Class Discussion and Class Participation: Determination of Their Relationship (original) (raw)
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Journal of Curriculum and Teaching, 2019
During several non-participant observations of two advanced College English classes at Jiangsu University, it was noticed that most of the students did not engage in class discussions. To ascertain what the problem was, but from learners' perspectives, this research was conducted. Seventy-one students enrolled in College English at Jiangsu University volunteered to partake in this work. A self-administered questionnaire was used to gather the data. The findings indicate that most of the respondents did not take an active stance in class discussions because of their lack of knowledge on strategies to bear their thoughts or opinions. Other expressed that they did not know about the topics to discuss in class, and that was a significant barrier to their performance. Besides, some participants doubted to speak in class. That can be linked to their shyness. Knowledge about these findings is helpful for teachers and College English authorities to examine what kind of training should be offered to students and teachers to make steady improvements.
6th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd’20) Universitat Polit`ecnica de Val`encia, Val`encia, , 2020
Chinese university students enrolled in overseas coursework and English as Medium of Instruction courses domestically have a reputation for classroom passivity as recognized internationally. Thus, the case study was employed to explore Wenzhou Kean University (WKU) students' 'willingness to communicate' based on motivation and attitude toward the classroom learning milieu. Purposive and convenience sampling techniques were used in the semi-structured interview of 75 informants during the focus group discussion. Thematic content analysis method was used to analyze qualitative data collected. Grounded theory was used for the generation of theories. Findings showed that ESL Chinese university students are motivated because of knowledge acquisition and English spoken ability improvement when they engage in class discussion. A relaxing classroom climate, instructor's personality and professional competence in designing the learning experiences contribute in shaping favorable learning attitudes necessary for active student participation in class discussion. Most WKU students intend to pursue graduate studies abroad and considers English speaking ability important in their future and career goals. This belief persistently motivates them to engage in class discussion. Besides, thinking skills development, self-confidence enhancement, leadership skills, team working and adaptability to new environment development heighten the importance of class discussion.
Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions of Classroom Discussions
2012
Classroom activities, such as English dubs, role-play, brainstorming etc can be very useful for the teaching of oral English. In recent years, although considerable attention has been paid to the use of classroom activities in English speaking classes, the perceptions of teachers and students about such activities have been ignored. Therefore, this study aims to investigate students' and teachers' perceptions of the use of classroom activities in English speaking classes. Classroom observations were carried out as a preparatory work for a questionnaire survey which was conducted to examine the attitudes of English-major students and teachers towards 21 classroom activities. Data were analyzed and the results of the research showed that there were both similarities and differences between students' and teachers' perceptions about these activities and that the perceptions of freshmen and sophomores were not completely matched. The findings of this research can help teachers take students' perceptions into consideration while designing classroom activities for English speaking classes in the future.
HOW DO WE HELP STUDENTS PARTICIPATE IN THE CLASSROOM DURING ENGLISH CLASS
This action research aims to determine how a teacher can encourage the student's participation in the class that would likely be the concern by the researchers as pre-service teachers and will soon become teachers. The current study also aims to determine the possible teaching strategies that would mostly encourage learners to fully participate and give their full attention during class discussion. Furthermore, the study uses quantitative descriptive approach as research design. Researchers used predetermined survey questionnaire consist of 15 items and choose 15 respondents from University of Southeastern Philippines were selected through simple-random sampling. The results of the current study reveal that 8 out 15 of the students think that they are passive which hinders them to become participative students. In addition students' perspective in terms of the factors that would likely affects the classroom participation is the language problem followed by the cultural diversity, less experience in classroom participation and communication apprehension. However, most of the students strongly agree somewhat agree to the statement that they usually like to work with group and pair activities. Also teacher's active interaction with students most likely encourages students to participate in the class. The researchers recommend that in order for the students to participate in class teachers should incorporate group activities and paired activities in their lesson.
This paper describes and discusses the implementation, analysis, and results of an end-of-the-semester survey taken by 2,398 of the first-year students enrolled in the compulsory English for Discussion Class (EDC) program at Rikkyo University in the spring semester of 2018. Using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, the authors analyzed the survey results in terms of students' satisfaction with their classroom experience. The quantitative data showed respondents were extremely satisfied with the EDC course, while the qualitative analysis of respondents' comments showed that while many students initially experienced a sense of resistance to communicating in English, this feeling often disappeared by the end of the semester. Furthermore, respondents provided useful insights into students' perceptions of teacher feedback, assessment, and the use of discussion skills on the EDC program. These results, while overwhelmingly positive, have useful implications for EDC program evaluation and for teacher education.
Proceedings of the International Conference on Education and Learning 2017, Vol. 1, pp. 40-56., 2017
QUICK DOWNLOAD: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3YJT2OiMX8wekRNVlBfNnF0Z1U/view?usp=sharing Levels of learner oral participation within classroom discussions have been examined within second language research in recent years, with the belief that maximizing oral production of speech can improve use of the L2. Persistent discussion silence among East Asian learners is often attributed to issues such as learners being culturally bound or too shy to share opinions. Such research lacks learner self-reported data on specific reasons for such silence, as well as practical recommendations for instructors struggling with such non-participation within classroom environments. Thus, this study examined the root causes of silence, according to students themselves, and summarizes steps necessary for boosting the participation of discussion group members. Extensive interview data from six instructors of English within a university in Japan and survey data from 131 of their Japanese learners was collected and analyzed. 14 identified 'barriers' and 15 potential 'boosts' to learner oral participation were identified and categorized under 1) task design, 2) group setup and 3) instructor actions. This paper concludes with recommended actions for instructors to nurture oral participation within classroom group discussions.
2018
This study is concerned with the process of how teachers and students manage classroom participation in the English Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. Student participation is often associated with their verbal and non-verbal interaction in class, and how they respond to teachers’ questions. The main aim of the study, then, is to explore the factors that influence students’ participation in the English classroom at Ibri College of Applied Sciences in Oman. The sample of the study includes two gender-mixed classes (Level A and Level C) from the Foundation Year program, as well as six foreign teachers who taught these classes, and were voluntarily chosen. Since many previous studies focus on analysing the verbal and non-verbal participation of students in the classroom, this study tries to explore deeper to discover the implicit and unseen causes of participation in an attempt to shed some light on the factors that may contribute to what happens in the class, rather than the actions th...
ABSTRACT In-class participation is increasingly becoming a requirement in many university courses and programs and helps students understand the material better and affects the attitude and motivation of the students positively. This study investigated the overall attitude of the Iranian university teachers towards in-class participation, and revealed some of the underlying reasons for the students’ reluctance to speak in class. 50 students majoring in Translation Studies volunteered to fill out the 20-item questionnaire and 10 of them accepted to be interviewed. Analysis of the data revealed that students have a very positive attitude towards in-class participation, but there were some personal, teacher and cultural factors which prevented them from participation in class discussion. It was found out that cultural factors were as important as the reasons related to the teachers’ behavior or students’ personality features. Being afraid of making public mistakes and the tense atmosphere of the class were the most important barriers. Furthermore, Iranian students considered it rude to talk a lot in the class or to interrupt the teacher, especially if he was old. It seems more than reasonable to suggest that language teachers who emphasize classroom participation and assign scores for that activity should find more creative and practical ways to create a relaxed and inviting atmosphere in the class and a friendly relationship with the students suitable for in-class discussion.
Improving Student Participation in Class by Strengthening Teacher-Student Interaction
English in Education, 2016
This study focuses on the implementation of teacher-student interaction strength in improving students' participation in a bilingual boarding high school in Central Java. The goals of this study are, (1) describing whether and to what extent teacher-student interaction improves the student participation in class, (2) to identify the advantages and difficulties in implementing this strategy in this research. I adopted Classroom Action Research (CAR) which requires four steps, namely planning, implementing, observing, and reflecting. The participants are 23 high school students. The methods of data collection are observation, diary, interview, photograph, pretest, and post-test. In analyzing data I used (1) constant comparative technique by Burns (1999) (qualitative), (2) descriptive statistic technique (quantitative). After analyzing the data, I found out that the change in participation in class was seen clearly and all the responses from the students were positive. Moreover the average score of students` speaking skill increased from 62.77 to 84.51.