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Sample Copy. Not for Distribution.

i

A Qualitative Study of the Impact of

Counselling Psychology in Adult Education

in Motivating to Promote the Speaking Skills

of Non-Native Adult Speakers of English


ii

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iii

A Qualitative Study of the Impact of

Counselling Psychology in Adult

Education in Motivating to Promote the

Speaking Skills of Non-Native Adult

Speakers of English

A Doctoral Research Study

By

Dr. Siva Mahendran

EDUCREATION PUBLISHING (Since 2011)

www.educreation.in


iv


v

Final Thesis

Presented to

The Academic Department

Of the School of Social and Human Studies

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of Doctor of Education


vi

Acknowledgement ________________________________________________________________________

Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisors Dr. Gabriel

Alejandro Lopardo, Dr Jack Rozenzweig, my tutors Dr Monica Serrano, Dr Cyndy

Dominguez, academic counselor Ms Vaishali Nariani and the Student Services staff for

giving me the confidence to enroll in the program and continuously guiding and

supporting me throughout my Doctorate in Education studies and research.

I wish to also thank the Academic Board of Atlantic International University and my

advisors and tutors who had faith in me and my achievements throughout the course of

my studies and nominated me the cum laude honor in Doctorate in Education degree.

Lastly, I would like to thank my wife and son, who put up with my impatience to

finish my assignments and thesis throughout the time of my studies.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Siva Mahendran


vii

Content List

S. No. Content Page

Acknowledgements vi

Preface ix

1. Introduction 1

2. An overview of counseling therapy 3-7

Goals of counseling 3

Qualities of a good counselor 4

Roles of a counselor 4

Therapeutic Process 4

Rationale for counseling learning 5

Basic counseling approaches that could be used to teach

NNASE 5

Background of NNASE 6

Successes and difficulties in training adults in a traditional

classroom 7

3. An Overview of Workplace Literacy Adult Learning in

Singapore 8-19

Task-Based Learning 8

Teaching or Training ? 9

Adult learner characteristics 9

Study sample (the choice of the research study participant) 10

Typical Workplace Literacy Lesson Characteristics (all

levels) 11

Trainer development programs 12

Terms and learning strategies 12

Functional principles, strategies and topics for different

WPL levels 13

Use of Counseling Therapy approaches to Teach – Some 17


viii

Words of Caution

Classroom dynamics vs methodology of teaching and

learning 18

Brief notes on the counseling learning approaches used in

the research study 18

4. A social media survey – Diagrams 1-2 20-29

Survey results of 3 Intermediate level classes – Diagram 3 23

Sample End of Course Training Evaluation Report –

Diagram 4 23

Speaking difficulty survey questionnaire (student in research

study) Diagram 5 Student Satisfaction Survey (student in

research study) – Diagram 6

24

Speaking Difficulty and post-test expectations questionnaire

(all 3 classes in study) – Diagram 7 25

General demographics of the 3 classes in the survey research

– Diagram 8 26

Meta-analysis of the speaking difficulty and post-test

expectation Questionnaire 27

Comparison of Pre-test and Post –test results by

achievement levels - Diagram 9 28

Speaking Confidence Survey – Diagram 10 28

5. Limitations of the Research 30

6. Conclusion 31

7. Appendices 32

8. Background 38

9. Bibliography 132


ix

Preface ________________________________________________________________________

English is the lingua franca of most of the countries of the world. It is probably the most

spoken language in the world besides Chinese and Spanish. It is the language used in the

United Nations predominately and either an official or one of the official languages of

more than 60 sovereign nations around the world. It is no wonder than that most students

from all parts of Asia and other parts of the world want o learn English so that they can

enter the business world, migrate to English speaking countries which are mostly well

endowed socio-economically like the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand

or Britain, get involved in social media like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp etc and to stay

abreast of developments in the scientific, political, social, or other spheres of life.

There are three circles of English speaking countries (Kachru, 1985): the inner circle

(consisting of native speakers like the people of Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand,

United States of America, etc.), the outer circle (consisting mainly former colonies of

Britain like most of South and South East Asia, parts of China (like Hongkong),

Philippines, the Caribbean islands, etc and the expanding circle (consisting of countries

like China, Russia, Brazil, etc.).

In the inner circle English is spoken as a native language though there are variations

of it like Received Pronunciation (RP) of mainly Southern England (the English spoken

by educated people), the American and the British versions and others from the inner

circle countries which have variations in pronunciation, inflexions (modifications in,

morphemes and phonemes) , etc.

The English spoken by the outer circle countries, Singapore being one too, mainly

have a mixture of acrolectal (highest, almost standard), mesolectal and basilectal (lowest

level) English forms; the last of which is a creolized English spoken by speakers of other

languages like Chinese, Malays or Indians, created over time (at least over a century and

a half, since the mid- 1800s, during the British colony years) into newer versions unique

to the countries, diluting, truncating and modifying spoken English to suit the users‘

convenience; like Singlish (Singapore English) or Manglish (Malaysian English).

There are many learning approaches and methods to teach English in educational

institutions around the world. Some learning approaches and methods are quite traditional

(the typical classroom-based talk and chalk method), while others are more collaborative

(incorporating group or paired work) and involve blended learning where the internet and

various learning resources like video clips, recording devices, social media platforms etc,

are added to spice up the learning processes for the students in language learning. Often,

one method seems superior to others but learning and teaching strategies have all to be

tailored to fit the students for best practices to be achieved.

The different modalities of language learning (speaking, reading, listening and

writing) are all needed to get students to master a language over time but if one were to


x

do a survey and ask students which is the hardest way to learn and which the easiest, then

as mentioned in a survey done in an adult language learning situation in Appendix 30,

almost all the students would mention that speaking would probably be the easiest way to

learn a language as they practice most using that mode of practice rather than the others

in communication. However, speaking is accompanied by listening too and so by learning

to speak more English, one naturally has to listen to English spoken by others. In this

way, as a saying goes, we ―kill two birds with one stone‖ and make English, and for that

matter, any language learning more tolerable and probably fun too if we know how to

make language learning interesting using a variety of teaching and learning approaches

and methods.

In a recent speech, on 20/9/2017, the Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) of Singapore,

Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, spoke at length of the importance of being ―innovative‖

and ―collaborative‖ in order to keep on learning and ―keep modifying — teaching

methods‖ (Appendix 31). This research study which is exploratory and qualitative does

just that – modifying the learning of speaking skills by NNASE using counseling therapy

approaches. In this regards, 6 counseling therapy approaches have been chosen for their

ease of use and the opportunities they give for the clients in a counseling setting to speak

with the counselor; the client being the trainee or adult student (NNASE) and the

counselor (being the teacher/trainer who doubles up as the authority figure for the

trainees to vent their problems of issues they had at their workplaces; as the lessons

incorporate workplace-based use of English. The DPM further asserted ―Reducing the

academic load to provide more space for that free play of the mind. Developing our

potential throughout life‖ and also ―Singapore’s education system must keep

experimenting and having a ―sense of dare‖ to prepare for the future‖ (Appendix 31).

All these statements further provide this qualitative exploratory research study with a

sense of ―dare” to experiment using counseling therapy approaches for NNASE to learn

to speak English better so that they can stay current and relevant in order to not be made

redundant at work.

Keywords

Counseling, approaches, gestalt, cognitive behavioral, reality/choice, person-

centered, narrative, PADI (Problem definition, Attempted solutions, Desired changes,

Intervention plan), NNASE (Non-Native Adult Speakers of English)


SIVARAJASINGAM MAHENDRAN

UD: 43303HED52131

Atlantic International University

1

Introduction ________________________________________________________________________

This very small scale (due to limited time and resources) exploratory and almost wholly

qualitative research (Qual–quan) study seeks to examine how non-native adult speakers

of English (NNASE) can be motivated to speak English as a foreign language (EFL)

more and better via the utilization of counseling psychology rather than through

traditional teaching methods over a 3 month period of English language lessons in a

classroom environment. It is just one more drop in the ocean of knowledge in adult

education all over the world.

―Teachers do not have a corpus of learner work which they could evaluate and give

feedback on. As a result, problems that learners face when doing speaking activities often

go unnoticed or uncorrected‖ (Goh, C.C.M., 2007).

The Comprehensible Output Hypothesis theory (Swain, 1995) proposes that when

learners have to speak in the target language (English), they will potentially need to pay

attention to its structure (i.e. grammar and pronunciation). It is then essential to have as

objective an assessment of speech by NNASE as possible to gauge their proficiency over

time attending classroom task-based language learning. However, since this research

study being an exploratory one, can only gauge on a small scale and subjectively at most,

the influence of counseling psychology over traditional methods in motivating and

improving NNASE‘s spoken English levels over a short (about 3 months) time and is

only meant to be a precursor of more in-depth study in future.

The approach taken in this study resembles the Oral Approach and Situational

Language Teaching (Hornby,A.S.,1950) but it is more than those traditional methods

used in the 1950s through the 1960s in British and Australian schools, and involves a

combination of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach, (Brumfit, C.J. &

Johnson, K., 1979) widely used in from mid-1970s to the 1980s period, Task-based

Language Teaching (TBLT) approach (Foster,P. & Skehan,P., 1996) and counseling

learning techniques (Curran, C.A., 1976) ; the last of which has still not been explored

much (there is not much literature on this approach or technique presently) and there is a

lot of scope for further development in that area of teaching and learning viz a viz

NNASE the world over.

More and more teachers the world over, and in particular in Singapore, are being

trained in counseling students in and out of the classroom and counseling has become a mainstay in almost all schools where teaching and learning have become more and more

challenging with the influence of technology (hardware like computers and the internet,

cell-phones, audio-visual aids and software applications) that are flooding the learning

environment and need to be learnt in order to teach more effectively and efficiently. This

learning process takes much time and teachers and NNASE have to be trained to access

in the classrooms where blended learning is becoming more and more popular and in



UD: 43303HED52131


2

vogue in Singapore. The teaching faculty has taken blended learning and traditional

forms of teaching and learning as the norm all this while and scarcely touch ion

counseling approaches to teach students at all ages, but NNASE are more amenable to its

use as they can align with the teacher or facilitator as they are now more known as they

tackle their lessons in learning a language.



UD: 43303HED52131


3

An Overview of Counselling Therapy ________________________________________________________________________

Definition of Counselling

Counselling is a process in which people, with difficult personal problems that affect

their normal functioning in life, are guided by professional helpers who may be

counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists or even social workers, to find back their footing

again in their lives, to lead their lives normally and in a more fulfilling way. People

without proper guidance or moral support in personal crisis situations often tend to

behave irrationally when faced with their problems since they are unable to exercise

proper control of their daily affairs. Facing much uncertainty in life, they could, and often

would, seek, on their own or with some help from friends or relatives, any form

(economic, social or moral) support to get immediate solutions to their problems. In most

cases, people see counselors (or even the other helping professionals) as a last resort to

resolve their serious personal issues after having utilized and exhausted other sources of

help.

Counselling helps clients to get a better understanding of their inner self so that they

are empowered and are able to use their strengths themselves to a find way out of their

difficult position in life.

Goals of Counselling

Most clients seek quick solutions to their problems as any delay in solving their issues

could lead to further complications in their lives. Due to these reasons, clients may

become psychologically affected and lose their steady footing in their daily lives and

living in tandem with others around them.

In the early stages, counselors need to find out from their clients their reasons for

seeking guidance for their unresolved issues. Through a proper working relationship,

clients are helped to locate their root or contributory causes to their problems. Despite the

hard work put in by all parties in the therapeutic relationship, some issues could remain

unsolved due to the client‘s unwillingness to change a personal behavior (attitude) or way

of doing things (attribute). At the end of the day, counseling is done for the clients own

interests and make their own informed decisions to change their lifestyles to improve

their physical or psychological health. Clients cannot and should not be compelled by the

counselor to change their behavior or their irrational beliefs, according to the sample Code of Counseling Ethics (Appendix 17); though the changed behavior that clients get

as a result of counseling over a few sessions may be helpful to create for them an

improved mindset to handle present and future presenting issues in their lives. Both

counselor and client need to work in congruence though their schemes of values



UD: 43303HED52131


4

(instrumental or terminal) may differ for any reason; viz a viz either parties‘ socio-

economic- cultural status.

Instrumental values are known as specific methods of behavior. They are not an end

to a goal, but rather provide the means by which an end goal is accomplished. Character

and personality traits, like being imaginative and independent, make up most of the

instrumental values. Instrumental Values refer to preferable modes of behavior and

include values like honesty, sincerity, ambition, independence, obedience,

imaginativeness, courageousness, competitiveness, and also some negative traits too.

Terminal values are the goals that we work towards and view as most desirable.

They are the goals that we would like to achieve during our lifetime and are the preferred

methods of behavior which can be thought of as a means to an end. Some examples of

such values include and are not limited to: happiness, peace, equality, wisdom, etc.

Qualities of a Good Counsellor

In their genuine efforts to help their clients to solve their problems, counselors should

strictly adhere to ethical principles and the code of conduct as enunciated by the local

psychological, social work and counseling fraternity and ensure that they work towards

the best interests of their clients. It is thus imperative that a therapeutic alliance is forged

between the counselor and the client to ensure successful completion of cases.

Counselors should have patience in listening to their clients so that they are able to

clearly understand the problems faced by them. They should empathize with the client in

what he/she is going through in life so that they get the trust that is important in working

through the client‘s complicated problems or issues. Counselors also need to be objective

to keep personal values and reactions masked from their prospective clients.

They should also not be personally involved through transference of their own problems

to their clients at all times; which could complicate their relationship and bring disrepute

to the counseling profession.

Roles of a Counselor

Clients face problems in life due to their inability to find alternative solutions to deal with

them. The role of the counselor is ideally to help clients modify their lifestyle so that they

may find solutions to their problems themselves. They help clients to work on their

strengths and challenge them to take positive steps to bring about significant changes in

their life. Through a warm and supportive relationship, clients are helped to lead an

improved lifestyle in future.

Therapeutic Process

Each client‘s case is unique and as such different techniques need to be used for different

cases. Counselors need to make a proper assessment of a case based on the client‘s past

and present functioning before a treatment plan can be worked out with the client. It is imperative to find out how the problems developed in a client‘s life to find out the

various causes that had contributed to disruptions in the person‘s current behavior. There

may be several contributory factors leading to a person‘s problems but a single element

could prove to be the root cause of the disruptive lifestyle of a client. After a complete

assessment of a client‘s lifestyle, the treatment plan can be tailored according to the needs


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