Students’ perceptions of the OAP culture

As mentioned in the last chapter, focal students can gain disciplinary knowledge through giving OAPs; however, their questions about certain aspects of OAP training deserve some discussion. According to the students, there was a shared question about the rationale of assigning oral presentation activity a routine for every course meeting.

Students’ first impressions were of OAPs as a way for teachers to save time as they neither had to prepare for another course activities nor lecture for three whole hours:

I felt…during my first year of study, I took a course taught by professor Wang.

At that time, I felt [student] presentations were basically what the teacher used to occupy course hours, so that she could just sit at one side of the room…I felt this particularly in that course, because in that course I

felt…because teacher seldom gave responses. She seemed not to talk so much.

(Ann, interview, 2009/03/17)

The teachers’ intention is: they want to shirk [the duty of instruction].

Second, teachers maybe want to train us how to grasp the main points and the abilities to reorganize ideas. Yes. Then the third is they hope we, at least the presenters, need to know the article very well. (Dana, interview,

2009/03/23)

To simplify matters. (laugh) Is it possible that teachers give lectures every time? It is tiring. Of course this is one major reason. Just to save troubles, so they ask people to present. On the other hand, it also trains our stage manner and English, because we will become teachers and we will have to present. But, to save troubles is supposed to be everyone’s OS (off-screen voice). (Jami, interview, 2009/06/18)

Ann held a more positive attitude if the instructor provided feedback or further clarification – what Dana called, “the action of instructing” – about the presentations.

Otherwise, she tended to question the intention of assigning OAPs for every class.

After a second thought in the same interview, she continued and stated the importance of presentation skills for successful conference presentations and oral defenses.

Similarly, Dana voiced her question but recognized two other goals for doing OAPs (grasp main ideas and being familiar with the article). As for Jami, other than

questioning the real reason of OAPs, she also specified that students can practice oral proficiency and stage manner in order to function in their future careers as teachers.

It appears that the focal students do not maintain completely negative attitude toward doing OAPs, since they still identify several positive functions of the task and its connection with their career goals. However, data indicate that students felt

exhausted and searched for a reason why there was no alternative other than

presentations “for every course meeting.” Unfortunately, in most students’ reflections, great amount of OAPs seemed to make them feel “numb” about their growth. What was left to the student participants was physical and mental fatigue:

“sometimes, I really feel so tired. Actually, it is also tiring to listen [to speeches]

and it takes lots of effort and time to prepare for a presentation. I will have to be on stage for the following one and a half month consecutively. I really feel like crying” (Erica, interview, 2009/03/13).

“Not for me. [Doing presentations don’t help me to learn.] Because we presented too many times in a semester, I...because I usually had one to two presentations a week for so many weeks, I get numb and…nothing special. It is just the way it is” (Monti, interview, 2009/06/18).

But toward the end of semester, you just feel…that was too much. Also, there are only six of us and you feel…actually, there is no need to have so many [presentations]. Just..focus on quality but not quantity. If I present, if this time I present badly, isn’t it gonna dent my confidence? I will feel

myself…maybe I am not good enough…and make me feel sad if I give a poor presentation. Therefore, I think teachers should calculate the… we also need time for [preparing] something else. The training should include more dimensions. (Jami, interview, 2009/03/11)

Because 6 first-year students took three TESOL courses, each of them had more than 10 presentations in total for the semester– in course ITE1000 that I did not observe, each student had to present six times since 6 course takers were assigned to cover over 25 journal papers. This great amount of OAPs decreased students’

self-perceived improvement. Moreover, the sense of numbness and repeated routine wore out students’ anticipation to grow out of doing OAPs. When asked about how OAPs facilitate their learning, most students, like Monti, reported no particular idea. It may also explain why Jami calls for a diverse or multidimensional training. Dana shared the same perspectives and commented, “No, I don’t think they should keep students presenting and presenting all the time. What do we get?” (interview,

2009/03/23). Her question, perhaps, represents students’ complaint about instructors’

fixed course sequences and insensitiveness to students’ learning loads and needs.

Also, Dana’s question (“What do we get?”) implied that students were in a

relatively powerless position. They suppressed their doubts and expectations for an adjustment of OAP nature. As a matter of fact, the focal students did keep to

themselves suggestions for instructor Hsiao and also other instructors. First, most of them argued the need to have post-presentation discussions. Especially, Ann

complained about little time spent on addressing questions posted by classmates onto the bulletin board. She said, “If you know teacher won’t read them or not take it seriously and don’t discuss it, I will think – what’s the meaning? Besides, I feel teachers should value everyone’s questions or ideas, even though those ideas teacher might consider ridiculous. You should respect. Otherwise, all of us feel frustrated and wonder if teacher thinks our posts are stupid.” (interview, 2009/03/17). Other

classmates agreed with the idea of having group or whole class discussions so that they would have courage to bring up questions. Discussion sessions were believed to have positive effect on mutual learning from each other’s reflections or thoughts.

Second, students asked for all instructors’ evaluation feedback on their OAP performance (e.g., summary of the content, presentation delivery, layout of slides).

Jami and Monti stressed that teachers’ perspectives will lead students to focus on more advanced level of understanding rather than surface meaning of the text.

Comparing to her competence, Monti maintained that “Teachers read articles with different vision and roles, and we just read in our [student] roles. It is possible that you think your logic is clear enough but teachers don’t view the same way. It could happen. Like a beautiful mistake (laugh). So I hope they can give me feedback right away” (interview, 2009/06/12).

Last, abased on their viewing and self-critique assignments, students suggested all instructors communicate expected features of OAPs at the first course meeting.

The assignment seemed unable to make students understand the qualities promoted by the instructor, nor did they experience positive effects of taking Morita’s Table (2000)

on examination of their OAPs. Brook commented after finishing the report, “I

basically don’t feel anything…I just finished the assignment and still that’s it. I mean, no big help. You found you didn’t incorporate certain features, but it is still tough to make it for the next time” (interview, 2009/ 03/28). Courtni, therefore, recommended teachers to give a brief introduction of the criteria at the beginning of the course.

However, to Monti, verbal explanation made no apparent differences from their own reading of the tables. To require a more effective way, she stated, “I think teachers themselves should present a research article for us. Because I heard from a student in Linguistic program that it is always their teachers do the presentations, it is our teachers’ turn to show us in some other days. Why I always have to…you set such high standards for me to reach, but you never demonstrate. Then [I wonder] how high can you get?” (interview, 2009/06/18).

These three major suggestions manifest the focal students’ preferred participation mode and learning needs. They felt uncomfortable to openly express personal

comments of articles, so they preferred group discussions. Student participants placed high value on the time for discussing their, even if immature, questions. Also, they anticipated receiving instructors’ feedbacks on the contents of their presentations;

otherwise, they might question the meanings of OAPs if they just returned to their seats once speeches were finished. Foremost, students recurrently stated that they needed to see model presentations from the instructors so that they can directly understand what teachers expect. Even though these ideas were never explicitly communicated at classes, students had their thoughts about the OAP culture in the local context. Their messages call for attention to the imbalanced and fixed training focus as well as the overall outcomes due to routine practices.

5.4 Discussion

The findings concerning the issue of identity show that student participants were experiencing multiple socialization into the disciplinary community. It involves socialization into the role of graduate students. As shown in this chapter, students recognize a fundamental change from their historical passive learning style to self-responsible study and reflective interaction with knowledge. Focal students are aware that they can not behave according to previous learning norms when they engage in such western-oriented reading and writing modes (Morita, 2002). Like what Golde (1998) notes, graduate students are promoted to undertake four important tasks:

(1) intellectual mastery, (2) learning about the realities of life as a graduate student, (3) learning about the profession, and (4) integrating oneself into the department. Among these social practices, they embed a layer of socialization as novice operating within a new learning culture (Zappa-Hollman, 2001, 2007).

Beyond these socialization tasks, academic language socialization was reported to be the most immediate challenge that these students experienced as newcomers to the TESOL discipline. As members in a community which focuses on researching and practicing English teaching, a shared viewpoint of student participants is that

developing a high-level English command is essential for negotiating competence and membership. It was not easy because academic language forms itself a unique

rhetorical conventions and plays a role as a medium and a communicative tool “for analytical and reflective thoughts” (Casanave, 1992, p.155). Moreover, the situation is where professors are not at the position correcting or teaching academic English at graduate courses, so students frequently construct classroom activities as vehicles to improve their language. Accordingly, multiple socialization tasks take place in parallel;

students are squeezed to strive for both language advance and readiness for the discipline culture.

Socialization is accompanied with development of roles and status into the value system (Wenger, 1998). During this period for establishing new professional selves, data indicate that identity negotiation is unstable and in constant struggle. Generally, students perceive themselves graduate students in a pressing need to learn subject matter. Also, because they attempt to equip themselves with the communicative competence, they maintain roles as academic English learners in various classroom activities. Even though the instructor designs assignments and activities to induct students to the research world and knowledge production practices, the focal students hardly move up to a researcher position. At this point, combined deficiency of limited knowledge and language control contribute to a peripheral social standing. Student participants “enter at the bottom of the hierarchy” (Kuwahara, 2008, p.188) and feel anxious about personal inability to perform to academic standards. Remaining what they used to do as students – acquire knowledge and keep improving language ability – is preferred and much familiar to accomplish.

What data suggest is that students choose to perform who they are instead of adopting “a voice which they do not yet own” (Ivanič, 1998, cited in Costley, 2008, p.84). According to Morita (2002), she makes an appeal of “situated identity” to explain the phenomena as constructed by learners’ “past identities (roles they had played in their previous academic contexts) as well as future identities in their target or “imagined” communities (e.g., professional communities in which they hoped to participate in the future” (p. 184; also see Norton, 2001). Drawing on this perspective, it explains why the focal students make varying level of investment in their identity adaptation. When they enter the academia, they show desire to raise the level of their language proficiency, because they connect language ability to representation of competence and membership in both academic and their “imagined” community – future teaching job market (English teachers at secondary schools). These students

weigh the importance of being academic language learners against being researchers, which reflects how students see themselves as “temporary [visitors] to the academic community” (Morita, 2002, p.128). Their learning goal is not focused on gaining fuller membership in the academic world but on developing knowledge and skills beneficial for future career. Consequently, the focal students have been “selective”

about their identity adaptation.

Data also suggest that identity negotiation and participation are “closely interconnected and mutually constitutive” (Morita, 2002, p.183; see also Lave &

Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). The identity perceived by student themselves shapes their participation and behaviors, in this case, realized through oral academic presentations. In knowledge consumption processes, what students did was

“comprehending when they are actually doing no more than decoding” (Blanton, 1998, p.231). It resulted in a condensed version of the written texts in their presentations without presenters’ own thoughts and reflections to bear on the content. As a matter of fact, they considered several qualities for developing personal voice not necessary, too ideal or presumptuous for them as novice graduates. Results unfold students’ shared self-belittling mindset and clear dichotomy between themselves versus professional roles (e.g., instructors, doctoral students, well-known researchers). Such identity construction gives rise to a resistance stance to argue critical opinions in public.

However, the instructor’s expectations and intentions of every OAP-related task were in a sharp contrast with those of the students. She anticipated “the behaviors of

‘talking’ to texts” (Blanton, 1998, p.227) by commenting on the positive and negative sides of research. She aimed to push students to be able to, as academic readers and speakers, talk about the study with mixture of voices from author researchers and themselves (Blanton, 1998; Myers, 2000). According to professor Hsiao, the outcome was not satisfactory. In the end-of-the-semester interview, she also ssummarized the

inherent reason preventing students from taking a further step:

What I tried to work on was to help students develop their own voices, but it was very hard. Having individual voice is difficult to reach because their

identities are still shaking. [… …] Students reported that some features from Morita’s study couldn’t apply to their OAPs. It shows these students’

mindset. They are uncertain about their socialization. They think they don’t have to reach to that level. [… …] That’s the common attitude shared by the students. Actually, it is not to say that the students are not earnest. Since they have no idea of what to do, they just let it be like that. Finally, everyone is like cans produced from the same factory. (interview, 2009/07/14)

Rather than assuming that students in this study simply refuse to develop critical voices, the underlying messages behind these students’ resistance also associated with other issues except for shaky identity. First, they have not received adequate

instructions about critique of a research article. According to their learning history, students were told to demonstrate critical thinking skills only if teachers asked them to. Most of the time, they tended to absorb whatever the readings say. It was the teachers to “tell” learners further inferences and extended discussions beyond the text itself. When this practice is expected from students, it causes a dramatic shift in

“cultural approaches to knowledge, education, and the whole enterprise of assessment” (Ballad & Clanchy, 1991, p.34, cited in Morita, 2002).

Second, sometimes the problem is concerned with giving public comments.

Compared to solid and theory-based interpretations, simply addressing personal opinions is regarded “not academic,” “childish,” or “not objective.” Not only do students worry that their responses may sound immature or subjective but also do they feel powerless to “criticize” or evaluate openly the published words of specialists. To some students, printed sources which have been through careful reviewing, revising and editing processes speak on behalf of truth and authority. Although previous studies (Angelova & Riazantseva, 1999; Zappa-Hollman, 2001), which recruited

learners from Asian countries, remark that cultural orientation may make Asian students think that challenging the authorities is a negative posture, the current study finds the reluctance related to multiple facets, including their self-perceived status, incompetence, inexperience and relative powerlessness in front of prints.

In this regard, the findings confirm that discourse socialization is not a one-way assimilation but a complex negotiation of personal motif, identity and participation (Duff, 2008; Duff & Hornberger, 2008; Morita, 2000, 2002; Morita& Kobayashi, 2008; Séror, 2008). Students may bring with them different meanings, against those of instructors’, to engage in academic tasks. Facing the roles and requirements imposed on them, students may not merely refuse to adjust, nor do they perform a rigid

reproduction of experts’ expectations. In the current study, without a preferred channel to express themselves through group discussions, students turned silent and retrieved back to pure “information transmitters.” Toward the end of the semester, what left for students was the impression of excessive decoding-rehearsing-and-transmitting chain with not much sense. Results shed lights on the need of the instructors to include dialogic communication with students concerning mutual expectations and difficulties.

CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS