Searching for a suitable research methodology for the project, Lemke’s statements were found the most helpful, where he embraces a social perspective on language that sees schools not as ‘knowledge delivery systems’ but as social institutions in which people affect each others' lives. He argues that classroom education is talk. “It is the social use of language to enact regular activity structures and to share systems of meaning among teachers and students”.
This research project mainly focuses on literature circles, which Daniels describes as a quite sophisticated and highly evolved part of the wider collaborative learning movement. Before making a distinction between cooperative and collaborative learning, we should know that, the act of learning takes place in social interactions through joint, collaborative activity. As Baquedano-López states, learning takes place first at the social level which is ‘the intra-personal level’ and is later appropriated by the individual one which is ‘the intra-personal level’. Daniels introduces a distinction between ‘cooperative learning’, which is mainly used to describe traditional skills-oriented school tasks assigned by teachers to student groups, and ‘collaborative learning’, which is preferred for more higher-order, student-centered and open-ended activities. To find the relation between literature circles and communicative and cooperative learning, we depart from Raphael and Gavelek’s view that ‘literature circles’ can be traced to the idea of cooperative learning study groups where students work collaboratively on specific projects or tasks. As it is also mentioned by Ernst-Slavit, Carrison, & Spiesman-Laughlin, literature circles provide opportunities for oral language and literacy growth for all students, including English language learners. Many teachers, however, are hesitant to use this instructional approach with students who are learning English.
On the one hand, it is generally difficult to make a distinction between cooperative and collaborative learning methods at the beginning. When we consider the advantages of small group structure and active student participation in collaborative and cooperative tasks over passive, lecture based teaching, the two terms seem quite close in meaning. In both ways learning is supported by a discovery based approach. Both methods require group skills and come with a framework upon which the group’s activity resides, but cooperative learning is usually more structurally defined than collaborative learning.
On the other hand, experts define the differences between these methodologies as one of knowledge and power, as Rockwood explains. It can be concluded that cooperative learning is based on foundational knowledge while collaborative learning is more on the constructionist’s view that knowledge is a social construct. Cooperative learning requires the instructor as the center of authority and is usually more closed-ended and usually has specific answers. In comparison, collaborative learning does not entail the instructor’s authority and requires small groups which are often given more open-ended, complex tasks.
Participants
The study was conducted on two groups of students at a private high school in Sofia, Bulgaria. The first group consisted of 34 (fourteen-year-old) teenagers in eight-grade and the second group included 33 (eighteen-year-old) young adults in twelfth-grade. The aforementioned high school is an English language profile school, where eight-grade is a preparatory year with 21 hours of English language instruction weekly, starting from elementary level up to the intermediate throughout the year. In the school, starting from the ninth-grade onwards, the language of instruction for math, physics, chemistry and biology is English as well. Twelfth-grade is the graduation year, when students study intensively to get ready for university entrance exams such as, State-Graduation-Exam, TOEFL, IELTS or SAT. Because of these reasons English language is the most crucial subject for those age groups. The school has a multicultural setting as there are many students from different nationalities and family backgrounds. The class sizes are rather small with an average of 15 students per class.
Searching for a suitable research methodology for the project, Lemke’s statements were found the most helpful, where he embraces a social perspective on language that sees schools not as ‘knowledge delivery systems’ but as social institutions in which people affect each others' lives. He argues that classroom education is talk. “It is the social use of language to enact regular activity structures and to share systems of meaning among teachers and students”.
This research project mainly focuses on literature circles, which Daniels describes as a quite sophisticated and highly evolved part of the wider collaborative learning movement. Before making a distinction between cooperative and collaborative learning, we should know that, the act of learning takes place in social interactions through joint, collaborative activity. As Baquedano-López states, learning takes place first at the social level which is ‘the intra-personal level’ and is later appropriated by the individual one which is ‘the intra-personal level’. Daniels introduces a distinction between ‘cooperative learning’, which is mainly used to describe traditional skills-oriented school tasks assigned by teachers to student groups, and ‘collaborative learning’, which is preferred for more higher-order, student-centered and open-ended activities. To find the relation between literature circles and communicative and cooperative learning, we depart from Raphael and Gavelek’s view that ‘literature circles’ can be traced to the idea of cooperative learning study groups where students work collaboratively on specific projects or tasks. As it is also mentioned by Ernst-Slavit, Carrison, & Spiesman-Laughlin, literature circles provide opportunities for oral language and literacy growth for all students, including English language learners. Many teachers, however, are hesitant to use this instructional approach with students who are learning English.
On the one hand, it is generally difficult to make a distinction between cooperative and collaborative learning methods at the beginning. When we consider the advantages of small group structure and active student participation in collaborative and cooperative tasks over passive, lecture based teaching, the two terms seem quite close in meaning. In both ways learning is supported by a discovery based approach. Both methods require group skills and come with a framework upon which the group’s activity resides, but cooperative learning is usually more structurally defined than collaborative learning.
On the other hand, experts define the differences between these methodologies as one of knowledge and power, as Rockwood explains. It can be concluded that cooperative learning is based on foundational knowledge while collaborative learning is more on the constructionist’s view that knowledge is a social construct. Cooperative learning requires the instructor as the center of authority and is usually more closed-ended and usually has specific answers. In comparison, collaborative learning does not entail the instructor’s authority and requires small groups which are often given more open-ended, complex tasks.
Participants
The study was conducted on two groups of students at a private high school in Sofia, Bulgaria. The first group consisted of 34 (fourteen-year-old) teenagers in eight-grade and the second group included 33 (eighteen-year-old) young adults in twelfth-grade. The aforementioned high school is an English language profile school, where eight-grade is a preparatory year with 21 hours of English language instruction weekly, starting from elementary level up to the intermediate throughout the year. In the school, starting from the ninth-grade onwards, the language of instruction for math, physics, chemistry and biology is English as well. Twelfth-grade is the graduation year, when students study intensively to get ready for university entrance exams such as, State-Graduation-Exam, TOEFL, IELTS or SAT. Because of these reasons English language is the most crucial subject for those age groups. The school has a multicultural setting as there are many students from different nationalities and family backgrounds. The class sizes are rather small with an average of 15 students per class.
Data collection
The research was planned to explain how to increase student interaction which leads to better learning of foreign languages and the way how language can be integrated into the activity routines of the classroom. So the data which is necessary for the research was planned to be collected by methods of analyzing classroom interaction which involves the analysis of classroom talk during the literature circles. To achieve this, a classroom observation form for the teacher was chosen which complies with Bales’ Interaction Analysis System (IPA). Later, the data collected was interpreted according to (IPA) system and was exposed to conceptual theoretical work which led to further relevant data collection or writing conclusions for the research.
About the choice of data collection during classroom observations, Nunan states that, although formal experiments are widely used to collect evidence on language learning and use, they are comparatively rare in genuine classrooms which have been constituted for teaching purposes, not for the purpose of data collection.
On the other hand, as Ellis describes the empirical research of L2 classrooms, he mentions that an ethnographic study of interaction would be suitable for the classroom interaction and L2 acquisition whose goal is to test a number of hypotheses relating to how interacting in the classroom contributes to L2 acquisition and to explore which types of interaction best facilitate acquisition.
Considering all this, to decide on a method for the research, a flexible qualitative method which allows greater adaptation of the interaction between the teacher and the students seemed to be the best method for class observation among such a small participant group. In this way the teacher would be able to ask more open-ended questions when necessary and the participants would be free to respond in their own words instead of just saying simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
The source for the data was primarily collected via semi structured methods such as the video recordings of the literature circles, stimulated-recall sessions followed by interviews and questionnaires filled in by students and teachers notes on the discussions conducted in class. The two main variables being observed will be classroom activities like; activity type, participant organization, content, student modality and materials and classroom language like; use of target language, information gap, sustained speech, reaction to code or message, incorporation of preceding utterance, discourse initiation and relative restriction of linguistic form mentioned as the communicative orientation of language teaching by Nunan.
In addition, because of the less formal relation between the researcher and participants, they responded more elaborately and in greater detail. The researcher also had the opportunity to respond immediately to what participants said by tailoring subsequent questions with the information the participant had provided. Related to this, it is believed that by conducting a qualitative research, some new ideas and a hypothesis may be generated for a later quantitative research.
Data analysis
The main focus of the analysis was the continuous observation of communication patterns in literature circles. The main concern was over how these variables affected the language development of foreign language learners. For the analysis of the collected data, Bales’ Interaction Process Analysis (IPA) system was used especially to identify and record the nature of each separate act in ongoing group interaction. IPA is devised by Bales for the continuous observation of communication patterns in interactive groups. It is mainly based on the assumption that group success depends on both how well the group can solve its tasks (task function) and how satisfied it can keep its members (socio-emotional function). Bales identified 12 interactional “moves” in four categories: (1) socio-emotional positive (shows solidarity, tension reduction, agreement); (2) socio-emotional negative (shows antagonism, tension, disagreement); (3) task-related attempted solutions (gives suggestions, opinions, orientation); and (4) task-related questions (asks for suggestions, opinions, orientation). At least one rater observes each group member, and scores occurrences of each interactional “move.” This method has been used in a variety of settings, and is a reliable and useful way to analyze group interactions according to Antony S.R. Manstead.
After analyzing the classroom interaction during the reading circles according to Bales’ IPA system and gathering the information from the interviews and questionnaires, it is clearly seen that literature circles stimulate the student interaction in terms of Bales’ criteria in a dramatic way. This probably must have been the reason why Furr calls ‘magic’ to define literature circles.
Limitations
Some of the drawbacks that the research suffered from can be summarized as the limited number of students to be accessed. To provide enough detailed evidence for such a study, the number of participants was kept reasonably small. The reason for such a low number has been the fact that the participants were mainly chosen to provide an authentic classroom atmosphere to be observed and evaluated in relation to the determined criteria. The main variables observed can be listed under the ‘classroom activities’ and ‘classroom language’ headings which are explained in the methodology chapter in detail.
Another drawback has been the limited control over the instructional process and observing the learning outcomes in relation to the broadness of the issue. As the study intends to observe the student interaction in a foreign language learning environment, teacher involvement has been kept at minimum not to interfere with the authentic atmosphere of student interaction during the discussions. The meticulous observation process has also been quite difficult taking all the related criteria into consideration.
But still, considering all these drawbacks, we can say that the results reached with this study open a way for a future quantitative research over literature circles in EFL.