Aristotle University of Thessaloniki greeceabstract The present study

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (GREECEAbstract The present study examines whether the reading and speaking skills of A2 level students who attend English lessons in a Private Language Institute could be improved through the application of communicative teaching material. To be more specific, an action research was carried out in an A2 level class of a Private Language Institute. New supplementary material was constructed based on the principles of the Common European Framework (CEFR) and the Communicative Approach. It is worth mentioning that the CLA has been chosen because it is in accordance with the principles of the CEFR. Two groups of A2 level students participated in this research, a control and an experimental group. The Conventional material, which is the coursebook used by the private institute, was applied to the students of the control group, while in the second group, also known as experimental group, the new material was taught which was adapted to the students’ needs. A pre-test, which was the same for both groups, was given out to the students of both groups in order to measure their reading skills. At the end of the 10 lessons, a post-test was handed out to both groups in order to measure the development of their reading skills and their language development. In addition to this, a semi- structured interview was conducted to all students who attended both classes so as to measure the students’ speaking skills. 1 INTRODUCTION It is known that course books in Greece and in most European countries are designed upon the principles of the Common European Framework of References for Languages (CEFR). The CEFR mainly promotes the Communicative Language Teaching Approach (CLT). This study aims to investigate whether the reading and speaking skills of A2 level students can be improved through the teaching of CLT. The CEFR lays emphasis on the development of learners’ communicative language competences. According to the CEFR, in order to carry out communicative tasks, the users have to engage in communicative language activities and deal with learners’ communicative strategies. The communicative activities should promote interaction, discussion, conversation so that the participants alternate as receivers or producers with several turns. Another aim of the CEFR is autonomous learning which can be promoted if “learning to learn” constitutes an integral part of language learning exposure to the authentic use of language which also contributes to the learning of a foreign language. For this reason, the material of this course book will be adapted in order to be in accordance with the principles of the CEFR and CLT. To be more specific, an action research will be conducted in an A2 level class of a Private Language Institute in Greece, in order to point out, whether the reading and speaking skills of the A2 level students can be improved through the teaching of the CLT. It is worth noting that the coursebook which is taught in this private institute has not been designed according to the principles of the CEFR and the Communicative Language Teaching Approach. 2 METHODOLOGY As far as the research of this dissertation is concerned, an ‘action research’ was carried out in an A2 level class of a Private Language Institute. Swinglehurst, Russell, and Greenhalgh[1] claim that “action research is becoming a popular approach to studying complex social situations such as those found in educational settings, where the focus is on simultaneous [inquiry] into practice (generating knowledge) and action to improve situations (e.g. designing new curricula or learning activities)”. In addition, Johnson[2] defines ‘action research’ as the “process of studying a real school or classroom situation to understand and improve the quality of actions or instruction”. According to Lim[3], ‘action research’ Proceedings of INTED2018 Conference 5th-7th March 2018, Valencia, Spain ISBN: 978-84-697-9480-7 3728 constitutes a type of educational research aiming at a concrete purpose. Berg[4] supports that “action research is one of the few research approaches that embraces principles of participation, reflection, empowerment, and emancipation of people and groups interested in improving their social situation or condition”. Mills[5] insists that action researchers are different from traditional researchers owing to the fact that they are obliged to take action and make effective alterations taking into account their findings. ‘Action research’ differs from various types of research since its target is the comprehension and solution of educational problems which occur in classrooms [3]. Mc Niff [6] highlights that “in action research, researchers do research on themselves” whereas in traditional types of research, “researchers do research on other people”. Brydon-Miller, Greenwood and Maguire [7] mention that ‘action research’ can produce more ‘valid’ results than other types of social research as it tests “knowledge in action”. The design of an action research should not be taken into account in order to create general educational theories. New supplementary material was also constructed, for the needs of this research, according to the principles of the Common European Framework and the Communicative Approach. For this reason, two groups of A2 level students participated in this research, a control group and an experimental group. Firstly, a pre-test, which was the same for both groups, was given out to the students of both groups so as to measure their knowledge and proficiency regarding reading skills. The Conventional material, which was the course book taught by the private institute, was applied to the students of the control group while in the second group, also known as the experimental group; the material which was constructed specifically for the needs of the aforementioned group of students was used. At the end of the 10 lessons, a post-test which was the same for both groups, was handed out to the students of both groups in order to measure the development of their reading skills and their proficiency and language level. In addition to this, an interview and more specifically a semi-structured interview was conducted to all the students who attend both classes in which the action research took place. Noor [8] mentions that when the interview is utilized as the main data collection instrument for the research, then a semi-structured interview is applied as the questions are designed in order to correspond to the research’s aim. The interview was considered part of the qualitative research method. As Lim[3] states qualitative research includes the study of qualitative data such as interview transcripts in order to unveil meanings. Mills[5] confirms that qualitative research utilizes narrative and descriptive approaches in order to collect data. Patton[9], [in 10] mentions that qualitative research is the type of research in which the findings derive from real- world settings not from statistical procedures. Two factors which should be taken into account when a qualitative research is designed are validity and reliability, according to Patton [9], [in 10]. A kind of qualitative approach involves the conducting of a face-to-face interview. Face-to-face interviews constitute the most widespread interview technique in qualitative research, as Opdenakker[11] so rightfully mentions. According to Opdenakker[11], face-to-face- interviews can give more information to the interviewer through voice, intonation and body language. Another advantage, as Opdenakker [11] states, is that the interviewees reply more spontaneously and more shortly than in structured interviews. This method is regarded more appropriate for the aim of this action research owing to the fact that the questions are predetermined and there is flexibility in the way they are conducted in contrast to the structured interviews. The results of this research were triangulated through the application of a semi-structured interview. Triangulation includes different views about the same situation in order to collect data as Feldman&Minstrell mentions [12]. Golafshani[10] supports that validity, reliability and triangulation constitute “relevant research concepts” in a qualitative research. Applying diverse methods such as observation, interviews and recordingsresult in more valid and reliable findings, Golafshani[10]affirms. 3 RESULTS This section presents the instruments which were applied in order to collect the data and findings for this research, as well as theresults of this small-scale research. The results are analyzed in the sequence they were applied within the research. 3.1 Results of the Pre-Test First of all, the results of the pre-test will be presented. The collection and the analysis of the result, after the intervention, constitute the fourth stage of this ‘action research’, as mentioned by Susman,[13]. The interpretation of the findings of this research is the last stage of this ‘action research’(see also Susman [13]). It is clear from Table 1 that half of the students wrote 60-80 points, one third of the students wrote between 60-50 points whereas only the 20% of the students acquired 80-100 points in the pre-test. We can conclude that the average number of students wrote for 60-100 3729 points. It is a satisfactory number which also shows that half of the students are at the same language level. However, two of the ten students acquired 80-100 points and one third of them wrote for 60-50 points. This confirms that they are a mixed ability class as the students are not of the same language level. Taking into consideration, the findings of the Pre- test, we can conclude that the students have not developed their reading skills according to their language level. Table 1. Results of Pre-Test: Both groups Pre-Test 3.2 Results of the Post-Test: Control group To begin with, comparing the results of the pre-test and the results of the post-test we can conclude that the reading skills of the control group have not improved. The results of the post-test indicate that there was a slight decrease in comparison to the results of the pre-test. It goes without saying that the lowest marks are in the first task, as most of the students did not answer this question correctly. This is,perhaps, due to the fact that the students do not comprehend the reading text because of the unknown words which exist. What is more, in the second task the students’ marks are low, as the majority of them do not fill in the correct gap with the correct sentence which is missing. It is obvious that they are not familiar with this type of communicative activity such as jumbled sentences. Moving on to the third and fourth activities which are writing activities, we can conclude that the students of the control group present weaknesses, as they cannot form full sentences and not all the sentences which they do form make sense. In addition to this, their vocabulary is very poor and limited. Table 2. Results of Pre-Test and Post-Test: Control Group Control group 3.3 Results of the Post-Test: Experimental group After the completion of the adapted lessons, the same post-test was handed out to the five students of the experimental group. The results,as presented, in Table 3, indicate that the students had developed their reading abilities after theywere taughtthe adapted -communicative - material. As Table 4 shows, the students acquired the highest marks in the first, third and fourth activity. This means that they were 3730 able to comprehend an unfamiliar reading text and give valid and accurate answers and express their opinion meaningfully. However, we should mention that we anticipated higher grades from the experimental group which was exposed to authentic and communicative material. Table 3. Activities of Post-Test: Control Group Activities of Post-Test Control group 3.4 Semi-structured interviews The semi-structured interviews constitute the last part of this research. The semi-structured interviews were used as a means of triangulation of the research results. It is worth noting that the interviews aimed mainly at the evaluation of the development of the students’ speaking skills as well as the students’ expression of preferences regarding the English lessons they have taught. Thirty- five questions were replied by the students of both groups, eighteen of them were open-closed and the rest were closed questions. This variation of questions was chosen for the needs of this specific interview and because of the pre-intermediate level of students. Moreover,an attempt was made to make the process of the interview interesting and not tiring for the students. Even though the students were willing to participate during the interview process, they could not hide the anxiety and stress they felt. The interviews which were recorded by the teachers who were also the researchers, were also conducted face-to-face between the students and the teachers/researchers, so that they could see things like the facial expressions of the students, their gestures, their facial grimaces, the pauses in their answers and what these pauses denoted, etc. 3.4.1 The Control group After carrying out the semi-structured interviews, the teachers/researchers focused on the most noticeable facts. To be more specific, most of the students of the control group had difficulty in expressing their opinion in English, consequently, they answered in Greek. In addition to this, they did not understand all questions in the English language, as a result the questions were carried out in Greek again. What is more, some questions were repeated due to the fact some interviewees did not comprehend them. It goes without saying that the majority of the students hesitated to express their opinion or had difficulty in thinking of an appropriate answer. These difficulties could be justifiable as the answers were not prepared in advance by the students. Last but not least, the researchers pinpointed that the students made grammar and vocabulary errors, errors in syntax, both inGreek and in English and in used the wrong pronunciation in some words. To conclude, the students of the control group were not familiar with speaking activities and they were also not fluent speakers of the English language.
REFERENCES
[1] Swinglehurst, D., Russell, J., & Greenhalgh, T. (2008). “Peer observation of teaching in the online environment: an action research approach”. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, vol.24, no.5, pp. 383-393.