Post-Raya Blues

Since the last entry, I have been so extremely busy. To begin with, school reopened after the two weeks raya break. It has been hectic. Frankly speaking, I have been hiding from the school's administrators for the reasons I would not want to discuss in here. If you are a teacher, I think you would understand why I dodged them.

I have tried to put up something in this blog, but then my laptop faced a problem- I cannot connect to the Internet. Trying not to waste any time, I typed the review of the paper by Radecki & Swales (1988) using Word on my laptop. Later, I sent my laptop for fixing, and alhamdullilah, it is now back online. But then another problem comes (and yet to be solved). I cannot use Microsoft Word for whatever reason. So the paper cannot be viewed, so much so the table of readings I have done (I cannot remember the system's name but it was suggested by Dr. OT).

Now, because of that, I had my moment, again. I really, really felt like breaking down and just cry. Yes, I have a soft heart. It happened before and I suppose until I finish this master, the moment will always come back.

I'm just tired. I am really tired. School has not been kind to me. We face so much problems. Surely there are the admins. On Monday right after the break, we were visited by the Pengarah of BPSBPSK and I was called because of the PBS. Surely, someone is trying to make it big. I was issued a Surat Tunjuk Sebab earlier this year for a very stupid reason- not responding (in written) to a complaint, while I and my team had discussed the issue with the admins. I have been targeted each time. I cannot do things around the school in peace. I am practically being bullied. But, who will ever hear me?

The problem started some times earlier this year. And I started to hate it. I wanted to go- leave all this behind. My travellings seem cannot accommodate my need to run away anymore. I just wanna go. So I started to look for jobs online. Teaching of course. Then I applied for English Teacher position in UPNM and IIUM. Alhamdulillah, IIUM called me for a test during Ramadan and I passed so I was called for the first interview. Me, naturally, passed the first interview. I know I have the every confidence in me to go through. And in the midst of hardship, I was called again for the second interview. The question was the same- "are you willing to teaching in the new campus in Gambang?". I answered yes. Datin Dr. Engku Haliza, the Dean of CELPAD, smiled throughout the interview and I am confident that I am in. Now I just need to wait for the offer letter.

Yes, I am running away.

I have ran before. But I didn't know I was to come into a worse scenario. That makes me ponder- will I be happier if I were to leave this school and teach at IIUM?

Teaching in school is not the same, compared to my first year teaching (2009). Now with the ever-changing system, we teachers are burden with even more paperwork. PBS is not making things easier for us. I now don't know the head and tail of the syllabus. My RPT seems down the drain. The kids seem not wanting to learn knowing that there will be no PMR whatsoever. I have rude students who would just stare at me during my lesson, as if she wanna eat me. I'm talking about some barbarian kind of look here, not that sexy lirikan manja anak gadis kind of stare. I have students who do not want to do anything in the class. Some would just simply copy the answer from their friends. They do not want to do a thing. I don't know what to do now. I have tried things. Teaching used to be so much fun. But not anymore. Being pressured by the admins, the parents, and now even the students.

Will I face the same if I were to go to IIUM?

Paper Review: Error Correction in the L2 Writing Classroom: What Do Students Think?

Lee, Icy (2005). Error Correction in the L2 Writing Classroom: What Do Students Think? TESL Canada Journal. Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 1 - 16.

This paper starts with the same old argument whether or not error correction leads to better writing. For sure, the debate mentioned here is the one between Truscott (1996) and Ferris (1997, 2002). I have read somewhere about the argument put forward by Truscott in which all research cited have nothing in common, therefore the argument is somewhat invalid. You can't compare chicken to a duck, can you? Well, now I surely have to look for that paper (I wish I have made note somewhere!).

Lee mentions that there are two factors why error correction is still in practice:

       1. Teachers seem to believe that it is their job to mark errors;

       2. Students value such feedback and think that they benefit from it.

In the next section, Lee discusses the elements of error corrections. First of all, there is explicit and implicit error marking. Explicit refers to the marking in detail - like, teacher marks every single error. Implicit is the opposite. Interestingly, implicit error correction is more of the teacher commenting about the essay as a whole. More likely, the comment is about the organisation of the essay, content of the essay and the sentence structure as a whole, rather than highlighting every error made. 

As for the explicit error correction, there are selective or comprehensive. When a teacher marks selectively, she/he would select certain errors to be mark, not everything. For example, she/he may want to mark spelling only, and disregard all other errors. Comprehensive marking refers to correct every single error made by the student writer.

Lee then discusses the problems with error marking. She mentions that error correction may not help the students at all because of the teacher's arbitrariness and inconsistency in error correction. This is related to the code used by teachers- do the students understand it? The other factor relates to timing the feedback is given. For example, we are talking about the essay as draft, or as the final piece. 

Just a thought: Let say a student writes a few essays a year, the first essay should serves as a benchmark for the next essay? So, if that is the case, shouldn't that student improves from the first essay to the last piece?

Lee then describes the gap, i.e. many research has focuses on the teacher, but not the students. 

The context of her study is Hong Kong where 320 students answered the questionnaire. The Research Question is rather simple - What are students' perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes regarding error correction in the writing classroom?

My study surely will use the same RQ, but I think I should add more, should I?

The result:

60.3% teachers mark ALL their errors, 82.9% students prefer comprehensive error correction, 91.2% teachers use code, only 44.1% could understand three quarters of the codes used, only 8.6% students thought they are making a good progress over the year and finally, 54.8% believes that it is teachers' responsibility to locate and correct errors. 

In the Implication and Conclusion section, Lee concludes that there is a huge gap between teachers' practice and students preferences. About 40% teachers mark selectively while 82.9% students prefer comprehensive marking. Thus it implies that teachers should mark comprehensively. However, Lee argues that it is not who mark the errors, but why and how. Teachers should discuss the error correction policy and make sure students shoulder responsibility to their learning. Students on the other hand should realise that in the long run, they should reduce their reliance on teachers as they need to improve their editing strategies in order to write better. 

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This paper has actually made me think of a few issues-

1. as mentioned in the findings section, the HK English Syllabus asserts that teachers should mark selectively (although been ignored by many HK teachers). The Question now is: Do we have that in Malaysian English syllabus? I doubt it. 

2. I know in Malaysia we practice CLT, but in reality, it is not CLT at all. I remember when I marked SPM paper in 2010, the marking rubric was nothing but all Grammar. The essay is graded based on how flawless it is. There is no such thing as "oh, I can understand this essay, although there are many errors in it" grade. This is related to what Lee mentions in this paper- writing classes' focus would be on Grammar, not the discourse of the writing. 

3. Error correction should equip the students to be independent learners. There is one thing in Grammar teaching that is called noticing the form. I believe in it. That is why I teach Grammar explicitly (although it is prohibited in CLT, well, Malaysian context at least). So by marking the essay explicitly, students' attention is being shifted to the forms. But then again, how many of these students actually take note of the marking and the comment?

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In my next entry, I will discuss a paper of the same topic; Radecki & Swales (1988). ESL Students Reaction to Written Comments on Their Written Work.

Brief Outline "Gifted Students Reaction Towards Teachers' Feedback"

To begin, the title is GIFTED STUDENTS REACTION TOWARDS TEACHERS’ FEEDBACK ON ESL WRITING. This is a replication of a study done by Prof Icy Lee entitled Error Correction in the L2 Writing Classroom: What Do Students Think? I think it worth to mention that this study is not the sole study done by Lee on the topic. She has done numerous studies on the topic even when she was in Canada. Many of her respondents are Chinese speaker, even those studies done in Canada. So that is the starting point for my research – my respondents are Malaysians, mainly Malay speakers (I cannot assured it now that it is 100% Malay since MRSM do have non-Bumi).

Speaking of gifted students, I got the idea when I thought of what is available for me for the study. Surely enough, as I am teaching at an SBP, my students are readily accessible for me. I kept asking myself over and again, “what would make these kids different of those Lee’s population?”. As if there was a light shining so brightly above me, I found the answer – these kids are gifted.

Now, I am sure many of you think that SBP students are not all gifted. I thought the same too. Well, I still am. Because this is a scientific-adhered research, a definition is a must. Therefore I googled the term and came to a definition in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (taken from the US National Association for Gifted Children) which says:

                “Students, children, or youth who give evidence of high achievement capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who need services and activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop those capabilities.”

Hence, from this definition, students of SBP and MRSM are deemed gifted, at least when we consider the fact that these children are selected based on their UPSR or PMR.

I remember when I was in MRSM not so long ago. OK, it has been over ten years now (I was in MRSM Tun Ghaffar Baba, Jasin in 2000 – 2001). The Principal, Mr Mohd Hussin Ibrahim (we called him MHI, like that morning talk show at TV3), would give speech about giftedness like in every assembly. Of course I didn’t understand it back then because I had a miserable life there (it was not easy to live in hostel crowded with smart students). All right…this paragraph serves no purpose for the study. End.

Among other things that are related to gifted students is the fact that they are highly perfectionist. So there is a gap there – how would these perfectionist utilise the feedback given by the teacher? Logically, they would make the best out of it. They would make sure they don’t do the same mistake again in the next task. So that is the hypotheses.

I remember when I was in MRSM, I actually went to see the teacher asking for that 1 more mark. The argument was simple – mine is just as good as my friend’s, why I get less mark? The argument was obviously fruitless. The teacher ignored me. If she actually discuss with me what is wrong with my essay, I think I would take it more positively. That is actually part of my readings (which I cannot remember which) in which the study looks into the effectiveness of post-essay feedback conference. Now being a teacher myself, I would not do the same to my students. I am always available for the students to discuss about their essay. But surely I have that one rule – if that 1 extra mark doesn’t change the grade, don’t bother to see me.

For the purpose of this study, the same survey questionnaire used in the original study will be used. I added a question to the questionnaire as I was curious myself of what do they students do when they get their essays back. The same question will be asked again during the focused-group interview. The reason why there is no open-ended question in the survey is that I have decided to do the interview. Well, even in Lee’s original study, no open-ended question is put in the questionnaire. The data collection will be done in two ways – survey and interview. Surely enough, the data collected from the interview will be used to support the data collected through the survey. The questionnaire has been translated into Malay and verified by my colleague who happens to be Guru Cemerlang Bahasa Melayu. I have done a pilot study to check the clarity of the questions and no problem was found.

Prior to this, I have actually administered the survey to two schools (as I mentioned in the previous entry). I wanted to get done and over with the thesis so I did it without consulting my supervisor. Well, obviously there are lotsa issues raised by her. And that was the trigger point of me to think harder and deeper into the study. Luckily for me now, even though I alter the study slightly, I can still use the responds given by the students.

I have to say that this master degree takes a lot more than what I expected. Time, energy, money, worries and headache and I have come to the point where I suffered migraine and insomnia. I wonder if I don’t do this, would my life becomes better. But one thing for sure, I’d be bored to dead as I don’t have much to do then J

It's been a while...

I know it has been awhile since the last time I put up an entry in this blog. Frankly speaking, I have (almost) forgotten about this blog. And this blog was created for the purpose of my M.Ed subject, i.e. Introduction to Educational Research (or something like that). Hence, right after the end of that semester, this blog has been forgotten.

So I came across this blog when I was bored at my mum's place over the Hari Raya break. So I googled myself (yeah, like I don't have anything better) and I found this long-forgotten blog. I am still in the break but I was thinking, I should do this blog because I can see my thoughts flow from all the readings.

Since the last entry, there were so much had happened. I am no more in Pekan, but now back to my hometown, Bentong. It's been a year now since I am back. About my master degree, I am technically done, if and only if, this thesis is not part of the degree. And I have been assigned to a supervisor, based on my second proposal.

Now, talking about the proposal, or proposals to be exact, I have changed the study like millions of times so to speak. But what have came up, or rather written down, are three. As you may have read, my initial proposed study was on MBMMBI. I scrapped that out at the end of 2010 because frankly speaking, who'd want me to come into their classroom and observe? So I decidedly to change to "Implementing Project-based Instruction in ESL Classroom". God, I think I spent like two years on this alone. I wrote the proposal in between marking the SPM papers and my Bali trip back in 2010 (the trip was a disaster- went with a drama queen), and continued with it until last year. I even pilot studied it- and as expected, it is just almost impossible to be done in school.

So after thinking about it over and again, I went through all my assignments and decided to just replicate a study. So I took a study done by Prof. Icy Lee of HK University. Actually, I have been dwelling with this like a year now, but come to nothingness. Until recently when I started to really think about it really, really hard. It was because my supervisor seems doesn't like the idea much. She asked lotsa questions that I just wanna give up.

So what have I thought? I wanna replicate the study "Error Correction in the L2 Writing Classroom: What Do Students Think?", but with different respondent. Yes, many say that by switching to Malaysian context, I'd get a whole new different set of result, but it seems very much difficult to state that in the Statement of Problem section. Hence, I have decided to change the study to "Gifted Students Reaction Towards Teachers' Feedback on ESL Writing."

Since I have the access to these so-called gifted students, I think I will be able to get more authentic result, that hopefully, will add to the knowledge of TESL. At the moment now I am still reading (yes, it seems endless) on the topic and since I have decided on gifted students as my respondents, I now need to read on them. So far, I think I am on the right direction.

For the purpose of this blog, my next entry will give the definitions of key terms as well as discussion on the original paper by Prof Icy Lee. From there I hope to give a more structured entries which covers the main topic (students reactions on teacher feedback) and the respondents (gifted students).

I hope, I really, really hope that I can get this done and over by November. For the initial study of the same topic, I have actually done the survey on two schools, namely SBP Integrasi Tun Abdul Razak (my previous school) and MRSM Tun Abdul Razak, Pekan. I have also done the same survey on my students here in SMA Persekutuan Bentong (SUPERB - I gave the acronym :-) ). So now I have more than 300 respondents. Hope that will be sufficient.

Next entry- detailed proposal of the current study.

Phonological Awareness Development

This entry discusses Chapter 3 of Phonological Awareness by Gillon (2004), entitled Phonological Awareness Development.

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Children learning English as their second language are able to demonstrate phonological awareness skills in English after a relatively short period of study (Chiappe & Siegel, 1999), suggesting that the development of phonological awareness skills in one alphabetic language transfer to understanding phonological awareness in a second alphabetic language (pg 40).

Language experience can influence
1) performance on specific phonological awareness tasks;
2) the rate at which phonological awareness increases;
3) the use of phonological awareness knowledge in the reading and spelling process.

The researchers suggested that adequate exposure to an alphabetic scripts appears necessary for the use of phonological knowledge.

Variables Contributing to the Development of PA
1) Influence of Reading and Spelling Experiences
A reciprocal relationship exists between PA and litearcy development. Exposure to formal reading and spelling instruction seems to more fully develop phoneme awareness knowledge (Perfetti et al., 1987). Cognitive maturation alone cannot easily account for later developing competency at phoneme level.

2) Alphabet Knowledge
Learning the names of the alphabetic letters and their associated common phonemes may help children understand the sound structure of words. Studies demonstrated stronger effects on enhancing reading when PA training is combined with letter-sound knowledge training.

Personally, I think that the most important section of PA is that we make prints availabe for the students. This is related to what Krashen mentioned (as in my arlier entries). At the very basic level, it is important to introduce the sound of each alphabet to the students. I remember when I was in Year One, our tasks was to write the letters over and again, and to say it in the class. When we have finished the letters book, we would proceed to the next book- words book. Our teacher would write words in the book, and we need to copy the words like 30 times each. That was the way I learn my vocabs. Now I can say I am proud of my vocabs, though it may not covers engineering fields, or medicine, but at least I know that my vocabs are more than sufficient for my daily conversations, and to deliver my ideas across.

Regarding what Krashen mentioned in one of his writtings, we must make prints available for the students. But not just available, but interesting prints. Library should be equipped with interesting books, suitable for the students' levels. It is important to make the students interested in reading first, before we can make them read the boring History texts, or the complicated Biology notes.

How would this help in my research proposal?
As I have mentioned in my earlier entry on the revised proposal outline, phonological awareness would come in in the Literature Review. It is important to define the elements in MBI as to understand what's happening in the classroom. Are the teachers teaches all these? Or at least include parts of it? Do they take these into consideration when they plan their lessons?

Yes, I can deny that there is less connection of PA development for SBPs students, as many of them have no problem in decoding the prints, but again, how about their BICS? PA is somewhat important in ensuring the development of BICS.

Phonological Awareness

Gillon, G.T. (2004) Phonological Awareness. NY: The Guilford Press.

The book opens with the definition of the terms used in the field. According to Gillon (2004), phonological awareness refers to an individual's awareness of the sound structure, or the phonological structure, of a spoken word (pg 2).

It is important to gain a perspective of phonological awareness within the broader context of phonology abd linguistics theory. Long before children become explicitly aware of the phonological structure of words, they have developed implict phonological knowledge that allows them to gain mastery of speaking and listening to their native language. Implicit phonological knowledge for example, enables children to make judgment about whether a word is part of their  native language, allows for the self-correction of speech errors, and enables children to discriminate betwee acceptable and unacceptable variations of a spoken  word (Yavas, 1998).

Phonology is the area of linguistics that focuses on understanding the speech-sound system and the sound patterns of spoken language.

Explicit awareness of the phonological structure of a word helps children draw connections between the spoken form of a word and its written representation.

Before I go deep into this book, I guess it is not wrong for me to say that the government decision to introduce MBMMBI, and specifically Phonics into MBI, is indeed a very wise one. Children who comes to school has the knowledge of the language at home. But what they maybe lacking of is the connection between the sound, and its written form.

The issue that has been brought up by some concern citizens regarding Phonics teaching in schools is- are we teaching our children to speak like matsalleh? This issue is related to the fact that the MoE is bringing in some language experts from the UK. But what these concern citizens failed to realise is that these experts are for for teaching the children in schools, but to equipped teacher trainees to teach phonics when they go to school.

As stated above, phonological awareness is crucial in teaching reading. Students need to know the connection between the written form and its sound. I have to admit here that it is not easy to teach English, even to smart kids. There are so much rules to remember, yet so much exceptions to it. And the influence of the mother tongue as well- not that the kids speak like Makcik Minah from Felda New Zealand (no offence to any Makcik Minah from Felda NZ!), but the simplest things such as mud /mAd/ becomes /mUd/. They say it as it's spelled. This actually reminds me of some bus conductors in Bus Terminal in Jalan Hang Tuah in Melaka when I was in school. All of them would shout "Melaka Pa-ra-dey!! Adik, naik..gi Pa-ra-dey". English is not Malay, and most of the words are not spelled as its said.

If the utterance is a problem at the beginning of a student's learning, how would he/she learn more complex words?    

If you remember my entry related to BICS/CALP by Cummins, I think that our students are (almost) perfect in writng form. They can replicate and produce a good essay, so much so from the novels they read, but when we ask them to speak (even just to read), they  stuttering and mumbling. Are we producing mute English speakers?  

So I guess there is nothing wrong in teaching the students phonics, where at the end, we can correct the simplest utterance mistakes they (and perhaps us, too) always do.

Personally, I think it is a huge mistake to Malaynised English technical terms. Why can't we just teach the students the terms in English, because at the end, when they go to university (hopefully!!), they will have to learn it in English. What's the point of changing carbon dioxide to karbon dioksida? My students over and again would pronunce the word as karbon dioksida, though its spelled carbon dioxide in the English workbook!! Its /kArbern/ for God's sake! And please, its /Kenneck/ not /konek/ though its spelled with an O in the middle.

Phonics in Proper Perspective

Heilman, A.W. (2006) Phonics in Proper Perspective. NJ: Pearson- Merill-Prentice Hall.

Phonics instruction is concerned with teaching letter-sound relationship only as the child relate to learning to read. A guideline for the instruction is that the optimum amount of it a child should be exposed to is the minimum the child needs to become an independent reader. 

Definiton of key terms:
Phonemic Awareness- refers to the knowledge or understanding that speech consists of a series of sounds and that individual words can be divided into phonemes.

Phonics Instruction- a facet of reading instruction that (1) leads the child to understand that printed letters in printed words represent the speech sound heard when words are pronounced; and (2) involves the actual teaching of which sound is associated with a particular letter or combination of letters.

In order to larn to read the printed code, they must become proficient in segmenting syllables into their constituent phonemes. This ability has been found to be an accurate predictor of success in early reading achievement.

The case for expanding sight vocabulary
Measuring sight vocabulary is the first meaningful teast of reading achievement. expansion of sight vocabulary is the skill that best illustrates the developmental nature of reading. Whenever children are making adequate progress in reading, their stock of sight words is increasing.

Next entry- Phonological Awareness by Gail T. Gillon (2004) NY: The Guilford Press.