Chapter 4 Results
4.2 The Last Month of the Instruction (from July 25 to August 15)
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mentioning that his concept of “being useful” was still confined exclusively in learning new words instead of learning other information or knowledge.
4.1.1 Summary of Stage One –The First Three Months
All in all, up to this stage, some aspects of Patrick’s learning attitude remained similar but others showed signs of positive change. Behaviorally, though he showed willingness and interest in doing related English learning activities after class, he did not show consistently active and positive after-class behavior. Affectively, what remained similar at the stage was Patrick’s preference toward the activities; he still favored those light-hearted actives and did not show any more positive reaction to other types of activities. Yet, one different change was that he already developed more positive attitude to English learning by giving good comments to the IECT class. At last, cognitively, he began to feel what he learned in IECT was more useful than his other learning experiences, for he could learn new words.
4.2 The Last Month of the Instruction (from July 25 to August 15) Behavioral aspect of English learning attitude
At the last stage of the instruction, in addition to being consistently attentive in the class, Patrick showed a more positive attitude change on the behavioral aspect of learning after class.
As noted before, in the previous stage, Patrick’s behavioral learning attitude did not show much change, though he showed willingness to engage in extra English learning activities like watching the videos related to the class materials after the class.
As of the current stage, however, Patrick developed a more active learning behavior whereby he attempted to do different English learning activities by himself. In the
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post-instruction interview, when asked about whether he thought he made any change on his English learning behavior, Patrick responded that he began trying to read the words in the English story books (before he tended to read the pictures and skip the words). He explained to the researcher that the reason why he started to try reading the words was that he thought since he already learned more, he might therefore be able to understand more about the books. That is to say, after four months of instruction, Patrick built more confidence in his own English ability. This self-confidence boost in turn motivated him to make attempts on additional English learning activities that were once prohibitive to him.
Another positive change on this facet was also evident in light of Patrick’s after-class behavior. On the post-interview, Jennifer reported that according to her observation, Patrick’s behavioral learning attitude improved because she found out Patrick used English he learned more frequently at home than before. She reported:
[What he has changed is] He would speak English in his daily life, like he would use the words he learned to make some funny sentences. For example, yesterday when he was preparing for the test, he confused the words “change”
and “become,” so I made a sentence to tell him the difference, like “Patrick became a dog” then he started to make many silly sentences himself and had a great laugh.” (The second interview with Jennifer, August 25, 2014)
Jennifer also added that sometimes she found Patrick popped out some English words in daily life and told her that was what he learned in the class.
To sum up, at the last stage of the instruction, Patrick showed positive
behavioral aspect of English learning attitude by being more confident in involving
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English learning activities after class and by showing the tendency to use English more frequently in daily life.
Affective aspect of English learning attitude
During the last period of the instruction, it was discovered that Patrick showed impressive change in regards to his affective learning attitude. Similar to the previous stage, Patrick maintained excellent state of emotion in the class. But what became significantly different was that he not only became more willing to prepare for the activities he used to resist but also demonstrated more interest in English learning.
As noted before, Patrick merely preferred those light-hearted, game-like activities but felt stressed and reacted negatively to those that required his effort to memorize or to prepare. Nevertheless, in the end of the class he showed a palpable change of attitude toward the activities he once disfavored. For instance, during the post-instruction interview, when asked to talk about the least favorite parts of the instruction, Patrick answered assuredly, “Everything is fine.” He maintained his positive answer even after the researcher further delved into his opinions about the spelling tests, reading, and writing exercises. In fact, Jennifer, who also witnessed this finding, voiced her surprise at how different her son’s emotional response became in the post-instruction interview:
Patrick did change a lot. It’s like he has become more willing to memorize words and would not simply say he doesn’t want to do it . . . like when he was preparing for the [IECT] final test the other day, the amount of the vocabulary is a lot and is actually quite difficult for him. And had it been before, he would be whining
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about how he did not want to do it. But he did not react like that and was really trying his best to memorize the words. (The second interview with Jennifer, August 25, 2014)
Jennifer went on to point out that although when preparing for the test, Patrick did not spell all the words correctly, yet he remained patient and practiced spelling the words two or three more times. She concluded in a surprising tone:
Before he didn’t even want to prepare for just ten words for the school, so it’s hard to imagine he was willing to prepare for so many words all at once. (The second interview with Jennifer, August 25, 2014)
Besides showing more willingness toward the preparation of the tests, Jennifer also found that Patrick revealed more positive attitude toward homework: he not only became more willing to do it but also did it with more enjoyment. She added:
Also, he became more active to prepare for the homework. He particularly enjoys the homework that requires him to ask the family members some questions. He thinks it’s interesting. It’s like he is a teacher and he is testing us.
When we don’t know the answers and get the answers wrong, he would look smug and write the words like “Bad Jennifer” or something on the worksheet.
It’s like he really enjoys it! (The second interview with Jennifer, August 25, 2014)
In addition to the manifestation of more positive reaction toward more varieties of
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English learning activities, Patrick’s change of the affective attitude could also be seen from his growing interest and desire to have more IECT class. During the
interview, when asked about whether he expected to attend English class, he answered positively but added, “not the school one, because it is not that fun.” Moreover, he left more and exclusively positive comments on the section that asked his opinions about the differences between the IECT and other English classes. For example, he thought the IECT was more interesting because he wrote, “The English class at school is boring,” “The school content is too easy,” and “cram school is bad.” There was also one time he simply drew a thumb down icon next to the words of “cram school” to show his dissatisfaction.
Moreover, Jennifer revealed that as the end of IECT instruction drew near, Patrick showed his concern and kept asking her if he could continue to attend the IECT class; Patrick’s anxiety of losing this IECT opportunity corroborated statements and findings presented thus far in this research. She said it was after she assured him that he would continue the class, he then showed signs of relief and told her he would like to have more IECT classes and did not want to continue his English class at cram school.
In sum, at the end of the instruction, Patrick’s willingness to engage in different types of activities and his displayed desire to have more classes clearly showed the positive development of his aspect of affective learning attitude.
Cognitive aspect of English learning attitude
Compared to the previous stage, Patrick’s cognitive learning attitude also demonstrated some more positive change. As noted before, although Patrick started to recognize the IECT lessons as more useful and helpful, his conception of being useful
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was still confined within the spectrum of learning new words, as if the more the number of the words were learned, the more useful the lesson became. However, at this stage, Patrick gave different comments and responses that indicated his change of attitude toward the usefulness of learning English in the class.
For instance, on the feedback sheet, he began to include the new information he received or knowledge he gained in the class as the reasons why he thought the class was useful. For example, he responded, “I think the class was useful because I can gain knowledge of different games,” “I can know different countries’ special features,” and “I can know different countries’ cultures, like let the window open to let the old year leave.” Additionally, during the post-interview, he also agreed that learning English made him more knowledgeable because apart from learning new words, he could also learn various cultural features and facts about different countries. Furthermore, a conversation he had with Jennifer’s friend shed lights on Patrick’s positive opinions about the usefulness of the IECT class. According to Jennifer, when her friend asked Patrick how he felt about the IECT class, Patrick straightforwardly responded that he felt learning outside was a waste of time, and he found himself learning more different and useful things in IECT class.
Seen in this regard, we can say that in contrast to the previous stage, Patrick deepened his awareness of the usefulness of English learning; that is to say, for him, learning English was useful not merely because he could acquire the English names of different things but also because he could gain real knowledge about the world.
4.2.1 Summary of Stage Two—The Last Month
To conclude, as summarized in Table 2, at the last stage, Patrick demonstrated discernible signs of positive development on the three aspects of the English
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attitude. Firstly, on the aspect of behavioral learning attitude, he demonstrated positive behavioral learning attitude by showing the willingness to do additional English activities after the class such as reading English books. He was also observed to have developed higher frequency in using English more in daily life. Secondly, on the affective aspect of learning attitude, the most salient change was that he became more willing and patient to engage in certain activities that he once disliked and resisted. It was also at the stage he started to reveal more interest in English learning by showing desire to have more IECT classes. Lastly, Patrick also showed positive change on the aspect of the cognitive learning attitude, evidenced by his increased perception toward the usefulness of English learning via the IECT instruction.
Table 2 The Summary of the Development of the Learning Attitude Over the Course of the Instruction
Stage
Learning attitude
Before the instruction The first three months of the instruction
The last month till the end of the instruction
Behavioral
-was seen as a cooperative learner
-remained cooperative -remained cooperative
-showed no interest in doing any types of related English to try engaging in different extra English learning activities after class
-used English more often in daily life
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- reacted positively to the light-hearted activities but showed resistance preparing for tests or memorization willing to prepare for the test without being impatient
-had negative response to English learning at school and cram school
-showed positive reaction to the IECT instruction by giving IECT and expected to have more IECT learned at school and cram school was too easy and was only useful when he could learn new words more useful not only because he could learn new words but also because he could learn different world
knowledge
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CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION 5.0 Introduction
Chapter Four indicates that Patrick’s overall attitude toward English learning demonstrated substantial improvements over the course of the instruction. This chapter continues to discuss in depth the significant themes and emerging issues pertaining to the results of the current study.
Examining the case of Patrick’s attitudinal development toward English learning was a short but insightful journey that has shed some light on various aspects of young learners’ L2 learning. The findings highlight the influence the IECT instruction has upon Patrick’s English learning attitude and show that Patrick’s English learning attitude underwent impressive and noticeable change. This positive change lends support to the theoretical assumption that the integration of culture with language learning can lead to heightened motivation and improved learning attitude (Brooks, 1997; Hadley, 2001; Hammerly, 1982; Tsou, 2005). Based on the results, the study yields five cogent interpretations to explain the possible reasons and factors that may contribute to Patrick’s positive change.
5.1 “Useful” Cultural Contents Make Learning More Meaningful
In the last stage of the IECT instruction, it was witnessed that Patrick’s positive change of attitude was closely related to his change of opinions on the cultural
materials. He felt positive about the IECT lessons in that he could learn various useful knowledge, such as different countries’ special features, world knowledge, and
cultural facts. For example, based on the post-interview and feedback sheets collected throughout the entire teaching session, lesson eight “Fun Games Around the World”
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and lesson nine “World’s Favorite Food,” which introduced various cultural facts, were ranked as two of Patrick’s favorite lessons. Lesson nine featured some of the world’s favorite foods and some of the most popular foods in Taiwan. In this lesson, the researcher first asked the learners to guess what food is the most popular in a specific country, and the learners then guessed and used an on-line world map that listed different countries’ favorite foods to find out the answer themselves. Afterwards, the learners then moved on to guess some of the most popular Taiwanese foods and created their own food map by listing their own favorite Taiwanese dishes. Lastly, the learners, as little “culture experts” used their world maps to ask other family members to guess different countries’ favorite food and recorded their answers (see Appendix F for Patrick’s work). Patrick responded in the feedback sheet that he liked the lesson because he said, “[I can] know what people in different countries like to eat. It’s new.”
Also, in the interview, he mentioned that this was one of his favorite lessons in that he could learn something different. As for lesson eight, it introduced three different games played by children around the world. Its main teaching objectives were to make the learners know what traditional games children play in their countries and at the same time introduce general cultural facts about those countries in terms of geographic location, food, and sport. Before playing the game, the learners first guessed the cultural facts about the country. Then, the researcher showed them how to play the game either by the instructional videos or the reading instruction. Afterwards, the learners played several rounds of the games. The follow-up activities required them to ask each other questions about the cultural facts in assigned sentence patterns and to do cultural facts puzzles. During this lesson, both Patrick and Patricia revealed great enthusiasm and were highly active in each activity. Their exciting response toward the lesson was recorded in the researcher’s journal:
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The kids and I had a blast for today’s class! Today’s class was about introducing and playing the game “Pass the parcel” originating from the UK. The kids were very engaged and they enjoyed themselves from the beginning to the end. Before playing the game, I first asked them to make a guess about the British cultural facts, and they were both attentive and they thought hard to make the guess.
When the last puzzle was solved, Patrick even sighed and grumbled, “What? No more? ”—obviously he was looking forward to answering more questions! Then, it was the highlight of the class—playing the game “Pass the parcel!” . . . The kids responded very exciting . . . when it was their turn [to open the
parcel]—their eyes were widened and they tore the gifts like the predators ravaging their prey, fast, and brutal! (Journal entry 18, July 25, 2014)
Patrick reported in the feedback sheet that he loved the lesson of playing cultural games because it was fun to know what games other children played in the world, and he also enjoyed guessing cultural facts—the activity that could let him know more about different cultures. He thought they were useful, and he would like to have more of these activities in the future lessons.
Based upon the aforementioned examples, the researcher concluded that those cultural information, facts, or knowledge that were new to Patrick and that he could learn something from successfully seemed to best draw his attention; they drove him to participate in the class with positive reaction and ardent interest. In other words, the incorporation of culture to language learning makes English learning more
meaningful. English is no longer a subject that is mostly about learning how to say different things in English, but a subject that contains other useful knowledge. As
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language learning more meaningful and interesting in that students’ focus has been transferred away from linguistic structures. In fact, Kramsch’s idea of the
“focus-shifting” or the idea of learning “something else” in language class instead of merely learning the language itself is not a new concept, and it finds resonance in one of the most popular teaching approaches in second language teaching in recent years, the Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) (see Coyle, Hood & Marsh, 2010).
CLIL is a form of bilingual program, and its fundamental theoretical underpinnings serve as a great example to illustrate how the integration of another subject into English learning motivates the students and thus improves their learning attitudes and even learning results.
In CLIL program, language becomes a mediating tool through which students acquire knowledge of other contents, such as math, science, art, geography, history, and so on (Coyle et al., 2010). A number of studies have shown numerous benefits that effective CLIL curricula can bring to students, including higher motivation, better writing skill, deeper intercultural understanding, and more fluent oral communicative ability, to name a few (see Airey, 2009; Coyle, 2005; Coyle et al., 2010; Dalton-Puffer
& Smit, 2007; Dalton-Puffer, 2010; Gracia, 2009; Lehtse, 2012). Among them, heightened motivation is considered one of CLIL’s most salient features (Coyle et al.,
& Smit, 2007; Dalton-Puffer, 2010; Gracia, 2009; Lehtse, 2012). Among them, heightened motivation is considered one of CLIL’s most salient features (Coyle et al.,