The need for a focused approach : a case study

The need for a focused approach: a case study Deborah Aldred University of Hong Kong Gareth Williams Christchurch College of English Language, New Zealand September 1999 Abstract This paper outlines how the self-access programme of an Intensive English Language Programme evolved over a number of years. It documents the changes which were incorporated into the programme in order to ensure that it would provide a positive relevant learning experience for students which would enable them to develop new learning skills and strategies. The experience demonstrates that self-access does not ‘just happen’ when all the relevant components are put in a room together and identifies the problems which were encountered. The paper presents the solutions and the criteria which were established for the self-access programme, specifically those related to the aims of the programme, and the roles for teachers and learners. The need for teacher and learner training is explored along with the facility for reflection. The annual student evaluation of the programme provided informative data which contributed to shaping the changes. The resulting trends demonstrated in the data reinforce and support the need for a focused approach in autonomous learning and self-access programmes for both students and teachers. Key words: Activities, Evaluation, Learner Contracts, Learner Training, Open-access, Self-access. Links & Letters 7, 2000 81-93 1. Introduction 2. The programme 3. The first three years: a learning experience 4. Solutions for 1996 and beyond 5. Student evaluation 6. Conclusion References Table of Contents 1. Introduction The trend of incorporating self-access into different language teaching programmes has increased over the last two decades. There have been many debates regarding definitions, and different forms or modes of self-access have evolved. Self-access in the literature is usually defined as a way of providing resources to learners so that they can choose and access them by themselves in order to direct their own learning. This usually implies some kind of physical location for the resources, whether it is a multimedia lab or a cardboard box. One of the problems with this definition, as illustrated in this paper, is that most of those involved in self-access centres/programmes seem to find that learners need a substantial amount of support/training from the teachers or counsellors and perhaps this aspect should somehow be built into the definition. In Hong Kong, one element of the British Council annual Intensive English Language Programme S6 (IELP S6) is 17 hours of self-access time. The objective of the course is to increase students’ experience of English and it has been seen as an important boost to confidence and proficiency. When the course started mini self-access centres were set up where each class was required to go for one hour per day. The primary aim of the facilities was as Sheerin (1989: 3) suggests to enable learning to take place independently of teaching. Students are able to choose and use self-access materials on their own and the material gives them the ability to correct or assess their own performance. By using such a self-access facility, students are able to direct their own learning. This paper plots the development of this self-access programme within the confines of the IELP S6 over six years and considers how the course management team assessed the problems encountered, and the measures which were taken in order to work towards realising Sheerin’s aims. A very important aspect of this was the need to develop a focused approach with direction for students and teachers in the form of guidelines, training and reflection. 2. The programme IELP S6 began in 1993 in two centres in Hong Kong. The four-week course of 120 hours, is run annually in July and August. The programme is part of a Government-funded positive-discrimination package for post six year secondary school students who are working towards the Use of English public examination. This examination is the prerequisite for entry into Hong Kong’s tertiary institutions. Each year the course has between 1,000 -1,500 students divided into classes of 16 taught by a mixture of native (approximately 70%) and non-native English language teachers. The students come from Chinese-medium secondary schools and are used to being taught in large 82 Links & Letters 7, 2000 Deborah Aldred; Gareth Williams classes with teacher-dominated methodologies, focused towards examinations. Within this context, noise, lack of space and the spoken ability of teachers often hamper oral practice in schools. For the students this course, run by the British Council, is a very different experience with an emphasis on communicative methodologies, student interaction and small classes which optimise contact with the teacher. For many, it is the first time they have ever spoken to a ‘native speaker’. The self-access centres are for them a completely new type of learning experience as well as a contextual and cultural enigma. As one student says, “I had misconception about self-access. I think it is homework and read the newspaper”. The programme has inevitably developed during the six years and Table 1 below shows a summary of the Activities, Problems encountered, and Solutions suggested over this time. This table will form the basis for the following discussion on self-access rooms, and how adopting a focused approach can contribute positively to providing a new learning environment and experience for students. 3. The first three years: a learning experience 1993. Each centre set up its own ‘self-access rooms’ (SARs). At one centre, there were six large rooms and at the other, the existing self-access facilities were used, including a language laboratory. The different types of rooms led to different styles of ‘self-access’ being operated in the two centres. The staff for each centre consisted of a self-access supervisor with assistants. On the first day the students and their class teachers went to their designated SAR and were given reading and vocabulary record sheets, a ten minute briefing on selfaccess and were then presented with the 100 reading comprehension/vocabulary tasks to choose from. By day three the ‘boredom factor’ had set in. Selfaccess was meant to be a change of focus from class-based learning to self-directed learning. In reality, though, it was based, as was the rest of the course, on developing intensive reading skills. Although the materials available were authentic (taken mainly from newspapers and magazines), since “authentic texts are regarded as motivators and as a means to overcome the cultural barrier to learning” (Bacon and Finnemann, cited in Lee, 1996), they were in this case repetitive and not motivating. From this it was realised that a greater variety of activities was required to provide a change of focus and enable students to direct their own learning. Thus, by the second week of the course, newspapers, magazines, SALLY (Self-Access Listening Library for You) tapes (one per student) with accompanying worksheets, diary writing and some commercially available games were introduced to the SARs. The wider variety of activities produced an increased level of interest and motivated students to get to self-access quickly to get their first choice of activities. However, from Table 1 it can be seen that a major problem was that of the role of the class teacher. The class teachers were expected to accompany their class to self-access and be involved The need for a focused approach: a case study Links & Letters 7, 2000 83 in promoting the concept of autonomy / self-access to the students. Many teachers, though, were seeing the self-access hour as time out, either to read the newspaper or not accompany their class at all. Another problem was the rooms. The large classrooms at one centre were much better for a ‘free access’ environment with moveable furniture enabling group work and the creation of different activity areas. At the other centre, the furniture was fixed and the pupils were mostly sitting in language laboratory booths. This demonstrated the need to select specific types of rooms in the future which would allow for this type of adaptability and flexibility. Log sheets were introduced during the second week of the course in an attempt to help students think about their choice of activities and to provide a chance for personal evaluation. These were poorly filled in and inadequate. On reflection, the lessons to be learned from 1993 were to: — provide a greater variety of activities, particularly listenings —emphasise the teachers’ role in self-access, particularly active participation —look at some kind of learner training for orientation to self-access for the students — have one person supervising self-access for the entire programme, who would ensure greater standardisation and direction between SARs and centres — provide rooms that were better adapted to self-access use — redesign log sheets with a more directed purpose. 1994. The programme for 1994 was developed and planned from the experience of the previous year. The numbers of students were the same in the two centres. As can be seen in Table 1, a much greater variety of activities was provided. To deal with the room problem, one of the venues was changed. An overall supervisor was appointed who oversaw the setting-up of the SARs in both centres, discussed the aims of the self-access component of the programme with the self-access staff and ensured good communication between the centres. A first day orientation quiz was produced which was ‘directive’, attempting to ‘provide learner training’ by giving ‘explicit’ instructions in line with the thoughts of Sinclair (1996). The learner log sheets were redesigned to address the “surface approach to learning” which has been ascribed to Hong Kong learners (Pierson, 1996: 53). They were designed to help learners develop their learning patterns, and to identify which part of the Use of English Exam their chosen self-access activity corresponded with. The rooms were decorated with wall charts, maps and photographs from newspapers. A conscious effort was made to have designated areas in each room for specific activities e.g., a listening table with ‘walkmans’ on it and a reading corner with the reading comprehension/vocabulary worksheets on display. On the pre-programme induction day for teachers a clear definition of the expected role of teachers in self-access was given. This was: 84 Links & Letters 7, 2000 Deborah Aldred; Gareth Williams The need for a focused approach: a case study Links & Letters 7, 2000 85 Table 1. Six years of IELP self-access. Year Activities Problems Solutions 1993 Week 1-Reading Students were bored as there was no change of focus For the next week: Vary activities. with heavy reading load the same as in class. For ’94 Week 2/3/4-Newspapers, Still not enough varied activities particularly listening. Vary activities further, and expand listening tasks/materials. SALLY tapes, Diary writing, S. A. staff unclear as to their role. Clarify role of S.A. supervisor and staff. some games. Teachers used S.A. as time off/marking time. Emphasise teacher role and involvement. Lack of space / incompatibility of rooms. Select different types of rooms. Log sheets Students failed to try new activities. Change student orientation and log sheets. 1994 Listenings, Newspapers, There was: Magazines, Reading clips, — too much choice all at once resulting in ‘child in EFL type games, Competitions, a toy shop syndrome’. For week 3: Daily quiz, Scrabble/Boggle, — no systematic pathway through the materials. Introduce class competitions for S. A. time. Daily Specials, Video at lunch time, Enthusiasm was difficult to keep up. For 1995: Quiet/noisy areas, Decoration Teachers marked diaries. Introduce weekly class competitions. of rooms, Maps, Pictures, etc. Emphasise teacher role and purpose of diaries. Diary writing, Log sheets 1995 As 1994 + A lack of leadership roles taken by some S.A. For 1996: Discussion groups and focused staff caused discrepancies between centres. Clarify the aims and objectives of S.A. time for the students. activities e.g. Newspaper picture The main problems were: Define roles explicitly for SA staff and teachers. stories and weekly competitions. — lack of energy, learning focus and preparation Increase orientation activities and training for students — poor use of materials i.e. daily special and teachers. — all materials presented at once = boredom Log sheets — lack of definition of roles for teachers and students. Redesign log sheets to encourage focus and independence. 1996 As 1994/5 By giving more direction with activities, training Standardise Separate rooms for different activities and the use of log sheets, the problems from previous and skills at one centre. year decreased. Learner contracts Discrepancies between centres remained. 1997 As 1994/5 No major problems 1998 As 1994/5 plus computers No major problems to participate in activities with their students, even if this just meant talking to them, but also to check that their students were engaged in some sort of English practice during the hour in self-access. As important was what they were not supposed to do, these were: not “not turn up”, not just read the newspaper, not mark homework and not mark students' diaries. Marking students’ diaries was both time consuming and against the principle of the learner diary dialogue, which was a feature of the course to develop students’ ‘free’ writing. The above definition of role resulted in teachers being more ‘involved’ in self-access with increased enjoyment for both students and teachers. A lesson to be learned from 1994 and one not envisaged was that there was now too much choice for students. Although students had all done the day-one orientation quiz, a large number would complain that "there's nothing to do" whereas in fact there was a lot to do. What was lacking was a direction or "pathway" through the materials. The log sheets which had been seen as a form of direction for the students, enabling them to select and vary activities, were not utilised in this way nor viewed as such a tool by students. This confusion demonstrated a lack of guidance from teachers and perhaps reflected cultural differences, as Chinese students expect teachers to exert authority but at the same time nurture them (Ho & Crookall, 1995). In his paper, “Learner culture and learner autonomy in the Hong Kong Chinese context”, Pierson summarises the learning situation in Hong Kong “as something static and directed by others” (Pierson, 1996). Thus there was so much to choose from and so little direction that some students spent all their time trying to choose and never really settled down to do anything. This lack of guidance was partly dealt with by introducing ‘daily specials’. Each day the self-access staff would decide on three ‘daily specials’ and advertise them on the white board in each room. These might include, for example, pair work activities or crosswords, and provided an immediate answer to the phrase, “There’s nothing to do”. The daily specials also helped introduce students to materials they did not realise existed. By week three of the course, although more guidance was being given, a drop in students’ motivation in self-access was evident with “I’m bored” comments. The solution to this was to introduce a centre-wide competition with its focus on self-access. The competition was called ‘English Everywhere’ requiring the students to collect as many examples of English from the environment as possible. This had a twofold effect: it focused groups on a real task for their self-access time, and it showed the students how much English there is in their living environment. The examples of English were displayed in the self-access rooms under class numbers. The competition was a great success with motivation and enthusiasm returning 86 Links & Letters 7, 2000 Deborah Aldred; Gareth Williams to the self-access rooms. Two other successful initiatives of the self-access of ‘94 were the daily quiz taken from the newspaper each morning and a Scrabble competition. 1995. This year saw a substantial increase in the size of the programme with student numbers increasing from 1100 to 1624. Due to this increase in students as well as in teachers, rooms and administrative work, few changes were made to the self-access organisation except that no overall supervisor was appointed. It was felt that because self-access had been a relatively successful part of the programme in 1994 all that was needed was more of the same, with self-access staff being responsible for their own rooms. The success of the competitions in 1994 had prompted the introduction of a weekly competition, focused on self-access. This helped to develop group cohesion and provided a weekly challenge. The materials used were the same as had been available in 1994. The day-one quiz was slightly adapted but the log sheets remained unaltered. The problems column in Table 1 for 1995 could be viewed with concern, but even if there were difficulties, 71% of the students enjoyed themselves in the self-access room as confirmed in the evaluation questionnaire (see Table 2). Of more concern is the fact that in the evaluation, 47% of students said that self-access was not useful. This response was the first negative indication about self-access and prompted further investigation which included gaining information from interview data collected for another research project. This included taking note of students’ comments about self-access such as these below (unedited): It is quite good for you. When you want to relax or find someone to talk. But when you have nothing you want to do, it’s quite bored and waste time [...] It has many ways to take our interests, but may not be useful for the exam [...] not bad also not good [...] I think self-access is a place can let use learning English freely and in self-access we must be very active to learn anything [...] self-access is very boring [...] The comments showed a great variety of responses. In any situation there will always be some students who take advantage of whatever learning contexts they come into contact with, for others it is more difficult. Whereas self-access was viewed by the course providers as being a chance for individual learning, from the above it seems it was seen by too many students as a waste of time and irrelevant to their immediate needs, i.e. passing an exam. This negative attitude was confirmed in feedback from teachers, who in fact felt that both they and the students were confused about their role in the self-access rooms. Half the teachers felt that students needed more control and guidance considering their educational background and experience. One teacher stated: The need for a focused approach: a case study Links & Letters 7, 2000 87 ...not structured enough so [that students]lost interest and saw it as time out. Another teacher commented: give them compulsory tasks to do, e.g. make competitions compulsory. After all who ever went to the library unless they had an essay to write? As for their role, teachers were confused, as this comment illustrates: it still seems unclear... is it complete self-access or is it ‘teacher-directed’. It really depends on the students; some of them do need directing. Teachers support and encourage it but are unsure when to get involved or direct the students. When asked how teachers felt in self-access, one reply was: either bored or guilty. With my good class they simply didn’t want / need my help and kept sending me away and regulating their own behaviour. If I joined in one group activity, I felt as if I was either intruding or ignoring the other groups. With a bad class, I was either a patroller, nagger or all-round despot, which I felt bad about. 4. Solutions for 1996 and beyond After consideration of the above, it was necessary for the programme development team to reassess the self-access component and this led to the need to clarify the aims of self-access within this programme. These were defined as: —to help learners to take some responsibility for their learning through alternative mediums than those presented in the classroom —to encourage learners to develop patterns of learning which can be continued after the course has been completed. From these aims the following criteria were established which could be applicable for self-access programmes within similar contexts. — Clarify aims and objectives — Brief and train self-access staff — Focus on ensuring clear guidelines for teacher and learner training — Orientate and train learners, use learner contracts to support this — Standardise centres — Make (more) positive use of learner diaries —Aim for the ‘controlled supermarket’ approach (Miller and RogersonRevell, 1993: 33). 88 Links & Letters 7, 2000 Deborah Aldred; Gareth Williams At this stage it was clear that the staff recruited for self-access should be made aware of their responsibilities and roles. This was not the case in 1995 as was apparent by the different approaches adopted in different self-access rooms and in the feedback for each. The third criteria listed above was the need to focus on ensuring clear teacher guidelines. Gremmo (1994) identifies the teacher in self-access as a counsellor whose role it is to help learners develop learning competence, “knowing how to learn” and create conditions for learning. He says that the role of a counsellor is different to that of a teacher with specific values, ideas and techniques. In addition, from teacher feedback, it was found that self-access was seen by some teachers as an occupation of time rather than as a learning opportunity. The reversal of this trend was extremely important if the aims of the programme were to be achieved and thus an explicit definition of role for classroom teachers in self-access was drawn up: — To give information about activities and orientate learners — To advise on materials/activities which suit learners needs — To explain language points — To co-ordinate and facilitate speaking and discussion groups — To provide feedback when asked — To give direction, encouragement and support — To help learners reflect on and discover different learning strategies. For teachers this specification and definition of roles1provided clear guidelines attempting to help overcome the difficulty of adapting to the role of facilitator of learning and resource manager. And it proved vital if teachers were to take the responsibility of introducing and guiding students through self-access effectively. The definition of roles was reinforced by an orientation session in the self-access rooms during the induction day in 1996 when teachers had to take part in tasks and activities. For students, in helping them to fully explore and realise the opportunities of self-access, the situation was more complex. Although the introduction in 1994 of the day-one quiz was seen as a step towards orientation for students, more time was required to do this effectively and further guidance was needed to enable students to understand their role in and the aims of the self-access programme. In 1996 there were four orientation days in selfaccess. The first day consisted of quizzes to help students understand the options available. Then in the subsequent days definite tasks were given to the students so that at this point self-access was very directed and controlled. The need for a focused approach: a case study Links & Letters 7, 2000 89 1. Several of the responsibilities outlined above have also been identified by Kell and Newton (1997) in their discussion of roles relevant to the Chinese context.