NGHIỂN cứu về lời HƯỚNG dẫ n của SINH VIÊN THỰC tập TRONG kì THỰC tập tại TRƯỜNG PHỔ THÔNG dựa TRÊN một hệ THỐNG TIÊU CHÍ ĐÁNH GIÁ

However, few studies investigate the effectiveness of giving andchecking skills and construct a set of criteria for effective instructions.. With the deep concerns about this situation,

Giving- checking instruction skills was concerned not only by teachers but also bymany researchers However, few studies investigate the effectiveness of giving andchecking skills and construct a set of criteria for effective instructions

With the deep concerns about this situation, the researcher carried out the study

titled “A measurement of effectiveness of giving- checking instructions by ULIS student teachers during their practicum at high school against a set of generated criteria: a qualitative observation of five case studies” The aims of the research were to

construct a set of criteria for giving effective instructions, then to use the criteria forinvestigating the effectiveness of giving instructions, to make comparisons and contrastsbetween the successful and less successful student teachers and then to form implicationsfor related pedagogy The instruments adopted were observations as main instrument tomeasure the effectiveness of giving instructions and self- reflections for reflecting theeffectiveness of checking instructions The study yielded significant findings in response

to the effectiveness of giving instructions by five cases according to four components ofinstructions: the content, the organization, the language use and the facilitatingtechniques To be more specific, four out of five cases made the successful performance

in giving- checking instructions With regard to the differences between two groups ofstudent teachers, the successful ones frequently employed adequate information, separatethe long instructions into smaller ones, use simple verbs, combine both first and secondlanguage and utilize more facilitating techniques in giving- checking instructions ratherthan the less successful ones did Based on those findings, the implications were made forcurrent and future student teachers or any researchers who take interest in the same field

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Rationale of the study……… 1

2 Research purpose ……… 1

3 Methods ……… 2

4 Significance of the study……… 2

5 Structure of the study……… 2

PART II- DEVELOPMENT 3 Chapter 1- Literature Review 3 1.1 Key concepts……… 3

1.1.1 Teaching practicum……… 3

1.1.2 Instructions and giving- checking instructions ……… 3

1.1.3 Criteria for effective instructions……… 5

1.2 Related studies……… 9

1.2.1 In the world ……… 9

1.2.2 In Vietnam……… 10

Chapter 2- Methodology 12 2.1 Setting of the study……… 12

2.2 Participants……… 12

2.3 Other participants……… 14

2.3.1 Pupils from high schools……… 14

2.3.2 The supervising teachers from high schools……… 15

2.4 Data collection instruments……… 15

2.4.1 Observation……… 15

2.4.1.1 Justification for the use of observation……… 15

2.4.1.2 Observation scheme……… 16

2.4.1.3 Observation procedure……… 17

2.4.1.4 Inter- rater reliability check……… 18

2.5 Data analysis ……… 19

2.6 Limitations of the methods……… 19

Chapter 3- Findings and Discussion 20 3.1 Checking inter-rater reliability……… 20

3.2 Quantitative findings……… 20

3.3 Qualitative findings……… 22

3.3.1 The content……… 22

3.3.2 The organization of the instructions……… 24

3.3.3 Language of instruction……… 25

3.3.4 The use of facilitating techniques ……… 28

3.4 Checking instructions……… 29

PART III- CONCLUSION 31 1 Summary of finding……… 31

2 Limitations……… 32

3 Suggestions for further study……… 32

References……… 34

Appendix 1……… 36

Appendix 2……… 41

Appendix 3……… 46

Appendix 4……… 51

Appendix 5……… 52

Appendix 6……… 54

2.4.2 Interview ……… 18

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Criteria for giving effective instructions 8

Table 4 The results from the observations judged by three observers 20Table 5 The effectiveness of giving instructions 20- 21

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

VNU: Vietnam National University

ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies

FELTE: Faculty of English Language Teacher Education

ELT: English Language Teaching

ELT 2: ESL/ EFL classroom techniques and practices

ELT 4: Pedagogical techniques

EFL: English as Foreign Language

L1: First Language

L2: Second Language

PART I: INTRODUCTION

Many researchers made their suggestions or techniques on effective instructions(Walker and Walker, 1991, as cited in Wright, 2005; Cotton, 1995; Harmer 1995 &

1998, Ur, 1996; Ur, 1996; Gerhard, 1996, as cited in Boom, 2003; Buchanan andHuczynski, 1997, as cited in Boon, 2003; Nguyen et al., 2003, cited in To et al., 2011;Harmer, 1998; Holmes (as cited in Susana, 2002); Boon, 2003; Scrivener, 2005;Brashaw(n.d.) ) However, few studies integrated those suggestions and techniquesinto a set of criteria to investigate the effectiveness of giving and checkinginstructions Other researchers carried out studies in giving- checking instrumentskills They mainly focused on finding the problems and the solutions to thoseproblems (Susana, 2002; Vo, 2009; Nguyen, 2010; Dinh, 2011; Hoang, 2012) withoutmeasuring the effectiveness of giving- checking instructions In addition, none of thestudies discussed the differences in giving- checking instructions between thesuccessful performers and less successful ones Last but not least, the collected data ofthe previous studies were not checked for the inter- rater reliability Instead, theymainly came from the subjective judgments of the researchers

Those concerns have led to the constitution of this study:

A measurement of effectiveness of giving- checking instructions by ULIS student teachers during their practicum at high school against a set of generated criteria: a qualitative observation of five case studies.

This study aims to achieve four aims follows

To construct a set of criteria to judge the effectiveness of giving- checking instructions

To investigate the effectiveness of giving- checking instructions against a

To find out the differences between the successful and less successful performers.

To form implications for related pedagogy.

In order to conduct this study, the researcher uses the following methods

Firstly, the researcher uses a set of generated criteria for the observationscheme which investigates the effectiveness of giving instructions by five casesand interviews for measuring the effectiveness of checking instructions

Moreover, the study applies the correlation index to check inter- raterreliability of collected data If the gathered data is related well, the researcheruses her results for data analysis

Once completed, this research paper is expected to serve as a referentialsource for teachers and researchers who take their interest in investigating intothe same or related subject Furthermore, this research paper can be beneficialfor teachers or student teachers who have difficulty in giving and checkinginstructions or for those teachers who would like to improve this skill

The rest of the paper includes two parts:

Part II- Development- consists of three chapters

Chapter 1- Literature Review- provides the background of the studyChapter 2- Methodology- presents the research setting, participants,instruments of data collection and the procedure to carry out dataanalysis

Chapter 3- Findings and Discussion - analyzes data and discusses the outcomes.

Part III- Conclusion- summarizes the major findings of the study, the

limitations of the research and the suggestions for further studies

PART II- DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1- Literature Review

1.1.1 Teaching practicum

After seven semesters at ULIS, students at FELTE need to take part in theirteaching practicum Many researchers and educators (Wallace, 1991; Gower, Phillipsand Walkers, 1995; Hu, 2005; Yilmaz & Cavas, 2007; Lingadu, n.d as cited in Dinh,2011) claims that teaching practicum plays an important role in the whole curriculum

of teacher education and is highly regarded as “a required course”( Ishihara, 2005, ascited in Dinh, 2011, p.6) Purdy and Gibson (2008) (as cited in Ong, 2009) highlyappreciate teaching practicum because it is similar to “internship or field attachment”

in other professions According to Wallace (1991) ( as cited in Dinh, 2011); Purdy andGibson (2008) (as cited in Ong, 2009); Vo (2009), since student teachers are notoffered a chance to work with real students, it is absolutely essential for them to befamiliar with real teaching situation and deal with teaching experiences in theclassroom Moreover, those also agree that student teachers will gain great supportfrom their experienced supervising teachers at high schools As a consequence,teaching practicum is of great importance because it provides student teachers withpractical teaching context and experiences

1.1.2 Instructions and giving- checking instructions

As regards instructions in pedagogical field, a number of researchers also have

explained this term According to Ur (1996), instructions are “the directions that aregiven to introduce a learning task which entails some measure of independent studentactivity” Sharing the same opinion with Ur (1996), Huitt (2003) believes thatinstruction is “the purposeful direction of the learning process and “one of the majorteachers’ class activities (as cited in Dinh, 2011, p.13) In terms of the elements of theinstructions, Harmer (1995) proposes that the instructions should contain the maincontent of the given tasks In other words, he advises teachers to tell students what to

do with the tasks Dinh (2011) in her research agrees that the models and timerequirement should be included in the instructions, which can help students know how

to deal with the tasks within time limit

From those researchers’ views and the researcher’ experience, instructions aredescribed in this study as directions of activities which consist of six elementsdelivered to students for the purpose of helping them accomplish those activities Six

components of instructions are What to do, How to do, How long to do, With whom to

do, How to present the outcomes of the activities and How to assess the outcomes.

Giving instructions is part of teaching process in which teachers deliverexplanations, guides and requirements to their students This part is followed bychecking instructions to make sure that students understand clearly their assignments.According to Nguyen et al., (2003, as cited in To, T.H., Nguyen, T M H., Nguyen, T

M & Luong, Q T , 2011, pp.16- 17), there are four popular techniques for checking instructions: “step- by- step ” or “feed- in” approach, demonstrate it, model it

giving-or “show- don’t- tell”, “say- do- check” and “student recall”

“Step - by - step” or “feed – in ” approach: The teacher gives the students

one instruction at a time, not a list of instructions all together Breaking downinstruction into small, separate steps to help students to understand themcompletely, especially when there is a lot of information in instructions and theteacher wants students to understand every word

Demonstrate it, “model” it or “show – don’t – tell”: The teacher does not

talk about what students must do: instead he/she them what to do by giving ademonstration A demonstration is easier to understand than an explanation, andreduces teacher talking time

Say – do – check: The teacher follows three steps for each instruction.

First, he/she says the instruction, then he/she gets the students to do it, then he/she checks that they’ve done it correctly before going to the next instruction.Using Say – do – do – check the teacher can tell straight away if students havenot understood something and can take action to make sure that they understandit

Student Recall: After giving instructions in English, the teacher checks

that the students understand by saying, “Tell me what you have to do inVietnamese” Asking students to recall what they will do in Vietnamese ishelpful at lower levels as they may not fully understand the instructions Itmakes them remember what they have to do and follow the teacher to checkthat they understand what to do

1.1.3 Criteria for effective instructions

The purpose of this part is to generate a set of criteria for effective instructions

In regard to giving instructions, a number of researchers discuss four factors ofinstructions: content, organization, language and teaching aids

Discussing the content and the organization of instructions, Harmer (1995)proposes that activities given by teachers are successful if their students know themain content and the procedure for doing those activities He also mentions “the mainaim of the teacher is to tell students what they are going to do, give clear instructionsabout what exactly their task is” (p.239) On his advice, teachers may start withgrouping of students, and then follow with demonstration of activities before giving

(1998) indicates two rules in which instructions must be kept as simple and logical aspossible Cotton (1995) advises teachers to give “clear and focused instructions”.Walker and Walker (1991) (as cited in Wright, 2005) and your (1996) suggesteffective instructions be brief Gower et al (1995) and Scrivener (2005) (as cited inDinh, 2011) agree that teachers should draw attention from students before givingsimple instructions Boon (2003) in a research on effective procedural instructionssuggests instructions should be logical, structured and clear Brashaw (n.d.) reckonsthat instructions must contain essential or focused information and must be broken intoshort sentences, each containing a key step; steps must be logical and sufficient Insummary, those researchers recommend that instructions should be focused, short,simple and logical.

When it comes to the use of language, both verbal and non- verbal language arediscussed in this study Walker and Walker (1991), Gower et al., (1995) ”(as cited in

Vo, 2009), Harmer (1998) and Vo(2009) advise teachers to use simple and specificlanguage with less complex grammatical structures and concise expressions Forexample, Holmes (as cited in Susana, 2002) finds out imperative is the most effectivespeech form for giving instructions Gower et al., (1995) and Cotton (1995) highlyrecommend verbal directions with a same set of words forsame instructions like “listen, try again, look at the board, stand up, turn to page Inaddition, Boon (2003) suggests discourse markers should be included in longinstructions; Vo (2009) shows that one needs signal words in effective instructions.Furthermore, those researchers especially Harmer(1998), Buchanan andHuczynski(1997) (as cited in Boon, 2003), Vo(2009) highly appreciate theemployment of nonverbal language in instructions such as gestures, mine, tones ofvoice, stress, intonation and speed of speech which help save time in presentinginstructions In addition to the use of foreign language, the translation of instructionsinto mother tongue is suggested by Harmer (1995) Discussing the same subject offirst language, Willis (1982) proposes that mother tongue can be employed but should

be “minimized” and used “occasionally only” (as

cited in Dinh, 2011, p 54) Dinh (2011) also clarifies the occasion in which mothertongue and second language should be used She finds out that Vietnamese should beutilized for “complicated activities” (p 53) To sum up, verbal language in givinginstructions must be kept simple, concise and supported strongly by many factors ofnon- verbal instructions As regards the selection between the first and the secondlanguage, the former should be used for less complicated activities and the latter forlong and complex ones More importantly, the combination of those can possibly helpfacilitate the instruction- giving process.

In regard to teaching aids, Gower et al., (1995) (as cited in Vo, 2009), Boom(2003) and Vo (2009) recommend visual aids should be utilized in giving instructions

to save time in repeating instructions and make it clearer Along with visual aids,written ones can be used like written pieces of papers and pre- written cards according

to Gower et al., (1995) and Boon (2003) With regard to writing clues, Gerhard (1996)(as cited in Boon, 2003: 45) suggests “write down the instructions, letting the studentsread them silently, then having them tell you what it is you expect from them” Inaddition to visual and written aids, human demonstrations such as examples andmodels are more preferable than long verbal explanations as mentioned in the studies

of Cotton(1995), Gower et al (1995), Boon(2003), Scrivener(2005)(cited in Dinh,2011) and Vo(2009) Brashaw (n.d.) also introduces three options of demonstrating: theteacher demonstrates with a student, the teacher use a pair/ group to demonstrate andthe teacher demonstrates alone In fact, a variety of teaching aids should be employed

in order to deal with students’ different learning styles Therefore, the employment ofthree kinds of illustrative aids (visual aids, written aids and human demonstrations)could yield effective instructions

On the process of checking instructions, Willis (1982, as cited in Dinh, 2011),Harmer (1995& 1998) and Brashaw (n.d.) would prefer to use mother tongue ratherthan second language To be more specific, Harmer (1998) provides three ways tocheck students’ understanding of instructions: ask students to explain again, get to

show other how the exercise works and translate into mother tongue Ur (1996) alsoshares several methods to check instructions They are to “paraphrase or to providefurther illustrations” (p.17) With regard to comprehension checking questions, Hoang(2012, p 41) finds out that Yes/No questions are “not effective enough” to examinestudents’ understanding In this study, the researcher does not construct a set of criteria

to investigate the effectiveness of checking instructions Instead, she mainly checksstudents’ understanding about the instructions in the lessons at the end of the lessons

In summary, the criteria for giving instructions suggested by many researchers are included in the following table

Table 1 Criteria for giving effective

instructions.

Focused and clear content

(Gower & Walters,1983;

How long to do?

With whom to do?

How to present the outcomes?

How to assess the outcomes?

Simple and concise language

llis, 1982, as cited in Dinh,

2010;Walker and Walker,1991;

Gower et al.1995; Ur, 1996;

Gerhard(1996) (as cited in

Boom,2003; Buchanan and

Huczynski(1997) (as cited in

Non- verbal language:

- Using appropriate gestures, mine, tones of voice, intonation, speed

Choice between first and second language:

- L1 for complicated activities

- L2 for simple ones

- Combining two => effective instructions

Illustrative teaching aids

(Gower et al.(1995) (as

cited in Vo,2009);

Gerhard,1996,as cited in

Boon(2003); Cotton(1995),

Boon (2003) and Vo(2009)

Using visual clues (real objects, pictures, flashcards…)Using written clues(written pieces of papers and pre- written cards)

Human demonstrations: examples and models

Basing on those criteria, the researcher constructed the observation form –themain research instrument (Appendix 1 and 2)

In order to investigate the effectiveness of checking instructions, the researcherapplied semi- structured interviews to check students’ understanding of instructions atthe end of the lessons

In general, few researchers have investigated the effectiveness of giving andchecking instructions Their main findings are the difficulties encountered duringinstructions- giving process and the corresponding solutions

1.2.1 In the world

In 2002, Susana conducted research on difficulties of student teachers in givingoral instructions to EFL young learners during their practicum The major findings ofthis paper concern student teachers’ speech modification and physical demonstration

To be more precise, it is the same mother tongue between students and studentteachers that has negative influence on giving instructions in second language; thedisappearance of physical movement or modeling in giving instruction posesdifficulties for student teachers on the process of giving instructions However, it wasgreat regret that Susana did not clarify how L2 and physical demonstrations affectgiving instructions.

Boon (2003) on his research on effective instructions offered five suggestions

on giving effective instructions Instructions are considered effective if their contentand organization are logical, structured and clear Giving instructions is effective whenteachers draw attention from students and create effective learning atmosphere.Moreover, they should be backed up with examples and checked for comprehensionespecially with complex instructions

1.2.2 In Vietnam

Vo (2009) carried out a study concerning giving and checking instruction skill

by fourth- year students to students at Luong Van Tuy High School and found itsproblems, reasons and suggestions The major problems are lengthy and unclearinstructions, teachers’ unsuitable voice and students’ negligence She finds out threesolutions in proportion to three issues above They are clear instructions with briefwording, visualizing, modeling and signal words, flexible teachers’ voice and carefulcomprehension checking Those solutions can be integrated into the criteria for givingeffective instruction in the study

Dinh (2011) did a study on giving and checking instruction skills amongstudent teachers during their practicum at English Division, FELTE, ULIS, VNU Like

Vo (2009), its main purpose is to find problems (language use, time, techniques andchecking instructions) encountered by final- year students when they deliveredinstructions to first- year students at ULIS To be more specific, she found that studentteachers frequently used full sentences, complex polite request at unsuitable time andineffective checking techniques Additionally, some corresponding suggestions are to

use short expressions (commands), modeling, and visual aids and to checkinstructions, which is similar to Boon (2003)’s and Vo (2009)’s findings.

Hoang (2012) studied fourth- year students’ instructions in speaking lessons intheir practicum at English Division, FELTE, ULIS, VNU Like Susana (2002) and

Vo (2009), it was contributed in her study that poor voice management of low volumeand flat intonation and full sentences used in instructions were the most majorproblems of giving and checking instructions She also found out sixrecommendations to give and check better instructions They are to focus on keyinformation, avoid wordiness; to improve voice projection; use appropriate posturesand gestures; to check students’ comprehension; to control psychological state.Additionally, she inferred that student teachers with much more experience in teaching

a large number groups of students both inside and outside the classroom like anEnglish center or an English club can “make their instructions more comprehensible”

to students (Hoang, 2012, pp.43) As a result, teaching experience can possibly be onevariable in the current study

Studying those related studies, the researcher finds out four research gaps asfollows First and foremost, few studies constructed a list of criteria to measure theproblems Secondly, their judgments mainly originated from the subjective opinions ofthe researchers and were not checked for reliability Moreover, those did not see thedifferences between the successful and less successful performers as regards giving-checking instructions Finally, the major problems of giving- checking instructionswere studied from the student teachers themselves, not from their pupils

From those research gaps, the study will focus on four goals as follows

Goal 1: To construct a set of criteria to judge the effectiveness of giving- checking instructions

Goal 2: To investigate the effectiveness of giving- checking instructions against

a generated set of criteria in five case studies

Goal 3: To find out the differences between the successful and less successful performers.

Goal 4: To form implications for related pedagogy.

Chapter 2- Methodology

The study was conducted at Vietduc High School, where the researcher alongwith another 31 student teachers has the practicum, which facilitates the process ofadministering research instruments to collect data Moreover, as a member of theresearch context, the researcher is offered a great chance to understand, interpret andapply the setting into analyzing the data This setting also offers real teachingenvironment for student teachers, which is absolutely appropriate for the objectives ofthis study

Five cases were chosen because of following reasons Firstly, they wereexposed to the knowledge and practice of classroom management including giving andchecking instructions in ELT 2 and ELT 4 To be more specific, they learnt fourtechniques to give and check instructions Then they applied those techniques into twoactivities of micro- teaching in ELT 2 and ELT 4 Secondly, in 8th semester, they got

an opportunity of having a teaching practicum, which provides them with a realteaching environment in upper secondary school During their teaching practicum inVietduc High School, they are supposed to conduct their ability to give and checkinstructions in a real context Therefore, we can see how their learnt knowledge andskills actually work In the third place, the study is a qualitative one, so a case study is

appropriate for researcher, according to Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2007) Inaddition, within the modest scope of the BA graduation paper, five cases can be areasonable choice since it enables the researcher to manage and work with thecollected data Finally, the selection of five cases increases the possibility of dividinginto two groups of successful and less successful student teachers, which enables theresearch to achieve the aim 3 in the study.

Five cases were chosen relying on simple random sampling strategy Thissampling method is extremely beneficial for this study in many ways Firstly,according to Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2007), random sampling guarantees thateveryone in the population is given an equal and independent chance of being chosen,compared to convenient sampling As a result, bias can be avoided in this research togreat extent

The five student teachers were coded as ST1, ST2, ST3, ST4 and ST5 The followingtable provides the information of five cases

Table 2 The information of five

cases

Name ELT2’s microteaching results and average

results (knowledge)

Teaching experience(experience)

vividly delineated Moreover, the teaching experience was found in Hoang (2012) as a

factor affecting giving- checking instruction skills Therefore, two variables will beexamined in correlation with the effectiveness of giving- checking instructions carriedout by five cases in order to find out how they relate.

With regard to experience, five cases are divided into two groups of experiencedstudent teachers (ST1, ST3, ST4) and inexperienced ones (ST2, ST5) ST1, ST3 andST4 all have experienced in working as private tutors for one or two students

2.3.1 Pupils from high schools

Pupils who took part in this study come from four classes in grade 10 in whichfive cases are in charge of teaching them The classes were coded as C1, C3, C4 andC5 C1 was taught by ST1, C3 by ST2 and ST3, C4 by ST4 and C5 by ST5 C1 andC3 are English gifted classes in which the majority of the pupils are good at English.C4 and C5 are not English- gifted ones in which the majority of the pupils havedifficulty in learning English The information of average English score is included inthe table

Average English score ( 1 st 45 minute- written test in semester 2)

gifted

classes

The average English scores were collected against 45 minute- written tests of thesimilar level As seen from the table 2, in two English gifted classes (C1, C3) aroundtwo- thirds pupils are good at English, compared with about 10%- 25% in the others.Therefore, it could be concluded that the level of language proficiency of two giftedclasses is higher than the others.

In addition to ELT 2 results and teaching experience, students’ language proficiencycan possibly be a variable which needs examining in correlation with the effectiveness

of giving- checking instructions

2.3.2 The supervising teachers from high schools

The teachers’ names were coded as T1, T4 and T5 T1 works as a supervisingteacher for ST1, ST2 and ST3 T4 is a supervising teacher for ST4 T5 is a supervisingteacher for ST5 Three supervising teachers (T1, T4 and T5) will be invited to evaluatethe effectiveness of giving instructions against the classroom observation form( Appendix 1)

Two student teachers (additional observers)

Like three supervising teachers, two student teachers also will be chosenrandomly and then invited to assess the classroom observation form (Appendix 2)

2.4.1 Observation

2.4.1.1 Justification for the use of observation

According to Cohen, Manion and Morrison(2007), observation methods arepowerful tools for getting insight into situations because they allows the researcher tocollect “live” data from real situations (p 396) Patton (1990) also supposes that datagathered from observations facilitates the researcher in terms of understanding thesituation (as cited in Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2007) Moreover, the current study

is conducted for two following objectives The first one is to measure the effectiveness

of giving- checking instructions To be more specific, the main purpose of thisresearch is to study how five student teachers behave in instructions- giving and

checking process and not to find out what they report or retell in questionnaires andinterviews The second is to make comparison and contrast in giving- checkinginstructions between the good and weak performers Thus, the use of observation isextremely appropriate.

On the other hand, there are several drawbacks of employing observationsconcerning the validity and reliability of the data gathered (Wilkinson, 2000; Moyles,

2002; Shaughnessy et al 2003, as cited in Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2007) In

fact, the data collected cannot be valid and reliable due to observers’ subjectivejudgments, which is similar to the limitations of the previous studies As aconsequence, the observation scheme of this study has been designed carefully and theresearcher uses five other observers consisting of three supervising teachers and twostudent teachers when conducting observations to limit biased judgments In eachlesson, the researcher along with another two observers (one is the supervising teacherand the other is the student teacher) carries out an independent evaluation of theeffectiveness of giving instructions by the student teacher based on the givenobservation form Then the researcher will collect those data and check the inter- raterreliability of the results from three observers Additionally, the research appliesinterviews to triangulate the collected data

2.4.1.2 Observation scheme

Due to “ a complex second language environment” like high schools and lack

of experience in case- study research, structured observation is utilized to enable theresearcher to “compare behaviors across research contexts in a principledmanner”(Mackey & Gass, 2005, p.175)

Firstly, a set of criteria for effective instructions was employed so that theresearcher and other observers could make judgments and take notes of studentteachers’ giving instructions- related data The set is generated from previous studiesand related theories of classroom management (Harm, 1995, 1998; Gower et al 1995;Cotton, 1995; Ur, 1996; Boon, 2003; Vo, 2009; Nguyen, 2010; Dinh, 2011) and the

researcher’s additional ideas The set of criteria is provided in the appendix1 and 2.The observation coding scheme comprises two main parts: the class profile concerninggeneral information about student teachers, the observers and the class and a set ofgenerated criteria for effective giving instructions.

Thereafter, the pilot was carried out in the first week of the practicum in order

to examine whether the observation form worked well To be more specific, twostudent teachers and one supervising teachers were invited to work with the initialversion of observation forms and then gave their comments on this form The resultwas that the first one worked well and thus was applied in the study

On the second week of the practicum, the researcher started training otherobservers to use the observation forms before conducting five actual observations onthe five target cases

In order to support for data analysis, video- recording was also employed

2.4.1.3 Observation procedure.

First of all, the researcher sought official permission for classroom observationfrom the supervisors , the student teachers and the students in order to reduce theinfluence of the observation on “lesson planning and implementation”( Mackey &Gass, 2005, p.188) She made contact with the supervisors, the student teachers andthe students to know the appropriate time for the observations At the same time, shesent the consent forms to three supervisors and two student teachers to ensure all thoseinvolved understand and volunteer to join the research project (Appendix 5) Theresearcher also sent the invitation letter to the students from five classes (Appendix 4)

Next, the researcher acted as a non- participant observer in the class Eachsingle case was observed once on the third week and the fourth week of the practicum

by three observers: the researcher, the supervisor of the case or the teacher of the classand one student teacher from ULIS who were trained on how to score the observationform Additionally, the use of video recording was so helpful that the researcher could

class and help further research With the aim of supporting video recording, theportable camera was used It was placed at the back of the class for the purpose of notaffecting the student teachers and students’ activities in the class.

With regard to checking instructions, the researcher measured its effectivenessthrough the observation on students’ understanding in the class with the support ofvideos

The data from observations is used to achieve three goals as follows

Goal 2: To investigate the effectiveness of giving- checking instructions against

a generated set of criteria in five case studies

Goal 3: To find out the differences between the successful and less successfulperformers

Goal 4: To form implications for related pedagogy

2.4.1.4 Inter- rater reliability check

2.4.1.4.1 Purpose

In order to avoid the subjective judgments of the researcher like other previousresearchers, the researcher conducted inter-rater reliability check among theobservers

2.4.1.4.2 Instrument

The correlation index (calculated with the help of the website:

http://ea s y c alculati o n c om/statist i cs/corre l ati o n.ph p ) was applied to check rater reliability The results from the researcher, the supervising teachers and thestudent teachers would be calculated by this instrument The reliability of the data isacceptable if the collected results are more than 0.5 Next, the researcher would useher results for the current study

inter-2.4.2 Interview

To measure the effectiveness of checking instructions, the researcher planned toapply semi- structured interviews for the pupils at the end of the lessons

Firstly, interviews were piloted in the first week of the practicum after the pilot

of the observations The researcher invited one student to participate the structured interview However, it seemed that she was not willing to be interviewedand be recorded Therefore, the researcher decided to employ students’ self -reflection after observation to investigate the effectiveness of checking instructions(Appendix

semi-6)

After collecting data from observations and checking their inter- raterreliability, the researcher analyzed the data The researchers measured theeffectiveness of single case’s giving instructions mainly based on the results from theobservations of the researcher, which can be supported by the results from otherobservers

The data collected from observations and students’ self- reflections were alsoanalyzed to investigate the effectiveness of checking instructions

With regard to observations, although the observers do not interfere withteaching and learning activities in the class, the behaviors of participants are affected

to some extent, which Shaughnessy ( et al 2003, as cited in Cohen, Manion andMorrison, 2007, p.410) called “reactivity”

The study used self- reflection to check students’ understanding of instructions,which helps measure the effectiveness of checking instruction skills However, thischecking was only conducted at the end of the lessons when students seemed tounderstand more about student teachers’ instructions through in- class activities, thewhole lessons and other students’ performance Additionally, the students’understanding of instructions was described in which the students themselves rewrote,not in which they performed live Those weaknesses could have some impact on thevalidity and reliability of the data and results Finally, as the qualitative study, the

finding results cannot be generalized for a large number of student teachers.

Chapter 3- Findings and Discussion

Because of the loss of collected data and unreliable data from two supervisingteachers and one student teacher, the inter- rater reliability was checked by theresults calculated by three left observers: the researcher, one supervising teacher andone student teacher

Following is the collected result from all observers (Observer 1: the researcher;Observer 2: the supervising teacher; Observer 3: the student teacher)

Table 4 The results from the observations judged by three observers

Effectiveness of giving instructions

Following shows how effective each case gives instructions based on the results offour components: the content of the instructions, the organization, the use of languageand facilitating techniques The result of each part in instructions is the mean amongsmaller segments of each part.

1: totally ineffective 3: effective

2: slightly ineffective 4: extremely effective

Table 5 The effectiveness of giving

With regard to the two variables: ELT 2 results and experience, ST1, leading inthe knowledge of ELT and the experience of teaching English (as shown in table 2)still made the best performance in giving instruction during the practicum Similarly,ST3 with good knowledge and experience gave effective instructions As a result, itmay be concluded that knowledge along with experience have a positive influence on

experience play an essential in giving and checking instructions However, thisrelation (knowledge, experience and teaching practice) does not work in cases of ST2,ST4 and ST5 In contrast to ST1 and ST3, ST4 who had been at an advantage ofteaching experience, did not perform effectively in the practicum The reason could bethat she gained worse results in ELT 2’ final results and her teaching experience wasrestricted to working as a private tutor for one or two students ST2 and ST5, in spite

of their lack of experience in teaching previously succeeded in delivering instructions.This could be explained that they were competent at the knowledge of ELT2especially giving- checking skills As a consequence, those who are good at thebackground knowledge and teaching experience can produce instructions effectively.Nevertheless, it is not true that those of the poor experience cannot make an effectiveperformance in giving instructions; teaching experience like working as a private tutor

at home for one or two students cannot facilitate the instructions- giving processeffectively, which is of the same opinion as Hoang (2012) In addition, the role of thebackground knowledge was noticeable in giving instructions

In terms of pupils’ language proficiency, ST1, ST2 and ST3 giving instructions

to the students of advanced level gained better results than ST4, ST5 whose studentsare at lower level Consequently, the level of students can have an effect to the process

of giving instruction by student teachers to some extent Their good languageproficiency can facilitate the process of giving instructions and vice versa

In summary, among target cases, four cases gave instructions effectively.Especially, one- fifth of cases performed extremely effectively As regards twovariables, the cases with good ELT2 results and rich teaching experience gaveinstructions more effectively than the rest In addition, those with poor experience butbetter ELT2 results still made successful performances

3.3.1 The content of instruction.