studies. Non-manipulative studies are used in order to identify a problem and in order to collect the data on how successful your innovative teaching is. Non-manipulative methods are “theoretical analysis”, “empirical research” or “ethnography studies”. Theoretical analysis is done by reading for the research and collecting the ideas of other authors. These ideas are then compared, contrasted and are used to come to a certain independent conclusion. The researcher can say that the viewpoints of the two authors contradict or support each other, that a certain author is thinking in exactly the same way as the researcher him/herself, that a certain author’s idea can be interpreted in the following way etc. Non-acknowledged citations from other books is called “plagiarizing”, which is illegal.

Exploratory task 2.5

Read through the three “quotations” about the use of the native tongue in the lessons of English as a foreign language. Give your reasoning based on these quotations in the space provided

Quotations	Reasoning discourse
“Using English only in the lesson without resorting to a native tongue is a bumpy ride” (Simpson, 1999)
“If we need to teach English as communication and not as the subject of studies, then the native tongue should be banned in the lessons”(Thompson, 1997)
“Native tongue is necessary to give explanations, to contrast L1 and L2, and to tell the learners off” (Brown, 1998)

“Empirical research” means that the data are obtained from the real world and not from theoretical reasoning. “Ethnography study” also means that data are collected with the social cultural interpretation. Ethnographic techniques of research are observations, interviews, diaries, questionnaires, opinion polls, “think-aloud” tasks, tests etc. Manipulative research can take the form of “pedagogical intervention” and “experiment”. “Pedagogical intervention” is a broad term describing any attempt of the teacher to improve one’s teaching situation by introducing a series of innovations. In this case the innovative techniques are vividly presented and the final results whether positive, neutral or negative are allegedly attributed to the innovations in teaching. “Experiment” is a strict procedure of testing a hypothesis that a situation in teaching can improve IF…. Usually only one element of innovation is introduced in teaching. This element of innovation is called the “independent variable”. Certain changes in teaching according to the hypothesis are expected to follow after the innovative element has been introduced. These changes are called “dependent variables”. Actually there can be one or more expected changes to follow the innovation and one or more“ dependent variables” accordingly. The purpose of the experiment is to prove that these particular changes in teaching are really the result of this particular element of innovation. In order to prove this, the teacher selects two groups of learners. One group is called “experimental” group (or “treatment group”), while the other is called the “control group”. According to the baseline data these two groups should be absolutely similar in the language proficiency, attitude to language learning, learner aptitude etc. All this is proved by initial non-manipulative studies (initial cross-section). At the implementation stage innovative element is introduced in the experimental group while control group continues to work in the traditional way. At the evaluation stage non-manipulative studies (observations, interviews, testing etc.) are conducted (final cross-section). The results in the experimental and control groups are compared. If there is a marked difference between the results, then the teacher has the right to say that the change in the teaching situation is caused by the element of innovation that has been introduced. This is how the experimental hypothesis is proved (Nunan, D. 1993. Research Methods in Language Learning. CUP. P. 24-73).

Exploratory task 2.6

Study the following research situation and mark the statements about the results of the conducted experiment as “true” T or “false” F. Give your comments and share your ideas with the group. The best known way to compare the methods of teaching in terms of their effectiveness is to assign students randomly to two different groups and to provide the instruction to them by using different methods. Then, at the end of the research experiment all the students are tested. The results of testing help determine which method of teaching is more effective. A famous research of this type was Pennsylvania Project. The project sought to compare the effectiveness of the audio-lingual method and the more traditional language teaching. The scale of the study was very impressive and it involved over two thousand subjects in more than fifty schools. The large-scale and very expensive study concluded that after two years of instruction there was no significant difference between the methods in the areas of listening, speaking and writing, although the traditional group was slightly superior in reading. Several attempts were made to explain the failed experiment (cited from (Nunan, D. 1993. Research Methods in Language Learning. CUP. P. 92)..

Statements to explain failure	T F	Comments
The teachers did not adhere properly to a certain method
The idea of the experiment was oversimplified
A teaching method is less important for the results than is often thought
Teaching techniques are more effective than a global idea of a method.
Data elicitation techniques were inadequate
Perhaps, major changes happened in pronunciation
Perhaps major changes happened in the vocabulary build-up
Perhaps major changes happened in grammar
Perhaps the traditional group was initially better than the experimental group

Data processing

In order to interpret the results of exploratory teaching, the classroom data need to be “processed”, i.e. arranged in the form that makes the data more evident and present them for easier interpretation. Data processing can be done in the graphical form. A popular graphical form pr presenting data is a table. It shows the research data in their numerical values usually per cent.

Questions	Answers %

Another popular form of representing the data graphically is a bar-chart. It helps to compare and contrast the questionnaire results and to represent them in a visual form, which easy to view and to analyze.

Strongly disagree	Disagree	Don’t care	Agree	Strongly agree

An alternative form to represent the data relationship and to show them as “part of the whole” is a “apple pie”. An “apple pie” given below shows the ratio of “syntax errors” (word order) and “morphology errors” made in the students’ written essays. The section of the syntax errors is much smaller than that of the morphological errors, which is typical of the error distribution.

In order to represent the experimental data dynamically and to show how a certain phenomenon (errors, attention, use of communicative activities in the lesson, difficulty of the material etc) was changing in the course of research, a graph is used. The graph below shows a typical tendency in the learners’ errors while they are acquiring a new grammar item. In the beginning the number of mistakes is relatively low and the scoring is high. Later the number of mistakes goes up dramatically (the scoring goes down) and after more efforts the number of mistakes goes down again (the scoring goes up). This tendency is represented by a typical U-turn, which is known to many researchers into the process of learning.

Scoring

U

Chain of lessons

Statistical analysis

In the process of exploratory teaching it might turn out to be useful to use statistical analysis, i.e. analyzing numerical data. A teacher might analyze students’ scores on a test or examination, evaluate responses to a questionnaire, estimate the importance of certain items for the learner, investigate the proportion of themes and teaching time, study the types of responses in the lesson, measure the teacher’s waiting time when the learners find it difficult to respond etc. (After McDonough, J. and S.McDonough. 1997. Research Methods for English Language Teachers. L. P. 138). Statistical analysis at present has become available and easy because of the wide use of statistical software. A widely used way to represent the data is per cent. A basic statistical concept is the mean. It is an average of a set of scores obtained by adding individual scores together and dividing by the total number of individuals who took part in the testing procedure. Another useful tool is standard deviation that shows the extent to which certain individual scores vary in relation to the mean. Let’s consider an example. The group “mean” of a certain test is 50 points. One student scored 65. It this result exceptional or ordinary? If the standard deviation from the mean is 20 points, this signifies that most students have scored between 30 and 70 points. Then the result of 65 points is ordinary. If the standard deviation is only 5 points and the majority of the students scored between 45 and 55 points, then the result of 65 points is exceptionally good. When teachers compare the data before pedagogical intervention and after it, it is necessary to prove statistically that the changes are significant. When comparing the two sets of results (scoring on the two tests), the appropriate statistical procedure will be the t-test or the F-test (another name of this procedure is analysis of variance, (ANOVA). A more simple procedure is to calculate the “means” of the scoring in the initial and final tests. If, the means of the test scoring before and after pedagogical intervention are different, then the teacher’s efforts really resulted in a tangible change in learners. The concept that underpins much of the analysis is “correlation”. Correlation is the extent to which two sets of results are connected between themselves. Suppose that students have taken two tests. One test was in grammar knowledge and the other test was in lexical knowledge. If the scoring for grammar was higher, the scoring the lexis was equally higher. If the scoring for grammar went lower, the scoring for lexis also went down. In this case, the “variables” (rows) of the results in both tests have the same tendency and were clearly associated with each other. The correlation index according to computerized processing was +1,0.