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.

The New Direction

I was talking to Illani on the phone in the afternoon when she asked me about my research proposal. She mentioned that she read this blog, and she can't really see my direction in doing the research. The conversation makes me realise that I haven't done much into what I am really doing. I guess that is why I dont know what I'm looking for in the Language Policy and Planning books.

So while I was having Nasi Goreng ChiangMai and Nescafe O-Ais for dinner, I ran through all the information that I have read/gathered. I made some-sort of a flowchart of what my research will be. So, here we are:

First of all, I need to redefine my research title-

The Implementation of MBMMBI in Four SBPs in Pahang:

What are the English Teachers do in their classrooms?

I know this sounds different from my previous entry. There is a need to define who is my respondents for this research. I know I was kinda ambitious earlier that I said I wanna do the whole Malaysia. But I guess it's not really do-able.

Nevertheless, the new title somehow gives sufficient information on what the research is all about, where, and who involved in this research.

Why four SBPs? This is related to the fact that I can get access to four SBPs in Pekan and Kuantan- SBPI Pekan, SMS Sultan Ahmad Shah Pekan (SHAH), SBPI Kuantan and SMS Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Kuantan (SEMSAS). My population is the teachers that teach English in these schools. They are nonrandom samples- anyone who teaches English subject in these school will be asked to asnwer my survey forms. As there is English for Science and Technology subject, teachers who teach this subject will be included in this study as well.

Given the fact that these teachers might not be the optionist, this is where the varying attributes come in. This sort of elements will be asked in the demographic section of my survey form. Among other varying attributes that will be included in this study is the teachers' teaching English experience and gender.

So what is this research all about? As the title suggests, it will look into what these English teachers are doing in their English lessons.

What is my literature review will be all about? As I mentioned in the previous entry entitled MBMMBI: Tawaran Baru Sistem Pendidikan Malaysia, there are a few elements of this new policy that teachers in school have to adhere to.  Among others are teaching of phonics, stress on the Grammar in the lessons and inclusion of science and teachnology elements in their lesson plannings. So the literature review will look into these matter- what are the benefits of these, and how best to apply it in the classroom.

Furthermore, I will look into two others elements emphasise in this new policy- the use of computer softwares in teaching and learning process, and the existance of English Language Lab in their school. How would these help in better teaching of English?

Nonetheless, I will discuss a bit about English Language Teaching Methodologies such as Direct Grammar Translation, Total Physical Response and Communicative Language Teaching.

As it is reviewed, the questions will be based on these issues. A survey form will be developed based on these elements. I am thinking to use Likert scale for this survey. I will also include an open ended question for the teachers to comment on the topic. A pilot study will be carried out in ensuring that the survey questions are valid.

Now I can see where I am heading in this research.