Development of Friendly Environment During English Lessons Article Started
Development of Friendly Environment During English Lessons Article Started
Development of Friendly Environment During English Lessons Article Started
Action research
English lessons
Mariia Balanda
Maxym Drozd
Yevgenia Maruschak
Khrystyna Schevchuk
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RATIONALE
The problem of our research concerns students, who feel unmotivated,
bored, passive during English lessons, due to the fact that there is no positive
environment in the classroom. It is very important for students to learn and study
in such an environment, which promotes friendly and supportive atmosphere, this
can be attributable to the fact that it fosters learning process and makes it engaging
and effective. A classroom climate that is positive, stimulating and energizing is a
powerful way of maintaining both students and teachers motivation – and
monitoring learner engagement is crucial in this sense.
The importance of this research is reasonable as it aims at the creating
different ways of promoting an effective rapport in classes. This study is
considered to be very necessary as it has considerable contributions to many
institutions, psychologists as well as to the participants of the experiment. All the
above-mentioned information rises 3 research questions:
- What is rapport?
- What are the main factors that influence students’ behavior?
- How to develop friendly environment in classes?
In this research we can hypothesize that relationship between teacher and
student will be more successful if teacher takes into consideration personal likes
and interests of students, calls out their names but not surnames, has healthy
emotional well-being and uses different strategies for creating rapport, especially
songs, pictures, games and communicative activities.
Firstly, Harmer (1998) defines rapport as the essence, the relationship that
the students have with their teacher and vice verse. This definition is strengthen by
Pinata (1999) who says that positive student-teacher relationships are characterized
by open communication, as well as emotional and academic support that exist
between students and teachers.
Brown (2001) defines rapport as ‶. . . the relationship or connection
you establish with your students, a relationship built on trust and respect
that leads to students' feeling capable, competent, and creative" (p. 202).
This relationship or connection has physiological implications for learning.
By generating rapport, teachers strengthen the emotional connection
students have to a concept, thus promoting and enhancing learning.
According to Tiberius (as cited in Fleming, 2003), rapport helps establish a
context that positively influences learning.
The risk factors that influence students’ behavior are:
- bright psychomotor inhibition, difficulties in developing inherent inhibitory
reactions and inhibitions; complexity in organizing behavior (even in game
situations);
- the child's tendency to "cosmic" lies - to decorate the situations in which
she is, as well as to the primitive inventions. It uses them as a means of getting out
of a difficult situation or conflict. The child is prone to suggesting to him wrong
behaviors, imitates deviations in behavior of peers, adults;
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- Students’ interviews;
- Pictures;
- Worksheets;
- Students’ feedback;
- Our own reflections.
Let’s have a look at particular examples of using different rapport strategies
in primary, secondary and high school.
What concerns young learners, we take a lesson that is different from the
traditional one. We start the lesson of the first form with a song - greetings, using
movements: waving handles, stomping, clapping and others. We come out full-
fledged physical minutes with the repetition of words of greeting. We use the toy
to get to know the children, at the same time we repeated the phrases: ‘ What is
your name?- My name is …’ allowing children to change roles. After that, you had
to go to the color repeat. We use the pictures to replicate them and then offered to
paint the balls to the children in the color they would hear. When working with
young children, it becomes clear that they cannot sit still all the time, so our next
step is to warm up. After the children move, next step is a video through which
they study the pets. After learning the new material, the children are asked to find a
hidden picture of the animals they have just learned in the classroom. At the end of
the lesson, the children sing a farewell song.
Speaking about middle school, the 6th form in the Gymnasium №7 is more
stressful, because they were more closed in themselves and was at the beginning it
was difficult to find the correct approach to them. I provided some group work,
practiced with them new vocabulary and did a “Taboo” card game. After 2 or 3
rounds they become involved in activity and they started to feel themselves more
freely. At the end of my time I noticed, that students become more talkative and
their general mood changed in better way.
Next I began to work with 9th form. When they saw new person, they show
some caution and tried to keep silence, because of new person in role of teacher. I
provided an activity, main aim of which was to involve students in communication.
This lesson was with a reading focus, so I choose “3-2-1” and changed it according
to the lesson plan. Students did reading exercises, and then they coped this task and
in addition discussed text. By the end of my time, I noticed, that students felt
themselves more freely and they didn’t feel shy. I tried to be polite and friendly
with them, just in case to make children feel confident and calm.
The other part of action research is connected with my tutoring at the
English school. Since the beginning of September I’m leading 13-14 y.o. group of
students (they are studying in the 8 form). This experience is totally different from
my school practice, because here I’m acting as their supreme teacher, who
provided lessons from the beginning till the end, with my own lesson plans and my
own approaches. My group is small, there are only 8 students. Our first class was a
bit tense, because it was my first real teaching practice and in addition I didn’t
know the students. I started the first lesson with familiarity, after which I pointed
that we gathered here to study English and I would do my best to deliver
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FINDINGS
own thoughts; only 1 out of 11 pointed, that during the last tests he was
trying to cheat; 2 out of 11 pointed, that it’s sometimes difficult to them to
do their homework. According to this answers (we paid our attention only
for those, which was interesting for us in teacher prospective) students of 9 th
form like their subject, and one of the essential part of their love belongs to
teacher and his approach.
About our observation in school: after our first appearing in classes and
acting as a teacher, students changed their perception of us. Students from the 9 th
form were taking part in some exchange competition with which we was familiar
and they asked us some questions about it. That fact showed that they started
accepting us as an authority, and my opinion beginning to be authoritative among
them. During the Teachers’ day we was able to spend the whole lesson with both
classes. Teacher gave us the lesson plan and we lead the lesson. We noticed that
students of both (6th and 9th) grade don’t afraid of working together (as pairs or
groups) and even peer checking wasn’t difficult for them.
At the last day of our research we gave to students of the school test and
asked them to examine my work. This test was quite similar to the one, which we
gave at the beginning. The results of the 9th form (11 respondents) showed that:
Test question Students pointed Students pointed
+ -
Listened teacher 9/11 1/11
carefully
Was interested in 10/11 0/11
the lesson
Noticed that 0/11 11/11
teacher paid more
attention for other
rather than to him
The lesson with 0/11 11/11
the new teacher was not
interesting to me
I like the 9/11 2/11
discussions which we
led
Tasks provided 9/11 1/11
by new teacher was
interesting for me
*some students avoided some questions, that why some
numbers doesn’t calculate right
According to the answers, we made a decision that friendly environment
depends on teachers behavior, his attitude to students and ability to provide
different tasks, approaches and methods of leading the lesson. Lesson plan should
involve not only working with book and worksheets, but the elements of
discussion and communication, in which teacher should take part by means of
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sharing his opinion and letting the students agree or disagree with it; comment it
and even provide discussions if they find your point opposite to their. Teacher
should provide environment in which student feels free to express himself and
don’t afraid to speak.
The results evidently show that the better rapport was created in the
th
9A grade. That means that teacher was really approachable, open for students,
humanistic and creative.
To sum it up, a productive work on the lesson extremely depends on
the emotional well-being of the student, which is created in part by the teacher,
who has to ensure a positive learning environment. The development of rapport
involves using games by the teacher, calling students by their names not surnames,
the positive teacher’s behavior.
To summarize our research, we would like to say, that the greatest part in
forming the friendly environment during English classes plays teacher. He should
carefully choose correct approaches, methods and activities. During the class
teacher has to play active role during discussions, encourage students to participate
on the lessons and help them feel comfortable and free. Except of correct lesson
planning, teacher must examine the psychological aspects of his class, keep
friendly relationships between students, and prevent any destructive things like
bullying, misbehavior which can negatively affect the relationships in the
classroom. As a teachers we have to use cooperative learning strategies.
Small-group configurations are essential for developing student-to-student
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relationships, engaging ELs in communicating about the subject matters that they
are learning and providing practice opportunities to develop the academic
knowledge and skills that are needed for learning. A helpful strategy for engaging
in cooperative learning is to assign all students with roles that they can accomplish
successfully (such as timekeeper, ‘ask the teacher’, illustrator- note taker, etc). It’s
helpful, as it is with all that we do, to match the language proficiency levels of
newcomers with the tasks that we assign; assign students to peers and small groups
that they will work successfully; engage students in paired followed with group
work; vary the role of students so they can have practice communicating in a
variety of ways.
Teacher should familiarize himself with the culture of his students. That
means that there should be no cultural or other discrimination or disrespect either
from the teacher side or from students. Teacher has to act as a friend or colleague,
in order to build respectful relationships. And the most important thing – don’t
forget that we are all the human beings with different points of view, wishes and
emotions.
REFERENCES
Appendices
Income test for young learners
1. 2.
Do you listen to your teacher? Do you work together/ in team ?
3. 4.
Do you dance in the lesson? Do you sing songs in the lesson?
5. 6.
Do you ask your teacher if you need? Do you ask your partner (cheat)?
7. 8.
Do you use toys in the lesson?
Does the teacher raise the voice in the lesson?
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Pictures:
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30. Usually the teacher conducts a lesson, constantly looking at the notes.
31. The information that I receive in the lesson will be needed in the future.
Handouts
Taboo game
Students pick up a card with word and he has to describe this
word, avoiding words, which are “taboo” (pointed on the same
card). The main aim of this game is to improve students’ speaking
skills.
3-2-1
This quick way to help students process reading or lesson material
when you’re pressed for time. First, have your students write three
facts they learned from something they read or learned in class that
day. Next, have students write two questions they still have about
the book or topic that wasn't covered or discussed in class. Finally,
have your students write one opinion they have about the reading
material or lesson. This activity can also help you with your lesson
planning for the next lesson on the topic or book.
“Picture dictation”