From professional literature
Being aware that there is much to be learnt from the various methodology books, journals and magazines I started reading different methodology books offered by well-known methodologists. Among all I found the book by Jeremy Harmer ‘The practice English language teaching’ and by Tricia Hedge ‘Teaching and learning in the language classroom’ to be more beneficial for me to gain valuable information. Having read their books I was ready to formulate the kinds of questions I wished to ask. From the ideas suggested by these scholars I gained some useful pieces of advice of how to organize questionnaires, how can I plan the lesson or what is the best way of assessing the adult learners.
From teachers
One of my aims of gathering data was to find the teachers who are experienced in teaching English as a second foreign language. To interview them I started to observe the lesson of practical English lessons in faculty of philology. I had a chance to participate in the lessons of four teachers of upper-intermediate level working in a group of twenty five students. During the lessons I made some notes on planning, evaluating, practicing the types of different independent learning tasks. From the lessons observed I revealed some typical techniques the teachers use to conduct task-based, project-based, pair work activities. Here are some of them: clear instructions, peculiarities of learning styles, interesting and engaging tasks. Gathering data from teachers started from the surveys. The first was the questionnaire aimed at finding out how often teachers use additional information from the internet using a different websites which can help to learners in class and out of class. The second was the survey made to know the level of effectiveness of the given types of tasks promoting internet resources. In this very survey they had to evaluate the types of tasks they consider effective. Interview was the last step of collecting data from the teachers. The interview questions were different for each of the Instructor. According to the interview, the teachers were asked questions about their overall opinion on planning tasks for independent learning skills.
From students
First of all, the students were distributed test where they had to answer questions pertaining to the Internet resources and the use of websites. The questionnaire was developed in order to express their views on the challenges that they liked or disliked. Using this form, I could get information about the student's respect towards different types of independent learning objectives and identify the most valued of them.
From introspection in the process of lesson observations
Lesson observations in my opinion is one of the techniques which every teacher must follow as it gives the opportunity for the teacher to see in detail pros and cons of each lesson. As you attend the lessons you see and feel what went wrong and where do you have to make changes and you also feel the attitudes of students, their mood and relation to you as a teacher. During my lesson I tried to make some notes on the positive and negative moments of my lessons. Mostly I played a great attention to students’ progress. In one group I conducted different independent learning tasks and that group was under systematic control. The quizzes held in that group showed the results which I expected.
Data Analysis Procedure
This chapter provides information about the analysis of the results gathered from the teachers’ and students’ questionnaires and also analysis of the data obtained from the teachers’ interviews experimental lessons.
Analysis of surveys taken from
• Teachers
a. ‘Attitudes of teachers towards using independent tasks(task-based, project-based, pair work, group work etc.)
1. Do you use any internet resources (task-based, project-based, pair work, group work etc.)
2. Why do you use them?
3. How often do you use them?
4. Which part of the lesson do you use them?
5. Can you suggest any most effective types of websites which you use mostly to be conducted in class and out of class?
b. The results of the survey show that independent tasks (task-based, project-based, pair work, group work etc.) is rather popular tool used by teachers. Even if they have been using different approaches on separate courses all of them have to decide on the methods which will develop students’ learning through using internet resources different types of websites For example, in the course of practical English students of the second year should already be aware of self-study and teachers must know how to plan each of the independent tasks (task-based, project-based, pair work, group work etc.) effectively.