Investigating EFL Teachers’ Strategies to Engage Learners in “Conversation” Classes at University Level
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25007/ajnu.v9n1a588Keywords:
Engagement, Learners’ Engagement, Engagement Strategies, Disengagement.Abstract
Engagement is broadly defined as learners’ involvement in activities that bring about high-quality learning. Educationally speaking, learners’ engagement outlines the degree of attention, curiosity, interest and passion that learners display as they are learning or being taught. Recently, learners’ engagement has been researched quite intensively as it plays a crucial role in the acquisition of knowledge and duly achievement in the field of teaching/learning foreign languages. The current research attends to English as a foreign language university teachers’ use of a set of strategies/techniques to make learners’ do some actions so as to be prepared for engagement in the ongoing teaching/learning activities and exercises related to their “Conversation” classes. It further aims at identifying the actions done by the teachers of “Conversation” themselves to engage learners. Based on the preceding aims, it is hypothesized that the researched sample of teachers does not require learners to do certain actions as preparation for engagement in the relevant learning activities and do not do what is required from them to engage learners in their classes and duly do not enhance learners’ engagement in the different learning activities To validate the hypotheses, a sample of 12 English as a foreign language university teachers (6 males and 6 females) specialized in linguistics and teaching the subject “Conversation” has been given a 43-item questionnaire, prepared by the researchers and validated through distribution to a panel of juries in the first place and then piloted to a number of English as a foreign language university teachers, to state their responses to a five-point scale that ranges from “always’ to “never”. The results show that the sample of teachers ask learners to do a set of actions as preparation for engagement in the relevant learning activities; they also do what is required from them to engage learners and duly enhance their engagement in the different learning activities.
Downloads
References
1. Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman and Co.
2. Birolini, A. (2014). Reliability Engineering: Theory and Practice. Berlin: Springer.
3. Bomia, L., Beluzo, L., Demeester, D., Elander, K., Johnson, M., and Sheldon, B. (1997). "The impact of teaching strategies on intrinsic motivation." ERIC. Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education. p. 294.
4. Chapell, C. and G. Bridley (2002). “Assessment”, in Schmidt, N. (ed.). An Introduction to Applied Linguistics. London: Longman, pp. 268-288.
5. Chapman, E. (2003) "Assessing student engagement rates," ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation. ERIC identifier: ED482269.
6. Christenson, S. L., and Anderson, A. R. (2002). Commentary: The centrality of the learning context for learners' academic enabler skills. School Psychology Review, 31(3), pp. 378-393.
7. Connell, J. and Wellborn, J. (1991). Competence, autonomy, and relatedness: A motivational analysis of self-system processes. In M. R. Gunnar, and L. A. Sroufe (Eds.), Self process in development: Minnesota Symposium of Child Psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 29, pp. 244-254.
8. Fredricks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P. and Paris, A. (2004). School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Review of Educational Research, 74: pp. 59–109.
9. Hill, P. and Rowe, K. (1996). Multilevel modeling in school effectiveness research. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 7, pp. 1-34.
10. Krause, K. and Coates, H. (2008). Learners’ engagement in first‐year university. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930701698892, pp.493-505. Retrieved 23/6/2019.
11. Lado, R. (1961). Language Testing: The Construction and Use of Foreign Language tests. London: Longman Group Ltd.
12. Markwell, D. (2007), A large and liberal education': higher education for the 21st century, Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing and Trinity College, University of Melbourne.
13. --------------- (2006). The relationship between teachers’ perceptions of student motivation and engagement and teachers’ enjoyment of and confidence in teaching. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 34(1), pp. 73-93.
14. Newmann, F. (1992). Student Engagement and Achievement in American Secondary Schools. Teachers College Press. pp. 2–3.
15. Teven, J. and McCroskey, J. (1997). The relationship of perceived teacher caring with student learning and teacher evaluation. Communication Education, 46, pp. 1-9.
16. Zepke, N. and Leach, L. (2010). Beyond hard outcomes: ‘soft 'outcomes and engagement as student success. Teaching in Higher Education, 15: pp. 661–73.
17. References from the Net
18. Almarado, J. T. (2018). “8 Ways to Increase the Engagement in Your Classroom” in Teaching Methods. Retrieved 19/5/2019.
19. Ferlazzo, L. (2014). The Best Ways to Engage Students in Learning. Student Engagement. From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 5/9/2019.
20. The Glossary of Education Reform for Journalists, Parents, and Community Members. Retrieved 19/5/2019.
21. Young, S. (2015). 14 Activities That Increase Student Engagement During Reading Instruction. Reading Horizons. Retrieved 15/9/2019.
References from the Net
1. http://www.greatschoolspartnership.org.Retrieved 19/5/2019.
2. http://www.ehow.com. Retrieved 26/6/2019
3. http://www.scientificlanguage.com/esp/classroom-management.pdf. Retrieved 15/8/2019
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors retain copyright
The use of a Creative Commons License enables authors/editors to retain copyright to their work. Publications can be reused and redistributed as long as the original author is correctly attributed.
- Copyright
- The researcher(s), whether a single or joint research paper, must sell and transfer to the publisher (the Academic Journal of Nawroz University) through all the duration of the publication which starts from the date of entering this Agreement into force, the exclusive rights of the research paper/article. These rights include the translation, reuse of papers/articles, transmit or distribute, or use the material or parts(s) contained therein to be published in scientific, academic, technical, professional journals or any other periodicals including any other works derived from them, all over the world, in English and Arabic, whether in print or in electronic edition of such journals and periodicals in all types of media or formats now or that may exist in the future. Rights also include giving license (or granting permission) to a third party to use the materials and any other works derived from them and publish them in such journals and periodicals all over the world. Transfer right under this Agreement includes the right to modify such materials to be used with computer systems and software, or to reproduce or publish it in e-formats and also to incorporate them into retrieval systems.
- Reproduction, reference, transmission, distribution or any other use of the content, or any parts of the subjects included in that content in any manner permitted by this Agreement, must be accompanied by mentioning the source which is (the Academic Journal of Nawroz University) and the publisher in addition to the title of the article, the name of the author (or co-authors), journal’s name, volume or issue, publisher's copyright, and publication year.
- The Academic Journal of Nawroz University reserves all rights to publish research papers/articles issued under a “Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction of the paper/article by any means, provided that the original work is correctly cited.
- Reservation of Rights
The researcher(s) preserves all intellectual property rights (except for the one transferred to the publisher under this Agreement).
- Researcher’s guarantee
The researcher(s) hereby guarantees that the content of the paper/article is original. It has been submitted only to the Academic Journal of Nawroz University and has not been previously published by any other party.
In the event that the paper/article is written jointly with other researchers, the researcher guarantees that he/she has informed the other co-authors about the terms of this agreement, as well as obtaining their signature or written permission to sign on their behalf.
The author further guarantees:
- The research paper/article does not contain any defamatory statements or illegal comments.
- The research paper/article does not violate other's rights (including but not limited to copyright, patent, and trademark rights).
This research paper/article does not contain any facts or instructions that could cause damages or harm to others, and publishing it does not lead to disclosure of any confidential information.