Teacher Turbo – Commentaries on the Survey Research

Commentaries on the Survey Research Entitled “Factors Influencing Confidence in Speaking English: A Case Study of Senior Thai Undergraduate Students at Srinakharinwiroj University”

Pongsathon Antonio Wasikarat

A) The aims of the study were to investigate factors influencing the confidence of Thai undergraduate students at Srinakharinwiroj University in speaking English, to find out the degree of the participants’ confidence in speaking English, and to examine the attitudes of the student towards English in term of speaking skills.

B) The study was designed to questionnaires divided into three parts; general information, attitudes towards speaking English, and confidence in speaking English. Three parts of the questionnaires did not use the same format. The first part, general information, tried to obtain general information about the respondents of their gender, field of study. But the rest of part one, personal characteristics contributing to motivation and attitudes towards English, is to fundamentally exact information from the respondents. The other two parts used the 5-point Likert-scale, also known as closed-item format, to gather information from the respondents in order to examine those topics mentioned earlier which the researcher studied. The benefits of 5-point Likert-scale item are that the researcher would obtain more fine-grained information.

C) I think the researcher did not administer the questionnaire quite well because of its format. The researcher did not even try to use open-ended item format allowing respondent feel free to express and fill in. Step 1, I did not see that the research would provide a good initiation and there was no conclusion of the questionnaire. Step 2, the researcher began with the most general questions. Step 3, we would see that the researcher provided the introductory massages of the questionnaire to the respondents. Step 4, the researcher did well on arranging the questionnaires into the proper orders. Step 5, the researcher switched items in term of wording sometime in order to make the item more comprehensible and appropriate. Step 6, actually the researcher asked the respondents with very simple questions at the beginning. For further questions, it would not difficult for them to answer things that usually make them feel embarrassing to answer, e.g. the media used in learning English, English articles and so on. Because normally Thai students are not diligent to find resources themselves to read but tasks will be ordered by teachers. Step 7, there is no demographic or biographic questions in the questionnaire.

D) No, the instructions in English version were problematic. The instructions of the questionnaires were quite ambiguous because the research said that the respondents have got to complete both either filling the relevant or ticking the alternative choice that applies to their opinions. But the task of the respondent is only to tick the choice, it is not necessary to mention in the earlier task that does not exist in the questionnaire which the respondents have got to be done. Although they are questionnaires in the same part, the items sometimes switched to another group of items, i.e., from the group of mostly moderately hardly to the group of often sometimes seldom. I mean it might lack of the consistency. Anyway, the instructions and items were conducted in Thai in order to avoid misapprehension of the respondents.

E) I think the most questionnaires were conducted fairly to the respondents because all questions were in Thai and they might not be afraid of responding. But I found some misspelled Thai words, anyway. The instructions and items were simple and easy for the respondents to answer. In term of respondents’ proficiency level, the undergraduate students might have higher skills enough to respond to these very simple questionnaires.

F) The researcher used simple random sampling as her sampling procedure by using the population of Thai senior undergraduate students at Srinakharinwiroj University and set 100 people as the amount of samples to make generalisation easier.

G) The questionnaires did not utilise open-ended items to elicit any information that would be advantageous for further discussions. The researcher used only closed-item format, i.e., 5-point Likert-scale, in the questionnaires. It might not make sure either readers or the researcher herself to the study by triangulation method in order to support the study itself.

H) The researcher used some types of data to elicit from the respondents. First, the researcher asked for the nominal data by asking the respondents to answer their gender by ticking. In other words, the researcher used closed items in order to categorise the respondents into groups whether each respondent was male or female. In the last two sections, the measurement of the respondents’ attitudes and confidence is to obtain the ordinal data. The respondents were asked to mark on only one answer according with their own opinions.

I) First, I think the range of 5-point Likert items in the questionnaire in order to elicit the ordinal data might be a problem as if their ranges between the two items strongly agree to agree and agree to moderately agree would vary the results. This might be a threat of validity. Second, the amount of the samples in the study is few. It might not be generalise to the population. Third, on the other way round the researcher did not use triangulation method, e.g., discourse completion task (DCT), interview, in order to testify that the results are more correct.

J) When I did these questionnaires, the first impression began. I love to read and review literature or any kind of readings advancing my reading skills. Personally, I am kind of conservative who loves to learn and disprove errors whether I know those words are not grammatically correct, though I am so not fully-developed in learning English. I quite wonder the prologue of the questionnaire which begins by a descriptive paragraph of the purpose of the questionnaire. I am so dumbfounded by the misspelled word which is the programme the researcher enrolled. I do not expect to see any perfection, but at least it is a native language and the name of the programme which the researcher enrolled. I lost my motivation working on the questionnaire as if I were a sample of the study. As I said earlier, the items are unstable as well. The main insight which I gained after completing the questionnaire is that I found the two main topics; attitudes towards learning English and confidence in speaking English have got to be a key issue in learning English successfully. Anyway, motivation is still one of the most influential factors in learning English.

Teacher Turbo – Commentaries on the Survey Research Article

Commentaries on the Survey Research Article Entitled “Chinese Students’ Motivation to Learn English at the Tertiary Level”

Pongsathon Wasikarat

The research study mainly aims to study attitudes towards and motivation to learn English and the correlations of Chinese university students at the tertiary level. She began starting a survey research using questionnaires, composing modified 44 items in order to elicit data from 202 third-year non-English major students in the southern university of China, mentioned specifically, in Xiamen University.

Because of its importance, motivation is mainly used to carry out the results of the study. Anyway, the study said that in general the respondents were motivated more instrumentally than integratively. As mentioned in the study, it said that Gardner (1985) claimed that integrative motivation contributes to language learners’ success more than instrumental motivation. Also, the researcher briefly said integrative plays a more important role in second/foreign language learning than instrumental motivation. (Gardner et al., 1987; Gardner et al., 1989; Noels et al., 2001) There are 2 types of motivation variables which have been discussed and mentioned previously in the context that are:-

1) Instrumental Motivation (Extrinsic Motivation) – It can be tentatively described that they are language learners’ desires to accomplish beneficent goals of theirs, e.g., getting a better job, passing an examination. The research was intended to use

2) Integrative Motivation (Intrinsic Motivation) – They are language learners’ desires in which they would like to be immersed in the culture of that language.

The advantages of the study that are:-

1) Triangulation – The research used the triangulation method to confirm the results of the study. The instrument composed of a motivation survey, an open-ended question, and an English proficiency test. The researcher used 5-point Likert-scale items in order to gather more fine-grained information eliciting their attitudes towards English learning or motivation mentioned earlier. (K. M. Bailey & D. Nunan (2009) Exploring Second Language Classroom Research: A Comprehensive Guide pp.134)

2) Pilot study – The researcher used a pilot study in order to elicit information on that topic for the first time or to conduct a research preliminarily in a smaller scale of research.

There are some drawbacks of that study which the researcher needs to be clarified about these problematic issues that are:-

1) Gender – The mistake is hereby accepted by the researcher that more female participants might vary the results. A gender of participants might be a crucial factor effecting English learning because male and female may result in different outcomes conducting the same pattern of research. It will vary significantly different. In other words, the research might be carried out differently if the research set the equal amount of samples in term of gender.

2) Lower Proficiency Level – If the researcher excludes students in the low proficiency level, we can definitely suppose that the representatives of the population are not well-qualified enough to represent the whole population mentioned that the group of the study is Chinese university students at the tertiary level. So, the study concludes mildly that there may be a loophole in term of a limited population of the study by the nature of sampling. On the other way round, it would be nice for those who would like to do any further researches.

3) Respondents’ Field of Study – The research study says that 90 percent of students in the research were from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the rest were from the Department of Business Administration and the Department of Economics and Management. Although the researcher chose non-English major students to be participants but it will technically problematic that it cannot be generalised to students majoring in any other departments as the researcher mentioned in the context, i.e. international business, foreign affairs, information technology and so on, which had not been the samples in the study.

Word Power (Pro and Con) EMILY COX & HENRY RATHVON

Pro and Con don’t just mean “for” and “against”. That would be too easy, and English is anything but. Just to make things interesting (not to mention difficult for speakers native and new), as prefixes, pro sometimes means “before”  and con often means “with”. Here are some pros and cons that show there’s no arguing with the sheer variety of the mother tongue. See answers below.

1. protract v. -

• A: draw up a legal document.
• B: stick out.
• C: lengthen.

2. contrite adj. -

• A: boring.
• B: sorry for a wrong.
• C: twisted into stands, as rope.

3. protuberant adj. -

• A: pointing upward.
• B: turned downward.
• C: bulging outward.

4. consternation n. -

• A: inability to process sound.
• B: paralysing dismay.
• C: puff of air.

5. propinquity n. -

• A: nearness in place or time.
• B: knowledge of all things.
• C: fussiness.

6. consummate adj. -

• A: skilled.
• B: engrossing.
• C: born at the same time.

7. profuse adj. -

• A: about to catch fire.
• B: easily agreeable.
• C: abundant.

8. conflagration n. -

• A: ceremonial banner folding.
• B: enormous fire.
• C: joining of rivers.

9. prognosis n. -

• A: nose job.
• B: state of half-sleep.
• C: forecast.

10. convex adj. -

• A: curved inward.
• B: curved outward.
• C: broken in half.

11. prostrate adj. -

• A: lying at anchor.
• B: lying flat.
• C: lying through one’s teeth.

12. convivial adj. -

• A: tangled.
• B: transparent.
• C: merry.

13. probity n. -

• A: juvenile court.
• B: secret investigation.
• C: moral uprightness.

14. consensus n. -

• A: blend of perfumes.
• B: group agreement.
• C: awareness of one’s own surroundings.

15. prolix adj. -

• A: westward.
• B: wealthy.
• C: wordy.

(1) protract – [C] lengthen. The meal was protracted by Mary Lou’s failure to take into account the three-and-a-half-hour cooking time for the turkey.

(2) contrite – [B] sorry for a wrong. Then she dropped the bone china bowl full of mashed potatoes, but at least she was contrite about it.

(3) protuberant – [C] bulging outward. Cousin Ida’s naturally protuberant eyes make her seem perpetually surprised.

(4) consternation – [B] paralysing dismay. To our mother’s consternation, Mr Belvedere, Ida’s Pekingese, was not housebroken.

(5) propinquity – [A] nearness in place or time. “When deciding the dinner seating plan,”

18 DEC 2011 – TE 650 Quantitative Research Methods in TEFL

Week 1 – 18 DEC 2011

Required Materials

• Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

RESEARCH (n) a detailed study of a subject, especially in order to discover (new) information or reach a (new) understanding. (Cambridge Dictionaries Online, 2003)

There are four fundamental features of a researcher that will help him/her to achieve excellence:

(1) a genuine and strong curiosity

• The primary characteristic of good researchers is that they have a genuine and strong curiosity about their topic.
• Good researchers are always after that something that they find intriguing or puzzling or about which they have a hunch (or in research terms, a ‘hypothesis’).
• They are driven by their own passion for the topic.
• This is why it is advisable for novice researchers to choose a research topic that they are genuinely interested in rather than one that seems sensible from a career point of view.

(2) a lot of common sense

• Applied linguists are by definition engaged with the real world.
• The best researchers in the field tend to be very normal people.
• They have a high level of common sense that helps to keep their feet firmly on the ground.
• Do not choose the topic that is far-fetched since others will be bored with or uninterested in it.

(3) having good ideas

• Creative thinking that is grounded  in reality is required.
• Originality
• Complexity is not always necessary.

(4) a combination of discipline, reliability, and social responsibility

• A good researcher needs to be disciplined and responsible.
• This is related to the systematic nature of research.
• It is the researcher’s discipline that keeps him/her on the right track and the lack of discipline or consistency is one of the most frequent sources of inadequate research.
• Reliability and consistency are needed.
• A good researcher also has a sense of social responsibility, that is, accountability to the field  and more broadly, to the world.
• Research is not done for its own sake, but to generate knowledge and to further our understanding.
• Researchers must be responsible for the field as well as the world.

Qualitative and quantitative data

• The book focuses on ‘primary research’, which involves collecting original data (empirical data), analysing it and then drawing one’s own conclusion from the analysis.
• Broadly speaking, in applied linguistic research we can find three main types of primary data:

(a) Quantitative data which is most commonly expressed in numbers (for example, the score of a language aptitude test or the number of times a student volunteers in class).

(b) Qualitative data which usually involves recorded spoken data (for example, interview data) that is transcribed to textual form as well as written (field) notes and documents of various sources.

(c) Language data involves language samples of various length, elicited from the respondent primarily for the purpose of language analysis (for example, a recorded language task or a solicited student essay that is to submitted to discourse analysis) (e.g. essays, grammaticality judgement tests, retold stories, etc.).

17 DEC 2011 – TE 611 TEFL Methodology: Reading and Writing

Required Materials

Andersan, N.J. (1999). Exploring second language reading: issues and strategies. Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.

Supplemental Readings

Nunan, D. (2000). Language teaching methodology: a textbook for teachers. Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education Limited.

Week 1 - 17 DEC 2011

• Introduction
• Defining Methodology (Approach, Method, Procedure, Technique, Model, Curriculum, Syllabus)
• Language Teaching Approaches Celce-Murcia (2001)/Brown (2002)

In the Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, methodology is defined as  follows:

1. …the study of the practices and procedures used in teaching, and the principles and beliefs that underlie them.Methodology includes:
   • (a) study of the nature of LANGUAGE SKILLS (e.g. reading, writing, speaking, listening) and procedures for teaching them
   • (b) study of the preparation of LESSON PLANS, materials, and textbooks for teaching language skills
   • (c) the evaluation and comparison of language teaching METHODS (e.g. the AUDIOLINGUAL METHOD; การสอนแบบฟังพูด)
2. such practices, procedures, principles, and beliefs themselves. One can, for example, criticize or praise the methodology of a particular language course.

Brown, H.D. (2002)

• For Richards and Rodgers (1986) method was an umbrella term to capture redefined approaches, designs, and procedures.
• Similarly Prabhu (1990) thought of method as both classroom activities and the theory that informs them.

Bottom-up Model / Approach

Nunan (2000: 64)

• Until comparatively recently, the bottom-up approach dominated both first and second language research and theory…
• The central notion behind the bottom-up approach is that reading is basically a matter of decoding a series of written symbols into their aural equivalents.
• Cambourne (1979), who uses the term ‘outside-in’ rather than bottom-up, provides the following illustration of how the process is supposed to work:
• Print -> Every letter discriminated -> Phonemes and graphemes matched -> Blending -> Pronunciation -> Meaning
• According to this model, the reader processes each letter as it is encountered. These letters, or graphemes, are matched with the phonemes of the language, which it is assumed the reader already knows. These phonemes, the minimal units of meaning in the sound system of the language, are blended together to form words. (Phonemes are the individual units of sound in a language.) The derivation of meaning is thus the end process in which the language is translated from one form of symbolic representation to another.

Nunan (1999: 252)

• The bottom-up

17 DEC 2011 – TE 617 Language Testing and Assessment

Required Materials

• Heaton, J.B. (1995). Writing English Language Tests (new ed.). Longman.
• Hughes, A. (2003). Testing for Language Teachers (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Assessment Purposes จุดประสงค์ของการประเมินผล

• Evaluation of performance at different levels (e.g. individual, regional, national)
• Placement
• Evaluation of teaching, textbooks, and curriculum
• To motivate students to study harder
• Promotion
• Selection
• Certification
• Exemption
• Evidence of progress (or lack of)
• Diagnosis; การวินิจฉัย, การหาสาเหตุ (Diagnostic assessment)
• Experimentation

จุดประสงค์ของการประเมินผล

1. เพื่อพัฒนาผู้เรียน (1) Diagnostic assessment การประเมินผลเชิงวินิจฉัย (2) Formative assessment การประเมินระหว่างเรียน 
2. เพื่อตัดสินผลการเรียนรู้ (3) Summative assessment การประเมินสรุปผลการเรียนรู้

Characteristics of good English tests

• Test what they claim to test
• Have clear instructions
• At appropriate level (neither too easy nor too difficult)
• Serve the purpose
• Grammatical and natural language
• Hard to guess
• Relevant/meaningful to test takers
• Authentic tasks
• Give consistent result
• Ask enough questions
• Enough time allowed
• Easy to read (comprehensible)
• Not biased (concerning cross-culture)
• Cheap to administer(syn. จัดการ, administrate, govern, conduct, control)

Test vs. Assessment

• A test is “a method of measuring a person’s ablility, knowledge, or performance in a given domain.” (H.D. Brown, 2004 page. 3)
• First, a test is a method or an instrument–a set of techniques, procedures, or items– that requires performance on the part of the test-taker. To qualify as a test, the method must be explicit(syn. ชัดเจน, clear, obvious, unambiguous) and structured.
• Second, a test must measure. Some tests measure general ablility while other focus on very specific competencies or objectives.
• A test measures performance, but the result imply the test-taker’s ability or competence.

Tests

• are usually relatively time-constrained,
• draw on a limited sample of behaviours
• occur at identifiable times in a curriculum

Assessment

• is an ongoing(syn. ต่อเนื่อง, continuous, progressing) process
• encompasses a much wider domain. For example, when a student responds to a question, the teacher subconsciously makes an assessment of the student’s performance.

1. Tests, then, are a subset of assessment. They are certainly not the only form of assessment that a teacher can make or use to assess students.
2. Assessment can be divided into formal and informal assessment.
3. Formal assessment ex test, portfolio
4. Informal assessment ex comments on paper that respond to a draft of an essay

Supplemental readings

• (1) Purposes and principles of assessment http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/2_learntch/briefing_papers/p_p_assessment.pdf
• (2) Purposes of assessment http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsld/resources/assessment/purposes.html
• (3) Diagnostic, formative, summative http://www.gecdsb.on.ca/d&g/onlinepd/Assessment%20&%20Evaluation/Purpose.htm
• (4) A Primer: Diagnostic, Formative, & Summative Assessment http://slackernet.org/assessment.htm
• International Association for Educational Assessment http://www.iaea.info/
• (5) Assessment for Learning, Assessment as Learning, Assessment of Learning http://dg.icme11.org/document/get/335

Reading assignment for Class Two

Hughes Chapter 1, 3 (Hughes, A. (2003). Testing for Language Teachers (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.)

Chapter 1 - Teaching and testing

Backwash(syn. ผล, consequence, effect, outcome; a backward flow or movement (as of water or air) produced especially by a propelling force แรงขับ) The effect of testing on teaching and learning is known as backwash, and can be harmful or beneficial(syn. มีประโยชน์, advantageous, useful). If a test is regarded as important, if the stakes are high, preparation for it can come to dominate all teaching and learning activities. And if the test content and testing techniques are at variance with objectives of the course, there is likely to be harmful backwash.

Testing and assessment; การสอบและการประเมินผล Assessment is formative when teachers use it to check on the progress of their students, to see how far they have mastered what they should have learned, and then use this information to modify their future teaching plans. Students themselves may be encouraged to carry out self-assessment in order to monitor their progress, and then modify their own learning objectives.

Inaccurate tests The second reason for mistrusting tests is that very often they fail to measure accurately whatever it is that they intended to measure. Language abilities are not easy to measure; we cannot expect a level of accuracy comparable to those of measurements in the physical sciences. There are two main sources of inaccuracy. The first of these concerns test content and test techniques. To return to an earlier example, if we want to know how well someone can write, there is absolutely no way we can get a really accurate measure of their ability by means of a multiple choice test. The second source of inaccuracy is lack of reliability. For the moment it is enough to say that a test is reliable if it measures consistently. On a reliable test you can be confident that someone will get more or less the same score, whether they happen to take it on one particular day or on the next; whereas on an unreliable test the score is quite likely to be considerably different, depending on the day on which it is taken.

What is to be done? I believe that the teaching profession can make three contributions to the improvement of testing: they can write better themselves; they can enlighten other people who are involved in testing processes; and they can put pressure on professional testers and examining boards, to improve their tests. This book aims to help them do all three.

Chapter 3 – Kinds of tests and testing

Proficiency tests are designed to measure people’s ability in a language, regardless of any training they may have had in that language. In the case of some proficiency tests, ‘proficient’ means having sufficient command of the language for a particular purpose. An example of this would be a test designed to discover whether someone can function successfully as a United Nations translator. Another example would be a test used to determine whether a student’s English is good enough to follow a course of study at a British university. Such a test may even attempt to take into account the level and kind of English needed to follow courses in particular subject areas.

Achievement tests Most teachers are unlikely to be responsible for proficiency tests. It is much more probable that they will be involved in the preparation and use of achievement tests. In contrast to proficiency tests, achievement tests are directly related to language courses, their purpose being to establish how successful individual students, groups of students, or the courses themselves have been in achieving objectives. They are of two kinds: final achievement tests and progress achievement tests.

• Final achievement tests are those administered at the end of a course of study. They may be written and administered by ministries of education, official examining boards, or by members of teaching institutions. In the view of some testers, the content of a final achievement test should be based directly on a detailed course syllabus or on the books and other materials used. This has been referred to as the syllabus content approach.
• Progress achievement tests, as their name suggests, are intended to measure the progress thate students making.

Diagnostic tests are used to identify learners’ strengths and weaknesses.

English Phonetics and Phonology

Phonetics (สัทศาสตร์); the study of the sounds of speech

Phonology (ระบบเสียง); the study of sound systems

Phonetics on the other hand is the systematic study of the sounds of speech, which is physical and directly observable. Phonetics is sometimes seen as not properly linguistic, because it is the outward, physical manifestation of the main object of linguistic research, which is language (not speech): and language is abstract.

Speech is produced by the controlled movement of air through the throat, mouth and nose (more technically known as the vocal tract).  It can be studied in a number of different ways:

• articulatory phonetics; สรีรสัทศาสตร์ (how speech sounds are made in the body)
• acoustic phonetics; กลสัทศาสตร์ (the physical properties of the sounds that are made)
• perception or auditory phonetics; โสตสัทศาสตร์ (what happens to the speech signal once the sound wave reaches the listener’s ear).

Speech sounds are made by manipulating the way air moves out of (or sometimes into) the vocal tract. There are a number of ways of doing this, but universally across languages sounds of speech are produced on an out-breath. This kind of airflow is called pulmonic (because the movement of air is initiated by the lungs; the Latin word for lung is ‘pulmo’) and egressive (because the air comes out of the vocal tract; ‘e-’, ‘out’, ‘-gress-’, ‘move forwards’): all spoken languages have pulmonic egressive sounds.

Aspects of Connected Speech

Assimilation