Definition of the problem
In any group of students, teachers are conscious of the great disparity in oral expression abilities that their students will present. One part of this discrepancy is due to the tendency of each student to take risks or not. While some students fear speaking and refuse to offer even the simplest comment without being completely sure of the vocabulary and grammar it will require, others —without a significantly higher level in the language than the former student— dare to speak often and make use of structures that they may not be familiar with. They have a higher degree of participation and seek their own opportunities for acquisition, asking how to say something the teacher hasn’t yet presented and attempting turns that require a much higher level of effort.
I am currently teaching level 6 English at the ENALLT for a group of 18 students. They range from eighteen to 28 years old, and come from a myriad of backgrounds from nursing students, to engineers, to architects, to historians. Their level is meant to be B2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference. While this group of students is very confident in oral interaction, for new or unfamiliar concepts they tend to hold back and allow for the same two students, high risk takers, to make attempts during my elicits. While this is convenient for them and the high risk students are often right, the rest of the class takes a passive approach to language learning where they never have the chance to explore the language and understand the strengths and fallacies of their own developing hypotheses.
That’s why I’ve chosen to develop a project that promotes more stable risk-taking behaviors among all students
That’s why I’ve chosen to develop a project that promotes more stable risk-taking behaviors among all students, creating an environment in which all student voices are heard and analyzed in the development of new structures and topics. I would like to see if my action leads to more volunteering from a group that normally requires teacher selection to participate in activities.
Research Question
How can a professor bridge the gap between the highest risk-taking and lowest risk-taking students?
Review of the Literature
4.1 Definition of risk-taking
Beebe (1983) in her substantial project analyzing risk taking in the second language defines the act as “the selection of one alternative or course of action from among many in which the consequences of that choice could leave the individual in a worse position than if he had selected otherwise or not selected at all.” These “worse positions” appear in diverse array, whether through:
a bad grade in the course, a fail on the exam, a reproach from the teacher, a smirk from a classmate, punishment or embarrassment imposed by oneself. Outside the classroom, individuals learning a second language…fear the frustration coming from a listener’s blank look, showing that they have failed to communicate; they fear the danger of not being able to take care of themselves; they fear the alienation of not being able to communicate and thereby get close to other human beings. Perhaps worst of all, they fear a loss of identity. Given these realities, we must conclude that all second and foreign language learning involves taking risks (Beebe, 1983).
Because of this reality, I had to focus my definition of risk-taking in order to observe it. For that reason, I have chosen my definition based on a combination of studies, one in which Bang (1999) measured risk-taking behavior simply as the number of voluntary speaking turns from students and the other in which Beebe measured it as the number of voluntary T-units divided by the total number of T-units (1983). A T-unit was defined by Hunt in 1965 as the “shortest grammatically allowable sentences into which writing can be split or minimally terminable unit”. Most often a t-unit in this case is a sentence, except in the case of compound sentences with multiple dominant clauses, in which each is defined as a T-unit.
While I liked the idea Beebe introduced of further separating comments into T-units to recognize stories and tangents as risk taking behavior, her experiments took place in the form of interview (1983). This explains her choice of dividing voluntary T-units by total T-units, since her subjects had no choice but to speak when spoken to. In my experiment, because students are free to respond (or not respond) freely, it seemed prudent to integrate Bang’s experiment that took place in a class setting by only counting the voluntary T-units, without the subsequent balance of the total comments, seeing as forced comments can be random and varied in class (1999). For that purpose, I’m defining each voluntary T-unit as a manifestation of a risk-taking behavior by a student.
4.2 Benefits of risk-taking in the classroom.
Swain (1985) expands on theories of input by including an aspect of “comprehensible output”, or the productive use of the language. This production, particularly the production of aspects about which they are less familiar, allows students to test their hypotheses about the target language as they personally develop them (Swain, 1985). Schachter (1984) further contributes that without these self-mediated experiments, there is more risk for fossilization of certain structures, as students don’t take a risk to try the newer structures in more open activities and conversation, leaving more complicated grammatical concepts to be practiced solely in the context of scaffolding exercises.
4.3 Importance of risk-taking promotion in the classroom
Despite its benefits, risk taking still varies greatly within the EFL classroom, and professors battle with problems such as speaking volume, voluntary turn taking, use of structures more complex than the present simple, and creation of questions. Bang (1999) mentions that risk taking which she defines as any active participation of students (positing that any oral production requires some degree of risk) is a problem in English language learning classrooms internationally.
4.4 Theoretical Framework for Action
My action is an application of behaviorist theory, which, as summarized by Da Silva & Signoret, looks for a connection between responses to stimuli and the reinforcement of those responses, whether those reinforcements be positive or negative (2005). Here, the participation in the raffle each class is a positive reinforcement for a few different voluntary responses to various stimuli: 1) a question raised to the group, 2) a question arising in the mind of the student, or 3) the desire to share information, again, on the part of the student. I study if the introduction of behaviorist practices can be applied to something as conceptual as risk taking behavior, when normally it is applied to easy to recognize products such as pronunciation or form (Da Silva & Signoret, 2005).
Action
Observation: Fellow teachers observed the lesson and tracked the number of voluntary T-units per student using a checklist provided in annex 10.1, from which a mean was calculated. This occurred one class before the lesson (October 17th), during the action (October 24th), and then my next class (November 7th) after the action was implemented. I observed changes in the mean of the number of voluntary T-units produced per student as well as the difference in voluntary T-units produced by the highest risk takers (top 10%) in the class versus the lowest (bottom 90%).
The action consisted in the distribution of small papers with “thumbs up” for each student. On the first day of action (October 24th), students added one of their papers to a pot when they produce any voluntary T-unit. On the second day of action (November 7th), students added one paper to the pot when they produced a linguistically and logically accurate voluntary T-unit. At the end of each class, one paper was drawn from the pot and the person whose name appeared on the paper won a prize.
In an equitable classroom where all students are taking risks, students should participate the same amount, so 10% of students should make 10% of the comments for the day. I tracked the percentage of voluntary t-units made by the top 10% highest risk taking students of the class, and found that it was closer to 10% after the action was carried out than before. This confirmed a positive correlation between the “like contest” action and the disparity in risk-taking behaviors among students.
Results
Before implementing the action, we observed a regular day of class. As I described, students on the whole were fairly quiet and comments, particularly comments where the answer was unknown or unclear to the students, were made almost exclusively by two particular students in the classroom, who we’ll call for the remainder of the article our high risk-takers. As illustrated in graph b below, before the action was introduced over half of all comments made during the class were from our high risk-takers. Few comments were made throughout the class as well. Though many opportunities were given for student input, the average number of voluntary t-units per student was a mere 2.8, as illustrated in graph a.
The day of the action, I introduced the students to the raffle. I showed them the likes, how to get them (by making any voluntary comment) and the prizes they could win, but I did not mention that this was meant to affect their risk-taking habits nor that the tactic was part of my action research project. Right away a student asked a clarifying question, and to illustrate the risk-taking actions I was seeking, I immediately asked for a like from that student. The students caught on by watching the first few examples, and there was a sense of excitement around winning likes. Even student volume, which I was not directly reinforcing, improved because students wanted their comment to be counted as a voluntary t-unit (and therefore worthy of a like).
In terms of raw data, there was an enormous increase in average voluntary t-units per student, up to 3.75 as illustrated in graph a. The lowest risk-taking students, those with zero or one voluntary t-unit in the pre-observation, saw an increase of one to two voluntary t-units on the day of the action. This probably contributed to a slight decrease in the percentage of voluntary t-units uttered by the high risk-takers, which was down to 46% as shown in graph b.
A week later in my next class, I did not reintroduce the likes, but did remind them that I felt their participation was exemplary the last class and asked them to “keep it going”–even without the likes. I commented that though the high risk-takers always give great comments, I loved hearing from everyone the last class. Though there was a less palpable excitement, I was surprised to see an increased improvement in the risk-taking gap.
As expected, without the direct reward the average voluntary t-units decreased from the day of the action, however it’s important to note that this average did increase by .2 t-units from the pre-observation. So students did on average take more risks since the action. This can be seen in graph a.
The more impressive finding was in the percentage of comments made by the high risk-takers. These comments decreased to 30%. While in a completely homogeneous risk-taking class, this percentage would be closer to 10, these numbers show a more equitable classroom participation scheme. It seems reasonable considering some students simply participate more. The decreased participation of high risk-takers indicates that the floor was opened to all students to test hypotheses and ask questions.
Again, there was a dramatic increase in the number of comments made by the lowest risk-taking students. This specific population of students had increases of two to five voluntary t-units from the pre-observation to the final observation.
Discussion
This action research project is meant to differentiate between the highest and lowest risk takers in our classroom. The purpose is to understand if behaviorist theory could be applied to more general classroom conduct as opposed to simple, automatized grammar structures.
The pre-observation section was fairly normal for a day of class. As stated in my statement of the problem and results sections, over half the comments were made by a small number of students. The confidence of these students and their level of English certainly contributes to their participation, but even during comments where nobody, not even the high risk-takers, knew the answer the two high risk-takers were the ones asking questions and guessing, thus testing their hypotheses about the language. This justifies the use of my particular metric for risk-taking. Students making more comments were, in fact, making “riskier” comments as well, if we consider riskier actions to be actions with less likely positive consequences.
Otherwise, the pre-observation supports the relevance of this study. If two students are making 50% of the comments, particularly when barely 3 comments were made per student, that is a signal that the vast majority of students are not creating relevant output and testing their hypotheses as deemed important by Swain (1985).
The integration of the action showed a sweeping improvement to the average, which is to be expected. The simple excitement of winning a raffle ticket made commenting a competition. A surprising outcome which warrants further study was that I noticed louder speaking volumes due to the students wanting their voluntary comment to be counted during moments when several students tried to jump in. This allowed me as the teacher to regulate the risk-taking behavior more closely, choosing quieter students to comment without requiring an inauthentic participation from them. This action may thus further support teachers in discussion management, particularly because comments made in the classroom did not become irrelevant due to students wanting more raffle tickets. On the contrary, it provided a breadth of perspectives much wider than in discussions preceding the action.
Despite the promise of the study for low risk-taking students, there was little change in the percentage of comments made by the high risk-takers. These students were equally motivated by the reinforcement, so by no surprise they also increased their risk-taking behavior, and the effect was less equalizing in its implementation.
The post-observation showed a deterioration in total comments, which unfortunately means the effect of the likes did not survive the time between classes. A couple limitations here were the timeline, which allowed for only one application of the raffle, as well as the fact that the class was shared with co-teachers. As a result, the two classes were two weeks apart, giving the students ample time to forget the habits and develop different ones with my co-teachers. It would be interesting to see the effect more closely over a period of time. Would the heightened average wear off immediately, or would it last a few sessions?
The fact that the raffle was only introduced one time is also a relevant limitation of the research project. Two hours is generally not enough time for students to build a habit, so I would be interested if a longer timeline would a) allow students to build healthier risk-taking habits or b) cause the action to lose its novelty and result in a deterioration despite the continued action.
Most interesting in the study was the increase in voluntary t-units among those with the lowest risk taking manifestations before the action. I have thought about the possible explanations of this phenomenon and I consider that many times the biggest obstacle for these students is that they don’t feel their ideas are worth contributing. Giving them the opportunity to overcome that by giving them an excuse to speak (in order to win a prize instead of because they believe their comment is more important than that of others) seems to have a particularly strong effect on their voluntary turns. Through this interpretation the action did less to promote these students’ risk taking cognition, but removed a barrier to active risk-taking behaviors. Though we have few resources to check cognition, it might be an interesting point of further study to see why students choose to speak, or not speak, in class. Perhaps the key to the effectiveness of this action lies in that part.
Along the same vein of surprising specific reactions to the action, one particular student underwent literally no change throughout the three observation periods. This student, to me, always takes risks in terms of asking questions, but tends to stay safe and quiet in other circumstances. This is interesting to me and I’d be interested in further studying the effect of behaviorist action specifically on use of questions in the classroom, as it appears to not be as closely linked as other risk-taking behaviors.
Finally, the most successful result of the experiment was the drop in the percentage of voluntary t-units made by the highest risk-taking students. In a completely even environment, the percentage of comments made by any 10% of the class, be they the highest risk takers or otherwise, would be ten. Obviously, that kind of equality in class cannot be seen as the ideal, as each student learns differently and has different comfort levels, I was surprised and encouraged to see that the top risk-takers went from producing over half of all voluntary comments to under thirty percent. In the class post-action, even after the action was no longer directly present, we enjoyed a more even participation and more chances for shyer students to explore their own hypotheses about the language.
I found this small raffle to have a strong positive effect on class dynamic. Teachers should think about its integration whether on specific important days, in a longer term raffle, or perhaps for other kinds of incentives as contributed in gamification theory.
Conclusion
Teachers should be focused on the risk-taking behavior of their students. Studies have shown repeatedly its importance within the ESL/EFL classroom, and while teachers focus on the affective filter, we should explore other options to promote hypothesis-testing and general risk-taking. This allows us to take advantage of the many informal oral conversations we have throughout the class. While nobody doubts their benefit in providing students with an open environment to practice their language and communication skills, we often overlook these opportunities due to their informality. We can integrate the proposed action, among others, to continue building a more equitable participation cycle without eliminating the voluntary element. This keeps conversations comfortable and informal, contributing in itself to the affective filter. With continued research we can provide all students with a more explorative outlook on language that more closely resembles the way language is shared in the globalized environments in which they live.