This action research mainly investigated the effectiveness of using films with historical, cultural, and linguistic significance to reconstruct an English oral communication course. Through students' self-thinking, discussion, presentation, and selection of authentic English dialogues, their ability to communicate in English was expected to improve. The reconstructed course was a compulsory course offered by the department of applied English at a private university in northern Taiwan, and a total of 30 freshmen took it. When the implementation of this curriculum restructuring project drew to a close, the researcher issued a 5-point Likert Scale questionnaire to the students to fill in. According to the results of the collected questionnaires, the participating students considered that the curriculum restructuring project was effective and successful. Each item under the five main indicators in the questionnaire received a high score of at least 4.0. Overall speaking, the students were most satisfied with the parts of curriculum design and teaching guidance of the course, followed by the parts of classroom management, teaching practice, and ways of evaluation.
What is Action Research?
There are many definitions of action research. Carr and Kemmis [1] defined it as “a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practices, their understanding of these practices and the situations in which the practices are carried out”. Rapoport [2] claimed that “action research aims to contribute both to the practical concerns of people in an immediate problematic situation and to the goals of social science by joint collaboration within a mutually acceptable ethical framework”. McCutcheon and Jung [3] viewed action research as a “systemic inquiry that is collective, collaborative, self-reflective, critical and undertaken by participants in the inquiry”. From the perspective of applied linguistics, Burns [4] stated that action research is an approach involving action and research. The action relates to the identification and exploration of an “issue, question, dilemma, gap, or puzzle in your own context of work--the classroom, the school, or the institution at large”. It normally involves making practical changes or interventions to solve the problem or make the situation better. The research implies a systematic method to gather information or data. Usually, the method is qualitative, and it includes essential stages such as planning, action, observation, and reflection [5].
History of Action Research
The German social and experimental psychologist, Kurt Lewin, can be said to be the ‘father’ of action research. He was very concerned about social issues and focused on participative group processes for resolving changes, crises, and conflicts within organizations. Lewin was the first person who coined the term ‘action research’. In his 1946 paper “Action Research and Minority Problems”, he described action research as “a comparative research on the conditions and effects of various forms of social action and research leading to social action” that utilizes “a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action, and fact-finding about the result of the action” [6]. By the mid-1970s, four main streams had emerged in the field: traditional, contextual, radical, and educational action research. Traditional action research, originated from Lewin’s work within organizations, started to be applied due to the growing importance of labor-management relations. Contextual action research, sometimes called ‘action learning’, stemmed from Trist’s work on relations between organizations. It is contextual, domain-based, and holographic, and emphasizes that participants also act as project designers and co-researchers. Rooted in Marxian ‘dialectical materialism’ and Antonio Gramsci’s praxis orientations, radical action research focuses on liberating and overcoming power imbalances. Educational action research has its foundation in the works of Thomas Dewey’s works, who thought that professional educators should get involved in community problem solving [7].
Effects of Action Research in Language Teaching/Learning
Calvert and Sheen [8] demonstrated how a teacher could successfully create, implement, and evaluate her own language learning task to meet the needs of her adult refugee students in an English program. The study concluded that action research served as an important tool by which language instructors can solve problems that appear in task-based instruction. Banegas et al. [9] investigated the effects of developing their own teaching materials on the improvement of their students’ learning opportunities through collaborative action research. Not only did the results show a growth in teacher professional development, but they also revealed how the teachers’ motivation and autonomy influenced their students’ motivation and language development. Ahn [10] explored the effects of applying a genre approach to develop L2 elementary school students’ writing ability via action research. The study found that the genre approach successfully made the participants aware of the various ways texts were organized for various communicative purposes. Furthermore, the students’ confidence level was enhanced, and they held a positive attitude towards writing. By conducting action research, İlin et al. [11] discovered that videos could be effectively used to teach grammar in ESP classes and that videos could save time and trigger students’ willingness.
Current Study
From the review of the past literature above, action research seems very productive for language classroom practitioners “as it focuses on issues and questions related to immediate practice and application. It involves exploring and discovering more about a specific issue which has significance for a teacher in relation to his or her own classroom and students” [4]. Based on these characteristics of action research, the researcher of this study attempted to apply it to improve students’ motivation and willingness to communicate in English in his conversation class, thereby enhancing their oral skills.
Generally speaking, English oral communication (OC) classes in most of the universities in Taiwan are mainly teacher-centered. In a regular OC classroom, it is always the teacher who sets the theme and designs the learning materials, games and activities related to the theme to carry out the course teaching. However, through this traditional teaching method, students are always in passive learning, and the oral skills they learn are also passive. That is to say, students can only answer simple questions but do not know how to ask questions in the foreign language. In addition, they are unable to use the foreign language to actively host meetings or conduct deeper and more professional conversations. The researcher of this study has taught English oral communication courses in the department of applied English at a private university in Taiwan for quite a few years. He has found that whenever his students discuss or answer questions in English on a specific topic/issue, they only speak one or two sentences and then stop. They are incapable of using the target language to fully express their ideas or thoughts on the topic/issue in a more fluent or precise way. For English majors, if they want to become language teachers, businessmen, purchasers, tour leaders/guides, etc. in the future, it (i.e., lack of good English communication/expression skills) will be very unfavorable. Therefore, the researcher of the current study planned to restructure his English oral communication course to make up for the shortcomings of the previous traditional OC teaching methods. The reconstruction of the course was mainly based on the concept of "using current film technology", and its main goal was to induce students to speak English without thinking in their daily lives, which in turn helps students have the ability to fully express their ideas and opinions in English without barriers and equips them with knowledge and skills that cannot be given by the traditional teaching methods.
The researcher of this study attempted to investigate the effectiveness of using films to restructure his English oral communication class via action research. He first identified some issues/problems he was concerned about in his own class. Second, he reflected on his teaching practices and decided to transform them to achieve the best results for his students. Then, based on his reflections, he made practical changes to solve the problems he observed in his classroom. Fourth, through a mainly qualitative research data-collection method (i.e., questionnaires), he made connections and drew conclusions regarding the implementation of the curriculum reconstruction.
Design of the Research
The design of this course reconstruction adopted the concept of “using current film technology". It abandoned the traditional teacher-led method in the past that the teacher sets the theme and designs the learning materials, games and activities related to the theme to carry out the course teaching. Instead, the course was transformed into a learner-centered course focusing on students' mutual learning and spontaneous discussion. Through students' self-thinking, discussion, presentation, and selection of authentic English dialogues, the researcher expected that their ability to communicate in the foreign language (i.e., English) could be effectively enhanced.
Participants
This action research was conducted on a class basis. The reconstructed course was an English oral communication course taught by the researcher of this study at a private university in northern Taiwan in 2018. It was a compulsory course in the applied English department of the school. The class consisted of 30 freshmen (6 male students and 24 female students). The students’ ages ranged from 18 to 20 (M=18.75). Moreover, all of these students had never received English instruction outside of Taiwan or had been raised in an environment where English is consistently used or spoken. They also reported no impairments in their hearing and speaking abilities and had never been diagnosed with any language disorders or learning disabilities.
Questionnaire
In order to effectively evaluate the effectiveness of this curriculum restructuring project, after the implementation of the project, the researcher asked the participating students to fill in a "Questionnaire on Response to Teaching" (see Table 1 for all the question items). The content of this questionnaire is designed for five major aspects: the instructor's curriculum design, teaching practice, classroom management, ways of evaluation and teaching guidance. There are four to five detailed questions under each of the categories. According to the 22 questionnaires returned, the effective ratio of this questionnaire is 73%.
Implementation of the Curriculum Reconstruction
At the beginning of the spring semester in 2018, the researcher/instructor chose two films with cultural, linguistic, and historical significance (i.e., Neil and The Help)
The researcher/instructor showed “Neil” to his students before the midterm exam and “The Help” after the midterm exam
In each class, the researcher/instructor only played the movie for 20-25 minutes for the students. After the students watched the part, he asked them questions about its content, and the students had to discuss the questions in English in groups. When figuring out the answers to all the questions, they were required to express their opinions in English. At the end of each class, the researcher/instructor summarized the results of the students’ discussion and their thoughts
To assess the students’ progress in this course, they were divided into groups before the mid-term and final exams. Each group needed to select their favorite plot for each of the two movies and then try to find the English script of that plot. Finally, the students must spend time constantly practicing the dialogue of the plot and then perform the original plot in English in front of other students and the teacher for their mid-term and final exams (6-8 minutes per group)
Procedure
This project is an action research study. The researcher attempted to reconstruct his English oral communication course for exploring the effectiveness of the use of films on the training of university English majors' oral ability. The current study proceeded in five steps. First, the researcher decided to use an "English Oral Communication" class he taught to implement the idea of curriculum restructuring. Next, the researcher planned to transform the course that was originally led by the teacher (the researcher himself) into a learner-centered course that emphasizes mutual learning among students. Third, the researcher actually carried out the curriculum reconstruction in the OC classroom according to the content of the above-mentioned classroom activity design. When the implementation of this project drew to a close, the researcher issued a "Questionnaire on Response to Teaching" to the students who took the course to fill out. Finally, the researcher collected the questionnaires for basic statistical analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum reconstruction project.
Table 1 shows the satisfaction of the students who took the course "English oral communication" in this study on the implementation of the curriculum restructuring project in terms of curriculum design, teaching practice, classroom management, ways of evaluation and teaching guidance. From the scores of the 5-point Likert Scale, the 22 students who filled out the Questionnaire on Response to Teaching basically considered that the curriculum reconstruction project was effective and successful. Each of the sub-items under the five major categories reviewed has a high score of at least 4.0. In general, this course received an average of 4.50 points in curriculum design, an average of 4.28 points in teaching practice, an average of 4.32 points in classroom management, an average of 4.16 points in ways of evaluation, and an average of 4.50 points in teaching guidance.
From the results above, we can find that among the five indicators, curriculum design (M=4.5) and teaching guidance (M=4.5) were most recognized by the students in the course, followed by classroom management (M=4.32), teaching practice (M=4.28), and ways of evaluation (M=4.16).
The two most recognized indicators suggest that the researcher’s goals for the reconstructed course were correct and the teaching content was appropriate and conformed to the course goals and the level of the students. More importantly, the teaching method, which is based on students' self-directed and mutual learning and supplemented by teacher guidance, was deeply accepted and needed by the students in this study. Furthermore, the instructor was able to identify the content of the course that his students had difficulty learning and the reasons why they had difficulty and then give appropriate guidance referrals. The teacher could also understand the deficiencies of the students' prior knowledge and then provide necessary advice and guidance. For outstanding students, the instructor was able to provide extra learning opportunities and resources.
The scores of the classroom management and teaching practice indicators show that the teacher often made good use of current events or links to old experiences to motivate his students to learn. He also frequently encouraged them to ask questions and check their learning status. Moreover, the instructor was able to design teaching activities that meet the content of the course, use suitable teaching equipment, aids or network to achieve his teaching goals, and pay attention to the individual learning difficulties of the students.
Table 1: Results of the Questionnaire on Response to Teaching
Questions on Instructor’s Teaching | Response | Score | ||||
Strongly Agree | Agree | Neutral | Disagree | Strongly Disagree | ||
A1. Curriculum Design | ||||||
| 50% | 50% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 4.5 |
| 50% | 50% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 4.5 |
| 45% | 55% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 4.5 |
| 55% | 45% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 4.5 |
| 50% | 50% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 4.5 |
A2. Teaching Practice | ||||||
| 45% | 50% | 5% | 0% | 0% | 4.4 |
| 41% | 50% | 5% | 5% | 0% | 4.3 |
| 41% | 50% | 9% | 0% | 0% | 4.3 |
| 27% | 55% | 18% | 0% | 0% | 4.1 |
| 41% | 50% | 9% | 0% | 0% | 4.3 |
A3. Classroom Management | ||||||
| 55% | 41% | 5% | 0% | 0% | 4.5 |
| 36% | 50% | 14% | 0% | 0% | 4.2 |
| 32% | 59% | 9% | 0% | 0% | 4.2 |
| 55% | 45% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 4.5 |
| 36% | 50% | 14% | 0% | 0% | 4.2 |
A4. Ways of Evaluation | ||||||
| 32% | 59% | 9% | 0% | 0% | 4.2 |
| 36% | 59% | 5% | 0% | 0% | 4.3 |
| 36% | 50% | 14% | 0% | 0% | 4.2 |
| 27% | 55% | 18% | 0% | 0% | 4.1 |
| 27% | 50% | 23% | 0% | 0% | 4.0 |
A5. Teaching Guidance | ||||||
| 50% | 50% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 4.5 |
| 50% | 50% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 4.5 |
| 45% | 55% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 4.5 |
| 55% | 45% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 4.5 |
As for the ways of evaluation indicator that received the lowest average score, the students still agreed that the teacher could use multiple evaluation methods to assess their performance. Although the item that the instructor's assessment methods could test my learning achievements only received a score of 4.0, no students thought that this aspect needed improvement or had shortcomings according to the results of the questionnaires.
To conclude, the participating students basically considered that the current curriculum restructuring project was effective and successful. Each item under the five major indicators of the Questionnaire on Response to Teaching obtained a high score of at least 4.0. Overall speaking, the students were most satisfied with the parts of curriculum design and teaching guidance of the course, followed by the parts of classroom management, teaching practice, and ways of evaluation.
This research only used movies with historical, cultural, and linguistic significance to reconstruct the course of English oral communication. The content and scope of curriculum reconstruction can be wide and diverse. It is suggested that researchers with the same research interests in the future use other different teaching models, methods, or tools to test and confirm the effectiveness of curriculum reconstruction.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks the blind reviewers of this paper for their insightful and constructive comments. He is also grateful for the funding from the School of Foreign Languages, Fuzhou University of International Studies and Trade, China, grant number: FWKQJ202004.
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