(PDF) Developing Insights into Teacher-research

Richard Smith and Mark Wyatt Edited by: Anne Burns, Kenan Dikilitaş DEVELOPING DEVELOPING INSIGHTS INTO TEACHER-RESEARCH INSIGHTS INTO Edited by: Anne Burns, Kenan Dikilitaş, Richard Smith and Mark Wyatt TEACHER-RESEARCH Both teacher-research mentors’ and teacher-researchers’ perspectives are represented in this book, which is the third in a series published by the IATEFL Research Special Interest Group. The first six chapters are teacher-research mentors’ accounts of helping teachers engage in practitioner research, with those supported including both in-service and pre-service teachers. The remaining chapters provide teacher-researchers’ accounts of helping students develop a range of language skills and DEVELOPING INSIGHTS INTO TEACHER-RESEARCH knowledge, positive feelings about learning, and a greater sense of autonomy. All the researchers, whether mentors of other teachers or classroom teachers themselves, place the improvement of students’ learning at the heart of their research, and show that powerful kinds of learning can occur for all involved in the teacher-research process: mentors, teachers and students alike. About the editors Anne Burns is a Professor of TESOL in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. She is also a Professor Emerita at Aston University. She has a particular interest in action research, and has worked with many language teachers and published extensively on this topic. Kenan Dikilitaş, who works at Bahçeşehir University Istanbul, is an ELT teacher educator and researcher, particularly interested in teacher research for professional development. He has organized international conferences for the IATEFL Research SIG and conducted teacher research projects in Turkey; he has published several edited books. Richard Smith (University of Warwick, UK) coordinated IATEFL's Research Special Interest Group from 2011 to 2015 and has engaged in work promoting teacher-research in a variety of projects and contexts worldwide, most recently as chair of the International Festival of Teacher-research in ELT. Mark Wyatt, who co-edits ELT Research for the IATEFL Research SIG, is particularly interested in how engagement in practitioner research empowers teachers, helping them develop more positive self-efficacy beliefs, and in the teacher-research-mentoring processes that contribute to this. Edited by ISBN 978-1-901095-98-2 Anne Burns, Kenan Dikilitaş, Richard Smith and Mark Wyatt DEVELOPING INSIGHTS INTO TEACHER-RESEARCH Edited by Anne Burns, Kenan Dikilitaş, Richard Smith and Mark Wyatt IATEFL Research Special Interest Group Edited by Anne Burns, Kenan Dikilitaş, Richard Smith and Mark Wyatt DEVELOPING INSIGHTS INTO TEACHER-RESEARCH Published by IATEFL, No 2 – 3 The Foundry Business Park, Seager Road, Faversham, Kent ME13 7F Authors of the individual chapters retain copyright over their work. ISBN 978-1-901095-98-2 First published as a collected volume in 2017 Edited by Anne Burns, Kenan Dikilitaş, Richard Smith and Mark Wyatt Cover artwork (‘Communion’) reproduced by kind permission of the artist, Guillermina Victoria (

; http://wilhelmina18.wix.com/arte-victoria) Cover design and book layout by Şerikan Kara

The International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language was founded in 1967. Registered as a charity (1090853) and registered as a company in England (2531041). For further information about IATEFL, please see the IATEFL website http://iatel.org For further information about the Research Special Interest Group, please see the ReSIG web- site http://resig.iatel.org up to previous line TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................... 1 Anne Burns, Kenan Dikilitaş, Richard Smith and Mark Wyatt 1. Insights into the process of mentoring action research by teachers of young learners ................................................. 19 Yasemin Kırkgöz 2. Mentoring teachers as researchers: Implementing a small schoolwide programme ........................................................... 29 Beril Yücel and Melis Akdoğan Gündoğdu 3. What I’ve learned as an action research mentor: Some highlights ...................................................................... 39 Seden Eraldemir Tuyan 4. Involving undergraduate students in research......................... 53 Sabriye Şener 5. Action research as a professional development tool for pre-service English language teachers ..................................... 65 Hatime Çiftçi, Enisa Mede and Derin Atay 6. Teacher identity formation in teacher education..................... 77 Hatice Çelebi and Naiye Çiğdem Aktekin 7. Raising awareness in reading written instructions .................. 91 Beyza Kabadayı 8. A small practice with teacher-prepared videos to reinforce already studied vocabulary .................................... 103 Hüsnü Gümüş & Demet Yaylı iii 9. Twofold transformation: promoting learner autonomy and teaching speaking skills to ESL learners ......................... 115 Sadeqa Ghazal & Smriti Singh 10. he possible taste of students’ happiness in EFL class recipes........................................................................... 135 Seden Eraldemir Tuyan & Esra Altunkol 11. On the way to becoming efective listeners through peer listening ........................................................................ 151 Neslihan Gündoğdu & Cemile Buğra 12. he impact of cooperative learning on students’ attitudes towards listening skills ........................................... 161 Merve Sofu Introduction Anne Burns, Kenan Dikilitaş, Richard Smith and Mark Wyatt Six years and counting ... he publication of this book comes at the end of a six-year period of activity by the IATEFL Research Special Interest Group (ReSIG) during which the SIG has gained an increasing international presence in promoting ELT teacher-research: that is, research by English language teachers into their own practice, for their own purposes and those of their students. ‘Research by teachers for teachers’ has been a slogan for this initiative since the irst ReSIG ‘Teachers Research!’ event in Harrogate in 2014 (see Smith 2015), which itself followed on from workshops in 2012–13 led by Anne Burns; Sarah Mercer, Richard Smith and Ema Ushioda; Dick Allwright and others; and David Nunan. Work for teacher-research initiated independently by Kenan Dikilitaş in Turkey, also from around 2011 onwards, has latterly become intertwined with ReSIG eforts, to the extent that a series of conferences started by Kenan, initially on a small scale for English teachers in Izmir, expanded and became supported by ReSIG, taking on ‘Teachers Research!’ branding in 2015 (Izmir) and 2016 (Istanbul). his is already the third ReSIG publication to arise from the Turkey series of annual conferences, with all of the chapters in the book being based on presentations given at the 24–25 June 2016 conference at Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul. Given the rapid development of this body of work over the last six years and the way signiicant new developments appear to be on the horizon, it seems valuable in this Introduction to take stock of what has been achieved to date, and to consider how further teacher-research insights might be developed most 1 2 Introduction appropriately into the future. We begin, though, by summarising the chapters in this book and the insights they themselves reveal. Introducing the chapters and their authors he 12 contributions to this book are grouped according to distinct categories, with both teacher-research mentors’ and teacher- researchers’ perspectives represented. he irst six chapters are teacher-research mentors’ accounts of helping teachers engage in practitioner research, with those supported including both in-service (chapters 1–3) and pre-service teachers (chapters 4–6). Interestingly, four of these irst six chapters demonstrate a particular commitment to action research. While other forms of practitioner inquiry, including exploratory practice, have been given attention within ReSIG in recent years, action research is clearly particularly inluential in the context of this conference. Amongst chapters 7–12, which provide teacher-researchers’ accounts of helping students in their contexts develop a range of language skills and knowledge, positive feelings about learning and a greater sense of autonomy, there are three further chapters which also explicitly employ an action research framework. We now discuss the contributions in detail. In Chapter 1, Yasemin Kırkgöz describes her experience of be- ing a research mentor to two highly experienced primary school teachers of English within a collaborative action research teach- er development project. Yasemin reports irst interviewing the teachers to help establish a research focus, and then doing some reading with the teachers so that they could understand the issue they had identiied together in more depth. his led into an ac- tion research cycle (involving planning, teaching, observing and then relecting) that was centred on the use of real objects or im- ages to enhance the memories of young learners in their primary school context. Yasemin then highlights successes, including im- proved learning outcomes noted by the teachers, their awareness of their own professional growth, and her own awareness of how Introduction 3 she was developing as a teacher-research-mentor, taking on dif- ferent roles. In conclusion, she highlights how she could continue to grow, with her mentoring practices in the future becoming more autonomy-supportive. In Chapter 2, Beril Yücel and Melis Akdoğan Gündoğdu de- scribe an action research project that six teachers they were men- toring had volunteered to participate in to support their own con- tinuing personal professional development. hey provided input (both face to face and through readings) on action research, and guided the teachers (working collaboratively in pairs) in planning their research, and then collecting and analysing data. While most of the teachers were new to action research, the mentor- ing team could draw on Beril’s extensive experience of having conducted action research studies herself as well as her experi- ence of having supported action research in diferent contexts. Beneits of the project Beril and Melis identify include the teach- ers reporting greater self-conidence in engaging in research, ex- periencing closer connection with their students and enhanced collaboration with each other, as well as feeling recognised by their institution. heir closing thoughts highlight both mentors’ and teachers’ goals to continue to engage in action research as a sustainable enterprise. In Chapter 3, Seden Eraldemir Tuyan, who has been mentor- ing teams of teacher-researchers at her university for several years now, provides evidence of how inspiration, enthusiasm, commit- ment and the fulilment of key mentoring roles can help to make teacher-research more sustainable. Introducing herself as an ac- tion research mentor, she shares her story of becoming involved, and explains how she has organized mentoring at her university (taking part in this herself as well as encouraging others). Seden then analyses the mentoring she has provided, drawing on ques- tionnaire data provided by her mentees as evidence of her having assumed important mentor roles, such as providing psychological support. She then relects on how she has grown through the experience with the teachers she has mentored, and how they 4 Introduction have beneited, in terms of feeling more productive and creative, and also experiencing higher self-esteem through being better recognized within the university community. As noted above, chapters 4–6 report on mentoring pre-ser- vice teachers. In Chapter 4, Sabriye Şener, an experienced men- tor of graduate students, relects on mentoring undergraduate teacher-researchers for the irst time. She describes a 16-week training programme she implemented; this programme started with awareness-raising and theoretical input, addressed practi- cal issues such as data gathering, and then involved participants in thinking more about how to actually do research and collect meaningful data through further input based on the reading and discussion of relevant studies. he pre-service teachers, working in groups and gaining constant tutorial support, then conducted research in schools and afterwards presented their indings orally and in writing. Written feedback elicited from them at the end of the course was mostly positive, with beneits relating to personal and professional development highlighted. After sharing this process, Sabriye relects on it as a positive mentoring experience she wishes to sustain in a collegial way, working collaboratively with fellow research-mentors in the future. In Chapter 5, Hatime Çiftçi, Enisa Mede and Derin Atay also report on mentoring undergraduate teacher-researchers. his is in the context of a very practically-oriented university–school partnership project, with pre-service teachers observing, micro- teaching, and critically relecting on their own teaching experi- ences. In this educational context, the authors had decided to encourage their mentees to engage in action research, and pro- vide an account here of how they achieved this goal. he irst author, Hatime, conducted an initial focus group discussion with the nine pre-service teachers participating, seeking to elicit their awareness of research methodology, and then, over several weeks, provided input and supported the teachers in planning, conduct- ing, observing and relecting on action research projects they de- veloped in line with their interests. Participant diaries and further Introduction 5 focus group discussions suggested to Hatime and her colleagues that engaging in action research had facilitated their mentees in developing in various ways, in terms of knowledge and critical awareness. In Chapter 6, Hatice Çelebi and Naiye Çiğdem Aktekin re- lect on supporting pre-service teachers in identity formation by encouraging those they were working with to engage in school- based research. First, their mentees, who were yet to gain teach- ing experience, met regularly as a group to discuss issues that interested them, such as language learning strategies. hese pre- service teachers then developed a questionnaire together on this topic that they could use with students in the partner schools where they had been conducting observations. Afterwards, they produced a report with indings they could share with these part- ner schools. Relective comments the pre-service teachers pro- duced after this experience highlighted what they had learned from interacting with each other and the students, assuming teacherly roles and imagining themselves in the future as class- room teachers utilizing language learning strategies. hey also identiied ways in which they needed to continue to grow. he study illustrates, therefore, the value of using carefully and col- laboratively-structured research engagement at an early stage to support identity formation in pre-service teachers. From Chapter 7 onwards, the focus shifts to teacher-re- searchers providing their own accounts of their teacher-research. In Chapter 7, Beyza Kabadayı, a mentee of Seden Eraldemir Tuyan (Chapter 3), reports on a study focused on raising stu- dents’ awareness in reading written instructions. After contex- tualizing the issue clearly, Beyza relects on her practices while engaging with the literature, and then presents her research focus. Accounts of four awareness-raising activities introduced over a seven-week period are then provided, with the students’ reactions to them, in the form of qualitative comments, included. Beyza concludes by highlighting what she has learned from the research and what she will do in the future to further support students in 6 Introduction developing greater autonomy through being able to follow writ- ten instructions. In Chapter 8, Hüsnü Gümüş and Demet Yaylı demonstrate a similar concern with life skills required beyond the classroom. Focused on how learners might acquire vocabulary in authentic and semi-authentic ways related to their technological interests, they describe an intervention designed to activate and reinforce vocabulary knowledge through the use of videos; these videos were teacher-constructed and thus not entirely ‘authentic’, but nevertheless served to bring the outside world into the classroom and seemed to motivate students, though some would have pre- ferred more formal instruction. From listening to their students’ comments (elicited through relective writing and semi-struc- tured interviews), Hüsnü and Demet gain insights they report will shape their practices. In Chapter 9, the geographical context switches from Tur- key to India, this relecting an international presence at the 2016 conference in Istanbul that is relatively under-represented in this volume. Sadeqa Ghazal and Smriti Singh present the indings of an action research study that focused on developing learner au- tonomy and supporting speaking skills. Sadeqa and Smriti began their research with an exploratory phase, during which they used diferent methods (observations, interviews and a survey) to gain a deeper understanding of the learners’ context. his provided in- sights into why students were remaining silent in class: shyness, fear of making errors, worries about being ridiculed. hey then implemented their nine-month action research study in three overlapping phases: establishing a supportive culture, introducing class discussions, and then, as the students gained in conidence, debates. heir key inding was that, as the students became more self-conident, their participation in speaking activities increased. Engaging in the research itself also beneited Sadeqa and Smriti, as they grew into their teacher-researcher roles; they developed greater empathy for their students, and learned to scafold their learners’ eforts more patiently but also persistently. hey see a fu- Introduction 7 ture in becoming research-mentors mentoring teachers to make the transitions they themselves have made. In Chapter 10, Seden Eraldemir Tuyan (who of course has al- ready successfully made that transition from teacher-researcher to research-mentor – Chapter 3) and Esra Altunkol report on exploratory action research focused on improving learners’ psy- chological well-being; they wanted to learn how to make their students happier, and more optimistic, open-minded and able to engage in their studies. Accordingly, they collected and analyzed questionnaire data on happiness and then introduced activities in the classroom, which were speciically designed to help their students feel happier. Findings suggested that attending to learn- ers’ needs for happiness supported beneicial outcomes, such as greater enthusiasm, which might lead to deeper learning, par- ticularly if the happiness is sustained. Seden and Esra conclude by ofering the hope that through sharing their research on this too often neglected topic it might inspire others. Chapters 11 and 12, both produced by mentees of Seden Eraldemir Tuyan from Çukurova University (Chapters 3 and 10, above), relate to helping learners develop listening skills. In Chapter 11, Neslihan Gündoğdu and Cemile Buğra report on their eforts to encourage learners to listen more carefully to their peers. hey outline the activities they introduced in their classes to support this goal, such as group storytelling, relect on using them, and present students’ reactions, as recorded in their learn- ing logs. Five key themes emerged in their analysis, including greater engagement and enjoyment, a willingness to embrace other perspectives, and psychological beneits such as motivation and excitement. he awareness-raising of how to listen more ef- fectively to peers thus seems to have been beneicial. In their con- clusions, Neslihan and Cemile highlight how engaging in the re- search process has aided their own professional development too. Addressing what she perceives as limited engagement in lis- tening activities, in Chapter 12 Merve Sofu reports on use of a cooperative learning method designed to encourage more positive 8 Introduction attitudes towards activities that practise this skill; to implement it, she irst redesigned a number of coursebook listening materi- als, so that there was heightened interaction between learners, and then used the redesigned materials in class. Findings based on her interview data suggest the main impact of the intervention from students’ perspectives was on motivation. Students reported feeling more conident, active, relaxed and willing to participate with the adapted materials. hen, after sharing this experience, Merve relects on the beneits she herself has gained from engag- ing in the research. She highlights that as a teacher she feels more patient, energetic, and brave, and she acknowledges the support- ive atmosphere and mentoring within the university environment for encouraging the beneicial changes she has noted in herself. Further research A relatively unique characteristic of this book is the way fully half of the chapters describe and relect on research-mentoring experiences (whether of in-service or pre-service teachers), rather than being accounts of research by teachers themselves. his is one sign of maturity of development – the increased interest in mentoring revealed here has arisen as the idea of teacher-research has spread, and both the prevalence of such mentoring and the way lessons can be learned from accounts like these bodes well for the continuing vitality and sustainability of the ELT teacher- research movement. Networks and communities of practice have begun to be built up, in Turkey and internationally, which are supportive of the further development of teacher-research, and we ind some of the authors in this book reporting on a second or even third year of continuing work. his may be seen as a good vantage point, then, for us to look back over achievements to date, consider issues connected with sustainability in some more depth, and identify some directions which might inform future work. First we will consider a few areas of academic research whose indings might help persuade authorities or agencies to engage and free up teachers for teacher-research projects of their own. Introduction 9 hen we move on to focus on the area of further practical initia- tives. One of the most striking aspects of the accounts in each chap- ter of the present book is that teacher-research, although typi- cally carried out by the teacher, is ultimately dedicated to the well-being of students and to the betterment of teachers’ interac- tions with their students. All the researchers, whether mentors of other teachers or classroom teachers themselves, place the im- provement of students’ learning at the heart of their research, and show that there were some kinds of change in learning for those involved. However, a major challenge to the concept of teacher- research might be the question: How does it result in improved student outcomes? his question is very likely to be posed by policy makers, funders or school managers who may in principle be supportive of teacher-research, but dubious about its beneits in contrast to other, more easily and cheaply organised, forms of professional development, such as courses and workshops cen- trally delivered by ‘experts’. At present, the ield of ELT lacks a body of research that can point cogently and persuasively to the direct impact of teacher-research on student outcomes. Studies of this kind would need to go beyond just simplistic measures from score and test results to demonstrate also the qualitative improvements that teacher-research can make to teaching and learning, through, for example, greater learner and teacher mo- tivation, autonomy, and engagement in learning. hey also need to be longitudinal to show development and improvement over time. Another theme running through all the accounts is the notion of collaboration, giving rise to questions about how it might fur- ther be developed. he term ‘collaboration’, whether it be collabo- ration between mentor and mentee, teachers working together or teachers working with students, permeates the chapters. How- ever, collaboration is not a natural state for most teachers since classrooms are usually set up as isolated units, and there may be few opportunities ofered for teacher interaction. here are 10 Introduction still relatively few studies examining research collaboration, and what social, cultural cognitive, emotional, and discursive factors must exist to enable teacher-researcher collaboration to thrive. It would be very valuable to see more studies investigating these di- mensions of teacher-research, and in particular identifying what characterises, facilitates or impedes collaboration. Such studies could provide valuable guidelines for academics and teacher edu- cators wishing to increase their involvement in teacher-research, and also for school principals wanting to integrate research into school development, or for teachers aiming to work together on various projects and research initiatives. While several references are made in the chapters to the idea that teacher-research enables teachers and students to grow and develop, a major challenge for teacher-research is to show how this development can be sustained over time. Some critics might argue that action research, for example, is not sustainable, as teachers may not possess well-developed skills as researchers, are not generally supported to do research and are likely to have heavy teaching demands that mitigate against doing research. However, as Edwards and Burns (2016a) have pointed out, un- derstanding more about what longer term efects on professional growth are facilitated by teacher-research is not only crucial, but in short supply. hey also note that it is not just continuing to ‘do’ research that is at issue, but more that teachers are equipped through teacher-research to be able to continue to relect on, cri- tique and transform their teaching. hey provide evidence that an inquiry-based mindset enabled the teachers they worked with in Australia to continue to develop personally as professionals. here are still very few studies on what creates sustainability of teacher-research over time, however, and this is an area where retrospective and longitudinal approaches using both qualitative and quantitative data could make a signiicant contribution. he concept of sustainability leads us to consider also the im- portant factor of institutional support and recognition. In the Turkish context, where the majority of the studies in this book Introduction 11 have taken place, institutional support seems largely to have been made available to teachers via various kinds of mentoring arrangement. However, studies documenting the efects of the broader environment on language teacher-research are still lim- ited in number (though see Edwards and Burns 2016b for an example). More studies that help to demonstrate the crucial role of school managers and mentors in supporting classroom inves- tigation, so that it can enhance teacher quality and pedagogical capacity and contribute to more positive learning outcomes, may be needed if school leaders are to be persuaded about the beneits of promoting teacher-research in their institutions. Further practice Of course, practical experience, suitably shared, can also ofer insights which serve the sustainable development of teacher- research, just as much as research about it can. As we noted in our initial paragraph, the promotion of teacher-research in Turkey and by the IATEFL ReSIG more internationally – both of which commenced around six years ago – were independent of one another in their irst period, but these initiatives have matured and become intertwined in a more recent second phase. he two phases can be characterized as follows: Pioneering period (2011–2014): his irst phase of activity saw ReSIG organising one-day workshops in the UK on both Action Research (by Anne Burns) and Exploratory Practice (by Dick Allwright and others). Dedicated spaces for sharing of teacher- research were provided in the SIG’s regular publication, ELT Re- search, and on its website (http://resig.weebly.com), and an inno- vative one-day event was held in Harrogate, UK, in April 2014, called ‘Teachers Research!’. his was billed as ‘a special, partici- pant-centred day dedicated to research by teachers for teachers’. As explained in the book associated with this event (Bullock and Smith 2015), ‘the emphasis on “for teachers” in this slogan was intended to push back an increasingly dominant idea that aca- 12 Introduction demic quality criteria should necessarily be applied to teacher- research’ (p. 3). Meanwhile, Kenan Dikilitaş had begun to organize annual conferences showcasing teacher-research work carried out by teachers in an English preparatory programme in a private uni- versity in Izmir, Turkey (see Dikilitaş 2012; 2013; 2014; also, for more on this history, Wyatt 2016). hese showed that in such a context voluntary teacher-research could be productively con- ducted and developed as an alternative to more prevalent, rela- tively top-down, workshop and short course-dominated pro- fessional development schemes. he conferences began to be advertised to teachers and professional development coordinators from other institutions, and the 2014 conference in Izmir was, for the irst time, oicially supported by ReSIG, broadening its reach still further. Maturation period (2014–2017): In 2014–15, work was carried out to bring to publication two ReSIG books and associated video material arising from the 2014 events – Teachers Research! (Bull- ock and Smith 2015) and Teacher Researchers in Action (Dikilitaş, Smith, and Trotman 2015). Following on from this, the ‘Teachers Research!’ conference in Izmir in 2015 was a fully-ledged ReSIG conference, organized along similar participant-centred lines to the previous year’s event in the UK, with a similar focus on short poster presentations, interactivity, and placing teachers at centre stage rather than there being a top-down expert-centred focus. he year 2014–15 had been remarkable, also, for the way groups in various English language preparatory programmes at universi- ties across Turkey became engaged in teacher-research, with a large number of diferent groups reporting back at the ‘Teachers Research! Izmir 2015’ conference (see Dikilitaş, Wyatt, Hanks and Bullock 2016). Several of these groups carried on with their work and gave presentations at the following year’s conference in Istanbul, consolidating the focus on devolved mentoring which had been such a highlight the previous year (cf. Dikilitaş and Wyatt 2017; Eraldemir Tuyan, this volume). Introduction 13 In the meantime, two further ReSIG-supported activities have signalled a recent expansion and – in these cases –  interna- tionalization of activity: a free online ‘course’ in teacher-research mentored by several ReSIG members in 2016 and 2017 (TE- SOL EVO 2016; 2017), and a ‘Teachers Research!’ conference organized by Paula Rebolledo and Richard Smith in Chile in 2016 (repeated in 2017 in Buenos Aires). his has, then, been a period of sustained achievement by teacher-researchers in Turkey and by ReSIG more international- ly, contributing to greater visibility for teacher-research generally. Related research studies have also been conducted and published about engaging and mentoring teacher-research (see Dikilitaş and Mumford, 2016; Wyatt and Dikilitaş, 2016; Dikilitaş and Wyatt, 2017). Just as importantly, however, the cases presented in the video material and books emerging from conferences have served as an inspiration to teacher-researchers and research-mentors in other contexts who have themselves been unable to attend the conferences, including participants in a recent All-India Net- work of English Teachers (AINET) teacher-research mentoring scheme (http://resig.weebly.com/india). he above initiatives have, then, provided a solid foundation on which to continue to build practical insights. We turn to some suggestions in this area in conclusion. Firstly, further relective reports of ‘mentor-research’ like some of those in the irst half of this book might be considered worthy of particular encouragement, since, as has been shown in countries like Chile and India as well as Turkey, there may already be an increasing interest in engagement in practitioner research from teachers themselves, with the major issue being not a lack of willingness or of persuasive research but a continuing and urgent need for practical guidance and models for teachers and, in particular, mentors. Honest, relective documentation of achievements and diiculties in implementing teacher-research – containing self-criticism of limitations as well as successes – will need to be deliberately encouraged in the face of prevailing 14 Introduction academic cultures which still tend to undervalue qualitative and practice-focused enquiry in general. It has become clear, also, that – whereas teacher-research mentoring initiatives have tended in the past to be conined to small groups of teachers in language school or tertiary settings – there have been some notable positive experiences recently with larger-scale initiatives involving secondary or primary teachers in relatively diicult circumstances (cf. Smith, Connelly and Re- bolledo 2014; Pinter, Mathew and Smith 2016; TESOL EVO 2017). Further reports of practice in such situations are likely to provide important pointers for others in similar situations else- where. However, with the concentration of the conferences to date in Turkey, it has proved to be diicult to incorporate insights from developing countries – or, indeed, from many places outside Turkey at all – to anything like the extent that such insights have been shared in recent online experiences supported by ReSIG (e.g. TESOL EVO 2016; 2017; and various online discussions moderated by Mark Wyatt). he chapter in this book by Sadeqa Ghazal and Smriti Singh, on Indian experience, is the exception that proves the rule in this regard. his might indicate that, for enhancement of possibilities of cross-fertilization for teacher-research worldwide, the future lies with online or, at least, blended and interconnected conferences – and with associated forms of sharing which go beyond con- ventional research report writing (cf. Smith, Bullock, Rebolledo and Robles López, 2016). While it will be important to continue to nurture and assure sustainability for the achievements already gained, notably those in Turkish university English language pre- paratory programmes, it seems both plausible and desirable to as- sume that we are entering a new phase of activity for the beneit of other contexts in which principles of wider accessibility may be key (see, for example, Burns and Kurtoğlu-Hooton, 2016). here is a diicult and delicate balance to aim for between maintenance of existing achievements and expansion for the beneit of hith- erto under-considered situations, but the practitioner research Introduction 15 movement in ELT / TESOL seems bound to be heading, from now on, in more international, less elitist directions. For new in- sights to be developed which are appropriate to this challenge, ReSIG will need to build both on and beyond past achievements and engage in practical innovations which are supportive of even wider teacher-research engagement. References Bullock, D. & Smith, R. (eds) (2015). Teachers Research! Faversham: IATEFL. Online: http://resig.weebly.com/ teachers-research.html Burns, A. & Kurtoglu-Hooton, N. (2016). Using Action Research to Explore Technology: International Perspectives. London: British Council. Online: https://www.teachingenglish.org. uk/sites/teacheng/iles/28313 ELTRA Report WEB.PDF Dikilitaş, K., (ed). (2012). Teacher-research Studies at Foreign Language School: Inquiries from Teacher Perspectives, vol. 1. Ankara: Nobel. Dikilitaş, K., (ed). (2013). Teacher-research Studies at Foreign Language School: Inquiries from Teacher Perspectives, vol. 2. Ankara: Nobel. Dikilitaş, K., (ed). (2014). Professional Development through Teacher-research. İzmir: Gediz University. Dikilitaş, K. & Mumford, S.E. (2016). Supporting the writing up of teacher research: peer and mentor roles. ELT Journal 70(4), 371–381. Dikilitaş, K., Smith, R.C. & Trotman, W. (eds.). (2015). Teacher Researchers in Action. Faversham: IATEFL. Online: http:// resig.weebly.com/teacher-researchers-in-action.html Dikilitaş, K. & Wyatt, M. (2017). Learning teacher-research- mentoring: stories from Turkey. Manuscript submitted for publication. Dikilitaş, K., Wyatt, M., Hanks, J., & Bullock, D. (eds.) (2016), Teachers Engaging in Research. Faversham, Kent: IATEFL. 16 Introduction http://resig.weebly.com/teachers-engaging-in-research.html Edwards, E. & Burns, A. (2016a). Language teacher action research: achieving sustainability. ELT Journal 70(1), 6–15. Edwards, E. & Burns, A. (2016b). Language teacher-researcher identity negotiation: An ecological perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 50(3), 735-744. Eraldemir Tuyan, S. (this volume). What I have learned as an action research mentor: Some highlights. Etherington, S. & Daubney, M. (2017). Developing as an EFL Researcher: Stories from the Field. Faversham: IATEFL. Online: http://resig.weebly.com/developing-as-an-el- researcher.html Pinter, A., Mathew, R. & Smith, R. (2016). Children and Teachers as Co-researchers in Indian Primary English Classrooms. London: British Council. Online: https://englishagenda. britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/attachments/27780_ eltra_paper_inal.pdf Smith, R. (2015). ‘he concept, and spirit, of “Teachers Research!”. In Bullock, D. and Smith, R. (eds) Teachers Research! Faversham: IATEFL. Online: http://resig.weebly. com/teachers-research Smith, R., Bullock, D., Rebolledo, P. & Robles López, A. (2016). ‘By teachers for teachers’: innovative, teacher-friendly publishing of practitioner research. English Language Teacher Education and Development Journal 20: 116–125. Online: http://www.elted.net/uploads/7/3/1/6/7316005/10._smith_ bullock_rebolledo_robles_-_revised.pdf Smith, R., Connelly, T. & Rebolledo, P. (2014). ‘Teacher- research as continuing professional development: A project with Chilean secondary school teachers’. In Hayes, D. (ed.) Innovations in the Continuing Professional Development of English language teachers. London: British Council, pp. 111–128. Online: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/ teacheng/files/E168 Innovations in CPD_FINAL V2 veb. pdf - page=115 Introduction 17 TESOL EVO. (2016). Classroom-based research for professional development Electronic Village Online: http://evosessions. pbworks.com/w/page/113569063/2017_Classroom-Based_ Research_for_Professional_Development TESOL EVO. (2017). Classroom-based research for professional development EVO 2017. Online: http:// classroombasedresearch.weebly.com/ Wyatt, M. (2016). Engaging language teachers in research achieving psychological and educational beneits. In Dikilitaş, K. Wyatt, M., Hanks, J. & Bullock, D. (eds.), Teachers Engaging in Research (pp. 3-18). Faversham: IATEFL. Online: http:// resig.weebly.com/teachers-engaging-in-research.html Wyatt, M. & Dikilitaş, K. (2016). English language teachers becoming more eicacious through research engagement at their Turkish university. Educational Action Research, 24(4), 550–570. Insights into the process of 1 mentoring action research by teachers of young learners Yasemin Kırkgöz Mentoring is often described as an interpersonal relationship that comprises a series of purposeful, social interactions (Bearman, Blake-Beard, Hunt & Crosby, 2007). his chapter describes my experience of being a research mentor to practising primary school teachers of English within a collaborative action research (CAR) teacher development project. I will illustrate this experience with descriptions of lessons, interview data from the teachers, and relections on the roles I adopted. Mentoring background Working as a teacher educator in the pre-service teacher education department of a state university in Turkey, I have been supervising teacher candidates during their school practicum, providing pedagogical advice and guidance for developing the mentees’ practices. During the last two years, additionally, I have also been leading a CAR teacher development project with in- service teachers of English in primary education. he aim of the project was to enhance teachers’ professional development. Under my supervision, teachers identiied a problem that they wished to explore or a new idea that they wanted to implement, designed an action plan, implemented it with their grade two classes and relected on their action (see Kırkgöz 2016 for further details). he mentoring process I collaborated with ive teachers of English in grade two primary education. Teachers were working in three diferent schools. One 19 20 Insights into the process of mentoring action research by teachers of young learners teacher was the only grade two teacher in her school but the remaining four teachers were working in two diferent primary schools. he rationale for having two teachers from the same school, where possible, was to encourage collaborative learning. he mentoring process started with holding a meeting with the participating teachers to establish a partnership in the project. I held the irst meeting in the meeting room of a cultural center, which had a friendly ambiance and easy access for all the teach- ers. I chose this place to make the teachers feel comfortable and to initiate them into this collaborative partnership. I made it clear that my role as the mentor was to facilitate teacher-researchers’ implementation of action research (AR) in their classes and to serve as a co-researcher by sharing my research expertise with them. I also encouraged the teachers to assume the dual role of teacher and researcher. In the next meeting, I introduced the teachers to the principles of AR. Over the following six months, the teachers, under my mentorship, completed four cycles of AR. Here, I describe the irst AR cycle of two teachers, one male and one female, teaching English in the same primary school. Both teachers had 18 years teaching experience. In the course of my description I illustrate how I mentored the teachers during the successive stages in the AR cycle. As the irst step of my mentoring, I interviewed the teachers in the staf room in their school to ind out whether they had encountered any speciic problems and/or if there was any aspect of teaching they wished to improve in their grade two classes. he interview was held in Turkish. he problem both teachers report- ed experiencing was related to students’ forgetting what they learn quickly, as the teachers wrote to me in an email after the meeting: Children in our grade two classes are young; they are six years old. hey receive only two hours of English lessons weekly. hey do not revise subjects at home. Due to these reasons, they quickly forget what they learn. hey come back to lessons the following week having for- gotten what they have learned the previous week. So, the problem we want to explore is: Why does not learning become permanent? How Yasemin Kırkgöz 21 can we solve this problem?” (I have translated this and all quota- tions below from the original Turkish). To determine the reasons underlying this problem, I asked the teachers to describe their existing teaching practice and the materials they used in their lessons. I found out that both teach- ers relied exclusively on the textbooks assigned by the Ministry of National Education, and they rarely used real objects in their lessons. As mentor, I conducted some library research and also guided the teachers to engage in some reading with a view to resolving this particular issue. A review of the literature on the related topic showed that association techniques can be exploited to en- hance young learners’ memory, whereby, for example, real objects or images can be used to enable learners to link certain concepts with those objects and images (Oxford & Crookall, 1990). he teachers and I therefore agreed that they would start using real objects or images to enable young learners to make an associa- tion, thus enhancing their memory. In the planning stage of the AR, I suggested to the teachers a list of activities from which they could make a selection and prepare a lesson plan. During the action stage, both teachers put the same lesson plan into action, described below on the basis of my observation notes: Before the lesson, the teachers put up the colourful balloons and a poster of a rainbow on the board. As using such real objects as balloons and a colourful poster was a new experience for the teachers, I assisted them in preparing these materials to teach colours, revise numbers and how many, which were the topic of the lesson. After completing the preparation stage, the teachers individu- ally applied the planned activities in their grade two classes. he female teacher, for example, irst introduced the colours to the students, as seen in Picture 1 below. She, then, had the students repeat colours after her. After completing the preparation stage, the teachers individually applied the planned activities in their grade two classes. The female teacher, for example, first introduced the colours to the students, as seen in Picture 1 below. She, then, had the students repeat colours after her. 22 Insights into the process of mentoring action research Picture 1.byDisplay of balloons teachers of youngandlearners a rainbow poster on the board Picture 1. Display of balloons and a rainbow poster on the board Later, she called one student to the board and asked him to touch the balloon she pointed to and Later, she called one student to the board and asked him to say its colour in English. She repeated this with other students. This took one lesson period, 40 touch the balloon she pointed to and say its colour in English. minutes. She repeated this with other students. his took one lesson pe- riod, 40 minutes. In the next lesson, she continued with a activity. This activity involved In the next lesson, she continued with a playing with balloons the teacher throwing a balloon to students, one at a time, and asking its colour. The student who activity. his activity involved the teacher throwing a balloon to got the balloon threw it to another student and asked “ students, one at a time, and asking its colour. he studentS/he whosaid the colour got and the the game continued. balloon threw itThetolesson anothercontinued with aand student “ asked “what colour activity The isteacher it?”.put up the S/he following said picture onand the colour the board the and gameasked a student to come continued. hetolesson the board and continued withFora example, colour a balloon. “colouringshe balloons” asked one of activity. heto teacher the students put up paint a balloon red. This the following picture on the board and asked a continued with colouring the remaining balloons with other students. student to come to the board and colour a balloon. For example, she asked one of the students to paint a balloon red. his continued with colouring 19  the remaining balloons with other students. he lesson continued with revising numbers. he teacher put more balloons of the same colour on her desk and wanted stu- dents to count the balloons. “Let’s count blue balloons…One, Two, hree… ”She also asked “How many red balloons are there in the classroom?” Having completed the activities with the bal- loons, she used another real object, the rainbow poster on the board, as seen in Picture 1, and elicited the colours. Yasemin Kırkgöz 23 Picture 2. Colouring the balloons activity Picture The lesson continued with2. Colouring revising theThe numbers. balloons activity teacher put more balloons of the same colour on her desk and wanted students to count the balloons. “Let’s count blue balloons…One, Two, he next Three… ”Shestage in AR also asked “Howinvolved observing many red balloons the inefectiveness are there the classroom?” of Having thecompleted ‘action’.thehe following activities week,shethe with the balloons, used teachers and Ithetherefore another real object, rainbow poster on agreed thatas they the board, seen in would Picture 1, use similar and elicited activities and real objects to the colours. those they used in the previous week to check whether or not The next stage in AR involved the effectiveness of the ‘action’. The following week, the teachers and I students could remember colours and numbers. he teachers also therefore agreed that they would use similar activities and real objects to those they used in the previous week to agreed to askor not check whether the children students for their could remember perceptions colours and of the numbers. The teachers use toofaskreal also agreed the children objects. for their perceptions of the use of real objects. I collaborated with the teachers in helping them evaluate their I collaborated with the teachers in helping them evaluate their practice, sharing my notes and photographs of the practice, sharing lessons with my the teachers notes in the and course of photographs post-lesson interviews with of theThelessons them. with female teacher (FTeacher) theevaluated teachers in the her practice coursewriting in her reflective of post-lesson after completing this interviews with them. AR cycle as follows: he female teacher (FTeacher) evaluated her practice in her re- lective writing after completing this AR cycle as follows: here are 28 students in my class. When I asked students to pick up a balloon and say its colour, to my surprise, almost all students recognized colours. I observed that using objects had a real efect on 20  students’ recalling the words in later lessons. 24 Insights into the process of mentoring action research by teachers of young learners he male teacher (MTeacher) expressed a similar view in his own relective writing: My students never wanted the lesson to end. hey enjoyed it a lot.. I observed that when topics are supported with real visuals, remember- ing becomes more efective. he female teacher, in her relective writing, stated that when she asked her students’ perspectives on her using real objects, they also expressed positive responses, for example: Wonderful, very good. We learned very well. We both learned and got entertained at the same time. his is conirmed by the male teacher, who expressed in his relective writing that: When I asked students’ opinion about using real objects, they all stated that they enjoyed it and insisted that I should continue using them in my lessons. Lessons became more productive. Both teachers agreed that students’ use of words like ‘wonder- ful’ and ‘entertaining’ made them feel very satisied. hey felt that our initial plan to use real objects had been very efective in im- proving students’ memory. As evidenced from the interviews and student reports, using real objects, images and related activities appeared to have been efective in enabling young learners to re- member, both immediately and for later recall. My observations as the mentor also conirmed this. Developing as researchers and as a research mentor In the post-lesson interview I held with the teachers at the end of the irst AR, teacher-researchers’ relections indicated that the AR experience had increased their awareness of how using real objects could help overcome students’ forgetfulness, and this inevitably improved their teaching. his is illustrated by the teachers’ transcribed oral relections below: Yasemin Kırkgöz 25 After I used colourful balloons and a poster of a rainbow as au- thentic material in teaching colours and numbers, the pupils’ attention doubled and the lesson became more enjoyable. hese activities drew the students’ attention. When I checked their knowledge of colours and numbers the following lesson, I observed that 26 out of 28 students in my class were able to remember the colours correctly and the remaining two students made a mistake with only a couple of colours. (FTeacher) Conirming this, the male teacher reported: Colourful balloons and the poster attracted the students’ attention. I observed that the students were able to recognize the colours correctly and more and more students participated in the lessons. My overall relections about the impact of the AR process on these two teachers are consistent with their own comments. Observing the efect of real objects on enhancing young learner memory, both teachers developed conidence and enthusiasm for using various objects such as toy animals, masks, fruits, and drama in successive AR cycles rather than using the textbook as the sole teaching material. Teachers’ written relections on the impact of their AR en- gagement at the end of the 4-cycle process indicated that their involvement in this project had been a very good opportunity for professional development. he male teacher explained this as: Teaching through real objects has been a major change I experi- enced in my profession. he female teacher: While helping my students, I improved myself as a teacher. I feel happy that teaching a foreign language using real objects provides a permanent efect on remembering. Teachers acknowledged the value of mentoring, highlighting the beneits of the support I provided, and reported that “with the help of guidance and research, my self-conidence improved in using real materials” (FTeacher). For the male teacher the mentoring was also highly appreciated: “he guidance I received helped me understand how to teach young learners efectively. I am happy that my students perform the activities with great joy”. 26 Insights into the process of mentoring action research by teachers of young learners As the mentor, I also developed through my experience in supporting the teacher-researchers in many ways. First, I came to realize that mentoring is a multifaceted pro- cess. I agree with Ambrosetti & Dekkers (2010), who state that a mentor needs to nurture, advise, guide, encourage and facilitate real learning experiences and developmental growth of teachers. I assumed both professional and personal responsibilities. In the professional dimension, I was an ‘organizer’ of the AR process, including location and dates of the meetings and school visits. As an ‘observer’, I monitored the research process, observing the teachers’ implementation of the action. I was an ‘evaluator’ of the teachers’ practice by providing constructive comments and en- couraging self-relection. As a ‘supporter’, I guided teachers to identify issues, assisted with lesson-planning and supported them to implement the actions. I also evolved in my roles as a co-researcher and a facilita- tor. As a ‘co-researcher’, I shared my knowledge and expertise, suggested articles and websites, and encouraged teachers to take ownership in bringing about change and improvement in their teaching practices. Using real objects was my suggestion, which teachers took up and applied in their lessons. Hence, I facilitated teachers’ professional growth. On the personal dimension, I tried to be an efective commu- nicator with the teacher-researchers (Ihmeideh, Al-Basheer, & Qablan, 2008). I communicated regularly through phone conver- sations, emails and meetings, discussing issues raised and clarify- ing uncertainties. he teachers were new to the idea of AR, so I was sensitive to teachers’ feelings and provided them with non- judgemental support. I learned that the mentoring relationship is crucial for the efectiveness of a collaborative partnership. Hence, establishing a supportive relationship and a climate for open communication with the teacher-researchers was an important aspect of this process. Yasemin Kırkgöz 27 Looking to the future I have illustrated how my mentoring two teacher-researchers supported them in enhancing young learners’ memory for new lexis. Being a mentor for teacher-researchers has been a rewarding experience for me, but in my future research mentoring practice I would potentially make one main change. Although initially I deined my responsibilities as the mentor and explained my expectations of the teachers, I realized that the teachers were depending too much on me in planning their actions. So, in future, I would sustain guidance and support in a collaborative manner, yet give teacher-researchers an opportunity to take more responsibility from the beginning for their professional development. Acknowledgement I acknowledge the contribution of TÜBİTAK (he Scientiic and Technological Research Council of Turkey) for funding this research under the Project number 114K036, and express my gratitude to the two participating teachers, who did not wish their names to be acknowledged. References Ambrosetti, A., & Dekkers, J. (2010). he interconnectedness of the roles of mentors and mentees in pre-service teacher education mentoring relationships. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 35(6): 42-55. Bearman, S., Blake-Beard, S., Hunt, L., & Crosby, F. J. (2007). New directions in mentoring. In T.D. Allen & L.T. Eby (eds.), he Blackwell Handbook of Mentoring: A Multiple Perspectives Approach (pp. 375-395). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Ihmeideh, F., Al-Basheer, A. & Qablan, A. (2008). he characteristics of the role of early childhood education mentors in Jordan. Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 13(1): 19-38. 28 Insights into the process of mentoring action research by teachers of young learners Kırkgöz, Y. (2016). Improving teaching practices through a uni- versity-school collaboration in young learner classrooms. In Dikilitaş, K., Wyatt, M., Hanks, J., Bullock, D. (Eds.), Teach- ers Engaging in Research (pp. 89-99). Faversham: IATEFL. Oxford, R., Crookall, D. (1990). Vocabulary learning: a critical analysis of techniques. TESL Canada Journal, 7(2) pp. 9-30. Mentoring teachers as researchers: 2 Implementing a small schoolwide programme Beril Yücel and Melis Akdoğan Gündoğdu Introduction TOBB University of Economics & Technology (TOBB ETU) is a private non-proit foundation university in Ankara and it was founded in 2003. he Department of Foreign Languages (DFL) is the preparatory school of the university. Unlike in other universities, there are three semesters, each of which consists of 13 weeks. Although TOBB ETU is a Turkish medium university, one of the aims of the DFL is to help the students of this university learn English to as high a standard as those in English medium universities. Students are placed in 3 levels – A, B and C (with C being the highest) – and the proiciency exam for English is the TOEFL ITP. C level students with a score above 65 are given a chance to take the TOEFL test. If they score 500 or more in this exam, they are not required to study in the preparatory class anymore and they can start their departmental courses. In the DFL, there had not been a consistent professional development system or Professional Development Unit (PDU) until 2015. Workshops, peer observations, and conferences had been held; however, they were not regular and there was a per- ceived need for a more systematic professional development pro- gramme. Besides this, as almost 80% of the academic staf in the DFL have a MA or PhD, it had proved diicult to decide on an appropriate kind of development programme to implement. In 2015, Beril Yücel started to work at TOBB ETU DFL and she set up a new PDU. Based on classroom observations of all the ac- ademic staf she identiied their needs, and on this basis and with due regard to the background of the staf, a new CPPD (Con- 29 30 Mentoring teachers as researchers: Implementing a small schoolwide programme tinuing Personal Professional Development) programme was de- signed. It started to be implemented in the 2015–2016 academic year. Melis Akdoğan Gündoğdu started to work in the PDU in 2016, joining Beril Yücel in implementing the new project. As part of this programme, instructors were asked to set a classroom related target for something they wanted to improve in their teaching. hen, they were given the choice of ive collab- orative CPPD activities, namely Team Teaching, Video Coach- ing, Special Interest Group Project, Article Club and Action Re- search Project, and they were asked to choose one of these to participate in. Action Research was therefore an important com- ponent of this programme but most of the instructors were not familiar with it, even though some had already experienced the steps of academic research. Others had never attempted any kind of research at all and this would be the irst experience for them. As it turned out, six instructors, whose experience levels ranged from 1.5 to 10 year, chose to take part in the collaborative Action Research project (see Table 1). Table 1: Names and areas of research in the Action Research Project Group Participant names Focus of research Ceren Karaca he Practice of Free Writing vs Guided Writ- Ceren Korkmaz ing Hüsna Yalçın he Efect of Implementing Diferent Learn- Şebnem ing Techniques on Comprehension and At- Güzelbayram titude Towards Reading Kübranur Toplar Increasing Motivation in Repeat Students Nurhan Tütüncü his paper aims to describe how this project was carried out, what the participants gained from this experience and to share some of the relections of the mentors about what they learnt and observed in terms of both beneits and challenges. It also focuses on what potential changes will be made to the future research Beril Yücel and Melis Akdoğan Gündoğdu 31 mentoring practice and how the sustainability of the project can be ensured. Mentoring background As noted above, the Action Research Project conducted as part of the professional development programme was run by two mentors, who were also the members of the PDU in the institution. he Unit Coordinator Beril Yücel and fellow PDU member Melis Akdoğan Gündoğdu worked together in the planning, implementation and evaluation stages of the project. Beril had previous experience in running such projects, while Melis was quite new to the idea. Beril had herself been involved in a small scale collaborative AR project when she was an instruc- tor at Bilkent University in 1995. She also took part as one of the lead mentors in a schoolwide collaborative Action Research Proj- ect conducted at Başkent University in 2001. he focus of this was to provide opportunities for teachers to work collaboratively on an area of concern they identiied in their classroom practice. In 2002, when she became the president of İNGED (ELEA- English Language Education Association-Turkey), she ran an- other AR project with English teachers from diferent parts of Turkey in collaboration with the other members of the İNGED Board and the British Council. All these projects helped her become an experienced mentor and enabled her to use the skills she had gained in diferent other projects. Melis worked in collaboration with Beril and helped her with all the preparations of the project. She also had the chance to observe and shadow Beril to develop herself more in the area of AR and with regard to the implementation of projects. She also developed her own AR project plan with the rest of the group. Both mentors took part in the TESOL CALL-IS Class- room-based Research Electronic Village Online 2016 online ex- perience (TESOL, 2016) to develop themselves more in the area and refresh their knowledge about AR. his EVO Project aimed 32 Mentoring teachers as researchers: Implementing a small schoolwide programme to help teachers with hands-on, research-based teacher develop- ment.   It ofered a number of sessions run by diferent teacher educators on diferent stages or forms of teacher research for teacher  development. Sessions focused on commencing teacher research, developing a plan, sustaining research and developing research autonomy. By attending these sessions themselves and by encouraging the other six instructors to take part in this online programme, the mentors tried to be role models to them. he mentoring process he new CPPD system started in the 2015–2016 academic year. As the academic year at TOBB University of Economics & Technology consists of three semesters, each semester was allocated to a diferent aspect of the programme: the fall semester to target setting, the spring semester to collaborative CPPD activities and the summer semester to individual CPPD Activities. In the fall term, instructors were asked to set a target for themselves focusing on one of the areas they wanted to improve in their teaching. he instructors were provided with feedback by the mentors, so they had a chance to revise and inalise their targets. In the second term of the academic year, the ive CPPD activities mentioned above were introduced to the instructors in a general meeting. he goals, the procedures and the outcomes of the activities were shared and the instructors were asked to choose one of the activities in relation to the targets they had set before. As stated above, six instructors were interested in the Ac- tion Research Project. Regular individual meetings and a total of three group meetings were held with these instructors to provide enough guidance for them during this process. Before the irst group meeting, these six instructors generated some questions and identiied their classroom-related problem by reviewing their current practice. In order to do this, they were given some tasks to think about or brainstorm what kind of challenges they had Beril Yücel and Melis Akdoğan Gündoğdu 33 to deal with in class, whether there were any activities or tasks that did not go as well as they had expected/planned, what top- ics they were interested in teaching and learning and what their students’ needs were. hey also had the chance to relect on these points while they were setting their targets at the beginning of the programme. At the end of this target setting process, they got feedback from us. Our irst role as mentors was to introduce Action Research with its rationale, steps, and examples. In the irst meeting par- ticipants were informed about how the AR Project would be conducted and the stages of planning, action, observation and relection, according to the AR model developed by Kemmis and McTaggart (1988). he fact that participants came with ques- tions regarding their classroom practice meant that they were able to formulate research questions relatively easily, working in pairs. Another role of the mentors was to provide the instructors with relevant sources of reading. Between the irst and the second group meetings, the instructors were provided with some sources about AR by the mentors and they were asked to plan their re- search schedule. hey made a weekly plan showing when they were planning to collect their data, the tools they were planning to use and how they would analyse the data. During this period, individual meetings were held with pairs and some feedback was given to them about their plan. Taking account of the feedback, they inalised their plans and prepared their research tools. In the second meeting, the instructors were ready with their AR plan and the tools they were planning to use. hey shared these with other pairs and received peer feedback. Between the second and the third meetings, they took steps to collect their data. his process did not take the same amount of time for each of the pairs, so the mentors went on with individual meetings with the pairs in order to follow their progress. hese individual meetings were beneicial as the pairs carried out their projects at their own pace. he pairs collected their data and started to anal- yse it. From time to time, they were guided by the mentors with 34 Mentoring teachers as researchers: Implementing a small schoolwide programme the help of sources presented in the Classroom-Based Research EVO 2016 online sessions. In the third and last group meeting, the projects were almost completed and most of the time was allocated for relection. he mentors had prepared some questions regarding the AR process and got feedback from the instructors about the process. he main role of the mentors had been to guide the instruc- tors and follow their process throughout the semester. As most of the instructors were new to the AR idea, they did need support at diferent points from the mentors, especially while planning their research and deciding on the data collection tools. Another useful aspect was encouragement. Participants felt disappointed from time to time because they thought they had not got the response from students they had expected at the end, or they thought they had not accomplished their goals. In this respect, it was really important that Melis was also developing an AR plan herself to- gether with the rest of the group during the process. It was a clear message to say that learning and teaching go hand in hand. Developing as researchers and research mentors he last meeting was allocated to oral feedback on the process and the instructors relected on what they had gained. his meeting was video-recorded. After the meeting, mentors watched the video, transcribed it and analysed the feedback instructors gave. Besides this feedback session, individual interviews were conducted with the instructors. he interviews helped us get further feedback about the instructors’ ideas. Both the oral feedback from the meeting and the interviews showed that the instructors were all positive about their AR project experiences although some steps had been quite challenging for them. Primarily, the instructors focused on the steps of their AR projects and stated that this experience had been beneicial as it made them become familiar with classroom research. One of the instructors said, “I developed myself in doing research.” Another Beril Yücel and Melis Akdoğan Gündoğdu 35 instructor said that the process had helped her design a teacher research study. he other instructors also commented on the fact that it was satisfying to carry out research in their classes and col- lect data from their own students. As Atay (2008) highlights “the research process, especially collecting their own data, seemed to have positive efects on teachers’ perspectives towards research”. Secondly, instructors felt more connected with their students (cf. Edwards and Burns, 2016) by means of this AR project, as it had impact on students’ learning and it was a meaningful, realistic practice. Working with the students in this project was the most enjoyable part for one of the instructors. However, it was not very easy in every class. Another instructor stated “the most diicult part of the project was to encourage my students.” Although there were some diferences in the attitudes of the students, all the in- structors accepted that the research process made it easier to have a connection with the students. One instructor mentioned that there was collaboration in her class during the semester because of this research experience. She said “he students helped me a lot and they were really happy to be a part of this experience.” hirdly, there was beneicial collaboration between the in- structors and the mentors, which provided collegiality and a sense of trust. here was continuous exchange of ideas and expe- riences and this increased awareness and relectivity. One of the instructors stated that the mentors “didn’t force us to do things. hey were really helpful and they guided the group well.” All the instructors said efective leadership and smooth running of this project led to many positive personal and professional gains. Finally, and most importantly, instructors felt empowered at the end of this project as their work was recognised by the insti- tution. hese instructors had the chance to present the results of their projects both at an in-house professional development event held in June 2016 and at the IATEFL Research SIG ‘Teachers Research! İstanbul 2016’ Conference at Bahçeşehir University. As Wyatt (2011) points out, teachers ind this kind of experience re- warding and highly motivating. Sharing their project with other 36 Mentoring teachers as researchers: Implementing a small schoolwide programme professionals deinitely helped the instructors gain self-assurance and a developed sense of professional identity. As for the mentors, they were also satisied with the process and it brought a wealth of experience to them. For the experi- enced mentor, Beril, it was an opportunity to share her previously gained experience with instructors who were new to the idea of AR. She had the fulilling opportunity to lead a young group of instructors to do AR again after a long period of time. It was a very beneicial experience for Melis as well since it provided her with the opportunity to relect deeply about how to lead an AR project and how to guide instructors during the pro- cess. She also observed some points that can be problematic such as how to help the instructors identify their focus of research or ind the most suitable ways of collecting data. In addition to men- toring other instructors, she had the chance to work and relect on her own Action Research plan. By doing so, she set a good example to other instructors. Looking to the future Despite the many above-mentioned advantages, obviously there are certain things to reconsider with regard to implementing such projects in the institution like ours. One of the challenges in the AR project at TOBB ETU DFL was to make the instructors see the diference between a more large-scale, academic type of research and Action Research since they were all pursuing MA and PhD studies in parallel. Some of the instructors had some diiculties during data collection and analysis as they were a little bit confused about what techniques to use. Two of the instructors who were working on “increasing student motivation in repeat groups”, for example, wanted to do a detailed statistical analysis and compare students’ test scores with those of other students at the same level in other classes. his, in fact, meant changing the aim of the research to a great extent. In this case, more guidance was needed and they were reminded to focus more on their own Beril Yücel and Melis Akdoğan Gündoğdu 37 observations and students’ relections. Based on this experience, in the future more regular individual and group meetings should be organised for the instructors to explain what is exactly expected in Action Research. Sustainability is another important factor to consider in our project. Since we received positive feedback from the instructors and thought that AR is quite a suitable CPD activity for our proile, we would like to go on organising AR projects as part of our programme. herefore, forming new AR groups and creating a mentoring system among the instructors might be another plan for the future. We believe this would be a good idea to provide sustainability and have long-term efects on instructors’ teaching skills. As Edwards and Burns (2016) suggest, “a balance of top- down institutional support and individual teacher motivation is essential in ensuring sustainability of the impact over time.” In future AR projects, this deinitely needs to be kept in mind. As another future plan, these six instructors are planning to write their reports and send them for consideration to the IATEFL Research SIG’s ELT Research publication or other journals as they believe that publishing is another useful way of sharing their research with other colleagues from diferent institutions. Some of these instructors are planning to continue with academic stud- ies and/or careers and they think that their work will be recog- nised, which will be another source of empowerment for them. Conclusion his project conducted at TOBB ETU Department of Foreign Languages provides evidence that involving instructors in Action Research can be very advantageous. Our advice for those who would like to implement schoolwide Action Research projects would be to have clear aims, engage in careful and meticulous planning, develop mutual trust and respect, attempt to ensure a balance of inner motivation and top-down institutional support, and be willing to take risks and provide efective leadership 38 Mentoring teachers as researchers: Implementing a small schoolwide programme References Atay, D. (2008). Teacher research for professional development. ELT Journal 62(2): 139-147. Census data revisited. (n.d.). Retrieved January 8, 2017, from EVO 2017 Classroom Based Research for Professional Development Website, http://evosessions.pbworks.com/w/ page/113569063/2017_Classroom-Based_Research_for_ Professional_Development Edwards, E., & Burns, A. (2016). Language teacher action research: achieving sustainability. ELT Journal 70(1): 6–15. Kemmis,S & McTaggart, R. (Eds.) (1988). he Action Research Planner. hird Edition. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press TESOL (2016). Classroom-based research for professional development EVO 2016. Online: http://evosessions.pbworks. com/w/page/103554923/2016_Classroom_Based_Research Wyatt, M. (2011). Teachers researching their own practice. ELT Journal 65 (4): 417–425. What I’ve learned as an action 3 research mentor: Some highlights Seden Eraldemir Tuyan Background his is a study of my learning experience as an action research mentor over the last two years. For twelve years in total, I have been responsible for conducting professional development activities in the School of Foreign Languages (YADYO) Staf Development Unit (SDU) at Çukurova University, ten of them between 1998 and 2008, both as a member and as coordinator until, sadly, SDU was almost closed because of the need for extra teaching staf and unavoidable workload. So, unfortunately, between 2008 and 2014, while existing in name, all that could be done by SDU for in-service development purposes were some workshops and/or seminars given by guest speakers. In sum, during those six ‘lost’ years, despite not being oicially assigned, both my mind and my heart longed for structured professional development activities that could help us keep growing continuously. So, at the time when my research mentoring story began, in 2014, I was still in that idealistic mood which consistently urged me to look for a magic touch of enthusiasm in my institution. In that year (2014) I attended the ‘Teacher-researchers in Action’ Conference, which was supported by IATEFL Research SIG and hosted by a private university in Izmir (see Dikilitaş, Smith & Trotman 2015). here, I met Kenan Dikilitaş, the main organizer of the conference and the coordinator of an emerging nationwide initiative. he initiative, which Kenan had begun to develop at his own school as a teacher trainer in 2010, was mainly about engaging teachers in relective practice 39 40 What I’ve learned as an action research mentor: Some highlights through doing action research. hanks to his devoted eforts, the idea was spread, rising successfully from in-house, small confer- ences to annual international ones oicially supported by the IATEFL Research SIG. At the 2014 Izmir conference, I had the opportunity to refresh my knowledge about doing action re- search and got highly inspired by Kenan’s suggestion to become a part of the initiative with our own team of YADYO instruc- tors, and to join the following year’s conference and present our own research studies. Feeling nurtured and fuelled by the special ambience and the embracing community of the conference, and, above all, by Kenan’s encouragement, the challenge felt manageable. By the following year, at the ‘Teachers Research! Izmir 2015’ confer- ence, we were a part of that unique community, with our own research team reporting on action research projects which I had mentored. I reported on that irst year’s overall experience in the book which came out of the conference (Eraldemir Tuyan, 2016), and several of the teachers also wrote up their studies (Balcı, 2016; Buğra, 2016; Kabadayı, 2016; Sucak, 2016). he project carried on into 2015–2016, and, as a consequence, I have now mentored two groups of teacher-researchers in these two years, and have developed as a research mentor myself through supporting their engagement in doing action research. In this chapter I aim to share some of the insights I have gained from this two-year process, for the beneit of others who might be interested in mentoring teacher-research. While do- ing this, I will focus mainly on the perceptions of the teachers in the second year, using the feedback I gathered from an evalu- ation survey I gave out at the end of the year. I will also make use of the relections I made in the second year regarding my self-questioning and insights gained, on the basis of notes in which I recorded my feelings, mentor roles, and the changes I was undergoing during the mentoring process. Seden Eraldemir Tuyan 41 he mentoring process Organising mentoring During the two years of my research mentoring experience, eigh- teen teacher-researchers overall have taken part in the action re- search program which I organised within SDU. In the irst year, eight, and, in the second year, ten participant teachers developed action research projects based on an aspect of their classroom practice, either individually or collaborating with a colleague on a common puzzle that needed to be addressed. heir research top- ics are listed in Table 1 to provide insight into the kinds of con- cern they focused on. Table 1: Teacher-research projects, 2014–2016 Teacher-researcher(s) Research topics 2014–15 Eda Kahyalar & Figen Teachers’ corrective feedback in writing Yılmaz classes Berna Balcı Using peer-assessment to enhance EFL learners’ perceptions of speaking Cemile Buğra Using creative writing activities as a trigger for active participation Beyza Kabadayı Baby steps to autonomous learner Esra Altunkol & Elçin Training EFL students on efective Petek study habits – a trivial or a futile at- tempt? Diser Ertekin he role of personal goal setting in learning 2015–16 Seden Eraldemir Tuyan he possible taste of students’ happiness & Esra Altunkol in EFL class recipes Cemile Buğra & Neslihan On the way to become more efective Gündoğdu listeners 42 What I’ve learned as an action research mentor: Some highlights Olga Kunt Brainstorming techniques as a tool to develop the adult students’ ideas into well-built paragraphs Kamile Kandıralı Using recasting & elicitation techniques to improve learners’ speaking perfor- mances during speaking activities Merve Sofu Efectiveness of cooperative learning on students’ attitudes towards listening Beyza Kabadayı Raising awareness on reading written instructions Pınar Torun Exploring the role of vocabulary portfo- lios in EFL Learners’ vocabulary learn- ing & retention Diser Sucak Using a course book for linguistics classes Tolunay Ekiz he efect of peripheral teaching on expressing the native culture in the tar- get language hroughout the two years, I kept ield notes about the experi- ences I was going through, and at the end of the second year I asked teachers to respond to an evaluation questionnaire. Below, on the basis of this feedback as well as my relective writing and insights gained from discussions with Kenan Dikilitaş and Mark Wyatt, who were themselves researching my ongoing experience (see Dikilitaş and Wyatt, 2017), I consider the roles I took up and the outcomes, before moving on to highlight some of the lessons learned. he roles I took on in supporting the teachers While Halai (1995) deines mentoring overall “as a nurturing pro- cess aimed at the personal and professional growth of the mentee” (cited in Halai 2006, p. 702), she also claims that “there appears to be a lack of consensus about what mentoring constitutes”. Ac- Seden Eraldemir Tuyan 43 cordingly, she suggests that the mentoring process can best be de- scribed in terms of the roles that mentors play (ibid.). In line with this, as well as with my own relections and participants’ feedback in my survey, I can see that I took on diferent roles during the mentoring process, which can be listed as follows: • Provider of psychological support As a teacher-research mentor, I was always there, caring, lis- tening, empathising, encouraging and motivating participants as a supporter during their often emotionally-charged process (cf. Malderez & Bodóczky). I tried to keep their motivational levels high by transmitting my own enthusiasm for what we were do- ing together and helping them feel the power of our community. Of course, there were times when I faced challenges. To give an example, despite my eforts in this area, two members of the 2016 group decided not to remain in the program, dropping out after four months of my mentoring. heir reasons were mainly related to heavy workload, diiculty and discontent in devoting time for structured implementation of their research in their classes, and family. Still, I didn’t feel discouraged and tried my best to help the continuing teacher mentees rest assured that they could overcome any challenge they faced during their action research process. here were satisfactory outcomes to this, as noted by some teachers in their relections (unchanged from the original English): T6: “In this study, the biggest motivation was you for me indeed. You are always there when I need help and this make me feel comfort- able and conident.” T2: “ You calmed us down when we thought there were lots to do and panicked.” T9: “I guess that being a research mentor is quite demanding be- cause you need to take the control of all the process. However, you have managed it through your endless energy and efort. You have moti- vated and encouraged the participants.” • Subject-specialist (Halai, 2006) In the way I view my mentoring experience, my subject-spe- 44 What I’ve learned as an action research mentor: Some highlights cialist role as a mentor entailed that I was expected to have – and I really felt responsible for having – “a sound knowledge and un- derstanding of the subject content”, as Halai (2006: 705) has sug- gested. hus, I read a lot about my mentees’ research topics and had one-to-one meetings to help them narrow down their re- search topics, formulate their research questions, decide on their data collection tools and ind appropriate ways to analyse their data. in this way, I was sharing practical knowledge (or pedagogi- cal content knowledge), not only of language learning and teach- ing but also of how to conduct research as well as how to manage a research project. As one of the teacher-researchers relected in the survey: T6: “ You were very active in shaping our research topics, even ti- tles, narrowing down if necessary but not changing anything.” I remember one of the teacher mentees experiencing diiculty in narrowing down her research topic and inding the right data collection tool that would serve the objectives of her research. She was about to give up after almost ive weeks of hard work when we inally found a way to keep the research going and her discontent about the scope of the study started to grow into posi- tive expectations. It makes me happy to know that her study will • Expert-coach (Halai, 2006): be published in this same book. While trying to build rapport among the teacher-researchers, I was also observing them and providing supportive feedback, elic- iting, scafolding, considering my knowledge of how and when to give advice, and serving as a model. When we could not meet monthly as a group due to our workload and teaching schedules, I arranged one-to-one meetings with them for advice and approval regarding the content and the conduct of studies. he following relections relate to my intended role as an expert–coach, as per- ceived by the teacher-researchers: T5: “Actually, I like the way you give corrective feedback because you do it without discouraging the participants. If you don’t like some- thing related to work, you try to ind a way to revise it together with Seden Eraldemir Tuyan 45 the participant. Another characteristics of yours that I appreciate is that you always create new ideas and show new ways to the partici- pants.” T4: “ Yes, we see that you are a part of your study, your group, your class. You always include yourself into what you have done. You never give up and you are fully motivated. All these qualiications of yours show that we should follow your strategies as a group member.” T6: “I really like you as a research mentor. Being friendly and help- ful makes you a great mentor. With your guidance and assistance, we • Acculturator (Malderez & Bodóczky, 1999): managed to do our research.” I was an acculturator in the sense that I tried to create a com- munity of critical friends focused on research for CPD, creating a research culture within the school and linking it to wider ones. he following relection by T8 shows how she perceives the dy- namics of being among a community of critical friends who aim to further their professional knowledge. T8: I think this group activates us as teachers. We are always try- ing to apply new things both in our classes and our teaching experi- ences. his group brings us together to share our ideas and thoughts about everything happened in this teaching experience.” In the following relection, T1 agrees with T8 while focusing more on the contribution of a critical friends’ group to reinement of one’s ideas by fostering concentration and creativity: T1: “I think you were quite good in answering my questions. But I must also say that the members of the group also made a lot of con- tributions with their ideas. It was always good to discuss as a whole group. Also, I believe besides hearing other people’s ideas to others makes a person quite focused and creative. At least it works well for me. I feel that I come up with a lot of ideas when I am articulating • Sponsor (Malderez & Bodóczky, 1999): my own ideas. I brought the participants to the Teachers Research! confer- ences, the irst year to İzmir and the second year to İstanbul, where they met a wider community of people who shared simi- the second year to İstanbul, where they met a wider community of people who shared similar interests; I also encouraged them to publish their reports that grew out of their action research presentations. The following quotation is from my mentor notes, revealing 46 my contentment about howlearned What I’ve I enjoyed as anmy sponsoring action researchrole whileSome mentor: supporting the teacher- highlights researchers’ personal and professional growth at the 2016 conference:   lar interests;     I also encouraged             them to publish    their   reports   that          grew out of their action research presentations. he following     quotation     is  from  my mentor    notes,  revealing     my  contentment           about   how I   enjoyed   my   sponsoring       role  while supporting     the         teacher-researchers’ personal and professional growth at the 2016     conference:              ş              “Words   cannot  tell  how I feel…   . his     is like  harvesting     the fruit     after spending a lot of time and efort for its growth and ripening.                   hey look very happy and keep thanking me for creating the opportu- nity to present their work at the conference. hey seem to beneit from Below is a photo whichthey the feedback represents our happiness have received as a group from Richard Smith,when KenanweDikilitaş, had the chance to continue our Mark discussions Wyatt andat lunch withpeople the other Richard whoSmith, a distinguished attended researcher the conference. And from the the people loved and appreciated their work. I really feel very proud of UK, and one of the organisers of the Teachers Research! Istanbul 2016 Conference, after what we have achieved.” some of the teacher-researchers Below is a photo which in my group completed represents their poster our happiness aspresentations. a group The when we had the chance to continue our discussions occasion has remained as an irreplaceable memory, besides adding to their self-efficacy as at lunch with Richard Smith, a distinguished researcher from the UK, and teacher-researchers. one of the organisers of the Teachers Research! Istanbul 2016 Conference, after some of the teacher-researchers in my group completed their poster presentations. he occasion has remained as an irreplaceable memory, besides adding to their self-eicacy as teacher-researchers. Seden Eraldemir Tuyan 47 • Learner (Halai, 2006): I grew as a consequence of my  Learner (Halai, 2006): I grew as a consequence of my mentoring interactions, that is, mentoring interactions, that is, I enhanced my knowledge I enhanced of my how knowledge teachers of how teachers learn, learn, reined myrefined skillsmyofskills of working working collab- oratively with teachers and read a lot to expand collaboratively with teachers and read a lot to expand my subject knowledge. In this my subject respect, knowledge. my own reflection In this at therespect, beginningmy own of our relection studies with theat the begin- second group is ning of our studies with the second group is worth citing worth citing here: here:   ‐                          “Some teacher-researchers are interested in researching in the areas   that  I have       never dealt   before.   his  feels  like a challenge       because       I need   more   knowledge    to  guide  them     in the   rightest   way possible. I should  • A critical friend (Halai, 2006): Like everyone in the devote time to read more…” A Critical Friend (Halai, 2006): Like everyone in the team, I was supportive to participants as aIfriend team, was but also in encouraging supportive them to have to participants as aacritical friend look at their but also practices. inEssentially, encouraging this wasthem to have on our perspective a critical professional look at their prac- development, as we conceived tices. Essentially, of ourselves thisFriend as a ‘Critical was our Group’ perspective (Kuh, 2006) (see on Tuyan, professional 2016). The development, as we conceived of ourselves as a ‘Critical following reflection provides some corroboration from a participant perspective Friend Group’ (Kuh, 2006) (see Eraldemir Tuyan, 2016). regarding this role of mine as a teacher-research mentor:  he following relection provides some corroboration from          a participant   perspective       regarding        this   role  of  mine      as a      teacher-research       mentor:                           “As I remember T6:   the whole period, you are not just a leader of this group but also a member of this, thus with your energy, high mo- tivation and guidance we feel more willing to do this action research.” C.U. YADYO ACTION RESEARCH GROUP- 2016 39  48 What I’ve learned as an action research mentor: Some highlights Developing as researchers and as a research mentor Developing as researchers All the researchers who gave written feedback at the end of the academic year 2015–16 reported having met their expectations • Feeling more productive and satisied while doing research for being a part of our research group, stating the following gains: (T1) • Gaining more awareness about the research topic (T1, T9) • Becoming more relective and creative in teaching through the process of research (T1) • Seeing students happy (T2) • Being able to change what doesn’t work (T3) • Sharing our ideas, experiences, feelings (T4) • Gaining new perspectives/broadening horizons (T4, T9) • Supporting each other in the process (T4) • Exchanging ideas about my research (T5, T8, T9) • Implementing new strategies (T6) • Experiencing new things with the students (T6) • Having fun by coming together as a group (T7) Developing as a research mentor In my two years’ experience as a research mentor, I have also de- veloped and had a lot of gains. My irst gain was in understanding my mentor roles better and improving related mentoring skills and knowledge, mainly in the areas of practical and pedagogical content knowledge relating to how to conduct research, elicit- ing, scafolding, and giving supportive feedback. Another gain has been in the area of increasing my self-eicacy beliefs regard- ing my research mentoring. hat is, after gaining satisfactory outcomes as a group like presenting successfully at the confer- Seden Eraldemir Tuyan 49 ences, being appreciated and praised for our work, and seeing our reports published (2015 group), I have started to feel more conident and resourceful during the mentoring process. Related to this, I strengthened my resilience and positivity towards the diiculties I have encountered during the research processes, and have therefore become a better model to my mentees. My irst year’s experience also helped me reconirm my insight regarding the need to ind various ways to keep common ground and continuous contact among group members. Indeed, one of the best insights I gained and reconirmed as a rule of thumb in my second year has been ‘empathising with the teacher-research- ers’. As I had done in the irst year, I kept on conducting my own classroom research in my own class to explore how it felt to be a team member regarding the possible challenges emerging during their research processes, while mentoring the participants at the same time (Eraldemir Tuyan, 2016). Doing this helped me a lot while organising my mentoring since it enabled me to take into account the time constraints of the teacher-researchers regarding their workloads, and to understand the diiculties they encounter in following the program. In this respect, to be more helpful, I tried to create extra opportunities and keep common ground via means like having telephone conversations, keeping in touch on WhatsApp via texting messages, and taking advantage of chats in the corridors, break times, cofee breaks and oice hours when coming together at scheduled weekly group meetings was impos- sible (see below). In this way, I did my best to keep the participant teachers motivated and involved in doing their research. Lastly, I have recognized my own importance as a mentor to the teacher-researchers, appreciating my own worth and value in line with the feedback I gathered. When the perspectives I gained on my own mentoring practice through the evaluation survey at the end of the second year were added to my personal relections as a mentor, my experience felt more meaningful to me. his was because, despite all the encouragement and sup- portive guidance I got from Kenan Dikilitaş, I had felt all alone 50 What I’ve learned as an action research mentor: Some highlights at some points. Especially in the second year, I experienced some disappointments like some of the participant teachers not coming to scheduled group meetings, even delaying or cancelling one-to- one meeting appointments, not meeting the deadlines, and so on. I never took these kinds of operational impediments personally or felt discouraged. I perceived that the participants needed con- tinual tolerance, encouragement and supportive guidance on my part. I attended to them with care and understanding, accepted their excuses, talked to them a little more, and met at another time to help them clear away their distractions and get rid of the various problems that blocked their way throughout their re- searching process. I tried to remain a good model in terms of my motivation, enthusiasm and belief regarding what we were all do- ing together, and I believe that my passion for what we were do- ing was so strong that it was passed on to the teacher-researchers. Looking at the challenges within such a perspective helped me keep my teacher-researchers on board as well as strengthening my own resilience, saving my patience and, most important of all, keeping me going. Some of the teacher-researcher relections re- vealed my success in having transmitted these intended messages as a teacher mentor, as follows: T9: “ You have always provided a great deal of help for the par- ticipants. he times I feel lost or puzzled about my action research, you always do your best to give a hand to me. You have always helped me about my personal problems. Although I had some questions about being a part of this AR group at the beginning of the project since I was quite busy, you encouraged and motivated me to join this group. During this AR project process, you have been quite kind and helpful. Whenever I ask for your help, you are there.” T5: “ Your positive energy and friendly attitude helped me carry on my research.” T3: “Deinitely you motivated me and guided me. If it weren’t for you, I would be demotivated and give up already” Seden Eraldemir Tuyan 51 Looking into the future I have aimed to develop my own qualities as a mentor as well as helping my teacher mentees develop in personal and profes- sional ways during the processes of my two-year action research mentoring experience. In this sense, we have developed together, relecting on our teaching practices with and for our students, and in my case also with and for my mentees. As my mentor- ing model was basically built on positive relations through which we could truly practice values like honesty and mutual trust, we could also succeed in becoming a community of people who value one another, and listen to and respect one another’s ideas, in both years. he feedback I received from the participants conirmed my sense of value as a mentor in keeping the group going and providing psychological support via encouragement, positive at- titude, and tolerance towards the challenges which emerged dur- ing the process. Additionally, my mentees have had satisfactory outcomes from their action research studies which made them feel enthusiastic about relecting on their practice and conducting research. hey have come to feel more productive and creative, have gained new perspectives, and have enjoyed their teaching. When our manager uploaded our posters to the school web page, we really felt proud to share our studies with other colleagues at YADYO. Hearing about the good works of our group, more teachers have become interested and started to ask about the ac- tion research program. his makes me feel very hopeful about its future. As I am fully aware that all kinds of development require consistent efort, I will continue attempting to strengthen my skills and improve my knowledge as a research mentor to meet future needs. References Balcı, B. (2016). Using peer-assessment to enhance EFL learners’ perceptions of speaking. In K. Dikilitaş, M. Wyatt, J. Hanks 52 What I’ve learned as an action research mentor: Some highlights & D. Bullock (Eds.), Teachers Engaging in Research (pp. 219- 229). Faversham: IATEFL. Buğra, C. (2016). Using creative writing activities as a trigger for active participation. In K. Dikilitaş, M. Wyatt, J. Hanks & D. Bullock (Eds.), Teachers Engaging in Research (pp. 117-124). Faversham: IATEFL. Dikilitaş, K., Smith, R. & Trotman, W. (eds.) (2015). Teacher- researchers in Action. Faversham: IATEFL. Dikilitaş, K. & Wyatt, M. (2017). Learning teacher-research- mentoring: stories from Turkey. Manuscript submitted for publication. Eraldemir Tuyan, E. S. (2016). A Journey of enquiry to improvement: he story of an enthusiastic action research team of EFL instructors. In K. Dikilitaş, M. Wyatt, J. Hanks & D. Bullock (Eds.), Teachers Engaging in Research (pp. 59- 68). Faversham: IATEFL. Halai, A. (2006). Mentoring in-service teachers: Issues of role diversity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22(6), 700-710. Kabadayı, B. (2016). Baby steps to be an autonomous learner. In K. Dikilitaş, M. Wyatt, J. Hanks & D. Bullock (Eds.), Teachers Engaging in Research (pp. 125-130). Faversham: IATEFL. Malderez, A., & Bodóczky, C. (1999). Mentor Courses: A Resource Book for Trainer-Trainers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sucak, D. (2016). he role of personal goal setting in learning. In K. Dikilitaş, M. Wyatt, J. Hanks & D. Bullock (Eds.), Teachers Engaging in Research (pp. 109-116). Faversham: IATEFL. Teacher-research in Turkey. IATEFL Research SIG website: http://resig.weebly.com/turkey.html [accessed 9 December 2016]. Involving undergraduate 4 students in research Sabriye Şener Mentoring background At present, I am working as a teacher trainer at the English Language Teaching Department (ELT), Faculty of Educa- tion of Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, Turkey. My teaching role includes irstly the preparation of undergraduate students for the teaching profession at the Faculty of Education. I also train graduate students as specialists, instructors for universities or as teachers. I deliver English language Teaching heories and Methods, and Research Methodology Courses for such students at the Institute of Educational Sciences. In the Research Meth- odology course, it is my responsibility to guide graduate students to perform research studies and present their studies at the end of the term. During this period, I have experienced that they had little or no research experience. Some of them were English teachers, working in diferent schools, with no or little research background. As a researcher, I believe in the importance of research ori- ented training programs, which may help to address the concerns of prospective teachers. I also believe that educators should adopt research in their classes because research serves to improve their practice, gives information about the teaching profession, and serves as modeling for future teachers to become researchers. Keeping all in my mind, and believing that the earlier the better, I decided to involve my undergraduate students in research stud- ies while receiving theoretical knowledge at the same time, and motivated and encouraged them to take an active role in research before they graduated from university. his could also give me a 53 54 Involving undergraduate students in research chance to explore their beliefs and perceptions regarding research and analyse their increased interests or diiculties they experi- enced during this process. his study presents the results of a descriptive and exploratory case study that investigated the development of undergraduates’ research experience through involvement in classroom research. It was conducted at a state university during the winter-term of the 2014-2015 academic year. 66 trainees participated in the study. hey had already taken the compulsory course Research Methodologies, which covered some basic concepts (phenomena, knowledge, absolute, right, wrong, universal knowledge), basic in- formation about the history and structure of scientiic research, scientiic methods and diferent views on these methods, prob- lems, research models, population and sampling, data collection and data collection methods. However, they had not yet done any practical classroom research. Although I had provided mentorship for graduate students during MA courses, this was the irst time for me to work with undergraduates. When I provided mentorship for these senior students, it was my responsibility to teach the contents of the ELT Methodology II Course, which aims to introduce theoreti- cal knowledge on classroom-based research, teacher directed re- search and action research, and on diagnosing learners’ language- related needs and remedial teaching activities. he mentoring process he development of the quality of training that students receive has been a special interest since I started to work as a teacher trainer at university in 1999. To me, this could be achieved by en- gaging students in research. As Wyatt (2016) stated, engaging in research could be motivating for them. It was also motivating for me. During the winter term when the present study was carried out, participants received help and guidance each week through- out the term in order to design individual research projects. his Sabriye Şener 55 gave the researcher a possibility to understand them better and provided a means for the collection of data (the written reports of the participants). To this end, the role of the researcher is insider participant, which can be a challenging role to undertake (Her- rmann, 1989). In my course, I noticed that participants had learned some con- cepts of qualitative and quantitative research and prepared some tasks on diferent topics but did not have any research experience. As Campbell (2013) advised, I believed that the research experi- ence that undergraduates would receive might support their ef- forts to understand the learning needs of their future students and help them make decisions that can have an efect on their professional lives. Bearing all this in mind, when the academic term started I implemented my plan. he training program start- ed on September 29th, 2014 and included the following steps. Phase I: Supplementing trainees with theoretical knowledge (5 weeks) Week 1: First, the contents of this course and general aims were introduced. he participants were reminded that they would be involved in a real research environment during this period. hen, in order to elicit their initial beliefs and understandings about research, they were given 4 open-ended questions and asked to answer them truthfully. When the written documents were examined, some of the participants’ responses suggested that they saw research as a way of collecting data about the topics, to become more knowledge- able. To quote them, Student (St) 13 said “Research is the way of collecting data in a proper way”; St 14 said “Research is well- organized to search topic”. According to St 17, “Research is to make preparations about the topics which we want to improve ourselves”. St. 18 described research as “a method including any gathering of data, information and facts for the advancement of knowledge”. Only a few students admitted that they had no idea 56 Involving undergraduate students in research about research. Most of them were able to remember aspects of dictionary deinitions of research without, however, highlighting beneits. Nevertheless, a few were able to list beneits of research for teachers, and associated research with professional development. St 21 said “I love my job and want to be successful. he way to go depends on research and improving ourselves” ; St. 20 thought that “It helps to develop myself ”; for St 30 “ Research is a state of mind, is a problem solving method and is making efort to make things better and have information about it. It means broaden your horizon, improve yourself in anything”; St. 47 thought “Re- search is investigating speciic information systematically. Class- room research is observing student behaviours in the classroom to help their improvement. his provides better circumstances for learning in class”. Week 2: he researcher assigned the students to read the in- troduction of Dikilitaş (2014) to understand the role of teacher/ classroom research on professional development and the phases of engagement in research were introduced (p.6). Week 3: In the following three weeks, theoretical knowledge on qualitative and quantitative research traditions were introduced by means of brainstorming, question and answer techniques and getting students’ views. Week 4: he deinitions of research, elements of research, teach- er research, and classroom research and action research (Table 1, below) were introduced. Nunan and Bailey’s (2009) views on the role of empirical research to help teachers, ‘General characteris- tics of teacher research’ described by Dikilitaş (2014: p. 10), and ‘Why we need more practitioner research’ by Campbell (2013) were discussed as a group activity. Sabriye Şener 57 Table I. he descriptions of research Described by Deinition Research Brown and “Research is an exploration of experience of Rodgers, 2002, one kind or another, sometimes formal and p. 3 technical, but not necessarily so”. Dörnyei, “Research means trying to ind answers to 2007, p. 15. questions, an activity everyone one of us does all the time to learn more about the world around us”; “Research is disciplined inquiry”. Class- Allwright, “Classroom research concentrates on the in- room 1983, cited in puts to the classroom such as the syllabus, the research Nunan and teaching materials, or the outputs from the Bailey, 2009, classroom (learner achievement scores), and p. 16 it does not devalue the importance of such inputs and outputs”. Class- Nunan and “Classroom action research is unique in that room Bailey, 2009 it is conducted by classroom practitioners, action who investigate some aspect of their own research practice. In other words, it is carried out by those who can change and improve what goes on in the classroom”. Practi- Cochran- “Practitioner research is a hypernym or a tioner Smith and blanket term that encompasses many difer- research Lytle (2009) ent traditions, movements, and methodolo- gies and includes teacher research, practitio- ner inquiry, problem-based inquiry, action research and action learning” (as cited in Ellis, 2016). Teacher Celce-Murcia, “Teacher research is research conducted by research 2001. classroom teachers, and it is connected with the concept of teacher development and em- powerment”. “Teacher research is a systematic inquiry, conducted by teachers, into some aspect of Borg, 2013 their own context, with the aim of improv- ing both understanding and practice.” 58 Involving undergraduate students in research Week 5: Data collection issues, data collection methods, ethical issues, and developing a research design were the main focus of the week. Weeks 6-9: Phase II: Reading and examining diferent research studies: In order to help trainees become familiar with the structure of a research report, general principles of report writing were irstly introduced, and how and what should be described in each part of a research report were discussed. To facilitate understanding, questions such as those below were asked about each part: 1) Is the title informative? 2) Does the abstract cover the aims, setting and participants, methods, analysis and indings? 3) Are the con- cepts and theoretical issues discussed relevant to your research? 4) Is the research design clearly described? 5) Does it include the main outcomes? 6) Are works correctly cited by the researcher? After introducing the parts of a research report, the research study ‘Learning through observation: Changing beliefs and prac- tices’ (Aksel, 2014) was examined as a whole class activity with the guidance of the questions given above. he researcher asked them to focus on the abstract, which gives brief information about the article. hey almost had no idea about what should be included in this part of a research article. In the following weeks some of the articles, such as “Teacher learning for observational study” (Fenik and Savaş, 2014) and ‘Using critical thinking in grammar lessons’ (Günbay and Aydemir, 2014), were assigned as tasks and evaluated as group work as an out-class activity. At the end of the course each week, participants received guidance and feedback about their research topics, instruments they wanted to use, and sample articles. hey were asked to locate other articles themselves but found this diicult, so they were suggested to read articles written by their trainers irst. hey were delighted to read these, published in diferent journals. hen they were reminded to read more widely, consulting articles published by diferent universities, and some professional journals. Some internet sources were also introduced. Sabriye Şener 59 While they were examining these, they were reminded that they should think about their research topics and ind relevant articles, and they were also asked to arrange their research teams in order to work together. Week 10: Phase III. Organizing groups: During this week, groups and topics they wanted to inves- tigate in the next four weeks were inalized. Group formation seemed based on friendship and familiarity. Weeks 11-14: Phase IV. Doing research: Every week, the trainees in two diferent classes met the re- searcher, and received guidance about writing research questions, developing research instruments, validity and reliability issues, literature review, data collection, data analysis, and report prepa- ration. Firstly, they learned that they needed to get permission from the authorities to collect data. During this stage, they were regularly sharing their drafts with me through e-mail messages, and the biggest problem I noticed was plagiarism. hey had no or very little idea about paraphrasing and how to cite. hey were instructed on some important rules (how to cite sources in text and in references, how to use integral vs non-integral reporting, and some common verbs to present citations). During class hours, the trainer organized groups from the members of two diferent teams and asked them to share their literature review texts with their peers and receive feedback about their citations in order to increase awareness. However, when their papers were examined, there were a lot of examples of im- proper citations and plagiarism. Weeks 15-16: Phase V. Presenting research studies: In the inal phase, each team was required to present their re- search studies orally within 15 minutes in front of the class. hey were all excited but very proud of themselves in this inal step. Research topics the undergraduates investigated are; • Examining occupational burnout levels of academicians and teachers 60 Involving undergraduate students in research • English teacher learning through observational study • Motivation levels of non-major English students • he perceptions of teachers and students on use of L1 in foreign language classes • Language speaking anxiety of English preparatory class students in oral communication classes • Turkish ELT students’ willingness to communicate • Motivational problems of young learners • Speaking problems in EFL classrooms • he perceptions of prep students in ELT classes regarding cooperative learning • Discovering vocabulary learning strategies of ELT stu- dents at a state university • Communication strategy use of Turkish students • he efect of learning styles on students’ success Pictures of a group of teacher trainees • Teacher competency and efectiveness of instructors. Picture of a group of teacher trainees During the presentations, most of the trainees were able to present their inal reports successfully because they had experi- Sabriye Şener 61 enced such presentations in their methodology courses during micro-teaching activities previously. When I examined the writ- ten reports they presented, I mostly appreciated their eforts and layouts. Especially, the trainees who asked for more tutorials and required feedback from me presented better written reports. However, some of them did not seem to resolve their problems related with quoting sources and analysing data. In conclusion, this experience provided evidence that incorporating research into their education program seemed to be beneicial. Developing as researchers and research mentors After completing their research studies, in the inal session they were asked to write how they felt about the research process. Un- dergraduate students’ feelings were mostly positive. hey pointed out that involvement in research was really very important for their personal and professional development. hey also stated that it helped to develop their reading and writing skills, and increased their self-conidence. Beneits of research highlighted by participants include helping them to get feedback to improve (St3), providing a clear focus and supporting lesson preparation (St16), beneitting from doing research for academic studies (St20), helping them become more open-minded, conident, and afecting their professional development (St5). However, some of them also expressed that it was a stressful and demanding work (St9), and required spending a lot of ef- fort and time (St12), and some favoured the view that research is done only for academic purposes (St28). his inding might be due to their concerns about receiving low scores. In Atay’s (2008) study in-service teachers too expressed their problems related with their research experience. Most of the participant teachers in her research expressed that research was a demanding task and some others posited that data analyses seemed to be the most troublesome area. 62 Involving undergraduate students in research Looking to the future In this study, I aimed at involving undergraduates in research, and developing their cognitions and learning while doing. En- gaging undergraduate students in research activities gave me some opportunities for relecting on my research practices with them. he participants have described various beneits of their en- gaging in real research contexts. Firstly, analysis of relective writing suggests that the students’ perceptions regarding doing research had changed in a positive way. hey mostly expressed that doing research has a good efect on both their personal and professional development. Secondly, they seemed to learn how to develop research instruments, to collect data, to write a research report, and how to relect on this experience. It also seemed that they gained increased conidence and motivation about research. hirdly, as a trainer, I was highly motivated by providing my students with a motive for doing research (and subsequently helping one of them to present her study at an in- ternational conference). Additionally, my research practice gave inspiration to my colleagues in the department, and increased their awareness. However, when I relected on my experience regarding pro- viding mentorship for my undergraduate students, I noticed that it was a challenging work to carry out alone. My next step should be starting or founding a research team at our depart- ment to work collaboratively in order to support our under- graduates to become more powerful and more conident to do research for their professional development. I believe that my colleagues in the research team will serve as a sounding board and support undergraduates to ind out answers to the ques- tions in their minds by means of providing mentorship to do research in real classrooms. he students will receive feedback, guidance, and support. he biggest challenge for the trainees was inadequate time to collect data from schools. his inding Sabriye Şener 63 could be related to the structure of the course. If the relevant theoretical knowledge was delivered not as a block but gradu- ally, starting from the beginning of the period, their practical experience could commence earlier, giving them more time for data collection. It was also a problem for them to handle data analysis, which is very normal at this stage. It is suggested that some extra courses which aim at developing research experience should be included in the teacher training programs of educa- tion faculties. In conclusion, I hope that this research study will give in- spiration to my friends, and encourage them to take part in a similar activity. I am entirely convinced that undergraduates should be engaged in such activities, which can increase their self-conidence, experience and motivation. References Aksel, Z. (2014). Learning through observation: Changing beliefs and practices. In K. Dikilitaş, (Ed.). Professional development through teacher research (pp.17-26). İzmir: Gediz University. Atay, D. (2008). Teacher research for professional development. ELT Journal, 62 (2), 139-147. Borg, S. (2013). Teacher Research in Language Teaching: A Vritical Analyses. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, J. D., and Rodgers, T. S. (2002). Doing second language research. Oxford: OUP. Campbell, K. H. (2013). Why we need more practitioner research. Democracy & Education, 21, 2, 1-8. Celce-Murcia, M. (2001). Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. USA: Heinle and Heinle Dikilitaş, K. (2014). Professional Development through Teacher Research (Ed.). İzmir: Gediz University. Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. Spain: Oxford. 64 Involving undergraduate students in research Ellis, N., & Loughland, T. (2016). he Challenges of Practitioner Research: A Comparative Study of Singapore and NSW. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 41(2). Fenik, S., and Savaş, S. (2014). Teacher learning for observational study. In K. Dikilitaş, (Ed.). Professional development through teacher research (pp.219-232). İzmir: Gediz University. Günbay, E. B., and Aydemir, G. (2014). Using critical thinking in grammar lessons. In K. Dikilitaş, (Ed.). Professional development through teacher research (pp.55-66). İzmir: Gediz University. Herrmann, A. W. (1989). he participant observer as insider: Researching your own classroom. Paper presented at Annual Meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, Seattle, WA. Nunan, D., and Bailey, K. M. (2009). Exploring Second Language Classroom Research: A Comprehensive Guide. Canada: Heinle Cengage Learning. Wyatt, M. (2016). Engaging language teachers in research. Achieving psychological and educational beneits. In K. Dikilitaş, M. Wyatt, J. Hanks, & D. Bullock. (Eds.), Teachers Engaging in Research: (pp. 3-18). Kent: IATEFL. Action research as a professional 5 development tool for pre-service English language teachers Hatime Çiftçi, Enisa Mede and Derin Atay Mentoring background Mentoring has been traditionally associated with workplace-re- lated or school-based support, e.g. with regard English language teachers’ initial professional decision making or learning. Men- tors have been deined by the Centre for Use of Research and Evidence in Education (CUREE) and elsewhere (Hobson & Malderez, 2013; Malderez, 2009) as experienced colleagues or teachers with necessary knowledge of their roles. he mentoring process is elucidated by Roberts (2000) as one where “a more knowledgeable and experienced person actuates a supportive role of overseeing and encouraging relection and learning with an- other less experienced and knowledgeable person so as to facili- tate that person’s career and personal development” (p. 162). Likewise, we, as academics training pre-service English lan- guage teachers (PTs henceforth) in a relevant undergraduate program, align with the very same goal of providing professional development support for our preservice students. his is in the Department of ELT at Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul, Tur- key. Additionally, positioning ourselves as research mentors by integrating an action research (AR henceforth) project into their school experience, we assume the role of partners in the develop- ment of our PTs’ self-awareness and relective practice. his is in a relatively recently redesigned program. Indeed, even though we, all three authors, have been mentoring PTs with regard to the formation of their knowledge base for many years, we are reporting on something new here. Guiding PTs in conducting AR and designing the practicum course accordingly represents 65 66 Action research as a professional development tool for pre-service English language teachers our irst attempt to link research and practice in our undergradu- ate program. hat being said, we employed this AR project with 9 third- year ELT students taking a school experience course in Spring 2016. In the context of Turkey, initial teacher education has been provided at undergraduate level through ELT programs for many years. Like many preservice ELT methodology or practicum courses, the overarching goals of the course were to better facili- tate these PTs’ school experience, which would take place for two days per week throughout the semester. We wanted to help them engage in observations, micro-teaching, mentor-mentee meet- ings, peer observations, and relections, and critically relect on their own teaching experiences. In alignment with these objec- tives, we, as colleagues at the same department and research men- tors in this study, re-designed the course according to the stages of AR in Burns’ (2010) Doing Action Research in English Language Teaching, and our PTs were asked to implement AR on a topic they selected through our guidance and support. Mentoring process As a part of university policy, the Faculty of Educational Sciences at Bahçeşehir University has been leading a larger scale project involving university-school partnership for the last few years. Un- like traditional practices of starting the practicum only in the last year of ELT undergraduate programs, our students start observ- ing real classrooms and teachers much earlier (e.g. in their second year) as required by this university-school partnership project. Since it is a very recent project still in its evolving stage, facul- ty members in each department come together to evaluate the program-wide processes and practices implemented at the end of each academic year so that we could reine and revise the integra- tion of this university-school partnership project into our meth- odology and practicum courses for better outcomes. Indeed, our AR project with PTs originated from such an evaluative perspec- Hatime Çiftçi, Enisa Mede and Derin Atay 67 tive. We were looking to guide our PTs towards more informed and focused observations and microteaching goals and activities. Also, believing in the value of involving our PTs in a self-relec- tive, critical, and transformative process through conducting AR (Burns, 2009, 2010; Nunan & Bailey, 2009; Richards & Farrell, 2005), we decided to design a course such as this. As a part of our mentoring process, we assumed diferent roles in contributing to the implementation of AR by our PTs. he irst author, Hatime Çiftçi, was the primary research mentor un- dertaking a central role in the AR project by ofering the course and working closely with the PTs throughout the semester. he second and third authors, Enisa Mede and Derin Atay, provid- ed their supervision at the initial stages of planning the course, synchronizing the goals of such a school experience course and program mission, and making broader decisions for course ma- terials. In setting up the AR project and mentoring process, we had short meetings to discuss how to integrate the AR project by allowing our PTs to both understand what AR is and be able to mindfully practice each stage throughout the semester. In that sense, Hatime, as the course instructor, designed the course syl- labus and divided the 14 instructional weeks in the semester into the chunks of understanding, planning, acting, observing, and relecting stages of conducting an AR cycle. hat is, conducting AR was the sole and primary requirement for our PTs taking the school experience course. However, even though it was a course requirement, most of our PTs evidently displayed motivation and willingness to participate in this AR project since they believed in the role of more purposeful school experience relying on their previous classroom observations as a part of the larger project of university-school partnership. Developing as researchers and researcher mentors he development of our PTs in this AR project was actually monitored by Hatime, as the course instructor, from the begin- 68 Action research as a professional development tool for pre-service English language teachers ning of the spring semester in 2016. herefore, we present the development of PTs as researchers and her own development as the primary research mentor from her introspective perspective in this AR project as follows: (Hatime’s introspective account of becoming a research mentor and her PTs as researchers) In order to monitor and gain insights into the entire process of PTs’ AR experience, I utilized focus group pre- and post- interviews, 4 diary entries by each PT; and conducted observa- tions of their microteaching lessons as well as post-observation conferences. I audio-recorded all our interviews and post-ob- servation conferences, and took notes during the observations of microteaching sessions. All this process of collecting and sorting out the data enabled me to document and follow up each stage as well as make revisions in the syllabus or imple- mentation when needed. In our irst in-class meeting, I conducted a 15-minute fo- cus group pre-interview with 9 participants to elicit what they know and think about AR, and/or if they had any such experi- ence (e.g. conducting AR). It was mutually important to see not only their overall knowledge but also perceptions of PTs at the outset of the semester because it would be a big challenge for me as a research mentor to work with a group of reluctant PTs. As a back-up to the pre-interview, the PTs also wrote their irst diary entries right before the AR project. In fact, my analysis of focus group pre-interviews and the irst diary demonstrated that PTs had only basic knowledge of AR. In other words, most of them roughly knew what AR is but they did not have actual experience of conducting AR. Yet, interestingly, they all had a positive attitude toward conducting AR as prospective language teachers. he following excerpts from diaries and the pre-inter- view exemplify their overall positive attitude of AR: I think action research will be really helpful for us to teach in a better way. By doing action research, we can Hatime Çiftçi, Enisa Mede and Derin Atay 69 realize our problems or deiciencies ... (Diary 1, on Feb- ruary 18, 2016) I think action research is not only beneicial but also it is fun to do. Learning about the way you teach, criticizing yourself as if it is someone else... (Diary 1, on February 18, 2016) I think it would be very useful to do AR on the class to igure out why these students are all acting out. (Pre- interview, on February 18, 2016) In the second and third weeks of the course and study, I intro- duced what AR is and its main stages to PTs in the class. Relying on the pre-research data, I found this initial stage crucial since it was necessary to provide a basic knowledge base and ensure that the stages of AR were clear. However, rather than receive tra- ditional knowledge transmission about AR, the PTs read about the case situations in Burns (2010) to understand AR. his was followed by discussions to reine their understanding. It needs to be highlighted that the reason PTs had to read the assigned readings involving such AR cases and some additional sources subsequently was because we felt it was tremendously crucial “to challenge and develop their thinking as a basis for creating knowledge” (Fletcher, 2012, p.68). Presupposing that reading the content before our in-class meetings would constitute a potential challenge for PTs, I employed short quizzes at the beginning of each class, which also served as a basis for our collaborative dis- cussions. hen, in weeks 4 and 5, the PTs started to plan their AR with the help of several activities. Since they were doing class- room observations, they brought their ield notes into class, and also shared what they remembered from previous coursework as well as their talks with cooperating teachers. Additionally, three 70 Action research as a professional development tool for pre-service English language teachers PTs brought their video-recorded mini teaching demos in actu- al classes for feedback purposes, and this collaborative feedback session was the most inluential and vivid tool for PTs to prob- lematize an aspect in their teaching. his planning stage took 2 weeks, and some areas they problematized during this stage in- cluded classroom management, improving language skills, dif- ferentiated reading instruction, and variety or more interactivity in teaching English. Upon focusing on a more speciic area, they started to develop some literature review on their potential areas to be improved, which was a bit of a demanding step for them as stated by one of the PTs in her diary entry (While planning my AR, I had to do a lot of theoretical and practice-based reading. Diary 4, on May 5, 2016). Meanwhile, I assumed the role of a facilita- tor in class discussions and collaborative feedback sessions and a guide for reaching out to some relevant literature. Otherwise, the choice of focusing a speciic instructional aspect to improve was made completely by the PTs themselves, and I believe that it was the most motivating way for them to conduct AR. Starting from week 6, the PTs worked on how to prepare their AR plan and put it into action throughout the following 4 weeks. Depending on my observations as the research mentor and their second diary entries, I would argue that this stage was quite challenging as well as rewarding for PTs in their process of not only conducting AR but also of becoming more self- aware and self-eicacious as teacher candidates. Even though each PT was able to prepare a full lesson plan with an action plan, almost all of them struggled with designing materials and activities speciically for improving the aspect of their practice they problematized. However, after getting feedback on their lesson plans and materials both from cooperating teachers and me, PTs’ readiness for implementing their AR plans in the class- es they had been observing from the beginning of the semester was obvious. In that sense, considering our experiences at this stage, I would argue for an intertwined nature of conducting AR by simultaneously involving challenges and achievement for Hatime Çiftçi, Enisa Mede and Derin Atay 71 both PTs and myself. As for PTs, they were improving their AR research skills and meanwhile facing the demanding aspect of preparing for an actual class as real teachers do. In a similar vein, as a research mentor, I was dealing with giving one-to- one feedback on their lesson plans to help them maximize the efectiveness of their action plans. While doing so, I utilized indirect questions, such as “Do you think…?” or “How would you do this instead?” to promote a more self-regulated process of planning their AR rather than directly saying what to do. Meanwhile, two of the PTs started to show their reluctance to implement their plans since they believed that they would not be able to solve the problem identiied by themselves in one class. However, I kept explaining to them the ultimate goal of conducting AR in their school experience course is to enable them to gain critical and relective skills and perspectives for ongoing professional development. At the end of week 9, every PT completed the implemen- tation of their action plans, and I conducted post-observation conferences with each PT immediately after their microteach- ing lessons (except for a few cases due to my schedule) not only to share my observation notes but also understand their own perceptions of implementing their AR plan. Looking at our post-observation conferences and diary entries, I was able to identify 3 major gains out of PTs’ implementation of their AR: long-term awareness, teaching as a problem-solving process, and increased self-eicacy beliefs. In diary entry 4, for instance, one of the PTs instantiated gaining a long-term awareness as, “I mean actually I decided that I need to make what I did in my AR a general philosophy in my professional life.” (Diary 4, on May 5, 2016). Similarly, another PT stated, “I will use such research to develop myself in my professional teaching life.” (Diary 3, on April 21, 2016). Again, as for developing a sense of teaching as a problem-solving process, one of the PTs explicated her expe- rience as “hanks to our observations and micro-teaching, we real- ized various problems that we experience now and later.” (Diary 72 Action research as a professional development tool for pre-service English language teachers 4, on May 5, 2016). his idea has also been supported in our post-interview as well: “I think it was diferent from our regular lesson plans. We were like identifying a problem and then preparing a lesson plan to solve that problem. It wasn’t like that before.” (Post-interview, on May 12, 2016) Finally, another rewarding aspect of conducting the AR proj- ect with PTs turned out to be the development of increased self- eicacy beliefs as expressed by PTs while relecting on their own learning process. One student said, “I developed several strategies for young learners when compared to last year, and this year I feel more knowledgeable.” (Diary 4, on May 5, 2016). However, when considering the process of conducting the AR project, most of the PTs also felt frustrated after their mi- cro-teaching lessons. As the research mentor, I was also able to witness such instances of frustration in our post-observation conferences. Most of them did not hesitate to voice their feel- ings after implementing their AR plans, and two explicit state- ments include “I am totally frustrated now because I was so pre- pared for this micro-teaching and I lost control over the kids at some point.” (Post-observation conferences, on April 15, 2016) and “I think I should do this AR again because something went really wrong when compared to my previous micro-teaching experiences.” (Post-observation conferences, on April 18, 2016). During weeks 10 and 11, the PTs conducted a basic analy- sis of what data they had gathered to see if they could identify any improvement or not after implementing their AR plans. hese data sources varied but they included mainly informal interviews with their students, comparison with a regular class, completed in-class activities in their AR plans, and video-re- cordings. Finally, PTs in this study relected on their AR expe- rience through post-observation conferences and focus group post-interviews during the last 2 weeks of the semester. hey Hatime Çiftçi, Enisa Mede and Derin Atay 73 also wrote their inal diary entries to express their beliefs and ideas on the whole process of learning to implement AR. Once the AR project was completed, they inally submitted a brief AR report to the course instructor as well. Looking to the future As delineated in this chapter, our project with PTs demon- strates that conducting AR could play a mediating factor in PTs’ knowledge and critical awareness construction of L2 pedagogy. Looking at their active involvement in the stages of conducting AR, the PTs in this study had the opportunity to co-construct their own understanding of L2 teaching, and thus realize their personal theories of L2 teaching practice as articulated in the previous sections, and also this agreeably resonates with the role of personal practical knowledge (Golombek, 2009) in L2 teach- er education by allowing them to make meaning out of their own problem-solving and real teaching experience. However, mutually experiencing the process as research mentors in this AR project, we ind it crucial to critically relect on our experi- ence as well. In that sense, several aspects to be considered, or possibly to be changed, for similar future implementations are in order. First of all, it was a great challenge to help PTs acquire mul- tiple skills at the same time, such as introducing the bits and pieces of conducting AR, reining PTs’ understanding of crucial steps and resources as well as enabling them to utilize these resources eiciently, providing constructive feedback and moni- toring the whole process, and more. As Fletcher (2012) points out, being a research mentor requires many skills but most im- portantly “research mentor pedagogical content knowledge” and “research skills pedagogical content knowledge” (p.71). In that sense, simultaneously developing knowledge of teacher research and necessary research skills and aptitudes on the part of PTs could be integrated into and practiced through a longer period 74 Action research as a professional development tool for pre-service English language teachers of time. Even though we spent the entire semester on this pro- cess, developing as a research mentor in this study also indicates the substantial role of some core components. As Wyatt and Dikilitaş (2015) present, these core components involve devel- oping complex skills, practical knowledge in various research aspects, and positive self-eicacy beliefs of conducting research. Additionally, we would possibly turn such an implementation into a group project by allowing out PTs to do it collaboratively for larger groups of PTs. Since we had 9 PTs taking the course, it was relatively manageable in our case but individual work for conducting AR for larger groups does not seem to be practical and doable for research mentors at all. Finally, afective aspects of taking the role of a research mentor should also be considered seriously throughout the process. Becoming a research mentor in this project has eventually resulted in developing a much deeper sense of sensitivity and support in such processes because it was the irst time our PTs were involved in conducting AR. References Burns, A. (2009). Action research in second language teacher education. In A. Burns, & J. C. Richards (Eds.), he Cambridge Guide to Second Language Teacher Education, pp.289-297. New York: CUP. Burns, A. (2010). Doing Action Research in English Language Teaching. New York: Taylor & Francis. Fletcher, S. (2012). Research mentoring teachers in intercultural education contexts: Self-study. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, 1(1), 66 – 79. Golombek, P. (2009). Personal practical knowledge in L2 teacher education. In A. Burns, & J. C. Richards (Eds.), he Cambridge Guide to Second Language Teacher Education, pp.155-162. New York: CUP. Hobson, A., & Malderez, A. (2013). Judgementoring and other threats to realizing the potential of school-based mentoring Hatime Çiftçi, Enisa Mede and Derin Atay 75 in teacher education. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, 2 (2), 89-108. Malderez, A. (2009). Mentoring. In A. Burns & J. C. Richards (Eds.), he Cambridge Guide to Second Language Teacher Education, pp. 259-268. New York: CUP. Nunan, D., & Bailey, K. M. (2009). Exploring Second Language Classroom Research: A Comprehensive Guide. Heinle: Boston. Richards, J. C., & Farrell, T. S. C. (2005). Professional Development for Language Teachers: Strategies for Teacher Learning. Cambridge: CUP. Roberts, A. (2000). Mentoring revisited: a phenomenological reading of the literature. Mentoring & Tutoring, 8(2), 145-70. Wyatt, M., & Dikilitaş, K. (2015). English language teachers becoming more eicacious through research engagement at their Turkish university. Educational Action Research, 24(4), 550-570. Teacher identity formation in 6 teacher education Hatice Çelebi and Naiye Çiğdem Aktekin Introduction In the context of New Times (Gee, 2000; Luke & Elkins, 1998), teachers are seen to have luid identities and be able to negotiate their positions in the workforce as “shape-shifters” (Gee, 2004; Hallman, 2015). he term New Times is characterized by the social, economic and technological changes in the current era. In the New Times, job security is reliant upon one’s shape-shifting portfolio: “the skills, achievements, and previous experiences that a person owns and that he or she can arrange and rearrange to sell him or herself for new opportunities in changed times” (Gee, 2004, p.97). his chapter considers student teacher identity formation dur- ing the practicum experience. Given student teachers’ conlicting perspectives on practicums (Kosnick & Beck, 2003; Kroll, 2004; Taskin, 2006; Glenn, 2006; Laker, Laker & Lea, 2008), and the need to meet the demands of the New Times, it is essential that teacher education programs provide alternative opportunities for student teachers to “‘try on’ diferent teacherly selves” (Hallman, 2015, p.284). his study illustrates how this opportunity is at- tained through partnership between the university and school and through a structured research project assigned to 22 irst- year ELT student teachers. Background to the study A recurring theme in the ield of teacher education is the notion of the ‘teacher-self/teacherly-self ’ along with several concepts 77 78 Teacher identity formation in teacher education that cluster around it–self–image, identity, individuality, self- identity, and teacher roles. he role of the teacher has changed signiicantly in recent years along with the status of teaching as a profession (Graham & Phelps, 2003); therefore, demands and ex- pectations the community places on teachers and schools have led teacher education departments to ofer courses in combination with internship opportunities. According to Tobin (1995), new teachers must compose teacherly identities through invention, performance, integration, revision, and trial-and-error. In order to make purposeful decisions about speciic, concrete issues, gradu- ate students must irst recognize, develop, and invent themselves as teachers (Tobin, 1995, p.71). Hall (2000) characterizes iden- tity as something “not already ‘there’; rather, it is a production, emergent, in process. It is situational – it shifts from context to context” (p.xi). he implication is that teacher identity is shaped by the conditions and through the opportunities supplied by the situational conditions which are always in a state of lux. ‘New Times’ is a term used to characterize the changing so- cial, economic, and technological conditions of the current era (Luke & Elkins, 1998). he identities of future teachers in New Times are shaped according to these conditions, where teacher roles are becoming increasingly diversiied and expectations of the community are getting higher. Teachers at work often verbal- ize the diiculties of dealing with the changing environment and expectations (Guðjónsdóttir, 2000). Darling-Hammond (2005) summarized this situation as follows: Around the world, the importance of education to individual and societal success has increased at a breath-taking pace as a new knowledge-based econ- omy has emerged. As a consequence, most countries have been engaged in intensive reforms of their ed- ucation systems, and many have focused especially on improving teacher education, recognizing that preparing accomplished teachers who can efectively teach a wide array of learners to high standards is es- Hatice Çelebi and Naiye Çiğdem Aktekin 79 sential to economic and political survival (Darling- Hammond, 2005, p. 237). Still, there are many teachers who continue in the profession and feel motivated for various reasons, such as making a difer- ence in students’ lives (Gose, 2007; Brunetti, 2001; Stanford, 2001). In relation to how to train student teachers to move to- wards the needs of the New Times, we believe practices such as assisting student teachers to step into teacherly roles, and to be- come metacognitively aware of these roles, improve teacher qual- ity, as they increase a sense of professionalism in student teachers. Based on their analysis of the literature, Guðjónsdóttir and Karvelsdóttir (2013, pp.77-78) summarize the features that char- acterize teaching professionalism under four headings: 1) prac- tical professionalism 2) relective professionalism 3) responsive professionalism 4) shared professionalism. he irst two are es- sential in the theoretical frame that we envision for our study. Practical professionalism can be deined as the personal practical knowledge that teachers develop, use and share with other educa- tors (Clandinin, Connelly & Craig, 1995; Cochran-Smith & Ly- tle, 1993; Hargreaves & Goodson, 1996). Relective professional- ism is a concept that takes thoughtful and informed professional relection as the basis of improved professional practice, judg- ment and decision-making (Beck & Kosnik, 2000; Loughran & Northield, 1998; Hargreaves & Goodson, 1996; Schön, 1983). We transfer these two characterizations to our student teacher training, by which we mean the undergraduate training of the students at our education faculty who are studying to become teachers. hey are pre-service teacher candidates, not yet fully qualiied to teach. We maintain that undergraduate training years should be utilized to form practical and relective professionalism as early as possible. In order to practise varied teacher roles and develop their teacher identities, it is essential for student teachers to experience the environments in which they will work. However, this experi- ence is not what is generally ofered in teacher preparation pro- 80 Teacher identity formation in teacher education grammes. Often, the environment where student teachers gain knowledge of the teaching profession during their undergraduate years is at the university. However, the environment where they will learn how to be teachers is the school where they will to perform their profession. hese two dimensions, the knowledge base and the practical pedagogical base feed each other. here- fore, quality teacher education requires building a bridge from the university to the school. his is why university-school partner- ships play a crucial role in assisting teachers to contemplate how their content knowledge merges with what and who they imagine themselves to be as a teacher (Hallman, 2015). his chapter demonstrates how such opportunities were planned as part of a research study and presents the indings. Research methodology In relation to our main aim, which was to provide opportunities to construct practical and relective professionalism in student teachers through university-school partnership, we developed the following questions: 1) What personal practical knowledge do the student teach- ers develop, use and share with other peers? 2) What improved professional practice, judgment and deci- sion-making are narrated by the student teachers? he participants were 22 student teachers in their irst year of a four-year program. he student teachers were therefore quite new to the discourse of teaching and the teaching profession it- self. To unite the university and school environments we designed a collaborative partnership scheme with a high school where our students’ teaching focus could be channelled. Since they would not be practising teaching in actual classrooms, but would be ex- periencing what involvement in teaching might mean through the diferent stages of the study, we adopted the term “teacherly roles” rather than “teacher roles” with the students. We wanted to imply that the study created a hypothetical environment for them to relect on. Hatice Çelebi and Naiye Çiğdem Aktekin 81 Our irst step was to plan a cyclic study frame to purpose- fully facilitate practical and relective professionalism. In Cycle 1, student teachers were familiarised with four key terms: lan- guage learning strategies, inventory formulation, teacher roles, and relection. After reading articles on language learning strate- gies on diferent skills such as listening speaking, or independent learning (Hurd & Lewis, 2008), they met ive times for one hour with their classmates and a teaching assistant who chaired the discussions. In these meetings, the student teachers discussed the content, asked questions about points that were not clear, ofered their opinions related to the information, and considered how they could transfer the ideas into practice. During the discus- sions, they collaborated with other student teachers, took roles as a leader or a negotiator, formulated questions, and learned to adapt the way they expressed questions in collaboration with oth- ers. Based on their discussions, in every session, they developed inventory items for a questionnaire on learning strategies to be piloted with the high school students. In Cycle 2, student teachers transferred the inventory items to an online environment for the partner school students to respond to the questionnaire. While they did this, they revisited the litera- ture on language learning strategies and developing inventories. hey paid visits to the partner school to gain more insight about the student proile for which they were preparing the inventory. In Cycle 3, the student teachers interpreted the data they had collected from partner school students and wrote a report with indings and suggestions for the partner school administration. hroughout these cycles, the student teachers relected continu- ally on the teacherly roles they felt they were adopting. he data collection tool used by us as the researchers was re- lective journals and the data were interpreted qualitatively. Each student teacher submitted eight journal entries, where they re- lected on the teacherly roles they felt they were experiencing. In total the data comprised 166 journal entries consisting of 18.956 words. We analysed all the relections collected from the students 82 Teacher identity formation in teacher education independently. First, the relections were scanned for an initial analysis and commonalities in themes were noted to form a draft of general headings such as identity, development and so on. his step was repeated for a second time, so that similar opinions gen- erated by the students could be categorized under relevant head- ings and new ones added to the list if necessary. Each researcher carried out a crosscheck of what was produced and the inal ver- sion of the emerging categories was created. Findings and discussion he indings of the study are elaborated in the subsections below. Forming teacher identity Many relective comments around the idea of ‘the kind of person a teacher is’ emerged from the relections of the student teach- ers. In the irst two examples below the participants’ expression of their feeling of belonging to a community signals their sense of beginning to close a psychological and durational distance be- tween being student teachers and becoming teachers. It is really important part of being a teacher to grade exams or assignments. We felt like a real teacher. Everything I have observed from my teachers are more familiar. his development of a teacherly identity is also observed in the use of the irst-person (we and us) as in these examples: I think it is a good experience to us. When we will be a teacher, we can use all of these strategies. I think learning about these strategies will be useful for us in future and to develop our creativity to come Hatice Çelebi and Naiye Çiğdem Aktekin 83 up with new strategies. hinking of students’ abili- ties and teaching according to their tendency will help us, and knowing what activities we can use is a very signiicant facility for us. Other relective comments further mirrored the student teachers’ inner talk, particularly about their feelings of needing to be more in control and having the power to overcome challenges Teaching is hard; I have years to decide. After the irst week of studies, discussion sessions it was a little bit easier for me to get acquainted with the process of this project. I was more eager to ind out features of the articles and acquire some knowl- edge from them. One of the diicult issues revealed by inner talk was the chal- lenge of time management. We have only one hour to do this work, so I have limited time. I tried to manage the time for listen everything and take notes. hat makes me a time manager. However, there were also comments emphasizing student teachers’ motivation to improve, a feeling of empowerment through being more independent to learn subject matter and to learn pedagogical aspects of teaching more collaboratively. From the moment I start interacting with others, I see that every one of us is being guided, consulted but I realize that I don’t need to be in a job to do that. Sometimes, I am a role model, a mom, a friend, a leader, a life coach etc.…. I feel like I mean some- thing that change or lead. Meeting their needs is what all people need. It is good to be able to do that. 84 Teacher identity formation in teacher education Team works and brainstorming help a teacher to ind the essential things of the topic. Knowing oneself as a learner and developing a foreign language teacher knowledge base he developmental course of a professional teacher identity is not easy to understand. When students enter a teacher education pro- gram, they are likely to have pre-formed beliefs of what it means to be a teacher based on their own previous educational experiences. As Lortie (1975) suggested, students acquire generalized notions of what ‘good’ and ‘bad’ teaching is based on how particular kinds of teaching have afected them. His phrase “the apprenticeship of observation” has been used to suggest that teachers teach the way they were taught. However, this initial sense of what it means to be a teacher is likely to undergo considerable development as student teachers progress through their coursework and teaching practice, and start to develop a professional identity (Beijaard et al., 2004). During this study, student teachers frequently relected on their subject-matter knowledge and evaluated themselves as learners. he practices student teachers were provided with (for example, reading articles on language learning strategies) during this university-school partnership encouraged them to evaluate their competencies in terms of subject matter: Listening skill is hard for me; I need to improve be- fore being a teacher. Understanding articles are hard for me. As I said, those were more interesting because the subjects were something what catch my attention as because I am a L2 learner too. I skimmed the two articles and highlighted some key points of the articles to take down them as notes on my papers. For instance, I saw that there are many L2 learners Hatice Çelebi and Naiye Çiğdem Aktekin 85 who create their own schedule while working on, improving their L2 skills. his the way I also follow. he readings and discussions also helped them to relect on their own learning processes: We need to apply these on ourselves before our stu- dents. he diiculty of the articles is because of my lack of English. I learned a lot of things and I will apply them in the future. But the diferent thing that I will do is increasing the visual items like videos, short ilms, gestures, images etc. instead of just standing and speaking. I used dictionary to understand the articles and be- came more conident in understanding articles. I learn a lot from my friends while discussing in class. Setting target domains for future professional development While discussing their teacherly roles, student teachers used vari- ous similes, metaphors and analogies. Some of their relections related to their perceptions about ideal teacher roles they wished to achieve: I felt like an investigator who searches how students learn. Teachers should be facilitators, counsellors, re- searchers (useful but I felt nervous) patient, punc- tual, and a leader. 86 Teacher identity formation in teacher education While doing something with students, teachers have to cope with many responsibilities. he teach- ers must be in complete charge of the class. He or she must observe what they are doing on the course of the action. If it is necessary, he or she must inter- fere and enable them to ind out the right way to do it. Teachers need to be the organizer. he success of many activities is dependent on orga- nization and instructions from teachers to students. Briely, teachers also need to be a coach in a way. A teacher also needs to encourage her or his students while working on something. Others indicated the domains they wanted to work on for their future professional development: Reading the articles hard and uncomfortable. I need to internalize, digest, diiculties with adaptation. he most desperate part was, however, was writing the inventory items. I tend to form long, elaborate sentences…but I am required to form basic, under- standable sentences. hey have to be kept at a cer- tain length and they have to be at an intermediate level, and I just can’t get to do that. And since the audience is teenagers, writing long sentences is like a sin. I need to change my style in my sentences, I am aware of that. Relections he indings of our study suggest that, while the student teach- ers experienced a sense of teachers’ diferent roles over time, they began to adopt new perspectives on their teacherly selves and Hatice Çelebi and Naiye Çiğdem Aktekin 87 form feelings of familiarity towards their future teaching pro- fession. his study ofers an example of some initial steps that can be taken towards encouraging the teacher identity forma- tion of English language teaching students in their irst year of pre-service education. hrough such an initiative, as early as their irst year in their program, pre-service teachers can explore the essential elements of professional identity, deined as “the princi- ples, intentions, characteristics and experiences by which an indi- vidual deines him or herself in a professional role” (McSweeney, 2012, p. 367), which are acquired through acting in various role over a period of time.. Being able to accommodate various selves and feel more familiar with the teaching competencies required empowers student teachers and may bridge the durational and psychological gap student teachers experience until they become qualiied practising teachers. Preparing teachers to consider their roles in the context of New Times, to develop the luid identities needed to negotiate their positions in the workforce as “shape- shifters” (Hallman, 2015), and to teach considerately, involves creating opportunities for relective practice for beginning teach- ers as early as possible. References Beck, C. & Kosnik, C. (2000). Associate teachers in pre-service education: Clarifying and enhancing their role. Journal of Education for Teaching, 26(3), 207-224. Beijaard, D., Meijer, P. C., & Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers’ professional identity.  Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(2), 107-128. Brunetti, G. J. (2001). Why do they teach? A study of job satisfaction among long-term high school teachers. Teacher Education Quarterly, 28(3), 49-74. Clandinin, D. J., Connelly, F. M., & Craig, C. (1995). Teachers’ Professional Knowledge Landscapes  (Vol. 15). New York: Teachers College Press. 88 Teacher identity formation in teacher education Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (Eds.). (1993). Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge. New York: Teachers College Press. Darling-Hammond, L. (2005). Teaching as a profession: Lessons in teacher preparation and professional development.  Phi Delta Kappa, 87(3), 237. Gee, J. P. (2000). Identity as an Analytic Lens for Research in Education. Review of Research in Education, 25, 99-125. Gee, J. P. (2004). Situated Language and Learning: A Critique of Traditional Schooling. London: Routledge. Glenn, W. J. (2006). Model versus mentor: Deining the necessary qualities of the efective cooperating teacher. Teacher Education Quarterly, 33(1), 85-95. Gose, B. (2007). he professoriate is increasingly diverse, but that didn’t happen by accident.  Chronicle of Higher Education, 54(5), B1. Graham, A., & Phelps, R. (2003). Being a teacher: Developing teacher identity and enhancing practice through metacognitive and relective learning processes. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 27(2), 11-24. Gudjónsdóttir, H. (2000). Responsive professional practice: Teachers analyze the theoretical and ethical dimensions of their work in diverse classrooms. Unpublished Ph.D. hesis, University of Oregon, Eugene. Guðjónsdóttir, H. & Karvelsdóttir, S. (2013). Teachers’ Voices: Learning from professional lives. In M. A. Flores et. al. (Eds.), Back to the Future: Legacies, Continuities and Changes in Educational Policy, Practice and Research, (pp.75-89). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Hallman, H. L. (2015). Teacher as ‘Shape-shifter’: Exploring the Intersection of New Times and the Teaching of English Language Arts. Changing English, 22(3), 282-293. Hall, S. (2000). Foreword.” In Elusive Culture: Schooling, Race, and Identity in Global Times, edited by D. A. Yon, ix–xii. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Hargreaves, A., & Goodson, Hatice Çelebi and Naiye Çiğdem Aktekin 89 I. (1996). Teachers’ professional lives: Aspirations and actualities. Teachers’ Professional Lives, 27(1). Hurd, S., & Lewis, T. (Eds.). (2008). Language Learning Strategies in Independent Settings  (Vol. 33). Bristol: Multilingual matters. Kosnik, C., & Beck, C. (2003). he internship component of a teacher education program: Opportunities for learning. he Teacher Educator, 39(1), 18-34. Kroll, L. R. (2004). Constructing constructivism: how student‐ teachers construct ideas of development, knowledge, learning, and teaching. Teachers and Teaching, 10(2), 199-221. Laker, A., Laker, J. C., & Lea, S. (2008). Sources of support for pre‐service teachers during school experience. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 16(2), 125-140. Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher: A Sociological Study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Loughran, J., & Northield, J. (1998). A framework for the development of self-study practice.  Reconceptualizing teaching practice: Self-study in teacher education (pp.7-18). London: Falmer Press. Luke, A., & Elkins, J. (1998). Reinventing literacy in new times. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 42, 4–9. McSweeney, F. (2012). Student, practitioner, or both? Separation and integration of identities in professional social care education. Social Work Education, 31(3), 364-382. Schön, D.A. (1983). he relective Practitioner: How Professionals hink in Action. New York: Basic Books. Stanford, B. H. (2001). Relections of resilient, persevering urban teachers. Teacher Education Quarterly, 28(3), 75-87. Taşkın, C. S. (2006). Student teachers in the classroom: their perceptions of teaching practice. Educational Studies, 32(4), 387-398. Tobin, J. (1995). he irony of self-expression. American Journal of Education, 103(3), 233-258. Raising awareness in reading 7 written instructions Beyza Kabadayı Main focus “Why is learning to listen easy but learning to read hard?” ask Schallert, Klelman and Rubin (1977), focusing on the phenome- non that students’ listening ability develops instinctively whereas to be able to read, they need formal instruction. During my re- search process, this question has been on my mind and I have been able to adapt it to my ongoing problem in class, as I explain. Following oral and written instruction was a problematic area which needed immediate solution for it afected my students’ academic success. Concerning oral instructions, a few precautions which improved the quality of my instructions seemed to help the problem. However, in order to overcome their tendency to skip reading written instructions, I needed a more elaborated and systematic plan since this habit or tendency might have been rooted in their previous academic background and experiences. herefore, I drew their attention to potential beneits of reading written instructions and I prepared a 4-step-rescue plan, which I will be discussing in methodology. Background I believe that classrooms are important places we can use to ex- pose students to target language. Creating an atmosphere where students are provided with opportunities to use L2 has been one of my priorities and underpins my general teaching philosophy. Researchers have also revealed the correlation between target language use and student success (Moeller & Roberts, 2013). 91 92 Raising awareness in reading written instructions However, I couldn’t help but realize that for the sake of expos- ing them to the target language, I was keeping my talking time relatively longer than students’, which, as Harmer (2001) states, was not to the students’ advantage. Increased talking time, if it is not comprehensible (Krashen, 1985), may lead to confusion and unnecessary complexity in the classroom discourse. Students’ ten- dency to switch to L1 while preparing for a task could be consid- ered as one of the indicators they need to use L1 to comprehend the task. If oral instructions are to avoid unnecessary complexity and not result in comprehension problems, planning is the irst step, as Scrivener (2005) asserts. hus, I planned my lessons accord- ingly. I used shorter sentences and sequenced my instructions in a clear and direct way. With comparatively longer instructions, I preferred to write them on the board to keep the students inter- ested. In time, I observed that they were asking fewer clariica- tion questions. However, regarding the written instructions, the conjuncture was diferent. Although students faced a seemingly much easier task, which only included reading and following written language, they seemed to have similar problems. More of- ten than not, they needed L1 translation of the task, or sometimes they completely ignored reading the instructions and started do- ing the activities. I felt the urge to check the written instructions irst to iden- tify if there were any ambiguities in the instructions. Worksheets which were used as in-class activities involved standard wordings and the types of the activities were not vastly diferent from each other. Nevertheless, the students insisted on asking me to explain what they were supposed to do the second they were given a task, even though it was a follow-up activity which they were familiar with and the instructions were rather clear. In order to get a deeper insight, I referred to the testing de- partment of our school. heir experiences were not any diferent from mine. Not reading written instructions was a common but unstated problem among our students. hen, I asked anxiously Beyza Kabadayı 93 about what type of activities students mostly missed because of not reading the instructions thoroughly. he person in the test- ing department I spoke to said there were problems with three • Complete the activities with no more than two words. (Listen- speciic types of activities. ing) • Complete sentences below using the words in the box. Use each word once. (Vocabulary) • Match the letters (titles) with the paragraphs. Use each letter once. (Reading) As an assessment policy, when students did not follow the instructions properly in the given activity, their answers were au- tomatically considered wrong. It became a major issue in my classes as based on my observa- tions, not only their academic success sufered from this, seeking for a mother tongue translation or completely ignoring the in- structions also started to afect my classroom low, so that I found myself teaching less efectively. he classes were becoming more teacher-oriented, which was not consistent with my ideals. he students were counting on the idea that I was going to explain what they were supposed to do; therefore, most of them didn’t even bother to read. It was a co- nundrum for me because I have always considered prep schools as a transitional period for many students. I believe that prep schools are the place where they start to take responsibility for their learning and behaviour. It is the time when they break out of their shell and develop autonomy. As an instructor, I also have a manager role (Roberts, 1998), which requires me to plan and organize my lessons accordingly. If I refused to give further explanations, I would put them at risk of failure. However, the more I helped with the instructions the less autonomous they were becoming. I needed to ind some practi- cal solutions to encourage them to read the written instructions, which ultimately would increase their autonomy. 94 Raising awareness in reading written instructions Research focus Setting he research started at the beginning of the second term. My students were having evening classes and they had 24 hours of lessons a week. he system in our school required three diferent teachers to share the responsibility of the same class, so students were taking classes from three diferent teachers. We had only 8 hours of lessons together each week. Participants his research was conducted with 20 male and 2 female interme- diate level engineering students in Çukurova University, School of Foreign Languages. his demographic information is of great importance as it reveals some signiicant background information to understand the reasons behind this phenomenon. Data collection analysis procedure I preferred a direct interaction with students in a group setting and developed a qualitative approach to collect my data. Group discussions were my primary data collection tool. Field notes and observation was also used to strengthen the procedure. I analysed the qualitative data by coding the students’ responses and deined the emerging categories with a colleague of mine who has exper- tise in coding data. We negotiated over some themes and created a inal matrix. Findings and discussion he starting point of this research was to explore the reasons underlying the students’ tendency to skip written instructions. However, if it is going to be considered a problem, both sides should agree on the existence of the problem. Apparently, in my Beyza Kabadayı 95 case, my students were not aware that they were not reading the instructions when they were supposed to do so. To begin with, I implemented an awareness-raising activity to draw their atten- tion to this problem. hen, periodically, based on the most prob- lematic areas, I gave them tasks to work on. Week 1 As it is mentioned before, it is 4-week-plan. he irst week was allocated to highlight the issue and deine the problem from the perspective of students. I prepared a reading activity and at the end of the paper, in relatively smaller font size, I put a note that said: Now that you have read all the directions and have read the entire test, you only need to write your name at the top and do not answer any questions, give your test to the teacher and do not tell anybody the secret of this test. Take out a novel to read or your homework and work quietly. Do not make a noise or tell anyone. Good Work! In the group discussion part after the activity, some important themes occurred concerning their reasons of not reading the in- structions irst. Table 1:Reported causes of not reading instructions – week 1 hemes Comments Lack of • he text was long and I didn’t want to lose time read- Time ing the instructions. • here were unknown words in the text, I focused on those words, and I panicked. • I was going to inish the task and leave so I didn’t read the whole text 96 Raising awareness in reading written instructions Overconi- • It was an easy activity, I’m familiar with these kinds dence of activities. • I thought we were just supposed to read and answer the questions; I didn’t need to read the instructions. • It was a basic true / false activity and I knew the rou- tine. • I didn’t read the instructions because I’m good at read- ing and it seemed an easy activity. Lack of • I don’t like reading activities, so I wanted to inish it reading quickly. habit • I don’t like reading something. If you had warned us orally, I would have listened. • I don’t even like reading novels or news, it is boring for me. • I don’t read any instructions; I look at the activities and start doing them. For the irst and the last theme, we can understand their rea- sons by considering their academic background. As I have stated before, they are engineering students and they have spent a great amount of time solving math problems in limited time. hey ex- pressed that they did not have to read most of the questions as they consisted of geometrical igures and formulas. Week 3 As a follow up activity, I decided to address one of the problem- atic areas which were discussed before. It was a listening activity and the instructions were as below: Direction: “Listen to the audio and write one word only for each blank. Lack of time was one of the most common reasons which they claimed to prevent them from reading the instructions. To mini- mize these complaints, I allocated more than enough time to go over the text before and after. Beyza Kabadayı 97 Before the activity, a few students asked the routine question and expected me to make further explanations on the task. I re- sisted the temptation to explain the instruction in L1 and re- minded them to read the instructions carefully. Despite the clear and short instruction, the number of stu- dents who used more than one word was remarkable. Almost half of the students didn’t follow the instructions carefully. In follow- ing group discussion, they stated why they ignored reading the instructions. he reasons sounded like those that emerged in the irst week. Table 2: Reported reasons for not reading the instructions – Week 3 • he activity seemed clear; we were going to complete the blanks. I thought I didn’t need to read the instructions. • I thought using two words was not going to be a problem. • I was going over the sentences so I didn’t think of checking the instructions carefully. • I was not listening to you when you warned us about the instruc- tions. I was reading the questions. • I read but I didn’t understand the instruction. he reasons were varied. I believe it is essential to add a note here that one of the students who read and clearly understood the instruction wanted to conirm with me asking if they were going to use only one word. I was both confused and enlightened at the same time. It took me some time to comprehend this be- haviour. hen, I came to the conclusion that we live in a commu- nity in which listening to an authority igure is sacred. his starts at home listening and obeying your parents, followed by school years where you listen and obey your teachers and this prevails in other parts of society such as politics, and religion. Students have not been encouraged adequately to think for themselves or ask questions. hey show great respect to the authorities and fol- low their words. hus, listening to a person or following an oral 98 Raising awareness in reading written instructions instruction has always been easier compared to reading. hen, in the absence of an oral directive, they get confused as they may think, if it was as important as they think, the authority igure would make the necessary explanation even though it is explained in writing clearly. Week 5 he activity I designed in the ifth week of the plan was awareness raising. Compared to the activity implemented in the irst week, this activity stressed the importance of proper instructions. It was a pair work activity which required students to write instructions for the given tasks. here was a wide range of tasks necessitating diferent instructions for each. After the completion of the task, the feedback session started. hey were supposed to give feedback on each other’s instructions. he feedback session revealed important changes in the percep- tion of students. hey were able to make some constructive com- ments: Table 3: Students’ feedback on each other’s instructions – week 5 • How am I going to complete this activity? Do I have to use the correct tense or just the verbs as they are? • How am I supposed to ill the blanks? Which words am I going to use? (It was a listening activity) • his is a listening activity. Why didn’t you write, “Listen to the audio irst” • Do I have to change these words? (It was a word formation activity.) • Am I going to write the answers or just talk about this? (It was a reading activity) • here are more letters than numbers. Do I have to use each one only once? (It was a matching activity) • his instruction is too long. You should make it shorter and clearer. (It was a word formation activity) Beyza Kabadayı 99 As usual, we conducted a group discussion after the feedback session. heir comments on the activity were positive and prom- ising. I wondered how they had been making use of these activi- ties since the beginning of the term. A few students shared how these sessions had helped them in the quiz, stating that until they read the instructions, they misunderstood the task. One of them suggested that we should do these kinds of activities at the very beginning of the irst term, adding only then could they make a habit of it and derive greater beneit from it. Week 7 As the last step of the plan, I switched back to a more traditional vocabulary activity in which they were supposed to use the words only once. My focus on these types of activities results from my consultation with the testing department. As was mentioned before, these kinds of activities are the most problematic ones. he reaction they showed when they checked the instruction was priceless. hey took a minute to read it before they started the task and they warned each other to use only one word for the gaps. It became evident that the students went through a learning- to-read instruction process. he summary of the changes in stu- dents’ perceptions towards instructions is tabulated below: Table 4: Changing perceptions Process Developing perceptions Week 1 Lack of awareness and habit of reading instructi ons Week 3 Continuance of neglect Week 5 Trying reading instructions Week 7 Developing awareness and understanding 100 Raising awareness in reading written instructions Relections and looking into future One of the things I learned was, as one of the students stated above, that I should have started it earlier. I should have addressed the issue at the beginning of the term and throughout the semes- ter by following a more systematic approach. One of the main reasons why I wanted to do this research was to help my students gain autonomy. I believe that by refusing to explain the written instructions orally, I could have given them responsibility for their own learning. It may seem a small step but I believe it is essential. Moreover, I realized that teaching to read the instructions takes time and efort. It is a skill that can and must be taught explicitly. I had to be patient to break the habit and I had to be consistent in my behaviour. I think of developing diferent ways of draw- ing students’ attention to the instructions and monitor how stu- dents perform better when they do so. I also believe engagement in helping students understand what they are going to perform plays a critical role in their learning process too. hrough this study, I developed my own understanding of an issue I neglected without being aware of it. he next step is going to be designing diferent activities that would help students read and understand • Find out whether the written instructions are comprehen- the instructions better. I think I can do the following: sible enough • Read and revise before sharing with students • Monitor if instructions are clearly explained and under- stood • Develop diferent ways of providing instructions • Avoid using complex language • Allow students time to read and understand instructions. References Harmer, J. (2001). he Practice of English Language Teaching. Essex, England: Longman. Beyza Kabadayı 101 Krashen, S. D. (1985). he Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. London: Longman Robert, J. (1998). Language Teacher Education. London/New York: Arnold. Schallert, D.L., Klelman, G. M., & Rubin, A.D. (1977). Analyses of diferences between written and oral language. (No. 29) Retrieved from https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/ handle/2142/17970/ctrstreadtechrepv01977i00029_opt. pdf ?sequence=1 Scrivener, J. (2005). Learning Teaching: A Guidebook for English Language Teachers. (2nd ed.). Oxford: Macmillan A small practice with teacher- 8 prepared videos to reinforce already studied vocabulary Hüsnü Gümüş & Demet Yaylı Main focus As an English instructor, I (the irst author of this manuscript) have always wanted to ind a way in which I can teach vocabulary without making it seem like I am forcing new words into the memories of my students. I believe that the key to ‘real-life-like’ vocabulary acquisition means learning it naturally. So, two ques- tions which have challenged me are: What is this situation like in my case? Do I teach vocabulary in a natural way? In order to ind the answers, I decided to investigate my practice. As Burns (2010) indicates, doing research in the classroom helps teachers close a gap between what they see happening in their classes and what they would like to see. Considering what I really want to see in my class, I have realized that I should not limit my instruction to ill-in-the-blank worksheets, matching, and vocabulary quiz- zes prepared in a traditional way. Instead, I have always believed in making use of social media, technology, and authentic vid- eos for vocabulary instruction. herefore, when my advisor, (the second author) asked me to carry out a small study as a course requirement in the MA program on English language teaching in which I was enrolled, I was eager to focus on vocabulary teach- ing enhanced with videos, as one of my central points of interest. Background In recent years, authentic videos have been more frequently emphasized as valuable tools to improve word recognition and vocabulary acquisition skills, together with other skills in the 103 104 A small practice with teacher-prepared videos to reinforce already studied vocabulary English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom (King, 2002; Stempleski, 1992, 2002; Stempleski & Tomalin, 1990). Videos allow teachers to introduce any aspect of real life situations into the language learning environment, which helps learners contex- tualize their learning in a meaningful way (Sherman, 2003). Es- pecially when enriched with complementary tasks, they can serve diferent teaching goals. When students engage with a video task, for instance, the visual element of videos enables low proicient learners who often cannot get help from contextual cues to re- trieve lexical information more easily (Al-Seghayer, 2001). he visual element can likewise help high proicient learners to be conscious of new and unfamiliar vocabulary items that might be otherwise simply lost to them without the support of visual aids (Al-Seghayer, 2001). Canning-Wilson (2000) proposes also that images contextualized in video can facilitate the reinforcement of language learning. he visual dimension makes recall of the vo- cabulary easier because such recalling is enhanced with gestures and contextual features (Talavan, 2007). Stempleski and Toma- lin (1990) suggest that video sequences need to be kept short so that students can focus on the target vocabulary without losing their interest. Also, “[o]ne of the greatest challenges a teacher of English in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context faces is that English is not used authentically in the settings in which students live” (Seferoğlu, 2008, p. 1). It can be argued that in Turkey, which is an EFL setting, stu- dents need ilms and videos to be exposed to authentic language use. Some studies have been conducted in this context to ind the perspectives of students of an English language teaching (ELT) program on integrating feature ilms in oral communica- tion classes (Seferoğlu, 2008) or of pre-service teachers of Eng- lish on their practice with ilms in microteaching sessions (Yaylı, 2009). In Seferoğlu’s (2008) study, a group of pre-service EFL teachers integrated movies into their oral communication classes. he researcher was the instructor who helped the participants de- sign group activities that included previewing, viewing the whole Hüsnü Gümüş & Demet Yaylı 105 ilm, using viewing sheets, keeping vocabulary and pronuncia- tion notebooks, keeping ilm response journals and role-playing. he results obtained from a Likert-scale questionnaire and some open-ended questions at the end of a semester revealed that all participants found this experience enjoyable and rewarding. hey also unanimously agreed that through ilms they had the oppor- tunity to learn about how people initiate and sustain a conversa- tion, how they negotiate meaning and non-verbal communica- tion. In a similar study, Yaylı (2009) investigated a group of pre- service EFL teachers’ initial perspectives on using feature ilms in language teaching and then traced how these perspectives evolved after their microteaching experience of using ilms. he participants integrated ilm segments in their speaking, reading and listening activities. he qualitative content analysis of the data gathered through open-ended survey questionnaire items and semi-structured interviews revealed that there were difer- ences between the initial and inal perceptions of the participants. After their microteaching experience with movie segments, the participants’ relected their increasing awareness of speciic lan- guage used in speciic situations. Keeping in mind students’ needs for at least ‘semi-authentic’ language use in class (if not totally ‘authentic’ through being unscripted and created for a purpose other than teaching), the teaching practice that we will describe below aimed to ofer stu- dents a better recall of previously learned lexical items and for this purpose two short ‘semi-authentic’ videos were prepared. Research methodology his ‘small practice’ with teacher-prepared videos was carried out with two groups of students (pre-intermediate and intermediate) at a School of Foreign Languages of a state university in Turkey. Before the actual practice, I (irst author) informed my advisor about the proiciency levels of my students, their existing knowl- 106 A small practice with teacher-prepared videos to reinforce already studied vocabulary edge of vocabulary and the content of the videos I was planning to prepare. My advisor suggested using Stempleski’s (2002) ilm viewing activity stages and types, which involve pre-viewing, dur- ing viewing and post-viewing activities. Stempleski (2002) ad- vises teachers to “promote active viewing and increase student comprehension and recall by planning video-related lessons for three stages of activity: previewing, viewing, and postviewing” (p. 366). I decided to design my teacher-prepared video classes based on these stages. Considering the vocabulary knowledge and proiciency lev- els of my two groups of students, I prepared short videos. I re- corded videos in which some of my colleagues (i.e., two native speaker teachers and two non-native speaker teachers of Eng- lish) performed the dialogues. In class, during viewing and after viewing the videos, the students completed vocabulary activities which I had designed to reinforce some of their already studied vocabulary. At the end of the classes, my students shared their ideas about the use of videos in language learning. he purpose of doing this was that I was both curious about my students’ relec- tions on this practice and I wanted to share their views with my colleagues and my advisor. For the pre-intermediate students, the video included a dia- logue between two colleagues on a health issue. he words they used in the conversation were mainly from the students’ reading book, Read his 2 (Mackey & Savage, 2010). I asked warm-up questions for the pre-viewing part and distributed questions to be answered during the video viewing activity. After watching the video twice, the students’ answers were discussed. Following this activity, I asked these students to do a speaking activity which served as a post-viewing activity to encourage them to use the target vocabulary again (see Appendix A). For the intermediate-level students, the video included a news report presented by two native speaker colleagues. Like the irst video, the report they presented included several target vocabu- lary items that the students had already studied in their textbook, Hüsnü Gümüş & Demet Yaylı 107 Read his 3 (Savage, 2010). After the warm-up students watched the video and participated in some during-viewing activities (see Appendix B). For instance, students supplied missing informa- tion in a summary of the news report, while watching the video. After the second viewing, their answers were discussed. Follow- ing this activity, I asked the students to discuss some post-view- ing questions which urged them to use the target vocabulary one more time. he questions in the post-viewing activity were again related to the video and the students exchanged their ideas in groups. hey also practised some grammatical structures as well as vocabulary while discussing these questions. At the end of these two sessions using videos, the students in each level shared their views on this experience both in written and oral form. I videotaped their oral responses and reaction and I also collected the views of students in both groups through semi- structured interview questions. For the analysis of the verbal data, I irst transcribed the utterances and translated them into Eng- lish. Following qualitative content analysis procedures, I read the transcripts several times to develop categories. In other words, I searched through my data to “for regularities and patterns as well as for topics” (Bogdan & Biklen, 2003, p.161). I will discuss the students’ views by quoting their actual statements below. Findings and discussion he aim of this practice was to reinforce already studied vocab- ulary items with the help of a semi-authentic video and some pre-, during- and post-viewing activities. As was evident in the students’ interviews, viewing videos was not only warmly wel- comed but was also observed to motivate them during the class. Although it would be wrong to assert that only one practice with the integration of videos reinforced the knowledge of existing vocabulary, it was observed that the students pushed themselves to use their existing vocabulary, especially in the post-viewing discussions. he participating students’ positive comments on this practice were as follows: 108 A small practice with teacher-prepared videos to reinforce already studied vocabulary I think it was an efective activity as we have been practicing vocabulary through watching and then we transferred the knowledge to some written exer- cise. Watching, speaking and writing were together. I hope we will do similar exercises again. (Partici- pant 28, Pre-Int) I liked this activity because I learnt vocabulary items much better. I am not good at memorizing words but by watching videos and doing activities with friends, I think I have learnt words more easily. (Par- ticipant 17, Int) he participants mostly focused on the ease of vocabulary learning or activation of their existing vocabulary, the fun they had while studying together and the integration of skills as the beneits of video viewing for vocabulary reinforcement. In con- trast, I also gathered some negative views in these follow-up interviews. Some students complained of a lack of grammatical practice that could help them with the formation of vocabulary items (i.e., providing exercises for antonyms, synonyms and prep- ositions used after some of the target vocabulary). Vocabulary activities with videos would have been much better if the synonyms and antonyms of some words had been given as well because we need such knowledge especially in exams. I also ind it diicult to ind the suitable prepositions after some words (Participant 18, Int.) I was aware, however, that their biggest concern was to pass tests and so it was not surprising to hear comments emphasizing their need for more grammar-based rather than usage-based vo- cabulary practice. Some participants also mentioned the diicul- ties they had with vocabulary in writing classes which may have accounted for their statements that they needed more practice to Hüsnü Gümüş & Demet Yaylı 109 form sentences with words. Since our activities were limited to the recall (i.e., dictation activities in viewing stage) and reinforce- ment (i.e., speaking activities in post-viewing stage) of some al- ready studied vocabulary, extra practice with usage of these words in diferent contexts (e.g., using words in text writing and etc.) was not provided. I can learn words easily but when it comes to using these words in essay writing, I fail. (Participant, 11, Int.) In my study, my focus was on activating and reinforcing the previous vocabulary knowledge of the learners. Based on the stu- dents’ positive relections, it seems that semi-authentic videos can be valuable in an EFL setting. Collecting students’ views at the end of this new practice meant that I learnt a lot from my stu- dents. My intention was to do what I thought would be good for my students, and I received a lot of positive reactions to the use of videos for vocabulary recall. In terms of the negative views relected, my colleagues and my advisor were a little surprised by the students’ emphasis on grammar exercises to support their vo- cabulary. However, our students are conscious that they live in a test-oriented country where their exposure to authentic language is limited. What I have learnt from these negative comments is valuable. It means that next time I make use of videos for vocabu- lary teaching I should focus more on word formation, antonyms, synonyms and collocations of targeted vocabulary. Also I should design longer writing activities in which students will challenge themselves to use words, not just in sentences or short dialogues, but in creative texts as well. Although I did this practice as a part of an academic requirement, I found both the video and activity preparation and data analysis stages edifying. I was able to com- bine my theoretical readings and the experience I gained in the practice while writing this manuscript under the guidance and with the support of my advisor. 110 A small practice with teacher-prepared videos to reinforce already studied vocabulary Relections and looking into the future Even if only to motivate learners and to expose them to authentic language, teachers should create some outside-the-class time to prepare their own videos. After this experience, I have learnt that vocabulary practice with diferent videos which can be designed according to both the communicative and grammatical needs of learners might be more efective in my teaching context. Al- though authentic materials have immense beneits for the com- municative needs of learners, their need to practise the grammati- cal structure of words should not be ignored, especially as some students feel highly pressured in their test-oriented institutions to pass certain tests. I have learnt a lot through listening to my students’ views, in line with Wyatt’s suggestion (2016) that “[i]f we listen, though, to the voices of learners and teachers connected through teacher research, the psychological and educational ben- eits of such activity very soon start to emerge” (p. 3). References Al-Seghayer, K. (2001). he efect of multimedia annotation modes on L2 vocabulary acquisition: A comparative study. Language Learning and Technology, 5, (1), 202-232. Retrieved at: http://llt.msu.edu/vol5num1/alseghayer/default.pdf. Bogdan, R.C., & Biklen, S.K. (2003). Qualitative Research for Education: An Introduction to heories and Methods (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson Education Group. Burns, A. (2010). Doing Action Research in English Language Teaching: A Guide for Practitioners. New York: Routledge. Canning-Wilson, C. 2000. Practical aspects of using video in the in the foreign language classroom. he Internet TESL Journal, 6 (11). Retrieved at: http://iteslj.org/Articles/Canning- Video.html King, J. (2002). Using DVD feature ilms in the EFL classroom. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 15 (5), 509-523. Mackey, D., & Savage, A. (2010). Read his 2: Fascinating Stories Hüsnü Gümüş & Demet Yaylı 111 From the Content Areas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCarthy, M. (2003) Vocabulary (10th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Savage, A. (2010). Read this 3: Fascinating Stories From the Content Areas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seferoğlu, G. (2008). Using feature ilms in language classes. Educational Studies, 34, (1), 1-9. Sherman, J. (2003). Using Authentic Video in he Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stempleski, S. (2002). Video in the ELT classroom: he role of the teacher. In J.C. Richards, & W.A. Renandya (Eds.) Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice (pp. 364-367). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stempleski, S. , & Tomalin, B. (1990). Video in Action: Recipes for Using Video in Language Teaching. London: Prentice Hall International. Stempleski, S. (1992).  Integrating video into teacher education.    Cross Currents: An Instructional Journal of Language Teaching and Intercultural Communication, 19 (1), 80-84. Talavan, N. (2007). Using subtitles in a multimedia environment to enhance listening comprehension for foreign language students of English. Proceedings VI International AELFE Conference (pp. 452-458). Lisboa: ISCAL. Wyatt, M. (2016). Engaging language teachers in research: Achieving psychological and educational beneits. In K. Dikilitaş, M. Wyatt, J. Hanks, D. Bullock (Eds.) Teachers Engaging in Research (pp. 3-19). Canterbury, Kent: IATEFL. Yaylı, D. (2009). Pre-service EFL teachers in practice: Integrating ilms into language teaching. Society for Teaching English hrough Media, 10, (1), 77-98. 112 A small practice with teacher-prepared videos to reinforce already studied vocabulary APPENDIX A Dialogue fever manager on the market pain patients pill prevent similar Seher: Hi Ceren. How are you ? Ohh ! What’s the matter? You don’t look very well. Ceren: I don’t know exactly, but last night I was in a lot of pain, so I went to the doctor. Seher: So, what did the doctor say? Ceren: He could not examine me in detail because there were a lot of patients in the queue. He said I had high fever. Seher: Did he prescribe any medicine for you? Ceren: Yes. He gave me some pills. He said he recommended these pills because they are the best on the market. He also said these pills not only reduce fever but also help to prevent head- aches. Seher: Yes… I had a similar problem and I took these pills. hey relieved my pain and fever in a short time. You still look bad, though. Ceren: I know. If I don’t feel very well, I will talk to the manager and ask for permission to go home. Seher: Yes, I think you should do that. Anyway, get well soon. If you need anything, just call me OK? See you later. Ceren: hanks a lot. See you. During ViewingActivities Part A: Answer the following questions. 1- Why did Ceren go to the doctor? 2- Was the doctor able to examine Ceren very well? If not, why? Hüsnü Gümüş & Demet Yaylı 113 3- What kind of medicine did the doctor prescribe for Ceren’s problem? 4- What will Ceren do if she doesn’t feel very well? Part B : Watch the video and write True or False. Correct the false ones. 1- Ceren had a terrible headache so she went to the doctor. ____ 2- he doctor examined Ceren very well. _____ 3- he doctor gave Ceren the best medicine for her problem. ______ 4- he pills the doctor gave are only useful for high fever. _______ 5- Ceren might go home early today because of her illness. ______ Post Viewing Activity Part C : Discuss the following questions with your partner. 1- What would you do if you had a similar health problem? 2- What do you think will happen if her boss does not let Ceren go home? 3- What should Ceren do in order to recover? APPENDIX B Dialogue and During Listening Activity Part A: Samantha and Kristy interviewed some people about the coming elections. You are going to watch a video about it and complete the summary of their results. he irst question: First of all, what was your reaction when you found out about the ____________ (a)? Response: It was not a surprise for me. I think ____________ (b) parties made smart decisions. All of them have a successful 114 A small practice with teacher-prepared videos to reinforce already studied vocabulary political background. However, they should organize really good ____________ (c) in order to afect the public’s opinions positively. hey should come up with original ideas to ___________ (d) the country. he second question: Are you satisied with the economic __________ (e) proposed? Response: Economic developments are very important for the ____________ (f ) of the country and I have to confess that this year was not a good one in terms of economy. Better strategies should be implemented as soon as possible. he third question: Finally what are your expectations from the next president? Response: I strongly believe that the next president should _____________ (g) the country respecting all people’s opinions and life styles. He should also prevent the ___________ (h) activities in the country. He should deal with some _____________ (i) issues such as election system, or capital punishment. But most importantly, he should not be like a ____________(f ) we live in a democratic country. Journalist: hank you very much for your time. Have a good day. Post Viewing Activity PART B: Discuss the following questions with your partner. 1- What should governments do to develop their countries? 2- What are the current problems in your country? Economy, education, employment etc. 3- If you were the president of your country, what changes would you make in the country? Twofold transformation: Promoting 9 learner autonomy and teaching speaking skills to ESL learners Sadeqa Ghazal & Smriti Singh Main focus his paper presents a selection of the indings of a nine-month long action research study conducted in a high school in India. his study emerged from the need of our learners to speak in English and become better language learners. We focused on the dual goal of fostering autonomy while teaching speaking be- cause efective communication needs the speaker to be autono- mous (Little, 2003). When learners are actively engaged with their learning, it is likely to be more efective, more focused and personally relevant. Also it would solve the problem of motiva- tion because the learners would be proactive. Here we describe how we used class discussions and debates as efective tools for increasing student talk-time and optimizing language learning afordances. We go on to explain how the learners’ attitude, lan- guage learning behaviour and speaking skill improved. We con- clude by critically relecting upon how this study inluenced us as teachers and researchers. Background Speaking in English remains a challenge for many students in India (Patil, 2008; Singh, 2011). he prevalent Indian education- al scenario still follows the teaching style which Paulo Freire fa- mously called “the banking concept of education” (Freire, 1996). he use of text books is mostly prescriptive becoming the teach- ing method itself (Akbari, 2008). Quite often English is taught as a content-based subject like History wherein the meaning 115 116 Twofold transformation: Promoting learner autonomy and teaching speaking skills to ESL learners of a prescribed text is explained by the teacher and the answers to post-chapter questions are dictated to the students. hey are asked to memorize these answers for examinations (Singh, 2011). Students read the prescribed text, complete writing tasks, and practise grammar lessons. But they seldom get a chance to practise speaking in class. L1 remains the language for classroom communication even in ESL classes. his is a pervasive issue af- fecting ESL learners across India. It results in serious problems such as lack of motivation, rote-learning, learner passiveness, and low level of learner engagement (Patil, 2008; Singh, 2011; Little, 2003; Little, 2016; Meddings & hornbury, 2011). Our teaching-learning context was a microcosm of the above scenario. he school policy strongly favoured the grammar-trans- lation method; so much so that they had two diferent teachers for the teaching of the textbook and the teaching of grammar. he teachers did not coordinate their lessons as a result of which grammar and language learning were perceived as unrelated tasks by students. Students’ existing autonomy was neglected as the focus was on ‘covering the syllabus’. Moreover, the classes were held in challenging circumstances. he class size was large. he classrooms were overcrowded, technologically unequipped, with little space for movement, and prone to outside disturbances. he students did not have their own laptops, gadgets or smart phones. Literature review Speaking is a “combinatorial skill” that involves doing various things at the same time ( Johnson, 1996). Burns (2012) deines speaking as “…a highly complex and dynamic skill that involves the use of several simultaneous processes – cognitive, physical and socio-cultural – and a speaker’s knowledge and skills have to be activated rapidly in real-time” (p. 166). As a productive skill it in- volves responding to the incoming information without any time lapse. he speakers need to maintain the low of the talk and need to have achieved a degree of automaticity in both planning and Sadeqa Ghazal & Smriti Singh 117 peaker’s knowledge and skills have to be activated rapidly in real-time” (p. 166). A tive skill it involves productionresponding of sentencesto the incoming2006). (hornbury, information without For teaching any time lapse. speak- rs need to maintain the flow ing it is valuable of the to for teachers talk and need understand whatto speaking have achieved com- a degree ticity in both planning petence means andandproduction why it takesofmore sentences (Thornbury, than simply 2006). For teach “doing” speak- ng it is valuable ing for teachers activities to understand in the what speaking classroom (Burns, competence 2012). Second languagemeans and wh more than simply “doing” speaking speaking competence activities comprises in the ofclassroom knowledge (Burns, language and dis- 2012). Sec ge speaking competence comprises course, core speaking knowledge skills, of language and and communication and discourse discourse, core speak strategies and communication (Goh and & Burns, discourse 2012). he strategies (Gohfollowing & Burns, model explains 2012). The following mo this combination s this combination further: further: Knowledge of Language and Discourse Second Language Speaking Competence Core Communi- Speaking cation Skills Strategies Figure 1. Components of second language speaking competence (Goh & 1. Components of second language Burns,speaking 2012, p. 53)competence (Goh & Burns, 2012 Learning to speak in a second language involves increasing the ng to speak inability a second language to use involves increasing these components, the enabling the abilitytotoproduce learners use these compone g the learners to produce spontaneous, fluent, appropriate, and accurate spo spontaneous, luent, appropriate, and accurate spoken language. ge. his ability can be developed only through use and it also re- quires learners to be aware of their own language learning pro- cesses. his only ility can be developed is why, as teachers, through use andwe believe promotinglearners it also requires learner to au-be aware of t tonomy must be an essential aspect of ESL teaching. Put nguage learning processes. This is why, as teachers, we believe promoting leasimply, my must be learner autonomy an essential is “the aspect of ability to take charge ESL teaching. of one’s own Put simply, learn- learner autonomy is to take charge of one’s own learning” (Holec, 1981, p. 3). It is also defined as “a capa llingness to act independently and in cooperation with others, as a social, respons ” (Dam et al., 1990, p. 102). The classroom should provide an optimal learn nment through the establishment of the discourse of learner autonomy by the teac 118 Twofold transformation: Promoting learner autonomy and teaching speaking skills to ESL learners ing” (Holec, 1981, p. 3). It is also deined as “a capacity and will- ingness to act independently and in cooperation with others, as a social, responsible person” (Dam et al., 1990, p. 102). he class- room should provide an optimal learning environment through the establishment of the discourse of learner autonomy by the teacher (Little, 2016). In such a class, learners are encouraged to make choices, use the target language and monitor their out- comes. Learners’ intrinsic motivation is engaged deliberately by exploiting their drive for autonomy, while promoting relatedness, and insisting on competence. he goal is always to enable them to produce the target language (here English) through spontane- ous and authentic activities. Such a learning environment allows learners to master a range of second language discourse and keeps them motivated (Little, 2003). Research methodology In this section we irst introduce students who participated in this study. his is followed by pre-study indings which helped us in framing our objectives and research questions. Next we describe the tools used for data collection and our action plan. Participants he research involved students of grade eight and nine in a high school in Patna (India). here were 83 students in all, 48 in grade eight and 35 in grade nine. hey studied English as a part of their high school curriculum. In this paper we are presenting selected results from the study focusing only on grade nine (35 girls). hey all spoke the same irst language and had very limited experience of speaking English. heir English proiciency level ranged be- tween A1 and A2 level (CEFR, 2001). We explained the purpose of this study to them in their L1 and got their permission to use their writings, photos, and recordings. We also shared our plan in detail with the school administration and permission was duly granted by them. were 83 students in all, 48 in grade eight and 35 in grade nine. They studied English as a part of their high school curriculum. In this paper we are presenting selected results from the study focusing only on grade nine (35 girls). They all spoke the same first language and had very limited experience of speaking English. Their English proficiency level ranged between A1 and A2 level (CEFR, 2001). We explained the purpose of this study to them in their L1 and got their permission to use their writings, photos, and recordings. We also Sadeqa Ghazal shared Singh & Smriti our plan in119 detail with the school administration and permission was duly granted by them. Photo1. Participant students (Source: Authors) In order to check the authenticity of our assumptions about our context, we spent about three Pre-Study indings months identifying the problems and needs of students through classroom observation, informal interviews of learners, In order and a the to check pre-study questionnaire. authenticity On assumptions of our triangulation ofabout this data, ourmultiple issues emerged context, we spent about three months identifying the problems for not confirming most of our assumptions. The learners cited several reasons speaking English and needsin class. Shyness, through of students fear of making errors and classroom being ridiculed observation, for it held them informal back. They strongly believed that their classroom was a not supportive place to speak English. interviews of learners, and a pre-study questionnaire. On trian- They also shared concern about the prevalent culture of rote-learning. They were aware that the gulation of this data, multiple issues emerged conirming most of lessons were mostly focused on reading and writing but there was very limited or no speaking practice.our assumptions. They were unable to heformlearners sentences cited several to express reasons their for not own ideas. Aboutspeak- 87 percent of ing English in class. Shyness, fear of making errors students felt they needed more speaking practice than working on other skills. and being They also ridiculed expressed fortoitmake willingness heldextra them back. efforts heyonstrongly to work believed that their their speaking. classroom was a not supportive place to speak English. hey also shared were Our objectives concern aboutlearners’ to improve the prevalent speakingculture skill andoftorote-learning. hey The foster learner autonomy. researchwere awarewere: questions thatWhich the lessons were activities mostly would focused facilitate on reading teaching speaking and skills while writing but there was very limited or no speaking practice. hey were unable to form sentences to express their own ideas. About 87 percent of students felt they needed more speaking practice 91 than working on other skills. hey also expressed willingness to make extra eforts to work on their speaking. 120 Twofold transformation: Promoting learner autonomy and teaching speaking skills to ESL learners Objectives and guiding questions Our objectives were to improve learners’ speaking skill and to foster learner autonomy. he research questions were: Which ac- tivities would facilitate teaching speaking skills while fostering learner autonomy among our students? How do learners beneit from them? Were there any negative efects on learners? Data collection tools We used multiple data collection tools to ensure accuracy of re- sults. We used teacher journal entries of classroom observation every week for relecting upon our lessons, changes in students’ behaviour, and for keeping track of emergent issues. We collected samples of learners’ spoken language using audio and video re- cording. We took feedback from students using questionnaires, with both ive-point Likert-type questions and open-ended questions, administered at the end of each AR cycle (about three months apart). At the end of the study, students were asked to submit a written report about their experience of participating in this study. Action plan he action research (AR) study was conducted in three cycles over a period of nine months. he period and plan of each cycle was not pre-ixed; rather each cycle was shaped and developed according to authentic and spontaneous learning needs. he irst cycle focused on establishing a supportive culture where learners would feel conident to speak in English without the fear of be- ing ridiculed or scolded. We constantly reminded them that they were learning speaking and making errors is a part of learning. We aimed to ensure that the fear of being grammatically incor- rect would not hold them back. During this period, they worked on very easy speaking tasks such as summing up a lesson or de- scribing their weekend. hey were also trained to complete simple writing tasks on their own rather than ask the teacher or copy Sadeqa Ghazal & Smriti Singh 121 from others. hese were our irst steps towards an autonomous class where students were constantly made aware of the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of language learning. At the end of the irst cycle, we took feedback from students asking them to choose some speaking activities for further practice. Students could select more than one activity from a given list or suggest one of their own (see Appendix A). Fourteen out of 35 learners voted for group discus- sions and 13 voted for debates. A few chose role plays, games and telling stories (11, 10 and 10 respectively). Group discussions and debates were practised regularly. During the second AR cycle, as a supportive class culture was taking root, we introduced class discussion. Discussions were mostly on topics that were relevant to students or emerged from the reading of their course book. For example, they decided to organize a school fair and discussed their plans in class. Students took turns to share their ideas. Later, they added to ideas shared by others or criticized them if needed. he teacher facilitated this discussion but did not interrupt to correct errors. Feedback about language use was given only when the discussion was over. Dur- ing this cycle we observed and conirmed with our learners that they felt more conident when they wrote down their ideas before speaking. his insight led us to use writing as a scafold for speak- ing. Students were encouraged to write their ideas before they spoke. his helped them to be prepared. As the learners’ became more capable of producing connected sentences we introduced debates during the third AR cycle. he topics for debates were suggested by students and they voted to select one for each week. By this time their critical thinking ability and luency had devel- oped enough to speak for a sustained time. he speakers prepared the argument on the selected topic on their own. hey were also able to ask critical questions during the debate and reply to those questions immediately. Since all students could not participate as speakers in a single period; the rest of the class was assigned the role of listeners. he debates were recorded for a post-debate analysis. he listeners were asked to notice the use of language 122 Twofold transformation: Promoting learner autonomy and teaching speaking skills to ESL learners and then comment upon it during post-debate analysis. his was a crucial stage for learning language through self-correction and peer-correction. Students were trained to notice not only errors ned to noticebut notalso theerrors only correct usealso but of language. Foruse the correct example, if a student of language. used For example, if a stud ed to notice anot only errors discourse but correctly marker also the correct or used use of language. language For example, innovatively, if a stu thisbe mentioned. d a discourse marker correctly or used language innovatively, this was to a discourse was marker to becorrectly or used language innovatively, this was to be mentioned mentioned. Photo 2: Students participating in debate (Source: Authors) Photo 2: Students participating in debate (Source: Authors) Photo 3: Students participating in debate (Source: Authors) Photo 3: Students participating in debate (Source: Authors) ndings and Discussion dings and Discussion Sadeqa Ghazal & Smriti Singh 123 Findings and discussion Findings from the questionnaires administered at the end of each AR cycle (see Appendices A, B, and C) indicated a positive change over time in the attitude and beliefs of students regard- ing self-conidence, dependence on the teacher, and the learning environment. Figure 1 shows the changes in students’ conidence level as the study progressed. It can be observed that the number of students who felt conident about speaking English doubled from 7 to 14 from the irst AR cycle to the third. he number of those who felt nervous or very nervous did not change considerably (8 to 7) but the number of students whose attitude changed according to the situation was reduced from 16 to 7. hree students felt very conident at the end of the study whereas no one felt so in the beginning. 16 14 12 10 8 AR -1 6 AR -2 AR -3 4 2 0 Very Nervous Depends Confident Very nervous on the confident situation Figure Figure1:1:How Howconident confident do do you you feel feel about speaking in about speaking inEnglish? English? Figure 2 shows how students’ beliefs about the teacher’s responsibility changed. The number Figure of students 2 shows who thought how that the students’ teacher should notbeliefs about increased provide answers the teacher’s from 11 in the responsibility first AR changed. cycle to 24 in the he third. The number number of who of those students who were not surethought thatfrom 13 was reduced to 2. But thethe numbershould teacher of those not who provide believed that it is theincreased answers teacher’s job to provide from 11 inanswers the did not change considerably (7 to 5) during this study. irst AR cycle to 24 in the third. he number of those who were 20 18 16 0 Very Nervous Depends Confident Very nervous on the confident situation 124 Twofold transformation: Promoting learner autonomy and teaching speaking skills to ESL learners Figure 2 shows how students’ beliefs about the teacher’s responsibility changed. The number of students who thought that the teacher should not provide answers increased from 11 in the first not suretowas AR cycle 24 inreduced the third. from 13 toof2.those The number Butwho thewere number not sureof wasthose who reduced from 13 to 2. believed But the number that ofitthose is thewhoteacher’s believed that job it isto theprovide teacher’s job to provide answers didanswers not did not change considerably (7 to 5) during this study. change considerably (7 to 5) during this study. 20 18 16 14 12 AR -1 10 AR -2 8 6 AR -3 4 2 0 Strongly Disagree Not sure Agree Strongly Disagree Agree Figure 2:2:he Figure Theteacher teachershould shouldbeberesponsible responsiblefor for providing thecorrect providing the correctanswers. answers. Figure 3 shows changes in students’ beliefs about their classroom culture in terms of how Figure supportive 3 speaking it was for shows changes innumber English. The students’ beliefs of students whoabout their felt it was class- grew supportive fromroom 16 to 31 from AR-1 culture to AR-3. in terms ofThis how means that all respondents supportive it was foragreed about this speaking Eng-aspect at the end of the study. lish. he number of students who felt it was supportive grew from 16 to 31 from AR-1 to AR-3. his means that all respondents agreed about this aspect at the end of the study. 94  18 16 14 12 10 AR -1 8 6 AR -2 4 AR -3 2 0 Very False Neutral True Very False True Figure Figure 3: 3: WeWe have have a positive a positive classroom classroom culture culture whichwhich helps helps in speaking in speaking in in English English. A final questionnaire at the end of the study further confirmed these findings. Table 1 Sadeqa Ghazal & Smriti Singh 125 A inal questionnaire at the end of the study further conirmed these indings. Table 1: Frequency analysis of end of the study feedback from students (See Appendix C) Sl. Statement Very False Neu- True Very Total No. False tral True 1. his year I par- 0 1 3 16 11 31 ticipated in class discussions more than I did last year. 2. I share my ideas 0 1 4 10 16 31 in my own words. 3. I am afraid of 2 14 7 7 1 31 making mistakes when speaking in English. 4. I learn from my 0 1 5 13 12 31 own mistakes. 5. I correct my 0 1 11 14 5 31 mistakes on my own. 6. I think critically 1 1 3 20 6 31 while writing and speaking. 7. I practice speak- 0 0 9 9 13 31 ing even outside the class. 8. I keep working 0 4 4 17 6 31 on small goals as an English lan- guage learner. (Four students were unable to submit responses for this feedback. herefore only 31 responses are included here.) 126 Twofold transformation: Promoting learner autonomy and teaching speaking skills to ESL learners According to Table 1, most of the students (27) believed they were more actively involved in class discussion than in the pre- vious year (Item 1). he number of students (26) who believed that they were capable of thinking critically is the same as those who believed that they could share their ideas in their own words (Item 2 and 6). his inding clearly supports the previous one that students became less dependent on the teacher and more conident while speaking. he result for Item 3 indicates that a substantial number of students (8) were still afraid of making er- rors and some others (7) were likely to feel the same. However, this did not stop them from participating in class. Comparison of Item 4 and 5 reveals that the number of students capable of self-regulated learning (25) was higher than those who practised self-correction (19). About 35 percent of students (11) recorded a neutral response to self-correction. Item 7 and 8 indicate that the majority of the students (22 and 23 respectively) were motivated enough to practise speaking even outside the class and to work on their personal English learning goals. Critically relecting upon this data and comparing it with our observational notes we can conclude that there was a noticeable increase in students’ participation and self-regulation. hough students were still dependant on the teacher to ofer corrective feedback, they were producing more connected and logically sounding discourse to express themselves and were regularly re- trieving newly learned vocabulary, lexical chunks, and sentence structures. he instances of rote learning and copying declined sharply and students reported feeling relieved as their own words following the study suggest. Student A: I feel that now I am a good language learner and my conidence level is rising up gradually. Student B: I feel like I am now more conident than earlier. Now I can speak English without hesitation and luently too. Sadeqa Ghazal & Smriti Singh 127 Student C: I am feeling very conident while communicating in English with my friends and family. Now I can speak during debate in English in front of my class. Student D: I learnt to express my own ideas by using phrases. I learnt self-correction. Student E: I liked the debate most and also sharing about our own experiences. Student F: I learnt to speak, not luently, but with very few mistakes. I take part in debates. It makes me a good speaker and also makes me able to speak on any topic. It helps to take part in debates in other classes. Relections and looking into the future he study aimed to establish an autonomous classroom discourse to provide optimal language learning afordances. As the study progressed learner autonomy was developed and fostered through the speaking activities themselves, which became a complimen- tary cycle where one enforced and sustained the other. Working to achieve our goals, while negotiating a prescribed syllabus, was a considerable challenge. Although the use of a diferent approach was permitted by the school administration, we had to research within the test-oriented framework of a high school curriculum. At the beginning, students were worried about their examination scores and could not understand the importance of giving feed- back. Later, their attitudes grew more positive, especially after they scored excellent marks in the mid-term exams. Initially we found it challenging to reconcile the research and teaching aspect due to lack of time. As the study progressed we embraced the idea of being a researcher-teacher-learner, all at the same time. Also, critically relecting upon our notes and students’ feedback enabled us to teach with more empathy. We learned to design and scafold lessons keeping in mind our learn- ers’ background and limitations. Rather than demanding sudden 128 Twofold transformation: Promoting learner autonomy and teaching speaking skills to ESL learners change from them we learned to be patient and persistent. his research has also led us to believe that it is possible to bring about change without depending on technology. In future, we aim to make action research accessible for fellow teachers working in similar contexts, thereby bridging the gap between research and classroom practices. References Akbari, R. (2008). Postmethod discourse and practice. TESOL Quarterly, 42(4), 641-652. Burns, A. (2012). A holistic approach to teaching speaking in the language classroom. In Mikael Olofsson (Ed.), Symposium 2012: Role of the Teacher in Swedish as a Second Language (pp. 165-178). Retrieved from http://www.andrasprak.su.se/polopoly_ fs/1.204517.1411636356!/menu/standard/ile/Anne_Burns. pdf Council of Europe. (2001).  Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Strasbourg: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Framework_ EN.pdf Dam, L., Eriksson,R., Little, D., Miliander, J., & Trebbi, T.(1990). Towards a deinition of autonomy. In T. Trebbi (Ed.), hird Nordic Workshop on Developing Autonomous Learning in the FL Classroom. Bergen: University of Bergen. Retrieved from https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/groups/ llta/research/past_projects/dahla/archive/trebbi-1990.pdf Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Books. Holec, H. (1981). Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamon. Goh, C. C. M. & Burns, A. (2012). Teaching Speaking: A Holistic Approach. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Sadeqa Ghazal & Smriti Singh 129 Johnson, K. (1996). Language Teaching and Skill Learning. Oxford: Blackwell. Little, D. (2003). Learner autonomy and second/foreign language learning. Retrieved from https://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/ gpg/1409 Little, D. (2016). Learner Autonomy and its Implications for the Discourse of L2 Teaching and Learning [PDF document]. Retrieved from https://secure.iatel.org/members/ documents.php?type=webinars Meddings, L., & hornbury, S. (2011). Teaching Unplugged: Dogme in English Language Teaching (Indian Ed.). New Delhi: Delta Publishing. Patil, Z.N. (2008). Rethinking the objectives of teaching English in Asia. he Asian EFL Journal Quarterly, 10(4), 227- 240. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/viewerng/ viewer?url=http://asian-el-journal.com/ December_2008 _EBook.pdf&hl=en_US Singh, C. (Ed.). (2011). Proceedings from UGC Sponsored National Seminar ‘11: English Language Teaching in India: Problems and Strategies. Jalandhar: Punjab. hornbury, S. (2006). An A-Z of ELT: A Dictionary of Terms and Concepts. Oxford: Macmillan. Appendix A Questionnaire for Students’ Feedback after Action Research Cycle – 1 Select only one answer for the questions given below: 1. How conident do you feel about speaking in English in our English class these days? a) Very nervous b) Nervous c) It depends on the situation d) Conident e) Very conident 130 Twofold transformation: Promoting learner autonomy and teaching speaking skills to ESL learners 2. Would you like to have more speaking practice in our English class these days? a) No, it is more than enough b) No, it is okay c) Not sure d) Yes, some more e) Yes, a lot more 3. How useful it is to get some time to think over an idea before speaking in the class? a) Quite useless b) Useless c) Not sure about it d) Useful e) Very useful 4. Our class culture is positive and helpful for speaking in English. a) Strongly disagree b) Disagree c) Not sure d) Agree e) Strongly agree 5. I think the teacher should be more responsible for providing the correct answers. a) Strongly disagree b) Disagree c) Not sure d) Agree e) Strongly Agree You may select more than one answer for the question given below: 6. We should have more of this type of activity in class - a) Group Discussions b) Reading in class c) Vocabulary games d) Debates e) Story-telling f ) Role play and acting Reply to these questions carefully. You may reply in any language you like (Eng, Hindi, or Urdu). 10. Suggest any class activity or homework which you would like to do. 11. What would you change about our current English class? 12. What would you not like to change about our current English class? Sadeqa Ghazal & Smriti Singh 131 Appendix B Questionnaire for Students’ Feedback after Action Research Cycle – 2 Select only one answer for the questions given below: 1. How conident do you feel about speaking in English in our English class these days? a)Very nervous b) Nervous c) It depends on the situation d) Conident e) Very conident 2. Would you like to have more speaking practice in our English class these days? a) No, it is more than enough b) No, it is okay c) Not sure d) Yes, some more e) Yes, a lot more 3. How useful it is to get some time to think over an idea before speaking in the class? a) Quite useless b) Useless c) Not sure about it d) Useful e) Very useful 4. Our class culture is positive and helpful for those speaking in English. a) Strongly disagree b) Disagree c) Not sure d) Agree e) Strongly agree 5. I think the teacher should be more responsible for providing the correct answers. a) Strongly disagree b) Disagree c) Not sure d) Agree e) Strongly Agree 132 Twofold transformation: Promoting learner autonomy and teaching speaking skills to ESL learners You may select more than one answer for the question given below: 6. I would prefer to __________________ in English. a) do role play and drama b) speak using idioms and words which I have learned from my textbook c) have simple conversations d) debate e) have a discussion about topics I am interested in f ) deliver a speech before the whole class g) tell stories, jokes, or share my own experience Answer these questions carefully. You may reply in any language you like (Eng, Hindi, or Urdu). 7. Suggest some important and interesting topics/issues which you would like to be included in our speaking lessons. 8. Share your experience of the recent summative assessment of English (SA-I). Was it easy or challenging? Mention those tasks or ideas which you learnt in the class and which helped you in this exam. Also mention the problems you faced. 9. What would you change about our current English class? 10. What would you not like to change about our current English class? Appendix C Questionnaire for Students’ Feedback after Action Research Cy- cle – 3 (End of the study) Select only one answer for the questions given below: 1. How conident do you feel about speaking in English in our English class these days? a) Very nervous b) Nervous c) It depends on the situation d) Conident e) Very conident Sadeqa Ghazal & Smriti Singh 133 2. Our class culture is positive and helpful for speaking in English. a) Strongly disagree b) Disagree c) Not sure d) Agree e) Strongly agree 3. I think the teacher should be more responsible for providing the correct answers. a) Strongly disagree b) Disagree c) Not sure d) Agree e) Strongly Agree 4. I share my ideas in my own words. a) Very false b) False c) Neutral d) True e) Very true 5. I think critically when I write or speak. a) Very false b) False c) Neutral d) True e) Very true 6. I learn from my own mistakes. a) Very false b) False c) Neutral d) True e) Very true 7. I check and correct my mistakes on my own. a) Very false b) False c) Neutral d) True e) Very true 8. I am afraid of making mistakes when speaking in English. a) Very false b) False c) Neutral d) True e) Very true 134 Twofold transformation: Promoting learner autonomy and teaching speaking skills to ESL learners 9. his year I participated in class discussions more than I did last year. a) Very false b) False c) Neutral d) True e) Very true 10. I practice speaking English even outside the class. a) Very false b) False c) Neutral d) True e) Very true 11. I keep working on small goals as an English language learner. a) Very false b) False c) Neutral d) True e) Very true Any other remark: he possible taste of students’ 10 happiness in EFL class recipes Seden Eraldemir Tuyan & Esra Altunkol Main focus he main focus of this exploratory action research was to un- derstand the possible reasons that could make our students feel unhappy during their EFL learning experience at YADYO (he School of Foreign Languages at Çukurova University in Turkey), with a view to helping them. As two colleagues working in the same institution and having a teaching philosophy that aims at an enthusiastic learning practice in our classes, we collaborated to ind out about our puzzle with diferent levels of students in diferent classes. Our further aim was to make our students feel happier, i.e. more optimistic, open-minded, engaged, etc., as Seligman’s PERMA Model (2002) suggests, so that they would feel eager to learn English and develop a positive attitude not only towards learning English but to their lives in general as well. For this purpose, 20 C1 and 16 B1 level students participated in our study to help us expand our knowledge beyond our own classrooms. Before our intervention, we collected data through the ‘Oxford Happiness Questionnaire’, the ‘Happiness in an EFL Class Survey’ and interviews with students. hen, we imple- mented some activities to help our students feel happier while learning English in our classes. We wanted to see if a ‘pedagogy of happiness’ (Zabihi & Ketabi, 2013) might be developed in our classroom settings. hroughout the study, we kept on writing our relections related to our concerns and feedback regarding the processes. he indings and the students’ resultant comments re- vealed that attending to our students’ happiness would lead to more enthusiastic EFL learning experiences, as we report below. 135 136 The possible taste of students’ happiness in EFL class recipes Background As EFL teachers, we believe we are in a strong position to cre- ate physical and interpersonal environments which are likely to generate more enthusiastic EFL practice. We are also aware that taking our students’ emotions into consideration during our les- sons might be a good starting point to achieve our aim. Antonio Damasio (2003, cited in Scofham & Barnes, 2011, p. 537), who has conducted some inluential research into the neural basis for emotions, contends that everything that happens to us is accom- panied by some degree of emotion, especially if it is associated with social or personal problems. According to this view, which we endorse, “when we educators fail to appreciate the impor- tance of students’ emotions, we fail to appreciate a critical force in students’ learning. One could argue that we fail to appreciate the very reason that students learn at all” (Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007, p.9). Additionally, Positive Psychology, deined by its founder Mar- tin Seligman as the “scientiic study of optimal human function- ing [that] aims to discover and promote the factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive” (in Seligman & Csik- szentmihalyi, 2000), contributes to our thinking. Among the topics studied in this ield, happiness is very distinct thanks to its beneits such as positive afect and well-being leading to so- ciability, better health, success and resilience. Happiness in this respect, “is a positive force which enriches our sense of meaning, enhances our capabilities and enlarges the scope of our thinking”, as Scofham & Barnes (2011) claim in their study (p.547). Selig- man (2011) recommends that people are capable of achieving a state of conscious and lasting happiness by being aware of the • Positive emotions following ive important pillars: • Engagement • Relationships • Meaning • Achievement Seden Eraldemir Tuyan & Esra Altunkol 137 According to this PERMA model, no one element deines well-being, but each contributes to it. Drawing on the past litera- ture on well-being, Lyubomirsky et al. (2005) propose that a per- son’s happiness is governed by 3 major factors: genetically deter- mined, happiness related circumstantial and happiness relevant activities and practices. From their third point, we can conclude that happiness is teachable and can be incorporated into our daily teaching programs to help our students become happier. Research methodology he focus of our research revolved around the following research questions: 1. Why do some of our students seem unhappy in our EFL classes? 2. Are they really unhappy? 3. What makes them feel happier? 4. How can we help our students feel happier while learning English in our classes? Research participants Based on the results of a placement exam at YADYO, the stu- dents study English at diferent levels (L) such as L1-L2-L3. he academic year lasts for 8 months divided into four two-month blocks. So, L1 students start practicing EFL from A1 level and inish the one-year course completing B2, while L3 students in- ish the course by completing C1 according to the CEFR. For the purpose of this research, 2 diferent levels (L1 & L3) from 2 dif- ferent classes, Class A (L3), twenty and Class B (L1), sixteen stu- dents participated in this study. Both of us were teaching general English to our classes ten hours weekly. We started collecting our data at the beginning of the third block and our implementation inished towards the end of the academic year. 138 The possible taste of students’ happiness in EFL class recipes Research approach and methods Our research consisted of a collaborative, hands on approach through use of the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, the Hap- piness in an EFL Class Survey and informal interviews with the students before and after our implementation. In this sense, we used both quantitative and qualitative methods to collect data from our students to quantify our puzzle as well as gaining a deeper understanding of our students’ experience. To be precise, as suggested by Allwright (2015), our aim was not necessarily to bring about change, although that might occur; we wanted “to contribute to our teaching and learning ourselves” (p.32). Results Step 1 OXFORD Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ) As a irst step to collect data, we used the 29-item Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (2002) (see Appendix 1). his scale was developed by psychologists Michael Argyle and Peter Hills at Oxford University and is suggested as a good way to get a snapshot of one’s current level of happiness in general and not related to activities such as studying in particular (Wright, 2008). herefore, to initiate our discovery we had a look at our students’ OHQ results. According to the results, despite seeming happier, the average class score of Class B could be interpreted within the same range with the average class score of Class A (see Table 1). When we interpreted the results according to the scoring guide of the questionnaire, we found that our students were not “particularly happy or unhappy” (see Table 2). Seden Eraldemir Tuyan & Esra Altunkol 139 Table1. Oxford Happiness Questionnaire Results- Class A & Class B Class YADYO Level Mean Score Percentage of happiness A 3 (C1) 3.7 61.7 (15 STDS) B 1(B1) 4.1 69 (14 STDS) Table 2. Interpretation of students’ scores (OHQ, 2002) 3-4 Not particularly happy or unhappy. A score of 3.5would be an exact numerical average of happy and unhappy responses. 4 Somewhat happy or moderately happy, satisfied. his is what the average person scores. Step 2 Happiness in an EFL Class Survey (HECS) As a second step to our exploration, we developed a 4-question survey speciically related to happiness in learning English. In the survey, we asked the students to respond to the questions as openly and realistically as possible to help us understand the issue from their own perspectives. We clariied to them the importance of their contribution, which would help us create happier class- room environments. We didn’t ask them to write their names to make them feel comfortable to express themselves freely without any ethical concerns. We also asked them to comment in Turk- ish to avoid the language barrier. When analysing the data, we translated students’ responses and then classiied and tabulated them. In answer to our irst question, students gave the following responses (in Table 3 & Table 4, below). Question1- Are you happy while learning English in this class? If your answer is negative or if you have other feelings, please clarify. 140 The possible taste of students’ happiness in EFL class recipes Table Table 3. Students’ 3. Students’ Responses Responses to Question 1 (A &to B) Question 1 (A & B) Table 3. Students’ Responses to Question 1 (A & B) ** Happy Happybut…but… implies implies that that students students were werebutgenerally generally happy happy they also had but they their unhappy also had moments. * Unhappy but… implies their unhappy that students were generally unhappy but they also had their happy moments. moments. * Unhappy but… implies that students were generally unhappy but they also The frequencies had in Table their happy 4 are direct quotes from the individual students: moments. *Table Happy4.but… Students’ implies clarifications for feeling that students were generallyunhappy happy but&they happy, also but… to Question had their 1 (Class A & unhappy moments. *Class Unhappy B) but… implies that students were generally unhappy but they also had their happy moments. he frequencies in Table 4 are direct quotes from the indi- vidual students: The frequencies in Table 4 are direct quotes from the individual students: Table 4. Students’ Table clarifications 4. Students’ for feeling clariications forunhappy & happy, but… feeling unhappy to Question & happy, but…1 to (Class A & Class B) Question 1 (Class A & Class B) As can be concluded from Table 4, some of the factors that made students unhappy were boring lessons, attitudes of their teachers and classmates, the course book, the assessment system and their own moods. These factors are presented in order of importance in Table 5 which also shows the students’ answers to the second question of HECS. Question 2- Ascan Thinking can be about the concluded fromfeeling Tableyou mentioned 4, Table thein some of 4, your answer factors thatthe to thestudents made first question, unhappy As write boring about the be concluded 10 factors that of make from you some feel happy/unhappy of or any factors that were lessons, attitudes their teachers and classmates, thefeeling courseelse… book,Please the made students prioritize assessment thesystem order of unhappy importance and were boring their ownaccording moods. lessons, to yourself These factorsand attitudes areexplain the reasons. presented of oftheir in order teachers importance Table and 5. Tenin classmates, Table factors 5 which that makealso the course shows students book, the students’ happy/unhappy inthe answers assessment an EFLtoclass the (Class second system A question & Class B)of HECS. and their own moods. hese factors are presented in order of im- portance Question in Table 2- Thinking 5 which about also the feeling youshows theinstudents’ mentioned answers your answer toquestion, to the first the write about the 10 factors second question of HECS. that make you feel happy/unhappy or any feeling else… Please prioritize the order of importance according to yourself and explain the reasons. 104 Table 5. Ten factors that make students happy/unhappy in an EFL class (Class A & Class B) Seden Eraldemir Tuyan & Esra Altunkol 141 Question 2- hinking about the feeling you mentioned in your answer to the irst question, write about the 10 factors that make you feel happy/unhappy or any feeling else… Please pri- oritize the order of importance according to yourself and explain the reasons. Table 5. Ten factors that make students happy/unhappy in an EFL class (Class A & Class B) As can be seen in Table 5, teacher and classmate attitudes were the most important factors that made the students feel happy while lack of fun and uninteresting topics in the Aswere lessons canthebemost seen in Table important 5, ofteacher causes andinclassmate unhappiness attitudes were our classrooms. the most important factors that made the students feel happy while The third question of the HECS was about what students themselves could do to feel lack happierofwhile funtheand uninteresting fourth topics was what other people in dothe could lessons to make themwere the most feel happier considering thecauses important classroomofenvironment, unhappiness teaching in aids, our resources, classrooms. attitude and behaviour, while learning English in our classes. In answer to question 3, some students responded that theyhe shouldthird give up question being shy, getof rid the HECS of their was about speaking anxiety whatmore and participate students in the themselves could lessons, focus more anddo toenjoy, try to feel happier while prioritize their goalsthe and fourth waslessons. attend more whatTheirother answers to question 4 revealed that our students wanted more interesting lessons with people could do to make them feel happier considering extra tasks like learning songs and watching films in English accompanied by a more the class- room environment, understanding, teaching tolerant, caring aids,attitude and supportive resources, attitudeConsequently, of their teachers. and behav- considering the results we have gathered from our enquiry into our students’ happiness in iour, while learning English in our classes. In answer to question 3, general and specifically in EFL lessons, we developed an action plan and started our some students intervention by usingresponded that they the ideas of PERMA should for about 8 weeks.give up being shy, get rid of   their speaking anxiety and participate more in the lessons, focus more STEP 3 and try to enjoy, prioritize their goals and attend more les- After discovering sons. heir answers our students’ thoughts regarding to question their happiness 4 revealed that ourin their daily lives students and in wanted our EFL classes via OHQ, HECS and informal interviews which we referred to in the research more methodsinteresting lessons section, we started with extra implementing tasks some ideas like learning of PERMA songs and some related and activities to our classroom practices.                 ‘P’ of PERMA suggests building positive emotions to achieve a state of conscious and lasting happiness. Therefore, we both tried to ensure sustaining positivity during our lessons and outside the classroom in our relationships with the students. To do this, we encouraged 142 The possible taste of students’ happiness in EFL class recipes watching ilms in English accompanied by a more understanding, tolerant, caring and supportive attitude of their teachers. Conse- quently, considering the results we have gathered from our enquiry into our students’ happiness in general and speciically in EFL les- sons, we developed an action plan and started our intervention by using the ideas of PERMA for about 8 weeks. Step 3 After discovering our students’ thoughts regarding their happi- ness in their daily lives and in our EFL classes via OHQ, HECS and informal interviews which we referred to in the research methods section, we started implementing some ideas of PER- MA and some related activities to our classroom practices. Applying the ideas of PERMA in our classrooms ‘P’ of PERMA suggests building positive emotions to achieve a state of conscious and lasting happiness. herefore, we both tried to ensure sustaining positivity during our lessons and outside the classroom in our relationships with the students. To do this, we encouraged sharing, caring, understanding, openness, apprecia- tion and kindness by our short talks at the beginning of our les- sons or while dealing with an ordinary daily event of the class- room life. Every day, we greeted our students with our genuine smiles and advised them to do the same whatever unfortunate thing happened that day. For building engagement, the ‘E’ of PERMA, we told them about low (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990), to focus as much as they can and be involved in whatever they do to do by their entire bodies, including EFL learning. According to Seligman (2011), positive relationships, the ‘R’ of the PERMA model, together with celebrating strengths and virtues can promote thriving groups, lourishing individuals and greater well-being. For this, we tried to build positive connections among the students by organizing diferent socializing activities Every day, we greeted our students with our Seden genuine smiles Eraldemir Tuyan and&advised Esra them to do the Altunkol 143 same whatever unfortunate thing happened that day. For building engagement, the ‘E’ of PERMA, we told them about flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990), to focus as much as they can and be involved in whatever they do to like do by going to bodies, their entire the cinema includingtogether, EFL learning.having the cofee breaks in the According school gardento Seligman (2011), positive and preparing ourrelationships, food together the ‘R’ of atthe thePERMA lunch model, break together with celebrating strengths and virtues can promote thriving groups, flourishing and eating. We cared for the missing students, called them individuals and greater well-being. For this, we tried to build positive connections among whenthe they were absent in class or visited them at the hospital when students by organizing different socializing activities like going to the cinema together, having the coffee breaks in the school garden and preparing our food together at the lunch they were ill. break and eating. We cared for the missing students, called them when they were absent in class or visited them at the hospital when they were ill. For building For building meaning, meaning, the M of the PERMA,Masofteachers PERMA, of EFL, as we teachers of EFL, tried to enhance students’ speaking skills through the themes like family, we tried to enhance students’ speaking skills through the themesmental and physical health, old people, community service and environment. Since every student had some background like family, knowledge related tomental andstudents these issues, physical health, enjoyed old people, the speaking tasks we didcommunity in the service and environment. Since every student had some back- classroom. Lastly, knowledge ground achievement, the ‘A’ of PERMA related was about to these the students’ issues, students accomplishing enjoyedtheir the goals which required their skill and effort. Therefore, we aimed to work on the issues which mayspeaking hinder theirtasks we didonin development the their wayclassroom. to succeed happily. To achieve our aim, we Lastly, made use of someachievement, reading, writing and the ‘A’ ofactivities speaking PERMA was about whose related the about themes were stu- goal setting, self-esteem and conflict resolution. dents’ accomplishing their goals which required their All in all, we are very happy to say that as themes of PERMA were interconnected, skill and ef- fort. herefore, practicing we aimed one building block of PERMA tocontributed work onour the issues efforts which to build mayin hinder the other our students. their To help students wrap development onuptheir what we wayintended to mean, we to succeed also had movie happily. hours To achieve and watched mainly two films; ‘Inside Out’ (2015), a movie about how our emotions guide us our aim, weWriters’ and ‘Freedom made(2007), use of the some real storyreading, of a teacherwriting and speaking and her students discoveringac- tivities ways whose of resolving related conflicts, havingthemes were about positive relationships goal to feel setting, engaged self-esteem and have a feeling of achievement by writing their own book as a class with their teacher. and conlict resolution. All in all, we are very happy to say that as themes of PERMA were interconnected, practicing one building block of PERMA contributed our eforts to build the other in our students. To help students wrap up what we intended to mean, we also had movie hours and watched mainly two ilms; Inside Out (2015), a movie about how our emotions guide us and Freedom Writers (2007), the real story of a teacher and her students discovering ways of resolving conlicts, having positive relationships to feel engaged 106 and have a feeling of achievement by writing their own book as a class with their teacher. 144 The possible taste of students’ happiness in EFL class recipes Moreover, Moreover, 'Happy' by ‘Happy’ Pharrell by Pharrell Williams was theWilliams song of ourwasstudy.theWesong of our distributed the study. lyrics of the song Weto both distributed classes and asked the lyrics them tooflearn thehowsong to the to sing both song classes by heart. andThe song wasasked a good ending them activity to learn to finish how our lessons to sing happily; the songatby theheart. same time heitsong servedwas us by sending our message of happiness subliminally to our a good ending activity to inish our lessons happily; at the samestudents. We even created a video clip to the 'Happy' Moreover, song as by a whole Pharrellclass with the Williams wasstudents the songofofClass A. Finally, our study. we asked the We distributed thestudents to theprepare timebothitclasses posters served and us inPharrell groups as aby sending project work our that message required of them happiness sublimi- yrics ofMoreover, song to'Happy' by asked Williamsthem to was learn the how song of to sing our the study. Wetodistributed song do some research by heart. The the and song was think a good nally about what ending to makes activityour a tostudents. student finish our We happy in lessons even a happily;created languageat a video classroom/or the same yrics of the song to both classes and asked them to learn how to sing the song by heart. The time a it clip person served toin us the life insong by songsending a our goodmessage wasgeneral and as put of their a whole ending happiness activity ideas class to insubliminally finishposters. with thetostudents our lessons our students. happily; theWe at of Class sameeven created A. time a video itFinally, served uswe asked clip to the song by sending as a whole our message of class with the happiness students to subliminally of our Classstudents. A. Finally, Weweeven asked the students created a video to thegroups students to prepare posters in groups as a projectand work that clipprepare posters to the song as ainwhole as awith class project the work studentsthatofrequired Class A.them to we Finally, do some asked research the students to prepare posters in groups as a project work that required them to do some research and makes think about what required makes a them student to happy doin a some language research and classroom/or athink person about in life in what general and what think about put their ideas amakes student in posters. a student happy happyin in aa language language classroom/or classroom/or a personainperson life in in life in general and put their ideas in posters. general and put their ideas in posters. Figure 1-Posters of Happiness (Class A & B) Figure 1-Posters of Happiness (Class A & B)1 Posters of Happiness (Class A & B) Figure Students’ Reported Gains Figure 1-Posters of Happiness (Class A & B) Students’ Reported Gains Students’ Reported Gains 107 Seden Eraldemir Tuyan & Esra Altunkol 145 Students’ reported gains although we did not administer the survey again, as we had intended this to be diagnostic, some of the gains as reported by the students during the informal interviews at the end of our implementation are Although we did not shown administer in again, the survey Figure 2:intended this to be diagnostic, as we had some of the gains as reported by the students during the informal interviews at the end of our implementation are shown in Figure 2: Figure 2. Gains from the happiness intervention as reported by the students (Class A & Class B) Figure 2. Gains from the happiness intervention as reported by the students Reflections and Looking into the Future: (Class A & Class B) We once read an article named “Happy teachers make happy students” by Parker & Parker (2011) and despite having always been happy teachers who want to make their students happy, the ideas in the article enchanted us and we wanted to learn more. Then, we decided to conduct this study as it is every teacher’s dream to see his/her students’ happy faces, while they are learning enthusiastically in their classes. After exploring our students’ thoughts related to our puzzle, we prepared a happy EFL classroom recipe adding certain ingredients. We are aware that both the students’ and our gains were worth the efforts, yet, Relections and looking into the future by conducting this research, we are also aware that these efforts should be continuous for sustained happiness of both parties involved. By writing about our research, we hope that We once read an article named “Happy teachers make happy stu- this study will be a source of inspiration to teachers who read about our experience and understanding. dents” by Parker & Parker (2011) and despite having always been happy teachers who want to make their students happy, the108 ideas in the article enchanted us and we wanted to learn more. hen, we decided to conduct this study as it is every teacher’s dream to see his/her students’ happy faces, while they are learning enthu- siastically in their classes. After exploring our students’ thoughts 146 The possible taste of students’ happiness in EFL class recipes related to our puzzle, we prepared a happy EFL classroom recipe adding certain ingredients. We are aware that both the students’ and our gains were worth the eforts, yet, by conducting this re- search, we are also aware that these eforts should be continuous for sustained happiness of both parties involved. By writing about our research, we hope that this study will be a source of inspiration to teachers who read about our experience and understanding. References Allwright, D. (2015). Putting ‘understanding’ irst in practitioner research. In (Eds.), Teacher-Researchers in Action. (pp. 19- 36). Faversham: IATEFL. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990) Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row. Immordino-Yang, M., and A. Damasio. (2007). We feel therefore we learn: he relevance of afective and social neuroscience to education. Brain, Mind and Education 1(1), 3-10. Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K., & Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing happiness: he architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 111-131. Wright, S. (2008). Oxford Happiness Questionnaire. Retrieved from http://www.new.meaningandhappiness.com/oxford- happiness-questionnaire/214/) Parker, W. S. & Parker, B. A. (2011) Happy teachers make happy students, posted in BrainWorld. Retrieved September 15, 2015, from http://brainworldmagazine.com/happy-teachers- make-happy-students Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55, 5–14. Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish. New York: Free Press. Scofham, S. & Barnes, J. (2011) Happiness matters: towards a pedagogy of happiness and well-being, he Curriculum Journal, 22(49, 535-548. Retrieved from http://www. gostrengths.com/whatisperma/ Seden Eraldemir Tuyan & Esra Altunkol 147 Zabihi, R. & Ketabi, S. (2013). Advocating a pedagogy of happiness in TESOL: Antecedents and potentialities. he Journal of Happiness & Well-Being, 1(2), 39-50. Appendix 1 Oxford Happiness Questionnaire he Oxford Happiness Questionnaire was developed by psychol- ogists Michael Argyle and Peter Hills at Oxford University. Instructions Below are a number of statements about happiness. Please in- dicate how much you agree or disagree with each by entering a number in the blank after each statement, according to the fol- lowing scale: 1 = strongly disagree 2 = moderately disagree 3 = slightly disagree 4 = slightly agree 5 = moderately agree 6 = strongly agree Please read the statements carefully, some of the questions are phrased positively and others negatively. Don’t take too long over individual questions; there are no “right” or “wrong” answers (and no trick questions). he irst answer that comes into your head is probably the right one for you. If you ind some of the questions diicult, please give the answer that is true for you in general or for most of the time. he Questionnaire 1. I don’t feel particularly pleased with the way I am. ( R) 2. I am intensely interested in other people. 148 The possible taste of students’ happiness in EFL class recipes 3. I feel that life is very rewarding. 4. I have very warm feelings towards almost everyone. 5. I rarely wake up feeling rested. (R) 6. I am not particularly optimistic about the future. (R) 7. I ind most things amusing. 8. I am always committed and involved. 9. Life is good. 10. I do not think that the world is a good place. (R) _ 11. I laugh a lot. 12. I am well satisied about everything in my life. 13. I don’t think I look attractive. (R) 14. here is a gap between what I would like to do and what I have done. (R) 15. I am very happy. 16. I ind beauty in some things. 17. I always have a cheerful efect on others. 18. I can it in (ind time for) everything I want to. 19. I feel that I am not especially in control of my life. (R) 20. I feel able to take anything on. 21. I feel fully mentally alert. 22. I often experience joy and elation. 23. I don’t ind it easy to make decisions. (R) 24. I don’t have a particular sense of meaning and purpose in my life. (R) 25. I feel I have a great deal of energy. 26. I usually have a good inluence on events. 27. I don’t have fun with other people. (R) 28. I don’t feel particularly healthy. (R) 29. I don’t have particularly happy memories of the past. (R) Seden Eraldemir Tuyan & Esra Altunkol 149 Calculate your core Step 1. Items marked (R) should be scored in reverse: For example, if you gave yourself a “1,” cross it out and change it to a “6.” Change “2” to a “5” Change “3” to a 4” Change “4” to a 3” Change “5” to a 2” Change “6” to a 1” Step 2. Add the numbers for all 29 questions. (Use the converted numbers for the 12 items that are reverse scored.) Step 3. Divide by 29. So your happiness score = the total (from step 2) divided by 29. Your Happiness Score: Reference: http://www.meaningandhappiness.com/oxford-happiness- questionnaire/214/ On the way to becoming efective 11 listeners through peer listening Neslihan Gündoğdu & Cemile Buğra Main focus his joint study emerged as a result of ongoing discussions be- tween two EFL instructors. While relecting on our class sessions during the breaks or in our social gatherings, we realized that we sufered from the same kind of issues and some things were going wrong. herefore, we wanted to take action together accordingly. he purpose of this study is to help students improve their lis- tening skills while listening to their peers through peer-listening which may help them learn from one another in class sessions. We teach general English to undergraduate students from ele- mentary level to intermediate at the school of foreign languages of Çukurova University. Students come from diferent educa- tional, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds. During the class hours, we have the students do the pair work, group work activities of the course book or additional activities that we pre- pare outside the class. In addition to this, in individual or group presentations, they give a presentation about a topic that they are interested in. So far what we have described may sound like a healthy classroom environment, but what these class sessions lack is the full attention of students in the interaction process while listening to their friends who are performing their learning tasks. We observed that students have a lack of peer listening habits and may not know how to listen to one another eiciently, which can be improved with some efective guided listening activities. We decided to provide some tips for listening to their peers in class. 151 152 On the way to becoming effective listeners through peer listening Background One of the biggest problems we have faced in class is that students do not listen to each other while expressing their ideas. From our perspective, there are several underlying causes for this issue. We discussed some potential misconceptions: for example, that they believe they can learn English by only listening to their teach- ers and that they are not aware that they could also learn from their peers by paying attention to the way their peers use language while participating in class activities. Another cause could be not having developed the habit of listening to others in their former educational life. However, although we came up with all these assumptions as to how they can beneit from listening to their peers and learn with and from them, it was inconclusive. We then decided to design an action research study to investigate this is- sue and to understand actual underlying causes and develop some actions to increase peer interaction. We wanted to see the impacts of active listening practices on students’ performance to listen to each other attentively and develop communicative listening skills through peer learning. Regarding this, Wieserma (2000) states that sharing one’ ideas and responding to others’ improves think- ing and deepens understanding, which means peer listening may provide our students with a great deal of input, which may con- tribute to the learning process positively. In short, students can learn a lot by interacting with others and by taking part in the activities eiciently. he essential steps to better listening he listening process can be broken up into ive distinct stages: receiving, understanding, remembering, evaluating, and respond- ing. his is the model most commonly referred to when analysing good communication because it helps isolate the necessary skills required at each individual step in efective listening. Regarding these stages, we designed our study through tips and activities (Paris, 2013). Neslihan Gündoğdu & Cemile Buğra 153 Receiving: his is the process where the listeners learned the tips of being an efective listener. In this step, we gave a list of essential elements of active listening as a guide to our students to get them to understand how efective listening occurs. hese elements include not only the speech but also eye contact, body language, tone of voice and organization of ideas which convey meaning through efective communication. Understanding and remembering: hese stages are essential for meaningful communication and we combined these two steps in a way which can best serve our purposes. In this process, we implemented an activity which both requires the students to un- derstand and remember while interacting with their peers. he activity is a class memory quiz. Evaluating and responding: At these stages, students are ex- pected to analyse what they have heard and learn to get ready to respond. For these two stages, we implemented two activities to promote their listening skills and become interactive listeners. hese activities are group story-telling and whole class discussion. Research methodology We carried out this research in our own classrooms, each with 20 pre-intermediate undergraduate students. hey had been study- ing English for 6 months when we started the research. First, we had informal interviews with the students before conduct- ing action research in our classes to be able to identify the issues and develop ways to conduct our research by engaging them in the research process actively too. We made use of learning log entries as another data source to be able to get students’ person- al experiences and relections. And inally, the teacher journals which we kept in the process, especially after each implementa- tion, helped us to conduct this study. he students were informed about the study and asked to participate voluntarily and we got their consent before carrying out the research. heir names were kept anonymous. While analysing data, we negotiated continu- ously over the emerging indings from students’ logs and over in- 154 On the way to becoming effective listeners through peer listening terpreting our own relections. We had several face-to-face talks and wrote each other emails to keep interacting in understanding, discussing and interpreting the ideas. Our main purpose was to carry out this study to create consciousness among our students. We wanted them to develop communicative and interactive skills. So, we tried to answer the following question in our study: How can we help our students become efective listeners through peer learning in class sessions? Activities In carrying out the research, we selected efective listening activi- ties concerning pair or group work and whole class discussions. We adapted these activities regarding the needs of our classes. We organized the order of the activities in a way that best serves our purposes. We also designed learning logs for students to write their relections on their experiences with these implementations. Class memory quiz Students are generally asked to listen to audios or to their teacher talking. However, it can also be useful to lead them to listen to each other ( Joyce, 2003). For that reason, we conducted an activ- ity called ‘ Class memory quiz ‘ to support the course content, and add some fun into listening and speaking activities. his activity took a class hour together with students’ relections in learning logs which they were eager to ill in. To our surprise, they were eager to engage in activities. In the irst part of the activity, we asked one student to go to the front of the class one at a time and have the other students ask them any questions they like unless they are too personal. Each student had a go in terms of asking questions to their peers and answering their peers’ questions too. While students were asking and answering the questions, we took notes of what they said about themselves. In the second part of the activity, we explained to the students that we would hold a quiz about the irst part of the activity. he theme of the questions varied from personal in- Neslihan Gündoğdu & Cemile Buğra 155 formation to some philosophical questions such as ‘What makes you happy?’, ‘What is the meaning of life?’, and ‘Whose motto is ‘don’t give up’?’. Group story telling he second activity was group story telling. As Paris (2014) ex- plains, a good listener should be able to view a discussion as a whole, not just its most immediate parts. Paris also argues that the group storytelling activity is a fun, potentially silly, but in- credibly valuable exercise in active listening and comprehension. We conducted this as a whole-class activity, where one partici- pant acted as a moderator delivering the irst line of the story (once upon a time there was an English man) and writing the story as each student in the class contributed to the story by mak- ing up his/her own line using his creativity. Before the students made their own line, they had to repeat the previous lines of the other participants. Ice breaker We tried this activity to show students how important it is to listen to one another as a preparation for the next activity. We divided the group into two. We asked group A to go out of the class to create mystery. While group A was waiting outside the class, we asked the participants in group B to think of a topic to discuss with their pair waiting outside. hen, we went out to tell the participants to ignore their partners while they are trying to convey their message. Whole class discussions We carried out the whole-class discussion as a post activity af- ter studying the manners in the course book. We selected some quotes related to good manners and bad manners on the internet and opened a discussion about these quotes. he discussion took a class hour. 156 On the way to becoming effective listeners through peer listening hese in-class activities that we used were very useful and en- gaging. We seemed to achieve our initial purpose. Now we will share with you the verbal and written data we generated while conducting these activities in our classroom to be able to under- stand how the students developed and what we can explore more from these. Findings and discussions First, we will discuss our relections on the basis of our ield notes in order to reveal more about the process of in-class activities and changes in our students. Our relections as teachers Class memo- With the help of this activity; students aimed to concen- ry quiz trate more on what they were doing and improve their range of vocabulary, revise the grammar covered in previ- ous class sessions and most important of all, they could remember more information as they were interested in getting to know one another better. To our surprise, some of the students who are normally quiet in class activities were more active than others. Group story After setting out the rules of the activity, the participants telling did not like the idea of repeating the lines until they make up their own but soon they focused on what they were doing and started having fun while commenting on their friends’ lines whether they are related to the story or not. While participants were repeating the lines of their story, they were all luent and remembered all the lines. We also observed that while repeating the lines each participant had an eye contact with the owner of that a line of the story, which made them to remember the lines. Neslihan Gündoğdu & Cemile Buğra 157 Ice breaker One minute after the activity started, some of the stu- dents shouted out complaining that their partners were not listening to them. Until the participants in group B igured out the purpose of the activity, some of them tried to deliver their message and the others got ofended and stopped talking. Whole class Students were interested in the quotes that we presented to discussions them. hey exchanged ideas about good and bad manners. hey revised some useful expressions when they agreed or disagreed with their friend's ideas. hey learned to look at things from diferent perspectives. hey improved their range of vocabulary while generating ideas. Students’ relections Now we will present the data analysis of students’ relections in the learning logs. hese will help us explore more about the im- pact and support our own relections. hemes Evidence Student 13: We checked if we listened to each other or not. his was a good activity to improve our speaking skills. Engaging in Student 22: We asked questions in English. his was a learning both listening and speaking activity. We revised past tense. We should do such activities very often. Student 5: We tried to use the tenses correctly. Student 32: We spoke more luently, learned new words, improved our English and kept the information in mind. Student 40: I found the activity useful in terms of prac- ticing English, understanding our friends' pronunciation and improving our memory. Student 19: his activity exercised our brains and it im- proved our listening and speaking skills Student 40: I also learned new grammar item and words from my friends. Student 37: It was a beneicial activity which improved the mind and it taught me how to use linking words to make up a story 158 On the way to becoming effective listeners through peer listening Student 35: I both improved my English and had fun. Student 38: his session was fun and interesting. Enjoying Student 29: I tried to participate in the activity as much learning as I could because it was interesting. Student 2: Everybody in the class focused on the activ- ity without being distracted during the whole class hour for the irst time and it was an enjoyable activity while learning new words. Student 26: It was an enjoyable activity while making up a story, keeping the information in our memory and choosing the tenses. Gaining new Student 35: I learned diferent points of view. perspectives Student 25: We learned to look at things from diferent perspectives. Student 37: I learned new ideas. Student 35: We got to know each other better. herefore, I believe that our communication will increase in a positive Learning to way. interact and Student 7: We got to know each other better listen Student 33: I found this activity beneicial in terms of fo- cusing, following and understanding what is said, using the time eiciently and participating in the activity. Student 30: We learned to share ideas openly in a discus- sion. Student 2: It was a useful activity. his extra activity mo- tivated and relaxed us. Student 4: It was a good activity for instant thinking and Feeling better short term memory and gaining these skills will be helpful in speaking exams. Student 19: his activity exercised our brains. I learned to control my excitement from my friends. Student 13: We tried to think creatively. We listened to the story carefully to keep everything in mind. More students participated in the activity and we tested our memory. Students 18: It was useful in terms of understanding what you have listened, learning new words. Such activi- ties should be done more often. Neslihan Gündoğdu & Cemile Buğra 159 We identiied ive central themes out of all the data collected from the students. he students mentioned many issues that de- veloped or even changed. he emerging themes created a good mind map including critical elements in learning and develop- ment such as engagement, enjoyment, perspective-gaining, inter- action, and psychological beneits. We identiied many beneits as reported by students and as we also observed. here were also sub-beneits under these themes as shown in the following list: o Engaging in learning (listening, vocabulary, grammar, speaking) o Enjoying learning (interest, fun, joy) o Gaining new perspectives (openness to views) o Learning to interact and listen (attention, familiarity, interaction) o Deriving psychological beneits (motivation, interest, excitement, relaxation) Relections and looking into the future Regarding these activities we have adapted to it our class ses- sions, we conclude that all these implementations have had positive impacts on our students. We realize that we were able to create awareness of efective learning through peer listening and have a direct impact on the students’ understanding of the role of listening to one another attentively. For that reason, we should include more efective listening tasks in our lesson plans to be able to help our students develop efective listening skills through peer learning. Taking all these points into consideration, we believe we should implement these kinds of activities at an earlier period of the learning process in terms of raising aware- ness among students. In this way, they may become better com- municators both in class and in daily life. As teacher researchers, this study has contributed to our pro- fessional development. We have also developed new viewpoints through working with dilemmas which are sometimes per- 160 On the way to becoming effective listeners through peer listening ceived merely as obstacles in teaching and learning. In addition to this, such research has assisted us to identify the weak points of our teaching practices and lead us to develop various ways to strengthen them. And it has also enlightened us by keeping us on the track continuously. We made the following decisions in regard to our practices in the future: - Pay more attention to interaction opportunities that students can develop - Add fun elements to promote interaction - Create activities that connect students for collaboration and We hope to think more about what emerged from what stu- dents said and continue to implement our decisions to make our classroom a place where students interact and support one an- other. References Chiriac E. H. & Granström K. (2012). Teachers’ leadership and students’ experience of group work, Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 18(3), 345-363. Joyce, K. (2003). Active listening activities. Retrieved from https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/active-listening- activities. Paris, C. (2014). 6 Listening Skills Exercises to Promote Stronger Communication. Retrieved from https://blog.udemy.com/ listening-skills-exercises Paris, C. (2013). he Importance of Listening, and Ways to Improve Your Own Skills. Retrieved from https://blog. udemy.com/importance-of-listening Wiersema, N. (2000). How does collaborative learning actually work in a classroom and how do students react to it? A brief relection. Retrieved November 28, 2005, from http:// www.city.londonmet.ac.uk/deliberations/collab.learning/ wiersema.html he impact of cooperative 12 learning on students’ attitudes towards listening skills Merve Sofu Main focus Why are my students demotivated in listening classes? Why is their classroom participation so low during listening classes? How can I make my students more motivated and willing in listening activities? Which method should I use to create a student-friendly listening class? Is it possible to get pleasure and give pleasure at the same time in a listening class? For a long time, I have been try- ing to understand potential answers to these questions. With these questions in my mind, I started to conduct this study. Although my students seemed aware of the importance of listening skill in English, almost all of them appeared unwill- ing, sad and demotivated in listening lessons; therefore, I wanted to increase their motivation when they listen to something in a foreign language. With this concern in mind, and based on the results of two open-ended questions– “What do you think about the listening activities we have done in our listening classes? How do you feel during listening activities?” I decided to use ‘coopera- tive learning’ (Wichadee, 2005) to help my students overcome their fears, hesitation and to make them feel more motivated. In • How does using a “Cooperative Learning Method” afect order to achieve my aim, I asked the following research question: their perceptions? • How does using a “Cooperative Learning” technique afect my students’ attitudes towards listening and make them feel more motivated in listening classes? • What are their attitudes towards “Cooperative Learning”? • How have the CL activities afected my students? 161 162 The impact of cooperative learning on students’ attitudes towards listening skills Background Listening is a kind of skill that a person will use throughout their entire life and it is also one of the basics for communication. Al- though most of the students are aware of the importance of lis- tening in language learning, they do not seem to try to overcome their fears or prejudices about listening. When learners commu- nicate while cooperating, they may feel more comfortable. As Johnson & Johnson (1999) state ‘cooperative learning’ (CL) in- volves “the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning”. By using CL, students will share the burden with their friends and at the same time, they will enhance their own learning. According to Sharan (1980), CL includes ive criteria that deine true CL groups: positive interdependence, individual accountability, having interpersonal and small group skills, promoting interaction and group • they will achieve the goal working together (positive inter- processing. By cooperative learning, dependence) • they will be responsible for achieving their common goal (individual accountability). • they will learn how to work in a team (interpersonal and small group skills) • they will interact with each other face-to-face in order to accomplish the tasks and through this way their commu- nication skills will improve (promoting interaction and group processing). Research methodology Participants of this study were one of my classes at Preparatory School (YADYO) of Cukurova University. My class consisted of 18 (M= 10, F= 8) students, whose age range was between 18-23. hese students had 24 hours of English lessons every week and 8 hours of it with me. In these eight hours, I carried out both syl- Merve Sofu 163 labus activities and the cooperative learning method in my listen- ing classes. Data collection tools • In order to support my personal and informal observations, I asked two-open-ended questions - What do you think about the listening activities that we have done in our class? How do you feel during listening activities? hese elicited students’ opinions about listening skills and the ac- tivities that were given. • I administered an attitude scale which investigates stu- dents’ attitudes toward the importance of listening, en- joying listening (Tubail, 2015) and cooperative learning (Wichadee, 2005) • After the attitude scale was applied, I conducted a semi- structured interview with 13 volunteer students. Data analysis In the analysis of the quantitative data gathered from the attitude scales, the frequency of each item was calculated for pre- and post- classroom activities. In order to analyse the qualitative data obtained from the semi-structured interview with volunteer stu- dents, I categorized the impact areas by analysing the transcribed data inductively (see table 4). Implementation As I observed my students’ behaviour in listening classes, I thought that working in groups and being a part of a team makes them feel more motivated and relaxed. With these ideas in my mind, I started to work on the activities that we need to keep up with the teaching order and syllabi of the School of Foreign Lan- guages in Çukurova University. he activities of our course book 164 The impact of cooperative learning on students’ attitudes towards listening skills are ineicient and we need to be rigid about the time limit for each unit; therefore, I had to adapt all the materials in line with the principles of cooperative learning. And then I implemented the following action plan weekly with my class. Pre-Listening While-listening Post-listening Prac- - Draw mind- - A gap-illing ac- - Watch a video tice 1 map charts in tivity - Discuss the con- Learn- groups - Listen and share tent ing a - Discuss in your answers - Share ideas new groups - Answer all the lan- questions indi- guage vidually - Cooperate on the activity and vo- cabulary Prac- - Watch a video - A true/false activ- - Play “Running tice 2 - Discuss the ity dictation” game Man- content in - Cooperate with ners groups your group mem- - Make a whole bers for the activ- class discus- ity sion. Prac- - Analyse pic- - Respond to a - Put the lyrics tice 3 tures multiple choice of “We’re the Famous - Discuss and activity Champions” by referees share with - In the 1st listen- Queen in an their class- ing, do the activity order. mates with their team members - In the 2nd listen- ing, check it on their own Merve Sofu 165 Prac- - Look at some - Match the speak- - Watch a video tice 4 pie charts of ers with their sen- - After watching Social social media tences. it, create a slogan media use in diferent - Cooperate on the with their group countries. activity to ind members. - Compare the the sentences of - Vote the slogans. countries with the speakers’ each other and with Turkey Prac- - Look at a - Answer compre- - Watch a short tice 5 photo series hension questions. movie Judg- called “Judging - Catch the key - In the half of the ing by America” words for the movie, write the appear- - After looking questions. rest of the story ance at them, they - Combine their in the movie with discuss. answers with their their group mem- - In groups of group members. bers. four, present your ideas. Prac- - Look at a se- - Filling the blanks - Play “Running tice 6 ries of photos activity dictation” game. Odd about the odd - Share the things inven- inventions they understood tions - Dream an ob- with their group ject that they members. com- needed plete the activity - Wrote the fea- on their own tures of their - Check each products and other’s work drew a picture of it. - Share it with their class- mates. 166 The impact of cooperative learning on students’ attitudes towards listening skills Findings and discussion: Research question 1. How does using a “Cooperative Learning Method” afect their perceptions? Based on my observations, almost all of my students seem aware of the importance of listening skills. According to the fre- quency analysis of the attitude scale, as can be seen in Table 1 below, the majority of the students are aware of the importance of listening based on the results for items 5 and 6. In these items, approximately two-thirds reported positive perceptions regard- ing more listening lessons and the importance of listening. After cooperative learning, their perception on this issue has been af- fected in a positive way. For these items, an overwhelming ma- jority highlighted a positive change in their perceptions. hese results reveal that cooperative learning fosters the awareness of the importance of listening skill in my students. Table 1: Perceptions towards the importance of listening Pre-test (f ) Post-test (f ) Question- SA A U D SD Mean SA A U D SD Mean naire items scores scores 1. I think 5 7 5 1 - 3,9 10 6 1 - 1 4.3 listening helps in develop- ing the ability of right thinking. Merve Sofu 167 2. I can - 2 5 4 7 2.1 2 - 4 6 6 2.2 acquire much cogni- tion and experi- ences without listening. 3. I wish 1 6 4 3 4 2.8 2 - 1 4 11 1.7 we could lessen some listening topics from the syllabus. 4. I think 1 - 3 6 8 1.8 1 2 - 5 10 1.8 listen- ing extra texts is time wasting. 5. I wish 4 7 3 3 1 3.5 13 3 - 1 1 4.4 we could increase listening classes in the school schedule. 6. I think 11 3 1 1 2 4.1 16 1 - 1 - 4.7 listening is im- portant to every student. 168 The impact of cooperative learning on students’ attitudes towards listening skills In item 1, the students show that they link listening skill to developing the ability to listen. he contribution of listening to their metacognition is also implied in line with the increasing scores. Similarly, items 2, 3 and 4 include negative questions re- garding the value of listening, listening topics and extra texts re- spectively. he students rate these items low, meaning that they want to have more topics in the syllabus and listen to extra texts. hey also report that listening could promote their thinking as is clear from the score on item 2. hey imply that they ind lis- tening materials more valuable compared to the pre-test scores. Research question 2. How does using “Cooperative Learning” technique afect my students’ attitudes towards listening? After implementing a “Cooperative Learning” method with my listening class, I observed that the participation in listening tasks increased and my students seemed to become more active learn- ers of English. In addition to this, pre- and post-test results on the attitude scale indicate a positive change in terms of attitudes towards listening after the six-week period of my implementa- tion of a “Cooperative Learning” method. As can be seen in Table 2, after working cooperatively, a majority of the students never want to miss listening classes (Item 6). Likewise, for items 2 and 4 in the post test, again a majority indicate preference for listen- ing activities and enjoyment. his outcome stresses the change in students’ feelings towards attending listening classes. In addition, almost all of my students gave positive feedback on the usage of the cooperative learning method in listening classes in our semi- structured interview. Both the attitude scale and the semi-struc- tured interview revealed that my students’ feelings and attitudes towards listening changed in a very positive way. hey stated that they all found it enjoyable and felt not only more self-conident but also more motivated. Merve Sofu 169 Table 2: Attitudes towards listening Pre-test Post-test Statements SA A U D SD SA A U D SD 1. I feel bored in English 6 3 3 6 - 1 1 4 7 5 listening classes. 2. I prefer listening classes 1 1 7 3 6 7 5 2 3 1 to other classes. 3. Listening comprehen- 7 6 2 3 - 7 4 3 2 2 sion is one of the prob- lems I face in learning English. 4. I enjoy English listen- 2 4 6 2 4 8 5 2 2 1 ing classes. 5. I exert efort in guessing 6 11 1 - - 2 8 2 3 3 the meaning of diicult words through the text. 6. I feel happy when we 1 3 3 3 8 1 2 3 2 10 miss a listening class. 7. I feel annoyed when do- 2 4 2 3 7 2 2 3 6 5 ing any listening tasks. Research question 3. What are their attitudes towards “Cooperative Learning”? As for the data from the last part of the attitude scale, it was re- vealed that my students found the “Cooperative Learning” method not only useful but also enjoyable. As shown in Table 3, ifteen out of eighteen students think that by the help of cooperative learning they learn new things easily (item 1). Moreover, except for one student, all the students ind our listening lessons more interesting with this method (item 8). As can be understood from items 7 and 9, by using this method my students have become more active and have good relationships with their friends in listening classes. he students’ positive feelings show that working together as a team creates a comfortable, student-friendly and non-stressful environ- ment for study. his study has some positive aspects in common 170 The impact of cooperative learning on students’ attitudes towards listening skills with the research done by Charatdao (2010). he indings revealed that the participants were happy to work with the group, and this resulted from their friendship, intimacy from frequent social inter- action and group respect for each member’s opinion. Table 3: Attitudes towards cooperative learning Questionnaire items SA A U D SD 1. This approach helps me to learn new things 15 2 - 1 - easily. 2. This approach helps me to acquire knowl- 11 6 1 - - edge through working in a team. 3. This approach makes me understand the 8 6 4 - - working process. 4. This approach enables me to participate in 11 7 - - - sharing information, making decisions, and solving problems. 5. This approach helps everyone reach the 8 5 3 2 - goal equally. 6. This approach trains me how to be a good 7 6 4 1 - leader and a good follower. 7. This approach creates a good relationship 13 3 2 - - among group members. 8. The lessons become more interesting with 17 1 - - - this approach. 9. I feel actively involved in all activities 14 4 - - - through this approach. 10. I feel intellectually challenged through this 3 2 6 2 5 approach. Research question 4: How have the CL activities afected my students? To answer this question, I analysed the transcribed data from semi-structured interviews by inducing major areas of impact. In the interview, I asked the volunteer students the following three questions and when necessary, I asked clariication and probing questions to get further information: Merve Sofu 171 1. Compare the listening activities with CL to those we normally do in our listening classes. 2. How do you feel when you work in groups and cooperate with your friends? 3. How do you think the CL method has afected you during this six-week process? Students’ relections he students reported verbally that they beneited from active en- gagement in listening activities. he followings are some relevant positive extracts from students’ responses: Student A: “I made use of this method in that I feel better and more conident” Student B: “When I realize that my friends and I have almost the same mistakes and same problems, I feel more self-conident. I am not the troubled one!” Student C: “Group-work activities increased our motivation and we started to listen more willingly and carefully” Student D: “his method contributed to a lot of diferent things: by means of knowledge, fun, knowing each other better” Student E: “With this method, I learnt to share what I’ve already known” Student F: “Working cooperatively made things easier! I feel comfortable in listening classes” Student G: “After this study, I learnt to work as a team and be a piece of a big puzzle” After probing into the responses of the students to the semi- structured interview, three themes emerged: positive impact of CL on motivation, on listening ability and on learning to learn. hese themes are highlighted in Table 4. 172 The impact of cooperative learning on students’ attitudes towards listening skills Table 4: he themes revealed by students’ responses to the interview questions Impact on moti- Impact on listening ability Impact on learning to vation learn Conident in lis- Understand what I listen Work as a team tening better Active while lis- Be focused on the target tening material Relaxed in listen- Learn to share knowl- ing activities edge Willing to do Develop a sense of re- listening sponsibility Want to learn more Motivated to listen As can be seen in the table above, students’ comments on the CL method mostly related to some afective attributes and meta- cognitive skills. Since the aim of this study is making a change in their feelings, students’ comments on the interview questions correspond with the aim of this study. As for the impact of CL on listening ability, it can be easily seen that students mostly focused on their changing feelings towards listening and some important skills they need both for their university education and their job. hus, only two students stated that the CL method helped them to understand what they listen better. he qualitative data gathered from semi-structured interview conirmed the data obtained from the attitude scale towards the CL method (see Table 3). In this scale, except for one undecided student, 17 students agree with Item 2 which emphasizes acquir- ing knowledge through group work; in relation to this, one of my students pointed out that “Working cooperatively made things easier!” Moreover, items 8 and 9 are related to being an active par- ticipant of listening classes owing to the CL-based lessons. Con- cerning these two items, one of my students stated that “Group- Merve Sofu 173 work activities increased our motivation and we started to listen more willingly and carefully.” As can be clearly understood, stu- dents’ responses to interview questions coincide with the results of the attitude scale towards the CL method. Relections and looking into the future Impact on my teaching of listening In my study, after using the “Cooperative Learning” method in my listening class, I realized that my students became more ac- tive learners of English. In addition to this, our class dynamics improved, which made them more interested during our listen- ing lessons. his study also enabled me to recognize students’ need for freedom in class. In the cooperative learning method, the teacher’s role is like both an observer and a motivator. In other words, s/he observes the students, if they need any help, s/he shows the way to ind a solution to their problem. Before this study, I wanted my students to understand anything they listen to and if they couldn’t manage it, I behaved impatiently. One of the things I learnt from this study is to be patient while teaching. Impact on my students After this study, I observed that my students became more will- ing and enthusiastic about my listening classes. In addition, they were less anxious but more curious about the following lessons. Even when they saw me in the corridors of our school, they were asking about the upcoming lessons’ tasks or activities. Moreover, they developed an awareness of the importance of listening skills themselves and this made them try to be more successful in lis- tening. By using the websites, I gave them beforehand, they start- ed to do out of class activities to improve their listening skills. 174 The impact of cooperative learning on students’ attitudes towards listening skills Impact on me as a teacher When I joined this year’s “Teacher Research Group”, I had no idea about the procedures, the relationship between group mem- bers and also the outcomes of the studies but this study was really rewarding for me. Easy-going and helpful group members in our school, supporting and constructive feedback from the reviewing committee gave me the courage to do more for my students and made me feel more energetic about my job. hanks to this study, both my students and I learnt a lot of new things and had great fun during our classes. hus, this made me more motivated and enthusiastic not only as a teacher but also as a teacher-researcher! References Johnson, D.W., & Johnson, R.T. (1999). Learning Together and Alone: Cooperative, Competitive, and Individualistic Learning (5thed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Sharan, S. (1980). Cooperative learning in small groups: Recent methods and efects on achievement, attitudes and ethnic relations. Review of Educational Research 50(2), 241–71. Charatdao, I. (2010). hai Style of Social Interaction: A Case Study of Collaborative English Learning at King Mongkut’s University of Technology honburi. LSCAC 2010 proceedings, 198–203. Tubail, M. M. (2015). he Efectiveness of a Suggested Program in Developing Eighth Graders’ listening comprehension skills and their attitudes towards listening. Islamic University- Gaza. (unpublished MA thesis) Wichadee, S. (2005). he efects of cooperative learning on english reading skills and attitudes of the irst-year students at Bangkok University. BU Academic Review, 4(2) 22-31.