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JOURNAL ANALYSISItemJournal 1Journal 2Journal 3

Sample-Students of a sixth gradeclassroom-Trainee English Language Teacher-Graduate students of education programSetting-A professional developmentschool associated with theBenedum Five Year TeacherEducation Program.-Sino-British MA in Englishprogramme at Beijing NormalUniversity-Foundation of educationclass at universityProcedures-Students were forced to think forthemselves, encouraged to askquestions and participate fully inclass discussions. The studentteacher wanted to hear how theyrelated what they were studyingto themselves or priorexperiences. Students quicklylearned that once they gotthrough background informationon a new topic, they would getinto truly engaging activities,which led to their being morefocused and motivated to learnthroughout.-Copying vocabulary terms intonotebook, a classroom read of background information, and afollow-up Arts integrative activitycorresponding to the newinformation.- The student teacher felt that theactivities and classroomdiscussion were more meaningfulto the students than werecompleting workbook pages. But-Research project was runsparallel to both teaching practiceand ELT Methodologycomponents (2 semesters).-The trainee teacher work inpairs.-Teaching English (five contacthours each week) to science andhumanities undergraduates atthe university (one class of students for entire year)-Involved two stages; 1)Familiarize the participants boththeoretically and practically withthe action research approach on1

Semester.-An understanding of what actionresearch is and what it is for.-By organize workshops,seminars, and discussionsdesigned to allow them todiscover the meaning of actionresearch for themselves, and toreflect about its nature andorigins.-1

step: Initiate a discussion by-The researcher asked thestudents to join her in co-constructing the full course.-Day one:Discussed about thestudents’ preferences. Didthey want a teacher-directedcourse or a more student-centred one? Virtually all theclass of twenty-five sidedwith the more student-directed philosophies, andthe researcher proceed withco-construction. Theresearcher asked thestudents to come up withquestions, topics, andthemes they wanted totackle. Before proceeding totheir input, the researcheroffered the caveat that theyneeded to coexist with themore teacher-directedphilosophy of the universityas a whole and stick totopics generally related to

the student teacher wasobligated to finish workbookpages assigned by the hostteacher, these were oftenassigned as homework. Oncestudents recognized the trade-off and found that they enjoyed thenew teaching style, they stoppedcomplaining about homeworkassignments.giving a number of statements(comments & criticisms aboutteacher training programmescollected from classroomteachers & educators) and somepractical questions about them;ask them to consider thestatements & the questions inthe light of their own experiencesand beliefs.-2

step: Divide students intogroups. Each group is assigned areading task with specificquestions on different aspects of the theories of action research. The group then research theirquestions and familiarize with theavailable literature on actionresearch. So that they canpresent a seminar paper on theirtopic.-3

step: Looking at data. Anexamination of various datacollection techniques, includingcase studies, audio and videotechniques, teacher and learnerdiaries, questionnaires,interviewing, and classroomobservation sheets.-There are 2 aims of studyauthentic examples of each typeof data:1) To show trainees what sort of material it sis possible to collectfrom their own classrooms, andthe mandated foundationscontent (history, philosophy,sociology of schooling). Thenthey went through aPowerPoint presentation ontopics typically covered in afoundations course (hiddencurriculum, nature and aimsof education, history of education, funding andorganization of schools,socialization of social class,gender, and race andethnicity, curriculum andknowledge, achievementand ability).-Day two:Launched immediately intoco-constructing the courserequirements. Theresearcher asked the classto create an agenda of discussion items, such asparticipation, attendance,short-term (more frequent,minor) assessment, long-term (less frequent, major)assessment, and content.Each student was assignedto a task force that dealtwith one topic. Each taskforce was charged withcollecting classmates’ inputon its topic (by interviewingor by posting questions on

what that material can revealabout teaching & learningprocesses2) To equip them with the skillsnecessary to construct their owndata-collecting instruments.-Task for trainees:a) Video and audio data-Trainees observed anddiscussed about the data fromdatabank of video and audiotapes of former trainees.-Through discussion of theirobservation results the traineeteachers become sensitized toproblem they may never havethought about before, and beginto establish a critical attitudetowards their own teaching.b)Questionnaires-Trainee teacher analysedquestionnaires containing dataon English teaching or learningproblem (data collected from theclass taught by trainee teacher inthe previous year).-They have to analysis a pack of questionnaires from one class of students (work in teaching pair),and asked to prepare an oralpresentation and a written reporton the design of thequestionnaires and on itsfindings, and the possibleimplications of the findings forchart paper to collectanswers) and thendiscussing what suggestionsto make to the whole classon that topic. The task forcescollected input and met forthirty to forty minutes, andthen came together as awhole class to discuss themyriad ideas.-Day three: The third night of classbegan by asking thestudents to journal on thesequestions: What do youthink of the new syllabusand grade menu? Do youbelieve your needs weremet? Will you feelcomfortable exercising your“protest rights” if someaspect of the syllabus endsup being problematic?Again, responses werepositive.Nearly all studentsexpressed appreciation of the level of choice andflexibility and indicated thattheir opinions, concerns, andquestions had been takeninto account. The processalso seemed to reduce, to adegree, conventionalteacher-student antagonism: