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GET IT OFF YOUR CHEST:

APPLICABLE PRE-SET FORMS IN IN-CLASS PARTICIPATION

MANAGEMENT IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING (ELT)

Hoang Thi Hoa, PhD

Hoang Hue Chi, MSc

Abstract

In an ELT market flooded by offers from online learning to high-quality offline

packages, ELT teachers have quasi-compromised from acting as a transmittor (Jim

Scrivener, 2005) to the role a facilitator. Being “backpacked” with high-quality study

materials, self-study guidebooks and sharing communities offering nothing like a

hundreds-of-dollar course but a single simple sign-up for almost everything. Students

with such indulgent treats can likely ask: What’s a teacher is for? Others in the

modern age seven wonders of theirs will be 1. Get what I have already got? 2. Pay for

free offers? 3. In class for a hot-boy or not-boy? 4. Have my mouth shut? 5. Trade the

at-home comfort to the in-class Dos-and-Don’ts? 6. Feel guilty stating I don’t give a

dime in Feedback Form? In a perfect world, these gaudy questions will be answered

perfectly practically by an Enabler (ibid., pp.25-26). The truth is we are not perfect.

Some students will be off class to go to the other guides or simply body and mind are

getting divorced. In-class participation management (IPM) is crucial in deciding the

success or failure of both teachers and learners. This piece of writing presents the

benefits of some applicable pre-set forms in IPM in ELT assuring perceptible

participation. Words are but wind and gold is in black and white.

Key words: ELT, classroom management, participation, visual organizers, classnotes

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Biodata

Hoang Thi Hoa, PhD

Over a decade of ELT puts her in a concrete position to share fruitful first-hand

observations and findings on efficiency and effectiveness in our work as English

language teachers. She is a Doctor of Philosophy and a Vice Dean of Faculty of

English Special Purposes at Hanoi Foreign Trade University.

Hoang Hue Chi, MSc

She has a BA in Business English, a Master of Science in Management and 8-year

experience of ELT and ESP teaching. In 2006, she published “The business of

reading” for internal use at Foreign Trade University (FTU) Hanoi. She holds a

CELTA (ccpf340158) issued by University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations.

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1. Current situation of participation in some ELT and ESP classes of Foreign

Trade University

Given the authority from one of us as a graduate of BE (Business English) at Foreign

Trade University (FTU) Hanoi, and our years-long experience of ELT and ESP

teaching at FTU, we are submitting to you some reality-check findings from our

compilation of observations of participation in our classes at Foreign Trade

University. Writers associate participation in ELT with learners’ act of taking part and

involving in the in-class activities with English language as the target language.

We teach and we observe. We observe to teach. Those findings are categorized by

demographics into three groups: Group 1 – The K-Poppers, Group 2 – The A-Hunters

and Group 3 – The Free-rangers. Regarding each group, we eye their (1) language

competency to participate, (2) motivation to participate and (3) expected outcome of

participation.

Group 1 – The K-Poppers

Learners in this group are characterized as energy “monsters”, techcrunchers and

lovers of “ultra-polished appearance and hyper-catchy melodies” (The Dummy Guide

to K-pop, 2012). These students are very likely to participate at their best provided

that teachers facilitate them into what they want. Their level of “trance” into teachers’

thoughtfully-designed task-based lesson is on as long as they believe they are in “the

chocolate factory” (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 2005) or something “Sexy,

Free & Single” (Super Junior, 2012). They are typically promptly involved in a topic

on Jay Park or any beautiful guys or girls out of an overcrowded K-Pop band while

giving the one-and-only teacher in their class a long pause before they really get

down to business in either a general, academic or business topic. Their level of

participation is in a positive correlation with the level of embedded interest and the

level of relevance of lesson to sensory preferences (Jim Scrivener, 2005). In relation to

their taste, blended learning (Pete Sharma and Barney Barrett, 2007) will make them a

soft touch. Language competency of these learners is limited to familiar genres with

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incomplete command and mistakes at the ready even though basic communication in

their comfort zone is a possible mission that they can handle (IELTS score

descriptors).

Group 2 – The A- Hunters

These rational hunters are neither hunting for stand-up comedies nor celebrities. They

only glorify themselves under the brightness of an A-grade armor. A-Hunters

particularly expect teachers to teach them in a way that delivers an “insurance” of an

A-grade in their academic transcript. As they are performance-oriented, they actively

tell teachers their needs and expectations. Their boredom thresholds are considerably

higher than those of the K-Poppers. Thanks to the absolute awareness of their ultimate

goal, these learners have the tendency to self-center rather than participation-center.

Some concentrate too much on their needs for accuracy and quality of their part of

task that even when teachers allocate them in groups, participation, which they believe

to be distracting exchange, becomes a trade off for individual accuracy and partial

quality, which are not typically desirable of a balanced participation in a effective

team process (John J. Gabarro and Anne Harlan, 1986). Language competency among

these learners tends to be more than modest; they are competent in using the language

with some inaccuracies, inappropriacies and misunderstandings (IELTS score

descriptors).

Group 3 – The Free-rangers

Learners’ language competency is not necessarily below the class threshold given

poor performance in entry tests, limited previous access to ELT and passive attitude in

learning process. Free-rangers exemplify learners, regardless of their language

proficiency, who taking along with their attendance a lack of concentration at any

level, the dark side of minimalism and the unwillingness to progressively participate.

They are wanderer learners. Wanderers join the class without any clear motivations

and expectations. They mainly do what they have to do when asked without any

further extension of effort, not to say exertion. For example, teachers check for

presence to give attendance points upon which their eligibility for term test is decided,

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so they attend the class. Technically, they are silent annoying minimalists, who are the

down-draggers in terms of energy, creative exchange and liveliness within the class

and group activities particularly. Such students represent the biggest challenge that

teachers have to rise to in respect of in-class participation management. In view of this

type, needs analysis (Jim Scrivener, 2005) will only produce in disruptive information.

2. Rationale behind the use of pre-set forms in classroom management

Classroom management and in-class participation management

A class is a small population of teacher(s) and learner individuals. Learners are

individuals (S.Sheerin, 1989). Influenced by a set of factors, including needs, styles

and interests, learners come to us in variety and sometimes “chaos”. We as educators

have to manage the variance in providing them with educational products. CELTA

(Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) course instructional materials

give a brief straightforward explanation of what it means by classroom management as

follow

Classroom management means

1. Position of the teacher

2. Projecting your voice

3. Manner/rapport

4. Eye contact

5. Use of encouragement

6. Assertiveness

7. A comfortable learning environment

8. Appropriate grouping

9. Clear instructions

10. Ensuring an appropriate pace

11. Appropriate monitoring

12. Clear start/end

The above classroom management check-list exposes teachers to the reality that

doing-one-thing-at-a-time is actually a cant-do in teaching, notably ELT where

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monitoring and report-back play a central role in learners’ progress and teachers’

professional development. Teachers are aware of students’ differences in their

acquisition of a foreign language (Mary Spratt, Alan Pulverness, Melanie Williams,

2005). Different students make different errors (Swan & Smith, 2001). Educators are

not supposed to take errors as an evidence of failure but as valuable accumulated input

for learning which is a gradual process (Mary Spratt, Alan Pulverness, Melanie

Williams, p42, 2005). Teacher training materials like those applied in CELTA

consider monitoring as a diagnostic tool for cold correction, hot correction and

shaping. Then, we do report-back. We do this

To close a task, giving students a sense of task completion

To diagnose students ability on the task

To provide opportunity for shaping and error correction

To have open class interaction for questions of interpretation

Monitoring and report-back do have an impact on student participation management in

way of pushing exchange and after-task motivation for progressive follow-ups and

traditionally put more emphasis on the role of teachers rather than class members.

Participation is driven by monitoring and report-back through building up a sense of

completion, achievement and confidence. Instant help thanks to close monitoring and

report-back make students feel secure in their learning, and the completion of a task

accompanied by encouragement and praise from teachers and classmates reveal to

themselves their own achievements. At the end of the day, effective classroom

management tells learners that they are not throwing their precious resources,

including money, time, mental and physical efforts after bad. There is a payoff for

their hours. Above all, there is always room to grow because there will always be

something to be bettered. In-class participation management, all in all, can be

accounted as teachers’ act of running and controlling activities in class answering key

questions – who participates, how often, when and to what effect (J.Gabarro and Anne

Harlan, 1986), heading towards quality delivery of ELT and fairness in assessment.

Professionalism in teaching and the use of pre-set forms

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Many teachers now regard themselves as diagnosticians as well as clinicians,

pinpointing the sources of errors and instigating remedial action. This capacity for

specific diagnosis of a student’s errors is pointless unless the remedial action is

directed towards the student and his or her error, i.e. individualized. After all, doctors

would not administer insulin to an entire hospital ward because one of the patients

was diabetic.

S.Sheerin, “Self Access”, OUP, 1989

Doctors keep a profile of their patients, and in their spirit we, teachers, keep a profile

of our students. We refer to pre-set forms other than random situational pop-ups. Pre-

set forms are designed on purpose to be a companion and take-aways for teachers and

students in a course. Professionalism in teaching (Ron Forseth, Carol Forseth, Ta Tien

Hung, Nguyen Van Do, 1995) states that it is a good idea to keep a record of students’

work to track progress and grade more fairly. In monitoring, we take notes as we

observe students. However, writers believe record-keeping of monitoring in ELT is

not limited to teachers’ monitoring notes, it is in effect the composition of both

teachers’ and students’ effort. The point is teachers’ attention has to spread out to all

class members therefore monitoring notes of teachers provide fragmented information

on an individual’s performance whereas an individual is the focus of attention of their

partner and each group member throughout a task in pairs or groups. Peer-monitoring

is times closer and more intensive than teachers’ monitoring. This makes up for the

gaps in teachers’ work, and so smoothes out teachers’ feedback. Participation

management in classroom management thus will be high-quality being more effective

in mode of conduct and enrichment of report-back content and more forceful in

pushing progress. The concept of an Enabler teacher (Jim Scrivener, 2005) justifies

the incorporation of peer-monitoring into participation management. He presents the

Enabler as a teacher who is “confident enough to share control with learners, or

perhaps to hand it over to them entirely”. There is a fair chance that decisions in class

will be shared or negotiated. The best-case scenario of this delegation of responsibility

or student empowerment is the class is running so well under its own steam and

autonomous learning goes so boosted that teachers may be barely visible. Teachers

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who teach professionally sometimes do not teach at all. Some forms of records are

meant to be visible as an evidence of the happening work.

3. Some applicable IPM forms and their benefits in ELT

Keeping record in ELT classes, especially at FTU: Portfolio or 3-Form Profile?

On the one hand, a student portfolio, either a process portfolio or product portfolio, is

“a systematic collection of student work and related material that depicts a student's

activities, accomplishments, and achievements in one or more school subjects” (Venn,

2000). The aims of portfolio are to compile student works to illustrate talent,

capabilities and achievements. Despite its visible upside, there is noteworthy downside

(Julia, 2002). It requires extra time, chances a random collection of work and limits

reliability where assessment relies solely on portfolio. Taking into consideration the

ELT context in FTU, it is reasonable to say excess time instead of extra time in view

of portfolio as just an option. At FTU, students strategically tend to allocate more of

their resources to courses in business which are believed to be at the centre of their

future profession and quiet a few credits in total in their transcript.

On the other hand, a 3-Form Profile defined as a condense student learning process

record made up of three different forms – Form 1, Form 2 and Form 3- aiming at

boosting participation through monitoring and report-back with the below dispositions

Reduction of teachers’ workload

Minimal systematic documentation of progressive learning

Visibility of students’ effort and achievements

Fairness in language competency assessment through the ability to identify

random mistakes and systematic errors

Fair reward for student participation

Our 3-Form Profile is more adequate considering allocation of time and effort as well

as informative input for assessment of student participation. Form 1: Study notes,

Form 2: Who says what and Form 3: Self-study tracking are the three forms that we

designed for use in IPM. They have been in use since 2005 and demonstrated to be

feasible in the above dimensions.

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Form 1

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Form 2

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Form 3

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Functions of Form 1, Form 2 and Form 3 in 3-Form Profile

These forms fit in stages in students’ learning process from doing, recalling,

reflecting, drawing conclusions on the basis of the reflection and using such

conclusions for a well-informed and better prepared future learning experience (Jim

Scirvener, 2005).

Form 1 is applicable in keeping record of what is taught in classes during the course

in its natural progression. Having a look at these notes, teachers know the level of

concentration on in-class learning and discover cognitive errors in students’ in-class

acquisition of the second language and focus on form e.g. spoken form, written form,

grammatical form. Putting aside the A-Hunters, who mainly learn on their own

initiative, Form 1 ensures that the K-Poppers and the Free-rangers are learning with

cognition in class. In this way, Form 1 produces useful input making it possible for

students to perform and participate in later productive tasks.

Form 2 is a record keeper of students’ interaction using the second language. It will

expose students’ cognitive errors in such interaction and give teachers reliable

information on level of individual interest in a specific topic, proficiency of sub-skills

in productive skills, for example brainstorming and using patterns of organization.

Furthermore, the ending set of questions in Form 2 effectively identifies what might

retain students’ interest in coming classes. To assess student participation, the first

block of information, which notes who says what, is fully functional. It explains why

one may receive a higher grade for participation than the others.

Form 3 is for self-study. It might be perceived to be of use in off-class study only and

have nothing to do with in-class participation. However, it is closely connected to the

ability to participate in class. Beside telling teachers how efficient a student’s

allocation of time and effort on certain issues related to their language learning is, it

makes apparent which areas students need help to be in a ready position for later in-

class acquisition and interaction. By being able to give reasons for the incompletion

of self-study, students already have their part of the solution for such problem. It is

said that practice makes perfect. With Form 3, students will reckon that preparation

either shapes them up onto or ship them out of interaction. In class, low level of

interaction equals insufficient participation. Section B of this form is where teachers

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individualize their teaching in the context of demographic diversity between students,

which contributes meaningfully to learners’ satisfaction of taking classes.

These forms collect augmented data to answer key questions in the observation of

student participation (John J Gabarro and Anne Harlan, 1986):

1. Who are high participants? Are they The K-poppers, The A-hunters or The Free-

rangers? Any reasons for this? Achievement in terms of performance? The same

questions are placed towards low participants.

2. Do shifts in participation exist? What parts of interaction precipitate them? Are

there any learners showing sign of withdrawal or nothing but silence, especially

those typified as The Free-rangers? What are the possible reasons?

3. Who talks to whom? Who responds to whom? Are any interaction patterns

resulting in frequent exclusion of certain members? Who needs support to get back

into the discussion?

Benefits of using these applicable pre-set forms in IPM

To education institutions and students as buyers of their products and services

It is fundamental to view ELT as a product rather than a service, bearing in mind that

there is no pure product or pure service, meaning ELT products may be bundled with

some sorts of services (S.K.Palekar, 2011). This point of view lays a firm ground for

us to see the origin of quality delivery and an Enabler attitude in education, especially

in ELT. Using pre-set forms presented above bespeak quality delivery, ownership

and source of value. According to ACCET (Accrediting Council of Continuing

Education and Training), quality expected from continuous education and training is

constituted by an enormous number of factors, including programs of study that are

“educationally sound, up-to-date, of high quality and demonstrably effective” and “the

ultimate benefit of private educational training programs through satisfied

participants” (ACCET Document 1, 1988, 2011, 2012).

The aforementioned preset forms, together with appropriate choice of course

materials, help educators standardize their education products and at the same time

bundle their product with customized service using intensive monitoring which is the

compilation of teachers’ monitoring, peer-monitoring and self-monitoring going hand

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in hand with individualized feedback. In respect of ownership, a product can be owned

while a service is not (ibid). Satisfaction of participants in a program can come from

this sense of ownership on the basis of course credit result listed in their academic

transcript; these forms are their own assets. The accumulations of knowledge visible

in the pre-set forms they have completed foster their future material wealth. Unlike a

degree in their name, these forms are salable and transferable to others. Participants

are beneficiaries of preset forms in IPM, particularly 3-Form Profile described in the

previous part, in the domain of level of distribution of care and feedback, language

knowledge acquisition and accumulation, initiation of professionalism and the

realization of self-esteem. When it comes to source of value, these forms act as a

source of value by assuring how selected materials are used and how they are

converted into tangible valuable assets in the teaching and learning process involving

teachers, students and other variables. They make visible the value of a course an

education institution delivers to its student buyers.

To teachers

Figure 1: Teaching and the experiential learning cycle

Source: Jim Scrivener, 2005

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Figure 1 makes clear the supporting roles of teachers in students’ learning experience.

These preset forms aid them effectively in their performance at work by having at

hand sufficient information to combine with their subject and language knowledge for

appreciable fulfillment of their roles in students’ experiential learning cycle (Jim

Scrivener, 2005). Below are some samples of these forms completed by students for

different skill-courses from Presentation, Academic Writing to Speaking Business

English in courses using Market Leader levels as course books. These samples justify

the possibility of a 3-Form Profile in reducing teachers’ IPM workload. Teachers’

initiative is geared up to check these notes against the study objectives set up for each

class as well as the overall course and to compound notes from multi-source

monitoring for apt informative report-back. At times, teachers can even delegate

those duties to the perceptive A-Hunters while the resulting spare time being free from

these jobs allows them to give useful usable pieces of advice and select relevant

supporting materials to find a compatible answer to different problems which each

individual student faces. We, teachers, will work hard in IPM, but the hard part of the

work will be on our students’ side.

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Sample 1

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Sample 2

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Sample 3

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References 1. Accrediting Council of Continuing Education and Training, www.accet.org

2. CELTA Course materials, 2007, Language Link Hanoi, Authorized by University

of Cambridge, Cambridge ESOL

3. International English Language Testing System, http://www.ielts.org

4. Jim Scrivener, “Learning Teaching”, 2005, Macmillan Education

5. John J. Gabarro and Anne Harlan, “A Note on Process Observation”, 1986, HBS

No.477-029

6. Julia Scherba de Valenzuela, “Defining Portfolio Assessment”, Last updated: July

30, 2002, http://www.unm.edu/~devalenz/handouts/portfolio.html, 2:46 pm,

Sunday April 27, 2014

7. Mary Spratt, Alan Pulverness, Melanie Williams, “The TKT Teaching Knowledge

Test Course, 2005, University of Cambridge, Cambridge ESOL

8. Michael Swan, Bernard Smith, “Learner English: A teacher’s guide to interference

and other problems”, 2001, Cambridge University Press

9. Learning Process, http://www.princeton.edu/hr/learning/process/, Princeton

University, Last update: October 27, 2010, 3:35 pm, Sunday April 27, 2014

10. Pete Sharma and Barney Barrett, “Blended learning: Using technology in and

beyond the language classroom”, 2007, Macmillan Education

11. S.K. Palekar, “10 Differences between products and services”, 8 May 2011,

http://marketing-list.blogspot.com/2011/05/5-differences-between-products-

and.html, 10:43 am, Sunday April 27, 2014

12. S.Sheerin, “Self Access”, pp.4-6, 1989, Oxford University Press

13. Ron Forseth, Carol Forseth, “Methodology Handbook for English Teachers in

Vietnam”, pp 156, 171-182,1995, English Language Institute America.

14. Super Junior, “Sexy, Free and Single”, 2012, SM Entertainment

15. The Dummy Guide to K-pop, Published: 13/07/12, http://www.dummymag.com,

Access: 8:51 pm, Sunday April 27, 2014

16. Tim Burton, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 2005, Warner Bros.

17. Venn, J. J., “Assessing students with special needs” (2nd ed.), 2000, Upper Saddle

River, NJ: Merrill