Action research for curriculum developments in languages: identifying troublesome grammar knowledge

1. Action research for curriculum developments in languages: identifying troublesome grammar knowledge Marina Orsini-Jones Faculty of Business, Environment and Society Coventry University m.orsini@coventry.ac.uk Linking Teaching and Research in Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies University of Southampton, 10/07/07

2. Applied to classrooms, action research is an approach to improving education thorough change, by encouraging teachers to be aware of their own practice, to be critical of that practice, and to be prepared to change it.(…) It is research WITH rather than research ON. (…) (It) encourages teachers to become adventurous and critical in their thinking, to develop theories and rationales for their practice, and to give reasoned justification for their public claims to professional knowledge. It is this systematic ENQUIRY MADE PUBLIC which distinguishes the activity as research. McNiff: Action Research: Principles and Practice (1988:4-6)

3. Reconnaissance Planning Acting Reflecting Re-planning (and cycle starts again) Action Research Processes

4. Figure 1: The Action Research Spiral. After Kemmis and McTaggart (1988:14) cited in Hopkins (1993:48).

5. Focus group research and students’ results in language tasks highlighted lack of grammatical awareness amongst languages students (first year undergraduates majoring in one or more languages); Subject benchmark requirement that students should develop ‘appropriate linguistic tools and metalanguage to describe and analyse the main features of the language(s) studied’ Reconnaissance: identifying and defining the problematic issue

6. Design of a group grammar project for a mandatory skills module to address the issue of lack of grammatical competence. Use of the Hallidayan rank scale grammar classification. Syllabus to evolve on a yearly basis according to action-research findings. Task to include both individual elements and group ones as: ‘Without connection people cannot grow, yet without separation they cannot relate’(Ackermann, 1996:32). Planned solution (collaborative assessed task, with input from students and staff)

7. Create a website containing linked web pages. Analyse a sentence on each web page according to the rank scale concept and categories. At least one of the chosen sentences (minimum of 3) had to be in one of the target languages studied, and the other(s) in English. Choose sentences from a list given to them, and each group had to create the relevant analysis and website. Upload the website into the Virtual Learning Environment (WebCT)’s collaborative group area. Present their website and grammar analysis to the rest of the class with the support of a PowerPoint slide presentation to highlight the major issues encountered while completing the project. Write an individual report on the experience of building the grammar project. The task: students had to

8. A first assumption of a ‘categories’ description is that the analytic units can be arranged on a rank-scale which implies that units are related in a ‘consists of’ relationship with smaller units combining with other units of the same size to form larger ones. Thus a sentence consists of one or more clauses, each of which in turn consists of one or more groups, and so on. The structure of each unit is expressed in terms of permissible combinations of units from the rank below, the structure of a clause for example being described in terms of nominal, verbal, adverbial and prepositional groups. Rank Scale concept (Coulthard 1985:121)

9. Bundling his black cassock around himself, the bishop climbed into the back seat and settled in for the infuriatingly long drive to the country retreat. Sample sentence to analyse – After Dan Brown

10. Sample rank scale sentence analysis

11. ‘Acting out’ the process. Group work: webpage of grammar analysis 2004-2005 (Word/Compact HTML)–sample group project page (word classification)

12. ‘Acting out’ the process 2 with new – more reflective – tools Group grammar analysis with PebblePAD (ePortfolio/Webfolio tool) – sentences/clauses

13. Website: grammar content - 30 marks Website: technical aspects (clarity/interface/navigation/colour-scheme/DDAIV friendly) - 10 marks Reflective Power Point presentation (group): reflective content and presentation skills - 10 marks Individual reflective report in Word (1000 w.): reflective content and report style (30 marks) Marking Scheme: 50% module mark group task + individual reflective report 30% module mark

14. Quantitative data (marks in the grammar project). Qualitative data: semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, students’ reflections in reflective journal, in individual reports for grammar project and on the VLE’s discussion forums; staff’s reflections. Also: comparison between the students’ personal assessment of their level of proficiency in grammar analysis (they were asked to predict their grade and identify the problems encountered) and their actual marks for the grammar component of the project. Reflection - evaluation of data and re-planning (at the end of each phase (between 2002-2007)

15. ATLAS.ti is a workbench for the qualitative analysis of large bodies of textual, graphical, audio, and video data. It offers a variety of tools for accomplishing the tasks associated with any systematic approach to unstructured data, e.g., data that cannot be meaningfully analyzed by formal, statistical approaches. ATLAS.ti offers tools to manage, extract, compare, explore, and reassemble meaningful pieces from large amounts of data in creative, flexible, yet systematic ways. ATLAS ti

16. ATLAS ti: software for qualitative analysis

17. morpheme clause phrase words (e.g. adverbs; possessive adjectives vs possessive pronouns) (but also sentence and paragraph structure in general) Troublesome grammar knowledge

18. Some students stated that they had not understood the concept (and/or its components), but analysed the sentences well and had a good level of understanding. Others were extremely confident in their assessment of their performance in grammar analysis, but their results betrayed lack of understanding. Other problems: students’ beliefs (Wenden 1991) and need to compare qualitative and quantitative data

19. ‘new to me’ terminology (students opposed to change, refusing new type of analysis, refusing its semantics); prior (mis)knowledge of terms such as ‘phrase’ or ‘clause’ - lecturers had to ‘undo’ their pre-conceived definitions of the grammar categories involved the cohort’s composition and the variety of nationalities present in it (e.g. 14 different ones in academic year 2003-2004); ‘prior knowledge’ - background and previous grammar learning experience; reliance in group work upon peers who found the grammatical categories ‘troublesome’ but decided nevertheless to take a lead in the analysis of the sentences; misunderstanding of the concepts and lack of ability to ask lecturers for help; lack of motivation towards the module. Factors affecting understanding of key concepts

20. Doubling of the time allocated to explaining grammar in general (increased from two to four face-to-face sessions) and morphemes in particular, and changing the assessment of the module to better reflect this increase in grammar input; Provision of more samples of grammatical analysis; Provision of more collaborative practice/workshops on morphemes following the lecture on grammar; Uploading of all the grammatical explanations and exercises onto the VLE for those students who had not been able to attend; Creation of a dedicated grammar forum in the VLE’s discussion area, enabling students to air their concerns. Re-planning – changes from phase one to phase two

21. Re-planning: more exercises on ‘meta’ grammar analysis on the VLE (1)

22. Re-planning: more exercises on ‘meta’ grammar analysis on the VLE (2)

23. Re-planning: more exercises on ‘meta’ grammar analysis on the VLE (3)

24. On the whole students from continental Europe are less challenged by grammar than their British counterparts (and are not ‘scared’ of grammar) - obvious advantage of French students in understanding the rank scale concept due to their previous exposure to metalinguistic grammar analysis in the French education system; On the whole British students acknowledge that their weakness is English grammar and that they wish they had been taught it at school; Many British students understand grammar in the target language studied better than English grammar (grammar analysis shows this); Other emerging data

25. Negative attitudes towards grammar (‘difficult’, ‘boring’) have been fostered at school (British schools); Foreign lecturers teaching in this country are not always fully aware of this ‘grammar gap’ and assume a basic level of grammar knowledge on the part of their students (which they don’t have). Other emerging data 2

26. I understood it in class, it was when we went away, and I just seemed to have completely forgotten everything that we did on it, and I think that was when I struggled because when we were sat in here, we’d obviously got help if we had questions, but I did grasp the concept of breaking it down, but when it came to applying it to the project (...) I couldn’t. I understood the lectures and everything that we did on it but couldn’t actually apply it, I think that was the difficulty Elusive nature of troublesome grammar knowledge

27. I found the first assessment the most challenging. This was to create a web page, breaking up the grammar of a particular sentence in one of the target languages and in English. I think that this was because it was the first assessment and the fact that I was still settling at university. I had never really studied grammar in this depth and found it quite difficult to grasp at first. However, as we worked as a group, I began to understand more….I have learnt a lot of grammar and now know all the different aspects of grammar, such as clauses, morphemes, etc. This has helped me with my two languages a lot. (Written anonymous feedback, May 2004, highlights by author of this paper). Collaboration helps

28. `From doing this project I have definitely learned a lot more about grammar. Initially English grammar such as morphemes and derivation and inflection. This has in turn helped my understanding of foreign grammar. I think English people would benefit if we were taught grammar at a younger age, as people are in foreign countries. There was a lot of information to learn and take in…Learning some terms for certain words (nouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions) was also helpful as it is helping me with understanding both English and the target languages I am studying. (Portfolio reflective entry about the grammar project, May 2004). Success?

29. The identification of troublesome knowledge can underpin student-centred curricular design via action research across a course, not just for one module. A-R findings can inform teaching and learning strategies that are targeted at the troublesome knowledge identified. With reference to the findings, it might be time to re-think grammar teaching in the UK and have a cross-sector exchange of ideas on this topic (with possible link with literacy/employability). Conclusion

30. For further details: Orsini-Jones, M. and Jones, D. (2007) ‘Supporting Collaborative Grammar Learning via a Virtual Learning Environment’Arts and Humanities in Higher Education. 6:(1) 90-106. Any questions?