Maintaining the Efficacy of Warm-up Activities in EFL Classrooms: An Exploratory Action Research

Yıl 2016, Cilt: 4 Sayı: 2, 65 - 85, 31.07.2016

Hasan Savaş

Öz

The current study is an Exploratory Action Research and was carried out for the purpose of enhancing the efficacy of warm-up activities used in EFL classrooms. The participants of the study were A2 (pre-intermediate) level English preparatory students at a foundation university in Turkey, and their ages ranged from 18 to 21. The data were gathered through two different questionnaires in the form of students’ reports in order to provide answers to two research questions. First, an Exploratory Practice (EP) was carried out with the participation of 32 students from two skill-based listening and speaking classes by using the first questionnaire as the data collection tool. The aim was to understand what warm-up activities/practices meant to students and to investigate students’ perceptions on the use of warm-up activities as tools to increase participation in classes. Following the findings of EP, an Action Research (AR) was carried out in one of the classes with the participation of 21 students for a four-weeks period. The AR study was the implementation of the emerged themes from the EP in the form of redesigned warm-up activities. Following the classroom implementations, the second data collection tool, which was the second questionnaire, was distributed to the students. The findings of the second questionnaire provided the reflections of the students on the AR study. The collected data were content analyzed and the teacher researcher provided reflections on the overall process.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Exploratory practice, action research, EFL classrooms, teacher’s self development

Kaynakça

• Allwright, D. (2005). From teaching points to learning opportunities and beyond. Tesol Quarterly, 39(1), 9-31.
• Almarza, G. G. (1996). Student foreign language teacher’s knowledge growth. Teacher learning in language teaching, 50-78.
• Anwaruddin, S. M., & Pervin, N. (2015). English-language teachers’ engagement with research: findings from Bangladesh. Professional Development in Education, 41(1), 21-39.
• Atay, D. (2006). Teachers' professional development: Partnerships in research. Tesl-Ej, 10(2), 1-15.
• Atay, D. (2008). Teacher research for professional development. ELT journal, 62(2), 139-147.
• Belchamber, R. (2007). Overcoming Asian stereotypes: Opportunities for enhancing learner participation in Chinese ELT classes. Reflections on English language teaching, 6(2), 59-63.
• Best, K., Jones‐Katz, L., Smolarek, B., Stolzenburg, M., & Williamson, D. (2015). Listening to Our Students: An Exploratory Practice Study of ESL Writing Students' Views of Feedback. TESOL Journal, 6(2), 332-357.
• Burns, A. (1999). Collaborative action research for English language teachers. Cambridge University Press.
• Burns, A. (2010). Doing action research in English language teaching: A guide for practitioners. New York: Routledge.
• Burns, A. (2015). Renewing classroom practices through collaborative action research. In K. Dikilitaş, R. Smith, & W. Trotman (Eds.), Teacher-researchers in action, (pp. 9-17). England: IATEFL.
• Chu, P. Y. (2013). How students seek for realisation through exploratory practice: a journey of teaching, learning and growing together (Doctoral dissertation, University of Leicester).
• Chuk, J. Y. P. (2003). Promoting learner autonomy in the EFL classroom: the Exploratory Practice way. In Supporting independent learning in the 21st century. Proceedings of the inaugural conference of the Independent Learning Association, Melbourne, 57-74.
• Congmin, Z. H. A. O. (2013). Classroom Interaction and Second Language Acquisition: The More Interactions the Better?. Studies in Literature and Language, 7(1), 22-26.
• Consolo, D. A. (2006). Classroom oral interaction in foreign language lessons and implications for teacher development. Linguagem & Ensino, 9(2), 33-55.
• Curry, M. J. (2006). Action research for preparing reflective language teachers. TESOL HEIS (Higher education interest section), 25(1).
• Dar, Y., & Gieve, S. (2013). The use of Exploratory Practice as a form of collaborative practitioner research. ISEJ, 1(1), 19-24.
• Deng, C., & Carless, D. (2009). The communicativeness of activities in a task-based innovation in Guangdong, China. Asian Journal of English Language Teaching, 19, 113-134.
• Dikilitaş, K. (2015). Professional development through teacher-research. In K. Dikilitaş, R. Smith, & W. Trotman (Eds.), Teacher-researchers in action, (pp. 47-55). England: IATEFL.
• Ellis, R. (2012). Language teaching research and language pedagogy. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Estalkhbijari, Z. P., & Khodareza, M. (2012). The effects of warm-up tasks on the Iranian EFL students' writing ability. International Education Studies, 5(2), 190-203.
• Farrell, T. S. C. (2007). Action research in language teaching. Reflective Language Teaching: From Research to Practice, 94-106.
• Farrell, T. S. (2015). Reflective language teaching: From research to practice. Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Haley, M. H., Midgely, A., Ortiz, J., Romano, T., Ashworth, L., & Seewald, A. (2005). Teacher action research in foreign language classrooms: Four teachers tell their stories. Current Issues in Education, 8(12).
• Hanks, J. (2014). ‘Education is not just teaching’: learner thoughts on Exploratory Practice. ELT Journal, 1-12.
• Hanks, J. (2015). Language teachers making sense of Exploratory Practice. Language Teaching Research, 1-22. Hansen, J. G., & Liu, J. (2005). Guiding principles for effective peer response. ELT journal, 59(1), 31-38.
• Maznevski, M. (1996). Grading Class Participation. Teaching Concerns: Newsletter of the Teaching resource Center for faculty and Teaching Assistants. University of Virginia.
• Mustapha, S. M., Rahman, N. S. N. A., & Yunus, M. M. (2010). Factors influencing classroom participation: a case study of Malaysian undergraduate students. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 9, 1079-1084.
• Nakamura, I. (2014). A Discussion of Practitioner Research: How Are Reflective Practice, Action Research, and Exploratory Practice Diffrenret?. Bulletin of higher education, Okayama University, 10, 105-114.
• Pillai, N. (2013). Integrating games and vocabulary teaching: An Exploratory Study. ELT Voices-India, 3(2), 84- 94.
• Po-ying, C. (2007). How students react to the power and responsibility of being decision makers in their own learning. Language Teaching Research, 11(2), 225-241.
• Rainey, I. (2000). Action research and the English as a foreign language practitioner: time to take stock. Educational Action Research, 8(1), 65-91.
• Reimann, N., & Montgomery, C. (2007). Reshaping boundaries between teaching and research: an example of collaborative research in ‘Assessment for Learning’.
• Rinvolucri, M. (2003). Humanising your coursebook. English teaching professional.
• Royka, J. G. (2002). Overcoming the fear of using drama in English language teaching. The Internet TESL Journal, 8(6).
• Savaskan, I. P. (2013). Readiness for Action Research: Are Teacher Candidates Ready to Become an Agent of Action Research?. International Journal of Innovative Interdisciplinary Research, 2(12), 49-63.
• Smith, R. (2015). Exploratory action research as workplan: why, what and where from?. In K. Dikilitaş, R. Smith, & W. Trotman (Eds.), Teacher-researchers in action, (pp. 37-45). England: IATEFL.
• Wallace, M. J. (1998). Action research for language teachers. Cambridge University Press.
• Whitehead, J. (1990). How Can I Improve My Contribution to Practitioner Research in Teacher Education? a Response to Jean Rudduck. Westminster Studies in Education, 13(1), 27-36.
• Wu, Z. (2006). Understanding practitioner research as a form of life: an Eastern interpretation of Exploratory Practice. Language Teaching Research, 10(3), 331-350.
• Yeşilbursa, A. (2009). Language Teaching Beliefs, Problems and Solutions: Reflecting and Growing Together. In Proceedings of the 10th METU ELT Convention.