ISBN: 978-607-8356-17-1 HOW TO CREATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL STUDENTS TO PARTICIPATE AND DEVELOP THE ORAL PRODUCTION PRODUCTION IN THE TARGET LANGUAGE? Alvarado Huerta Sandra Daniela Escuela de Lenguas, UJED Cabrales Rodríguez Nathally Ivonne Escuela de Lenguas, UJED Gutiérrez Duarte Ana Patricia Escuela de Lenguas, UJED Abstract With every class that a teacher has to give she or he has to face the challenge of having a student or group of students that are not willing to participate. The purpose of this action research is to create opportunities for all of the students to participate and develop the oral production in the target language. By observing and having the chance to work with the observed group practitioners of this action research seek to understand why students are not participating and try to find a solution for this. The first part of this action research was to observe students so we could understand and try to solve the problem that the students are facing in the classroom, keeping in mind that there are certain activities or attitudes that can encourage students to participate. Context This research is focused on a group of beginners from the Escuela de Lenguas de la Universidad Juárez Del Estado de Durango (UJED). In the area of Centro de Enseñanza de Lenguas Extranjeras (CELE). The group was composed of a total of twenty two students of which eleven were men and eleven were women. The range between the students age is from thirteen to fifty six years being the average age of twenty eight years. After observing this group, it was noticed that not all students were practicing the target language in a real context. The majority of the group only participated when asked to read or give an answer. It was noticeable that four or five students took the lead in the class. Those four or five students are the ones that always shout out the answers and are the only ones making questions to the teacher. It is also noticeable that the young ones are the ones who are not participating in the activities. Introduction Participation plays an important role in a classroom, in order to see if the students understand the topic that the teacher is teaching. For this reason the researchers considered it important to focus the investigation in this field. After observing the A1 group, it was clear that lack of participation was the main problem in the classroom. This was noticeable for several reasons. First of all it was evident that only 5 students were participating, regardless of if they were chosen or not. The rest were only picked on from time to time and it was the only opportunity they had to participate. After speaking to the students it could be observed that the ones who weren’t participating had a lower level than those who participated more 243 ISBN: 978-607-8356-17-1 often in the class. The previous reasons motivated this action research. By changing certain activities and actions in class it is expected that students would start to participate more equally and therefore have the same level of English as the rest of the class. A needs analysis was designed and applied after a month of observations to get to know more about the problem with the aim of creating a class according to the students’ likes, preferences and needs. Literature Review According to Dancer & Kamvounias (2005) participation can be seen as an active engagement process which can be sorted into five categories: preparation, contribution to discussion, group skills, communication skills, and attendance. Participation also has been defined as ‘‘the number of unsolicited responses volunteered’’ (Burchfield & Sappington, 1999, p. 290). Fritschner (2000) also defined participation as moving from simply attending class through giving oral presentations. The Teaching Center (Washington University in St. Louis) mentions the importance of having all the students participating so that they are not losing opportunities to learning. Having them participate also makes the class more interesting because this way the class can explore ideas or issues form different points of view, instead of only one or two opinions. It is also stated that the way students interact, has to do with the personality of each one and the learning style that he or she might have, therefore it gives us tips for encouraging the shy ones to speak and how to hold back from time to time those who seem to speak a lot. Morita, N. (2004) does a qualitative case study with students to explore how L2 learners negotiate their participation in their new L2 classroom. It makes a study of what types of activities can encourage students to participate more as well as explaining the point of view that a student might have towards participation. As a conclusion it tells us about the importance of providing a variety of materials to motivate students to participate. By using a variety of techniques students will not just be motivated to learn but will also help learners improve their pronunciation and listening skills and therefore improve their communication skills allowing them to participate more. Larry K. Michaelsen, L. Dee Fink and Arletta Knight (1997) provide guidance for designing group activities in classes and workshops. The authors identify 4 main problems; (1) when making group activities; (2) one or two students often dominate the discussions, (3) some members' ideas are either unexpressed or largely ignored and (4) when groups frequently have difficulty staying focused on the assigned task. For this investigation it is also important to understand the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. (2000) describe motivation as the act to be moved to do something. The relations of both types of motives to basic human needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness are discussed. Methodology According to Lawrence O. Hamer (2000), Larry K. Michaelsen , L. Dee Fink, Arletta Knight (1997), Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. (2000) and in addition to other authors, it is clear that there are activities and actions that can be done to improve students’ performance in class. Many past researchers have sleeked to understand the importance of participation from students in the classroom; there are several theories of how to encourage students to participate took from different previous researches. How to create opportunities for all 244 ISBN: 978-607-8356-17-1 students to participate and develop the oral production in the target language? This was the question that emerged after observing a class and noticing that this was a problem. Therefore a series of investigations were done to try to answer this question and find the solution to the problem. First of all it is important to understand definitions that exist for participation. In the class there were students that were very participative and students who decided to keep to themselves and rarely speak. According to Dancer & Kamvounias (2005) participation can be seen as an active engagement process which can be sorted into five categories: preparation, contribution to discussion, group skills, communication skills, and attendance. Based on several definitions founded from previous researchers, the practitioners of this action research define participation as a process of group negotiation; where natural oral discussions take place in order to share ideas and listen to others, providing opportunities to learn. Procedure After having a clear idea of the definition of participation, there were serious of steps that had to be followed in order have students participating more and increasing oral production in the target language. First of all, it was important to observe the class where the action research was going to be executed. During each observation, there was an observation format being filled out by all three practitioners. The observation format helped determine what aspects of the class were wrong and which ones were to be kept the same. During the observations the practitioners leaned a great deal from the group, which helped design lesson plans that were later used in the practice. Practices started to take place a week after the observations, intercalating one week of observations and one week of practices. During practices researchers had the opportunity to try out different materials, activities and teaching methods to see which one gave better results. It also gave the opportunity to try out different materials or teaching methods to see which one gave better results. Also there were questionnaires designed based on the observations and practices. The questions that were asked were meant to answer doubts about the participant’s preferences when it came to learning. There were multiple choice questions and open questions giving participants the opportunity to answer questions freely and express their thoughts as well. Activities In order to solve the problem, a set of activities were applied, taking into account findings from other researchers, to improve students’ participation in class. One of the activities tries to minimize the 3 main problems that Larry K. Michaelsen, L. Dee Fink and Arletta Knight (1997) mention; one or two students often dominate the discussions, some members' ideas are either unexpressed or largely ignored, groups frequently have difficulty staying focused on the assigned task. To avoid these problems, the interaction pattern was changed to ensure the participation of all the students; each pair will have the same amount of opportunities to participate in the activity encouraging the shy students to speak and to hold back the students who speak a lot. Researchers also consider that using games provides the setting to socialize with all the participants as well as to promote critical thinking. As Felner, Mertens and Lipsitz says, 245 ISBN: 978-607-8356-17-1 teaming exhibited improved work climate, more frequent contact with parents, increased teacher job satisfaction, and higher levels of student achievement (Felner, Mertens, & Lipsitz, 1996; Mertens, Flowers, & Mulhall, 1998). Communication skills are improved with games because the students have to listen to their partner´s answers, practice pronunciation and provide equal opportunities for all the students to participate. Findings The following information gathered is from the questionnaires applied to students. Right away a big challenge was faced because students’ ages ranged from thirteen to fifty three giving us a wide rank between the students’ ages. Therefore suitable activities for all ages were needed. Also, it was found that learners presented a wide variety between their language proficiency; one of the reasons was that some of them had previous contact with the language before starting the course. Learners enrolled on the course also had different reasons for learning English. Academic purposes and because they enjoy the target language were some of the most common reasons. This shows that the majority of the students had an intrinsic motivation. Ryan & Stiller (1991) state that intrinsic motivation has emerged as an important phenomenon for educators; a natural wellspring of learning and achievement that can be systematically catalyzed or undermined by parent and teacher practices. Results also expressed that students preferred to work with different types of activities. The activity that they most liked was games followed by speaking and listening activities. This was something that had to be changed because at the time students did not work with visuals or activities that involved interaction. The only tool they were using was the course book. This kind of teaching is the traditional instructional format of college and university educators, it promotes passive learning because learning occurs while students passively listen to and take notes on a lecture without actively being engaged (Benjamin 1991; Dabbour 1997) On the questionnaire students mentioned that one of the strongest abilities were working in teams and role playing. Michaelsen, Fink, and Arletta (1997) mention that a number of different types of tasks will produce high levels of group interaction, assignments increase group cohesiveness (and, over time, eliminate social loafing) when they require members to make a concrete decision based on the analysis of a complex issue: in other words, when asked students or workshop participants to apply a rule or solve a problem. For these reasons it was decided to implement group work and speaking activities as well. Students learning techniques were also integrated to the activities; students prefer to take notes, read out loud and walk around showing that the majority of the students have a kinesthetic learning style. By discussing with their classmates students can develop their listening and speaking skills promoting the communicative approach. When learning new words pupils prefer to have the actual meaning of the words and some examples of the use in context. Finally, students expressed their feeling of their English class; they mentioned that the class was not bad but it was not an excellent class either. This might be because the course was not meeting students’ needs and wants. Another reason might be that there was not a previous needs analysis at the beginning of the course to find students’ needs and likes. Results 246 ISBN: 978-607-8356-17-1 After observing the CELE group who consists of both men and women between the ages of thirteen and fifty six years of age it was noticed that there were some students who felt intimidated by the older or more outgoing students in the class. Thus being the reason why participation was not being carried out evenly in the classroom. Therefore a needs analysis was designed for the students of CELE so that the students’ needs and wants could be understood better. After receiving feedback from the students with the help of the needs analysis and after several observations, practitioners set of to find techniques that would create opportunities for all students to participate and develop the oral production in the target language. Some of the techniques that were useful for the students were to make a name raffle, to include games or activities that encouraged them to speak more and to modify teachers’ attitude when working with the students. Once practices with these new techniques started to take place practitioners were able to see changes in students behavior. The results for each change were the following. The first big thing that was important to change was the way the way students were being called upon. From the observations it was noticeable that the only students being called were those who were already participating a lot and that the quiet ones were being left behind. Therefore there was a name raffle designed to make the participation more equal and fair for everybody allowing those who never participated to participate and silencing those who always wanted to have control of the class. Before each exercise the teacher would chose somebody from the name raffle and he or she had to be the one to answer the teachers question or give their opinion about the topic being seen. This really seemed to work for the students and gave the results that were looked for. More of the shy students were participating and those who spoke a lot realized that they had to allow their classmates to participate as well, allowing for more flow in the participation. The name raffle was something that only had to be done the first several weeks. Afterwards it seemed like the shy students had lost fear of speaking so they were willing to participate without the need of being called. Those who always spoke kept allowing students to participate without decreasing their own participation. The second thing that was important to change was the activities being done in the classroom. Students were only asked to work in their books and work individually, being these, boring for students. Also the interaction was only between teacher and students instead of allowing them to have communication among their classmates. Therefore it was decided to add games and activities that allowed students to get out of their seat and talk with their classmates thus promoting the communicative approach among the students. Many games were incorporated into the classroom and students really seemed to enjoy the class a bit more and they started to produce in the target language a lot more. If they had to work in the book they had the opportunity to work with a pair or sometimes even make larger groups. Students seemed more confident to practice the language when they only had to speak to two or three of their classmates instead of approaching the teacher to practice the target language. The grouping among the students was something that was decided to be carried out for the rest of the course because this way there was more speaking among them. The games were also something that was used for the rest of the course to create opportunities for all of the students to speak. The third and final thing that was considered in making the change among the students was the teachers’ attitude. At first the teachers’ attitude was very rigid. It was obvious that students were not feeling comfortable to ask teacher questions that they might have had 247 ISBN: 978-607-8356-17-1 likewise decreasing the participation of the students. There was also no praising from the teacher when students did something good. So, it was decided that the teacher should always try to have a good attitude toward the students. There were four main things that the teachers tried to do when working with the students. Smile to students to know they are doing a good job. Pat students in the back when they did something good, use comforting words like good job or keep it up, take them awards like candies when they had a good answer and call every student by his name. Students had a positive response to these actions, and it looked as if students were more comfortable to speak and ask questions as well as the fact that they wanted to participate more to receive good feedback form teacher or an award. Conclusion There are some important factors which must be taken into consideration when creating activities such as timing, teaming and the task itself. Students’ level has to be considered as well as their willingness to participate in order to create material suitable for them. In this research, we fostered students’ participation through different activities; to ensure students participation, it was necessary to take into account the time. Leaners were in a beginner’s level, so the activities needed to be suitable for them. Students’ needs and want also had to be taken into account; since the group had a wide variety of differences regarding age, likes and dislikes. For further researchers, it is highly recommended to use activities that motivate learners to communicate with each other. Subsequently, this motivates students to produce the target language. In addition to this, students will practice their social skills by having contact with others. It is also recommended to create an appropriate environment for the students. With this action research it was noticed that by creating a nice environment; anxiety in students is reduced helping them to feel more confident in class. Therefore, they will participate more during class. Bibliography: • Joan M. Barth, Sarah T. Dunlap, Heather Dane, John E. Lochman, Karen C. 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Rocca; (2010); Student Participation in the College Classroom: An Extended Multidisciplinary Literature Review; Communication Education; Vol. 59, No. 2; pp. 185-213 http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/stonerm/rocca-litrevengagingstudents.pdf •The Teaching Center; (NY) Increasing Student Participation; Washington University in St. Louis;http://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/strategies/Pages/increasingparticipation.aspx#.U0QftKLpYlE Appendix Universidad Escuela de Licenciatura Juárez del Estado de Durango Lenguas. en Docencia de Lengua Inglesa. The purpose of this questionnaire is to identify the activities you like the most during your English class. Instructions: Read carefully every question and then respond in your own words. 1. How old are you? __________________________________________________________________ 249 ISBN: 978-607-8356-17-1 2. Why do you want to learn English? __________________________________________________________________ 3. At what age did you start to learn English? _________________________________________________________________ 4. Mention 3 activities you like during your class. __________________________________________________________________ Instructions: circle the best answer for you. Do you like books whit pictures? yes no Instructions: answer the questions by choosing the answers that suit you the best 1. I do well in: a) role playing b) oral presentations c) essay writing d) other _____________________________________________________. 2. a) b) c) d) For me the best way of studying is: by reading out loud by taking notes By walking around while you read other ______________________________________________________. 3. a) b) c) d) When I am learning a new topic in class I like to: outline the key information discuss with my classmates look for information on my own other _______________________________________________________. 4. When I learn new words, I like to: a) memorize them b) listen to the words c) write the words and its meaning d) other ___________________________________________________________. How do you consider your English class? Bad Regular Good Excellent 250 ISBN: 978-607-8356-17-1 251