Running head: Lack of attention during warm up activities

Lack of attention during warm up activities in my classroom

Fabrizio Foffi

Educational Research

362-410

July 2019

Author Note

Fabparker 21@gmail.com
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Abstract

The following study analyses some issues that myself and other colleagues experienced

numerous times in different classes. A considerable amount of students tends to be involved in

other activities rather than put attention on the subject and on what the teacher is trying to

explain often during warm up activities. The scope of the research was to analyze first the cause

of this behavior and to find different approaches adopted by the teacher to eliminate or reduce

partially the issue. The research included both qualitative and quantitative methods; data

triangulation was also implemented to analyze the data from different prospectives. For data

collection was utilized observation notes from external teachers, and from the ESL teacher

discussions with students, video recording, and anecdotal records. Final examination of the

research revealed that teachers need to implement more time to better model the context, use of

more visual aids, and the enforcement of some rules in general.

Keywords: research, techniques, survey, qualitative, quantitative, engagement.

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Lack of attention during warm up activities

During the last meeting held at” Suankularb School” in Bangkok, teachers of English

subject, including myself, have discussed about some issues concerning students’ lack of

attention during warm up activities. Teachers reported that a substantial number of learners after

the lesson begins are engaged in conversations about other topics, using mobile phones, doing

homework, and not paying attention to the teachers’ instructions.

Possible causes of the phenomenon were discussed and few questions were proposed by

the commission to conduct a deeper research, and to find possible solutions as it follows:

 Do the teachers allow enough time for the students to get ready for the new lesson?

 What are the main causes that let the students fail to pay attention at the beginning of the

lesson?

 What the students think about English subject?

 What has been done so far to deal with the issue?

 What are other possible options that teachers can implement to solve or reduce the

matter?

The study will be focused on approaching different techniques to better involve the

students and to evaluate their effectiveness once implemented .

The following illustrates the research in deeper details:

 Sample: Mathayon 2/3/4/, about 3 classes for each grade were observed each

class with a range of 30 to 40 students.

 Age: 12 to 15 years old.

 Gender: both male and female.

 Level of language knowledge : A1 to A2 according to CEFR.

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Classroom research analysis

David Nunan’s – A lecturer from Macquarie University at Friday’s plenary conference

which opened the conference addressing teachers to consider how to improve each student’s

learning experience rather than rationalize unsuccessful classroom results blaming them on

events or methods. According to Nunan: “The teacher- researcher should be able to reflect on

the results upon classroom experiences, teaching interventions and the impact which they make

in the lives of the learners”. (Nunan 1992).

“The connection between teaching and learning is practically non-existent” (Freeman &

Richards 1996). “We know that teaching does not cause learning, but we must act as if it does.”

(Larsen- Freeman 2003). Researching teaching is committed to discipline directly to the

methodology and analysis of the data supporting both the findings and how the researchers

arrived at. “The principal function of teachers is to “do” and not to “tell” (Freeman 1998). Action

research is the tool for the teachers to explore the connection between teaching and learning

through developing reflective practice and exploration of real problems in the class.

The main scope of action research for the teachers is to find evidence to prove the validity

of their actions and to examine possible solutions to improve them. Classroom based research

and teacher research is based on the inquiry and they both contain collecting data and data

analysis and multiple choice questions. It requires at least 3 different types of data collection for

example observations and interviews. The issues of classroom research are related to define

properly the focus of inquiry and the replicability of the results.

Few more aspects to consider:

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• To develop a line of inquiry, review preconceptions, questioning and create a

researched and disciplined plan.

• Think about how many people we need to collect data from, where we can collect it,

focus on quality rather than quantity.

• To keep a time frame using an agenda or calendar, considering holidays and time off

school to complete what has been planned on schedule.

• Consider extraneous factors which might confuse results trying to keep

focused on what is needed and available at the same time.

• Keep it simple- the best advice to approach any process.

Collecting data. Collecting data means to collect information related to our inquiry.

Data are not the answer to the research question, they are the raw material out of which the

response to the researchable question might probably emerge. Different types of Data collection

strategies have been implemented as it follows:

 Diagrams and maps of the classroom to show the classroom layout and

other important elements like “tracks of movement” to indicate people and

activities.

 Brief discussions to collect data about how students interpret what

happens in the classroom after the teacher enter the classroom.

 Video recording - recording of warm up activities made by the automatic

recorder that was placed in an unnoticeable place in the class (on the top

of the whiteboard).
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 Observation notes made by a colleague (one of the teachers-colleagues sat

in the back of the classroom and made his notes during warm up activities

part of the lesson).

 Anecdotal records - quick and brief notes about students’ behavior and

actions that were made by the teacher during warm up activities;

Data Collection Results:

The results were obtained confronting the data upon grounded criteria naming key ideas

and concepts, grouping categories, finding patterns and displaying and subsequently comparing

the different type of data collected. The idea in this research is to surface themes and concepts

from the data as we read them and to unpack it according to the themes and concepts that we

encounter.

 Anectodal records: Approximately 15% of the students were bored by the warm

up activity conducted while another group of approximately 10% of the students

took passive participation. The remaining 75% of the class has shown positive

signs of excitement and involvement during performing of the activity.

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 Discussions- : According to the feedback from the brief discussion at the end of

the lesson: 20% of the students were bored, 15% indifferent, 65% excited.

 Video recording: According to the video records 10% of the students were

playing with their mobile phone during the warm up, 25% were doing homework.

The remaining 65% shown to participate in the warm up activity.

 Observation notes: Based on observation notes 30 % of some Inactive groups of

students attempted to comprehend the task at first but then gave up on trying.

Perhaps the task was too complicated for them. Another 30% was not interested at

all, and the remaining 60% showed interest and participation.

Data Analysis - Three basic ways of data triangulation were used:

Investigator triangulation has been conducted using a teacher, researcher a teacher observer and

students. Methodological comparing video recording, observation and students’ feedback, and

Theoretical using again video, observation and feedback.

Data analysis based upon grounded criteria: naming and grouping.

Based upon the results of data analysis, the participants can be divided into the following groups

according to their feeling about warm up activity and their participation in it:

Group 1: “Not interested & Bored” - these students did in class something else, were not

engaged at all, and expressed negative feelings about warm up activities.

Group 2: “Passive & Indifferent” - these students passively participated in the warm up activities

and expressed neither positive nor negative feelings about them; they remained indifferent.

Group 3: “Active & Excited” - these students actively participated in the warm up activities and

expressed positive feelings about them.

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Some suggestions based on the results of data analysis emerged from this study to improve the

level of attention of the students during warm up activities:

The need for more time to model context - When teachers model the language they

need to consider which are the students’ first priorities rather than focusing only on the

language form. The benefits can be as it follows:

• The teacher as a greater opportunity to engage the students in real interaction.

• The learner can develop a productive relationship with the teacher.

• The teacher has more opportunity to engage the students in real communication,

obtain better feedback and a better understanding of their needs.

Minimize perceptual mismatches (Kumaravadivelu, 2003)- Teachers and learners quite

often can have a different perception of learning opportunities meaning that they don’t look at

the same classroom event as a possible learning event. The gap between the teacher and the

learner perception of the scope of classroom activities can also enlarge the gap between the input

and the learner intake. Input is related to oral and written data to which learners are exposed and

recognized as functional for learning purposes. The way that the learner perceives the utility of

classroom events determine the amount of input that is taken.

The implementation of more elicitation techniques- Using stimulus pictures and student

interactions.

The necessity to generate more interest from the learners- Introducing some different and

unexpected topics.

The requirement to enforce rules which prohibit the inappropriate use of mobile phones and

other destructive items during the lesson.

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Conclusions

From the evaluation of the final results, a large number of useful information was obtained in

order to change and improve the teachers approach towards warm up activities and the students.

The percentage of participants, which were not engaged, and which passively participated in the

warm up activities appears to be consistently lower than the active participants, with a value that

appears similar in all the four diagrams. Possible causes and solutions were examined and the

experiment should be repeated again in the future to confront both results. The study contributed

also to let the teachers to share and exchange information in therms of inquiry and acquisition of

evidence which can be utilized from local circumstances to a larger framework of research.
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References

Freeman, D. (1998). Doing Teacher Research: From Inquiry To Understanding.

B.kumaravadivelu. (2003). beyond methods : Macrostrategies for language teaching. Yale University.

Nunan, D. (1992). Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.
Freeman, L. (2003 ). From grammar to grammaring . Heinle ELT.
Richards, D. F. (1997). TEACHER LEARNING IN LANGUAGE TEACHING. New york:

Cambridge University Press.

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Tables
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