english remedial programme

Underachieving Students Improvements in a Primary EFL Remedial Program

Chen, Tzu-Ching

AbstractThere is a tendency for Taiwanese elementary school students to reinforce their English in a cram school after regular school hours. However, there are still some students who constantly fail cram school classes. For this reason, the selected cram school set up a supplementary program to have these students gathered for an intensive training after regular English programs, which is what we called a remedial program. The aim of this article is to introduce a developmental approach to integrating remedial program in the process. The teaching concepts have also illustrated by investigating and observing a class in a selected cram school. In addition, how this program worked for underachieving students is explained in detail. The results showed this remedial program was significantly effective in assisting students in improving their English abilities. All students met the intended goal of the program and six students obtained growth with scores above 70%. It provided a model of the remedial program for underachieving students in cram schools or language schools in Taiwan or any countries learning English as a foreign language.

Key Words: remedial program, primary English program, underachieving students, remedial instruction, cram school.

Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied English Studies at MingDao University

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1. IntroductionThe research highlighted the significance of remedial instruction by investigating the effectiveness of a remedial program in a cram school. The main objective was the students basic English language learning skill development. While attention is paid to mastery of basic spoken English skills on corresponding with the standard of Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan. The observation was done in a selected cram school base in Taiwan, where the first remedial course was set. This study adopted action research methodology and data was collected through observation, field notes, interviews, and teachers reflective journals to ensure the validity of the study. The remedial program lasts for four months. The program teacher was an English major college student in her 4th year. She appears to have a strong interest in researching and teaching in the field of Childrens English. The class was designed to remedy low English achievers in the regular cram school classes. The classes were delivered one hour a day, twice a week after the regular classes to reinforce students English learning outcomes.

Problem IdentificationStudents in the selected cram school for childrens English were taught English at their grade level to meet the MOEs standards of elementary English curriculum. However, 27% of them did not acquire adequate English skills according to the scored report given by an English proficiency test in this cram School at the end of a four-month session. Students, especially in the Computer Assisted English Learning (CAEL) class, show insignificant improvement which concerned the parents. The school then decided to open a reinforcement class to improve those students English learning in expectation of remedying the situation in the shortest time to rejoin the regular class.

SettingThe selected cram school is considered to be one of the best organized English cram schools in Taiwan which founded in 1986. It has a total of 90 branches in its first three years and expanded to 2500 branches as of 2005. In 1995, it became the first English cram school to offer a Children CAEL course. The branch where the study264


was conducted is set in downtown Taichung area with 124 students enrolled in the entire school at the time. It offers math, abacus and mental calculation, childrens English (Multi-levels), CAEL, and other after school programs. A significant number of students fail their regular classes even after attending cram schools courses. It was the impetus that urged this cram school to set up a four-month remedial program for students who failed in their regular programs.

The ParticipantsThe participants involved in this study were eight low achievement primary students from CAEL class who scored less than 60 on the English achievement test after completing their first session. Among them one student, Zaphod, quitted this program after the sixth class due to the schedule conflict with his art class. There were a total of seven boys and one girl. Below are the backgrounds of all participants. The reason why only eight participants are included in a class is for the teachers to implement individual tutoring when necessary to fulfill the concept of remedial program, due to the fact that individual one to one instruction has the advantage in allowing the instructors to provide immediate corrective feedback (Gettinger, 1993; Wentling, 1973). Todays language learners require more special needs and teachers assistance in a new way. Teachers often have to search for appropriate pedagogic approaches to help their students language learning.

Table 1 Student name Dagwood: (boy) Lirch: (boy)

Background Information of the Participants

Characteristics of individual student Dagwood is a high English beginner and also the best performer in the program. Lirch doesnt like to learn English and mentioned to his teacher that his older brother doesnt like English, either. Hes a student who frequently speaks with his classmates in Chinese during class, but will try to respond to the teacher in class.

Esmerelda: (girl) Egbert: (boy)

Esmerelda, the only girl in the program. She is terribly shy. She can hardly concentrate on the class material and is not able to pronounce or recognize words she previous learned. A student who is motivated to practice writing the English alphabet265

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but has problems pronouncing the words which he has learned in class. Scaramouch: (boy) Byron: (boy) Abner: (boy) Zaphod: (boy) Scaramouch always talks with his classmates in class and finds it hard to concentrate on the lecture. However, he is willing to take chances to present himself in front of other students. Byron likes to learn English but often is distracted by other classmates. He shows a strong willingness to participate in the class conversation with his classmates. Abner is always the first one to voice his opinions in front of other students. He can not read fluently, but really likes learning English. Zaphod is eager to learn English. Due to the schedule conflict with his art class, he could not attend the entire program. His parents often stay abroad and he currently lives with his grandmother. He has difficulty in recognizing vocabulary words and needs more practice to catch up with other students.

GoalThe concept of remedial instruction is to teach in a faster pace than the regular class to help learners that have been left behind by their peers (Bereiter, 1985). The goal was to help the underachieving students to improve their English abilities so they would be able to rejoin the regular class and never regain lost. The observation results helped to identify if this remedial English program assisted students in language learning and also at the same time served to provide the guideline of setting up a remedial program in cram schools or even regular schools.

Curriculum DesignThe primary English instruction in Taiwan that the students received had a heavy focus on learning English communicative skills rather than on writing and reading. To cope with this national standard, Way To Go (WTG) Book 1 and Sound It Out (SIO) Book 1 were the textbooks used in the CAEL class and reviewed in the remedial program, edited by Kid Castle Educational Corporation located in Taiwan, and the curriculum was tailored to suit the age of the students. The focus of the curriculum was on spoken English rather than written English to fit the latest MOE standards for266


elementary English curriculum. In the remedial program, students learned and practiced conversations from the textbook, Way To Go Book with their classmates, as conversations being excellent examples of the interactive and interpersonal nature of communication (Brown, 2000). Krashen (2003) further stated that the major concern of language learners and their parents is accent and apparent fluency, what Cummins (2000) referred to as conversational language. For this reason, repetition and gestures were emphasized in the classes. The goal is to have students demonstrate their understanding through action responses in the least stressful way to achieve English learning and follow the instructors directions. Sound it Out 1 is the textbook designed to cope with Way To Go Book for the purpose of reinforcing students pronunciation through phonics.

2. Related Literature Review

Childrens English Cram School Programs in TaiwanAfter the establishment of First to Ninth Grades Curriculum Alignment, the MOE in Taiwan implemented English Education into elementary curriculum in 2001 (Chiu, 2005); that is, all elementary school students have to start English learning from 5th grade instead of starting learning English from junior high school (seventh grade). The implementation of Taiwans New Elementary English Curriculum has been a great challenge for the thousands of elementary school educators and students. Even though the MOE declared a set of policies and regulations as to how the elementary English education should be implemented, each school adopted its own English curriculum, which caused anxieties to the parents (Liao, 2005). Many parents started sending their children to study English in cram schools earlier than entering fifth grade. As a result, many elementary schools then lowered the English learning age to first grade due to parents expectations, the school and school competition, and the influence of General English Proficiency Test (GEPT), etc. (Chen, 2004). Under these circumstances, bilingual kindergartens and childrens English cram schools have been established to help despairing parents by providing after school supplementary English programs for their children to ensure their English proficiency (Wang, 2004). The main motivations of the parents whose children attend these programs in cram schools are the well-designed curriculum, intensive teaching267

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methods, and the comfortable environment (Wang, 2004). In 1995, over 450,000 people, which made up one forth of the population, studied English in Taiwans cram schools and most of them were children in private childrens English schools (Wachob, 1995). Today, with a profit of more than 40 billion in the cram school markets, large-sized Childrens English Cram schools include Giraffe Cultural Enterprises, Hess Educational Organization, Joy Enterprises Organization, and Kid Castle Educational Corporation; these schools comprise sixty percent of the Childrens English cram school market (Anonym, 2005). Lately, the MOE decided to further lower English learning age to third grade in 2005 to reflect the theory of the advantages of the early language learning and the need of improving English among Taiwan's people (Hsu, 2005). In fact, Taiwanese parents tended to send their children to cram schools, hoping to stop their children from being left behind. Thus, most kids in Taiwan have to start their English learning as early as from kindergarten to keep their parents satisfied and for a guaranteed successful future. An investigation indicated that 29% of primary school students studied at the cram school after their regular elementary school hours (Krashen, 2003). Mostly, because researches reported that the reinforcement course after regular programs will help underachievers who have low motivation in learning the language (Chen & Lee, 2002).

The Effectiveness of Remedial ProgramThe effectiveness of remedial program at all levels has been researched for years regarding its effectiveness and practices (Chan & Li, 2002; Besty, 2002). Remedial instruction focuses on specific areas, depending on the student's age, his/her specific Learning Disability and the long-term goals identified for the student (Sankar, 2001). Remedial instruction is set mainly for individual learners rather than for group instruction to strengthen the teaching results. There are several research topics that discuss supplementary programs to highlight the significance of remedial instruction in Taiwan (Chang, 2001; Kams, 2005; Wu & Lin, 2003).Yang (2004) specifically indicated that the average English academic achievement of students who attended English supplementary classes was significantly higher than those students who did not attend English supplementary classes, and students who attended English supplementary classes possessed more268


cultural capital and social capital in some aspects. These supplementary programs, grasped the attention of researchers and their studies, has been assumed effective toward improving English language learning. The implementation of remedial instruction for the underachievers has been included as an important measurement of contemporary educational reform (Chen, 2004). The supplementary program is important because it will help students who have low motivation, a lack of confidence, and low sense of achievement in learning English. Students who need the supplementary program have some common characteristics: low self-esteem, low motivation about self-achievement, inability to socialize normally, and high test anxiety (Chan & JEgbertg, 2004)

3. Implementation

Month One The teacher started from the book Sound it out 1 to reinforce students alphabet recognition, and allowed the students to read the textbook several times after lecturing the text. For the purpose of identifying students English proficiency levels, students were quizzed to recall the text. Teachers found that the students were not easily managed, even with only eight of them in one class. They kept talking with each other when the teacher was giving a lesson. Occasionally, one of the students, Lirch responded during the lesson spontaneously and showed improvement after the lesson was done. The teacher always started the lesson by greeting the students and asking how they had been doing, and then reviewed the text from last week before moving on to the new lesson. After the lesson, the teacher made sure that she asked each student questions before having the students practice the conversations with their classmates according to the textbook. This also helped the teachers to further confirm the students English proficiency levels. The teacher found that students did not talk as frequently as in their first class, but focused more on the textbook. Only a few students did not concentrate on practicing the conversation, but were chatting in Chinese instead.

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Month Two Hoping to give students a sense of security in class, the teacher tried to teach this months lessons following the routine of the previous class, starting from the greeting, reviewing, and then inputting of new text to establish a teaching routine. Educational technology tools such as CDs, films, and computers program and software are used to raise students learning motivations. In addition, quizzes were given at the end of the class to reinforce students learning. The questions were taken from the text the students studied in the first two classes. Even though, the teacher sensed high anxiety from the students when giving the quiz, some of them scored more than 80 from the third quizzes. During this month, the teacher also tried to pair the students in the beginning of the class to practice their conversations and to facilitate the class review. The same teaching routine was then used in every class to create regular learning pattern for students. In this month, the teacher noticed that most students changed their learning attitudes by actively participating in the classroom activities and talked to their classmates less frequently.

Month Three This month, the teacher tried to pair them for conversation practice again and found that students immediately seized the chance to talk to their classmates before the lesson. The teacher expected and encouraged her students to speak correctly so that immediate corrections were made to strengthen their pronunciations. It was Egberts birthday on the first class day this month. The teacher had the students sing the Happy Birthday" song to Egbert to start the class. The teacher also tried to start every lesson a bit differently by dividing students into small groups when reviewing a set of vocabulary and asked them to practice spelling with their group members. Students were confused about the lesson procedure, but were fully participated in the class. In the last two weeks, the same teaching routine was used except for beginning with a 10-minute free conversation. During the lesson, the teacher made sure to give students some hints if they didn't know how to pronounce or spell the words. After the overview of the class materials, a quiz was given and most students answered with confidence. Surprisingly, six of them scored more than 80 at the last class of the month. The teacher noticed that encouragement helped the students to participate more in the class. In addition, some students began to show their interests in learning270


English from this specially created learning atmosphere. Esmerelda, Lirch, and Byron were showing more enthusiasm about taking turns reading the text during the lessons.

Month Four In the first two weeks, a bingo game was used to start the lesson every week to recall what they had learned in the past weeks. It took almost half of the class time to finish the game, but apparently students liked the game as they asked to play it over and over again. Even though the teacher found that it was difficult to settle the students down to the teaching routine, the students were more motivated in their English learning. In the later weeks, the teacher followed the teaching routine in the last month and reviewed all the lessons before giving the final achievement exam. The students, most of the time, were all quiet and concentrated on the lecture. Even though the students were told to prepare for the final exam two weeks ago, their faces showed their anxieties. An English achievement test similar to the test they had at the end of their last term was given after the review was done to identify students improvements after attending the remedial program.

4. Results

Statistical FindingsA total of six out of seven scored more than 70%. All students improved in their English proficiency test after the remedial program excludes Zaphod who failed to attend the program from the seventh classes. The results indicated from paired t test, as shown in Table 2, students who attended the entire program made statistically improvements over the four-month period. Students improvements can also be distinguished from the statistics presented in Table 2, mean of test scores after the remedial program (M=71.71) is higher than before the program (M=47.7) with standard deviation of 8.86 and 5.06.

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Table 2 English Achievement Test Results Before and After the Remedial Program Name Before After Dagwood Lirch 45 78 55 70 Esmerelda Egbert 48 72 56 66 Scaramouch Byron 53 74 47 77 Abner 30 65 Zaphod 46 Dropped out

Table 3 Mean Scores and Standard Deviation of English Achievement Test Results Before and After the Remedial Program Mean Before After 47.71 71.71 N 7 7 Std. Deviation 8.864 5.057 Std. Error Mean 3.350 1.911

To further identify if students scores before and after the remedial program are statistically significant. Independent paired samples t test was applied to analyze students test scores before and after the program. As indicated in the table, the means of scores before and after the program is -24.0 and t=-6.795, df=6, p=.000

english remedial programme

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