Assignment – FP002 ORC

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT:
OBSERVATION & RESEARCH IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

GENERAL INFORMATION:

This assignment must be done individually and has to fulfil the following conditions:

- Length: 5 pages (without including cover, index or appendices –if there are any-).
- Font type: Arial or Times New Roman.
- Font size: 11.
- Spacing: 1.5.
- Alignment: Justified.

The assignment must be written in this Word template and has to follow the instructions
on quotes and references detailed in the Study Guide.

Also, the assignment has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the
document: “Subject Evaluation”. Sending it to the tutor’s e-mail is not allowed.

It is strongly recommended to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the
document “Subject Evaluation”.

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 Assignment – FP002 ORC

Assignment:

Each one of these three case studies investigates a different topic in EFL.

CASE STUDY 1:
Nasirahmadi, A., Madarsara, F. A., & Aghdam, H. R. (2014). Cultural Issues
and Teaching Literature for Language Learning. Procedia-Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 98, 1325-1330.

Population: 14 EFL adult Iranian students learning language in a private school.

Description: The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of
incorporating culturally-loaded materials like literature in EFL courses. A
selection of short stories (“Chicken soup for the soul”) were incorporated in the
syllabus of the experimental group. Those students outperformed the control
group in the final marks.

CASE STUDY 2:
Liao, H. C. (2016). Using automated writing evaluation to reduce grammar
errors in writing. ELT Journal, 70(3), 308-319.

Population: 66 Taiwanese university students.

Description: the author proposes the introduction of Automated Writing
Evaluation to reduce grammatical errors in L2 writing. They evaluated the
grammatical error types made by Taiwanese university students and provided
feedback to the experimental group through AWE at various points during a
nine-week pedagogical programme. Using AWE in a process-writing approach
seemed to exert a reducing effect on the number of grammatical errors during
both revisions and new text composition, although the patterns regarding the
precise appearances of effects varied amongst the error types.

CASE STUDY 3:
Talandis Jr, G., & Stout, M. (2014). Getting EFL students to speak: an action
research approach. ELT journal, 69(1), 11-25.

Population: 160 first-year students of a private Japanese university in a

mandatory English class.

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Description: In many EFL contexts, especially those where English is a

required subject, getting students to speak can be a challenge. The
intervention was a new syllabus featuring personalized topics, more L1
support, direct instruction of pragmatic strategies, and frequent
assessment of spoken English. Questionnaires, class notes, and recorded
data from three iterative cycles of research were collected and analysed to
evaluate the intervention from student and teacher perspectives. Results
indicate that by the end of the year, student conversations appeared more
fluent and accurate.

Of the case studies outlined above, which topic would be of most

interest/relevance for a group of students you are familiar with? Think about how
you would need to adapt the case study for your target group's needs by
considering the following questions:

1. Clearly outline the population for your adapted case study.

2. How would you adapt the structure of the case study to fit in with your
target group and teaching context?

3. What sort of data would you generate and how would you generate it?

4. How would you analyse the data?

Important: you have to write your personal details and the subject name on the
cover (see next page). After the cover, include a table of contents. Assignments
that do not meet these conditions will not be corrected.

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 Assignment – FP002 ORC

Name and surname(s): Guadalupe

Casanova
Login: MXFPMTFL2134679
Group: 2016-02
Date: 22-11-2018

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 Assignment – FP002 ORC

INDEX PAGE
1. Introduction 6

2. Population 6

3. Case study 2 7

4. Implementing the plan 8

5. Data collection 8

6. Quantitative data 9

6. Data analysis 9

7. Conclusion 10

8. References 11

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 Assignment – FP002 ORC

Introduction

Since learning a foreign language is challenging, it is important to analyze the

situations which are faced in the classroom, as well as the students’ learning styles.
Teaching English as a foreign language has many variables. Therefore, some research
must be carried out in order to manage better outcomes in the second language
learning process. Professors must be updated and involved in the current teaching
process to help learners improve their skills which are carried on in the classroom
every single day, in addition the teacher has to make learners feel self-confident to
make this process more pleasant. Classrooms are by far considered as places to do
research. However, they are also the most difficult places to research. Nunan makes a
distinction between “classroom research” and “classroom-oriented research” [Nunan
1991]. Classroom interaction is studied by the group of research methods which allows
investigators to observe and describe the interactional events taking place in a
classroom. These data contribute to understanding how learning opportunities are
created and how different kinds of classroom interaction lead to learning. Since
Classroom research means investigating learners inside real classroom environment,
and classroom-oriented research consists of studies carried out outside the classroom
in a “laboratory” setting, this case is going to be addressed to case two due to the fact
that classes will be observed and studied to keep a record of students’ skills
improvement. This assignment is going to address Case Study 2: Liao, H. C. (2016).
Using automated writing evaluation to reduce grammar errors in writing. ELT Journal,
70(3), 308-319.

Population
To start with the target population is defined for this case study; Using automated
writing evaluation to reduce grammar errors in writing. The population set in the case
study was 66 Taiwanese university students. However, for the purpose of this research
the population is changed to 19 Mexican learners, one Moroccan and one Venezuelan
learner. The population is comprised by both, male and female EFL learners from a
Language Centre. Since the course is offered to all kind of audience, the ages vary
from young learners;15-17 years old to older learners ;26 to 40 years old. Because of
the different ages and kind of learners, the level varies from A2 to B1, most of them
reach B1, though. This group was chosen because students are committed to learn, as
well as experiment new was of learning, also because it can be considered as a
multicultural group for the three nationalities, and culture shared in class, also because
some of them have had the opportunity to travel abroad. This group of learners belongs

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 Assignment – FP002 ORC

to the Language Centre at the Universidad Autónoma del Carmen, which is located in
Cd. Del Carmen, Camp. Mex. This research is going to be challenging because the
Venezuelan and the Mexican learners, mother tongue is Spanish, on the other hand,
the Moroccan learner’s first, language is French, which is sort of confusing and tough
for the other learners. They attend classes six hours a week; taking 1.5 hours every
day from Monday to Thursday. All the lessons are planned to help them improve their
skills, they present some weaknesses in the writing tasks, though.

Case study 2
One of the main concerns in my subject is to help my learners reduce grammar errors
in writing. First of all, it is important to set the definition of errors. As Roberts and
Griffiths (2008) stated, it is not that easy to get a definition from errors, since they can
be seen from different views. Additionally, Lennon (1991) relates errors to native
speaker-utterances, even though there are different variations among people who
consider themselves to be a native speaker, which makes it difficult to find a standard.
This case was eligible because there is always challenging to reduce the errors in the
writing for the learners. Even though learners have the opportunity to work with the
different skills, written production is one of the most complicated skills to study and
work with. The only way to make sure learners succeed in this subject is by assigning
several activities to be practiced. The most effective way to improve this skill is by
practicing and correcting the errors. It is important that the students recognize their
specific mistakes and the correct form of their mistakes in order to improve. One of the
facts that makes this issue hard, it is time consuming, because it is necessary for a
teacher to invest time correcting students’ pieces of writing and grammatical errors, so
that makes it almost impossible to regularly assign written assignments effectively. It is
well known that all the four skills are necessary for learning another language, in this
case English. However, writing can be considered as one of the most important of the
four skills specifically referencing to grammar improvement. Warschauer, Ware(2006)
argued that one of the reasons for this is because teachers must spend large amounts
of time grading and correcting writing assignments. As a matter of fact, the proposal for
this research is to improve the quality and clarity critical thinking by implementing the
use of Automated Writing Evaluation, which is a software that automatically grades and
corrects grammar errors in writing assignments. Through this piece of work the
effectiveness of the AWE software in improving the students writing abilities will be
evaluated, focusing on the reduction of grammatical errors in the students´
assignments.

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 Assignment – FP002 ORC

Implementation of the plan

The idea to carry on the implementation of this plan is to solve the problem previously
identified, as well as reducing time while making corrections. So that, just as in the
example of the case study, an Automatic Writing Evaluation (AWE)software will be
used to correct the students written tasks over the time period of one semester. By the
end of this semester students will have improved the writing skills as well as reduced
grammar errors in writing. I am also aware that during the semester the grammatical
and writing abilities of the students will improve somehow, but it might be a slight
difference or a huge one. The results will be set by the end of the task. There is a
similarity in the way the exam case was developed compared with adjustments I will
work. In the case there appeared to be a reduction in grammatical errors over a nine-
week period, and since learners will be tested for approximately 6 months, I expect to
have similar results.

The idea of using AWE software is that learners receive corrections of the grammatical
mistakes without the instructor spending the time to evaluate each of the students´
assignments thoroughly. This will give learners the opportunity to complete more
writing assignments during the specified time period of one semester and therefore
have a stronger grammatical ability. It must be taken into account that the basis for this
experiment is that the learners receive grammatical corrections on their writing tasks
having the opportunity to improve grammar as well. The three primary software options
for AWE According to Warschauer and Ware are Intellemetric, E-Rater and Critique,
and Intelligent Essay Assessor, for the purpose of this case study, one of these
software options will be chosen initially and used throughout the entire process. It is
believed that changing the AWE software choice in the 4-month period could create
unnecessary extra variables which could be useless for the data collection.

Data Collection
As stated previously, this research will be carried on through observations in order to
collect the data. Every time we collect data, it can be done in two ways, quantitative
and qualitative, just like in any other research case the data has to be collected. For the
purpose of this case the data collection will be through the quantitative way.
Quantitative and qualitative research share common ground (Glassford, 1987; Pickette
& Burril, 1994). Both are concerned with reliability and study designs, and approaches
are similar. The quantitative data refers to any data which gives us a number, on the
other hand the information that does not give us a number is called qualitative data

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 Assignment – FP002 ORC

(FUNIBER p.12). Qualitative data can have several forms such as of observations,
interviews, or other forms of non-numerical feedback. According to the material
¨various combinations of quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis are
possible¨. In this case study the data will be collected in a quantitative way, quantitative
data will be collected and analysed to get the results and make a report about it. It is
important to specify in what manner the data will be collected and analysed in order to
carry out a useful case study.

Quantitative Data
As previously mentioned, the quantitative data will be collected and analysed in this
case study. The quantitative data will be collected by simply counting the number of
grammatical errors made by each student. Fortunately, this data will be available
thanks to the use of the AWE software which will evaluate the students writing and
report the number of mistakes made. The quantitative data will be collected at the
beginning of the three-time period with an initial writing assignment, for instance, the
first task learners will have assigned is to write about how people celebrate
Thanksgiving in different countries. Throughout the three-month period, each weekly
writing assignment will be evaluated and the number of grammatical mistakes made
will be recorded. Finally, at the end of the proposed time, a writing assignment similar
to the first assignment will be given to the students and their number of errors will be
recorded. The final writing assignment will have the same grammar topic as the initial
assignment (how thanksgiving is celebrated around the world) in order to reduce the
variables that come with changing the topic. Although there are several possible data
variables, most notably different types of grammatical errors, in this case the most
important data is simply the total number of grammatical errors. It must be specified
that a reduction in grammar errors will be correlated as an improvement in writing
ability.

Data Analysis
Once the data is collected, it must be analyzed in order to get a conclusion for the case
study. This is the fourth step of the research in which the data is analyzed and a
conclusion can come up. In this case it won’t be necessary to analyze qualitative, but
quantitative data. There are a several techniques available for analyzing data
(FUNIBER p. 83). In this case, the quantitative data will be evaluated in a test so that
the results can measure how much they improved. The quantitative data will be
analyzed. The qualitative data will consist of the number of grammatical errors made.
The number of errors will be analyzed by calculating the average of the number of

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 Assignment – FP002 ORC

errors made. Also, the mode will be calculated which will demonstrate the number of
errors made by the largest number of students. And finally, the median will be
calculated in which half of the number of errors will be greater than the median while
half will be below the median (FUNIBER p.85). The mathematical calculations will be
done with the data from the first writing test and the data from the final test by the end
of the semester. Both results will be compared to find out if it really worked as
expected. The difference in the data collected will then be correlated to the
grammatical ability of the students. That is to say that the fewer the number of errors
made at the end of the semester will correlate with greater grammatical ability.

Conclusion
In conclusion, a research process will be carried out in order to measure and analyse
to come up with a solution for learners to avoid a lot of grammar errors in writing. The
purpose of this case applied is to help learners improve their grammatical skills while
learning a second language through writing. This case study will be applied as Case
Study 2. This case study will be adjusted to 19 Mexican learners, one Moroccan and
one Venezuelan learner from different ages;15-17 years old and ;26 to 40 years old,
who are learning a second language, English, in the Language Centre. The case was
chosen based ln the fact that working with written activities is pretty demanding and
teachers cannot achieve the main goal since having writing activities that need to be
checked for making corrections is time consuming, because it is necessary for a
teacher to invest time correcting students’ pieces of writing and grammatical errors
individually, so that it makes it almost impossible to regularly assign written
assignments effectively. The main issue of applying this case research is to prove that
while using an AWE software program evaluating writing activities can help students
improve their grammatical ability over time.

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 Assignment – FP002 ORC

References:

Lennon, P. 1991. Error Some Problems of Definition and Identification, in Applied

Linguistics, Vol. 12, num. 2, Oxford.

Material, Observation and research in the language classroom, Formación

Universitaria: FUNIBER on the pages. 51, 12, 83, 85

Nunan, d. (1992). Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge University

Press. New York.

Roberts, M. and C. Griffiths. 2008. Errors and Good Language Learners. In Lesson
Form Good Language Learners, ed. C Griffiths. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

Warschauer, M and P.Ware. 2006. Automated writing evaluation: defining the

classroom research, Vol.10, num. 2, Irvine, University of California

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