KNU Freshman English Instructors: Survey, May 2013 Completed by Dr. Dieter Knowle

Now that the Freshman English program that started in March 2012 is almost three semesters old, it should be possible to start identifying trends in terms of positive affect, cognition, self-direction, teamwork, production, and performance (students and instructors). I’d therefore be grateful if you could see your way to responding to the following open-ended questions. The program aims to develop speaking skills, writing skills, positive affect, problem solving, creative thinking, critical thinking, collaboration, and cultural awareness. Development of these skills will help students be successful in the NEAT level 1 test. Your responses and help us to get a sense of where we are in terms of these goals. Thank you for your time. Your responses will remain anonymous.

1. To what extent are the skills being developed in this program “recognizable” to the students (i.e. to what extent do the students value the skills being delivered in the program)?

I use the concept of embedded learning in the classroom. As such, embedded learning is used to combine the development of skills including speaking skills, writing skills, problem solving, creative thinking, critical thinking, collaboration, and cultural awareness within the context of task-based learning. The students are very much aware of skills such as speaking skills, writing skills, creative thinking, collaboration, and cultural awareness and to lesser extent problem solving and critical thinking during the process of task-based learning. Figure 1A. Writing skills, creative thinking, etc. within the context of task-based learning

Figure 1B. Speaking skills, collaboration, cultural awareness, etc. within the context of task-based learning: role-play task

In Fig. 1A, the students were asked to choose topic about technology and talk about the advantages and disadvantages of that tech. Embedded within the task are writing skills such as the 6 traits of writing, creative thinking, etc. that the students can master upon successful completion of the task. Based on the labor theory of value (discussed below), the students who successfully completed the task greatly valued the skills delivered. The same results are seen in Fig. 1B. The students who had put more than the required work into role plays not only reaped the benefits of developing speaking skills, collaborative skills, cultural awareness, etc., but also developed a deeper appreciation for English along with placing greater value on the skills they learned when successfully completing the task. Regarding positive affect, the students are very much aware of it when they are performing or completing a task. Students may not know the technical term for it but their actions such as helping each other makes them feel good, and in turn, when the students felt good, they came up with better creative solutions to the problems presented by the task at hand. A good example is the brainstorming sessions where the students help each other come up with ideas which in turn activates creative thinking and problem solving in the classroom and engages the students in the learning process. Figure 2A. Positive Affect in the classroom

Figure 2B. Positive Affect leads to students helping each other

When discussing value, we have to be careful because this word can mean many things. From the view point of the theory of value,

specifically the labor theory of value that states the value of a good is relative to how much required work went into producing it, the students get what they put into the program. The students who work hard place great value on the skills being delivered by the teacher and the program, and the students who do nothing no matter how much and in how many different ways the teacher tries to motivate and engage them, those students get nothing from the program and hence place no value on it. This is the nature of a mandatory course, and it is the responsibility of the teacher to constantly motivate and engage students, especially the ones who do not want to be there. Figure 3A. Students realize the value of the skills delivered through the required effort that goes into completing the work in task-based learning

Figure 3B. Labor theory of value: students who do nothing get nothing from the program

2. To what extent do your students engage in the process of task-based learning? I wish there was a blueprint for student engagement but in my experience what works for one student doesn’t necessarily work for another. I establish a rapport with my students, stimulate their interest and structure their classroom experiences so that it leads to the students being engaged in the process of task-based learning. What I offer here as the main measure is merely the subjective qualitative opinion of this teacher. When I qualitatively assess student engagement, I look at the affective, behavioral and cognitive components of engagement. In particular, I like to look at meaningful learning, participation and focused attention when trying to gage the degree to which students are engaged in the process of task-based learning. Regarding meaningful learning, I have observed my students transform from ones that could not even finish a task within the allotted time to ones that besides finishing the task, took ownership of it and made it their own. I have seen these students change because of the task-based learning in terms of their personal lives exhibiting more confidence, responsibility, independence, creativity, etc. When looking at participation, during the first few weeks, it is like pulling teeth to get the students to participate in the various tasks. When forming mixed gender groups, the students have an aversion instilled in them from their experiences in non-coed schools. By the middle of the semester, the students actively participate in all tasks of their own free will without needing any cajoling or extrinsic motivation besides their own instrinsic ones. Additionally, they are eager to form coed groups. They are actively engaged in the task at hand. When the students start class, they focus on the task at hand and are not distracted by the noise from the hallway or the jets flying overhead. They have such intense focus that they lose track of time. In week one of the class, students are constantly looking at the clock. By the middle of the semester, the students no longer look at the time and wonder where it all went. Figure 4. Student engagement in task-based learning: Focused Attention

3. Do you feel that your individual input is valued in this program? I feel my head teacher and supervising professor listen to my input, and are respectful and professional when dealing with the input of all the visiting professors at the LEC. Their doors are always open and they are always willing to set aside time from their busy schedules to listen to everybody’s input. As instructors, we receive positive encouragement and support from our head teacher and supervising professor. I feel I am a valued member of the team who still has much to offer to the Freshman English Program. 4. Do you feel effective in this program? Do you have freedom to adopt and adapt? Because I do have the freedom to adapt the program to meet the diverse learning needs of my 200 students and have the flexibility to adopt a wide variety of supplemental materials to fit those needs, I believe I am effective in addressing the educational, personal, and social goals of this program. I measure my effectiveness based on the growth of my students. In other programs, I have seen students plateauing, but in this program, I have seen my students experience vertical growth. Through perseverance, goal setting, discipline and motivation, the skills and abilities of my students have expanded making them stronger and enabling them to better deal with problem solving and critical thinking tasks (see Figs. 1A, 2A, 2B and 3A) Another way I measure my own effectiveness is through positive affect leading to student engagement. Being a mandatory course, at least half the students do not want to be there. I find a lack of motivation and anxiety to be a barrier to the learning process. The first week of class the students do not focus, are like bumps on a log, are constantly looking at the clock, are bored, etc. By the time the students finish their midterm exams and start the second half of the semester, they are energized and alert; they are in a mental state where they lose track of time during the class (see Fig. 4); based on the group role plays, they are conscious of being an active participant in the learning process resulting in their becoming engrossed in challenging activities that are of interest (see Fig. 1B). This transformation that I see in the students from week 1 to week 9 to week 15 indicates that I am effective in carrying out the goals of this program. Figure 5 A. Effective teaching in this program is attributed to the freedom to adapt the program and adopt supplemental materials.

Figure 5B. Overall student evaluations of the Instructor for the year 2012

Fig. 5B shows the teacher’s student evaluations for the 4 semesters during 2012. The scores are the mean of all the classes during each semester. Scores are assessed on a scale of 1 to 5. While there are many arguments for and against using student evaluations to gage the effectiveness of a teacher, here it shows that my attempt to establish a rapport with my students, stimulate their interests and structure their classroom experiences so that they would be engaged in the process of task-based learning was successful. Figure 5C. Student Comments on the Instructor

Now I can say that not only based on my subjective qualitative opinion as a teacher but also on the opinions of my students (see Figs. 5A, B, C) that yes, I feel I am effective to a large extent in carrying out and delivering this program to all members of Kyungpook National University. 5. To what extent are the skills you teach useful for your students? This is a difficult question because I do not interact with my students outside the realm of the regular classroom or outside of my office hours although on some occasions, I might interact with them at some official KNU event (English night) or club (reading club). Therefore, my observations are based solely on the classroom environment. For the true beginners in the Freshman English Program, they would benefit the most from listening and speaking instruction with relatively little work on reading and writing. The reality of the situation is at least 50% of the time is spent on reading and writing with about 50% of the grade coming from reading and

March July September January

Student Evalution scores of the Instructor 2012

Student comments (written in Korean and translated by Google Translate) “It was a very creative time.” “Free atmosphere” “It was good with a variety of activities to learn English naturally.” “Fun and informative classes” “made comfortable class atmosphere to gajyeoseo students” “I can learn many things. Most impressive part is writing personal statements in English.” “I liked his teaching methods”

writing. Therefore, these true beginners probably find only the speaking part of the program useful. They find the speaking exercises supplemented by teacher to be the most useful skill (see the response to question 4). With our students who are at an intermediate level with increased fluency, I would say they find all the skills delivered by the teacher through the program to be very useful especially for doing their assignments and assessments. I believe with this global atmosphere that the Freshman English Program provides vital skills for the future success of our KNU students not just in Korea but around the world. In addition, I have been told that my classes are like a match making service with students dating each other by the end of the semester. I believe this is a direct result of the task-based learning carried out by the program and the skills delivered by teacher through the program to the students. Through group and pair work, students develop social skills while practicing their speaking and listening skills at the same time. While the receptive skill reading is valued by students, the program could improve developing listening skills. The students place high value on the productive skills, speaking and writing, because they are the main focus of program required by all the various assessments done throughout the course for the students to be successful. 6. Do you feel that you are both developing and delivering this language program?

Yes, I do feel that I am both developing and delivering this language program. Parts of my responses to questions 1-4 address this from different aspects.

7. How would you like to see this program develop in the next few years? Talking with my colleagues at the LEC, vocabulary (vocab) is a missing element in the program. Even though the book provides some vocab through the reading passages, a different approach that gives students the tools to express themselves while completing specific tasks during tasked-based learning I believe is necessary. One approach I did was provide specialized vocabulary lists for specific tasks to enable students to express themselves more fully. In addition, I have noticed that the listening skills of students are very low and I feel a greater emphasis on listening may be required. I would like to see the following addressed: class load, class period, 2 credit course versus 3 credit course and 1-year program versus a 2-year program. I discuss class load in question 8 (see below). Regarding class period, the format of the classes (2 50-min-classes a week) still reflect a conversion program. For an integrated program that addresses all 4 skills such as ours, I believe class once a week for 90 minutes would be more appropriate. I was told that at one time at the LEC (2007, 2008), the freshman English classes were held only once a week for 80 minutes per class. I feel the workload of the students has increased exponentially. Thus, does this course need to become a 3 credit class or should the course work reflect a 2 credit class? Using the Carnegie unit, a unit of credit equates to three hours of student work per week (1 hour of class plus 2 hours of homework) based on a 16 week semester. Finally, there are some Korean universities that have a 2-year program (first year, speaking and listening; second year, reading and writing) and I would like to see our program go in this direction.

8. Do you have any other comments?

Since other Korean universities already do this, the LEC needs to start offering 2-year contracts to instructors. The instructors would have more of a vested interest in the Freshman English Program, LEC and the KNU community and not feel like a transient. I believe this will take the FEP program forward to greater heights with more international collaboration. The one question that has never been addressed is what effect does teaching 18 credit hours in one semester has on the students and the program. I clearly can see a difference in my students and myself when I compare the winter/summer semesters to the March/September semesters. In addition, most national universities have dropped the teaching load of Freshman English professors to 12 to 14 credit hours and at private universities from 8 to 12 credit hours per semester. Based on my personal experiences and observations, a heavy class load does have a negative effect on the program and students. A study by James Monk and Robert Schmidt (2010) showed that large classes and heavy student loads caused faculty members to change their courses in ways that was detrimental to their students. Figure 6. Effect of class load and class duration on student assessments of courses and instructors

Fig. 6 shows the student evaluations of freshman students in the Freshman English Program at Kyungpook National University. The y axis represents the mean overall student evaluation score on a scale of 1 to 5. In the March and September semesters (regular semesters), the instructor taught 9 classes twice a week for fifty minutes per class for 15 weeks and in the July and January semesters (summer and winter semesters), the instructor taught 2 classes 5 times a week for 100 min per class for 3 weeks. The actual class time between all the semesters was the same at 1500 minutes; thus, the number of classes and the duration of the class period were different between the regular and summer/winter semesters. James Monk and Robert Schmidt (2010) found that both class size and student load negatively affected student assessments of courses and instructors.

March July September January

Effect of class load and class duration on student assessments