A Teachers Introduction to Practical Project Design and Report Writing ELTM

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A Teachers Introduction toPractical Project
Design and Report Writing (ELTM)
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• Presented by Jia Lin (Dana)
• Date August 4, 2005

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Welcome to PPD (ELTM)!

• My name is Jia Lin (my English name is Dana) and
  I am the chair tutor for ELTM (English Language
  Teaching Methodology).
• Whether you are a new tutor or one that has been
  with the program since the beginning, your
  efforts on behalf of Beiwai Online are sincerely
  appreciated.
• The following presentation is intended to provide
  a complete overview of the project, assignments
  and final report for PPD (ELTM). I will
  emphasize points and issues that are of special
  interest to teachers involved in supervising
  student projects.

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Contents
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1. General Introduction
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Project Teaching Experiment

• In PPD, students are expected to apply what they
  learned in their ELTM course.
• They must design original lesson plans for
  teaching English in an effort to help students
  overcome a particular problem.
• Then they need to conduct classes and see whether
  the lessons were effective.

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Real Research!

• Even if PPD students are not teachers, they must
  collect genuine data.
• They could do this by arranging an English
  training class at work or by tutoring students in
  their spare time.
• The important thing is that their research is
  original and honest.
• The goal is to complete a practical teaching
  project, in which something is learned about the
  skill of teaching.

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The Scientific Method

• The scientific method consists of forming a
  hypothesis about a specific problem, designing an
  experiment to test whether the hypothesis is
  true, then collecting data and writing a report.
• PPD (ELTM) students are required to follow the
  scientific method.
• They must focus on one NARROW problem in teaching
  English and test whether applying a communicative
  language teaching technique results in
  improvement.
• Whether there is great improvement or not, the
  student will learn to apply the scientific
  method, which is a valuable lesson in itself.

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Goals of PPD and the Thesis Program

• Apply knowledge of ELTM.
• Gain teaching experience using communicative
  methods.
• Learn to do original research actively and
  independently.

• Understand the scientific method, including how
  to determine if a theory is correct by
  experiment.
• Learn to follow proper format for a report.
• Develop academic writing skills in English.

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Our Graduates

• By adhering to our goals, our graduates will be
  people of high quality, who have earned their
  degree.
• This will have a good effect on the reputation of
  our online study program.

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2. PPD Assignments and Requirements
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Using the Assignment Specifications

• ?? ???
  ??_________
• ???? ????
  ??________
• FOR TUTORS
• You are required to comment on the students
  writing paragraph by paragraph or immediately
  following flow charts and tables. Write your
  comment after each paragraph/table/flow chart
  using a contrasting font color .

• The student should complete the first four blanks
  at the top of each assignment with his/her name,
  student number, year of admission, and the name
  of the tutor and learning center.

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Evaluation of PPD Assignments
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PPD Assignment 1

• PPD Assignment 1 is relatively short (an average
  of 3 pages).
• Yet, it is important that students choose an
  appropriate topic.
• They may choose from 1 of 6 general areas
  listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary
  or classroom management.

• Then they must focus on a narrow problem in that
  particular area and find a teaching method that
  may lead to some improvement.
• Poor example Improving speaking skills.
• Good example Improving oral fluency of middle
  school students in simple conversation through
  the use of role-plays.

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Assignment 1 (Part 1)

• Students are required to describe a specific
  problem in teaching English (e.g. a problem in
  teaching listening? students have trouble in
  listening for the gist).
• They should supply sufficient background
  information (e.g. what they have observed as
  teachers or learners of English).

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Assignment 1 (Part 2)

• Students must then analyze their problem in
  stages, searching for the key factors and a
  primary cause.
• The analysis should end by suggesting a teaching
  method that could be used to solve the ELTM
  problem.

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PPD Assignment 2

• Assignment 2 is much longer (an average of 10
  pages).
• It uses the problem selected in Assignment 1.
• Students must design a teaching experiment and
  document complete lesson plans and data
  collection procedures.

• The lessons should be suitable to the research
  subjects (the students own English students).
• Assignment 2 has 3 main parts an outline of the
  key ideas for the implementation, a detailed
  plan, and a proposal.

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Assignment 2 (Part 1)

• They must state their objective or goal, clearly
  state their hypothesis, give reasons for
  believing the method will be effective
  (rationale) and specify the method(s) they will
  use.
• Then they must give a chronological outline of
  the key points of their lesson plans.

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Assignment 2 (Part 2)

• Then the students must explain the procedures for
  their teaching and data collection activities in
  detail.
• They should give the sources for texts that they
  use and provide copies of handouts or other
  materials used in exercises. If planning to use
  observation tables or questionnaires to collect
  data, a blank table or questionnaire should be
  included.

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Assignment 2 (Part 3)

• Finally, the student needs to demonstrate his/her
  writing skill by writing a research proposal.
• The proposal should summarize the students
  strategy for collecting data to support his/her
  hypothesis.
• The proposal states the future plan for research.
  It is not a report, since the student has not
  implemented the project yet.

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After PPD The Implementation

• If the student passes PPD and the project is
  approved, the student should go ahead and conduct
  the teaching experiment.
• The student should collect data during each
  lesson, either by giving tests, surveying the
  students, filling in observation tables, or a
  combination of methods.
• It is better if this is done before the student
  starts to write his/her thesis. However, if more
  data is needed, the student may continue to
  collect data while writing the first drafts of
  the thesis.

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3. Challenges in Supervising Student Projects
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1 Vague Topics

• Students often fail to narrow their topics to a
  narrow and researchable problem. So they choose
  a topic that is too general or copy a topic from
  the PPD textbook.

• The PPD textbook was not intended to give
  specific clues for research, only to explain the
  general process. It should NOT be copied.
  Suggest a more narrow topic or refer the student
  to the companion textbook Writing Your PPD
  Report (Unit 1).

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2 Analysis Without Conclusions

• Students sometimes copy the questions for
  analysis in the PPD textbook, without answering
  the questions in detail or reaching useful
  conclusions.

• Help the students to reason on their problem and
  analyze its causes and possible solutions. Refer
  them to the supplementary textbook (Unit 2), for
  which an e-version will be available on the
  e-platform.

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3 Faulty Hypothesis

• Some students come up with a hypothesis that is
  too vague, circular in reasoning, or not
  provable. For example More interesting
  exercises will cause the students to be more
  interested in English.

• Since a bad hypothesis is the leading cause of
  failing grades, help the students to come up with
  a better hypothesis. Referring them to the
  supplementary textbook (Unit 3) may help.

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4 Poorly Designed Procedures

• Some students design lesson plans that are
  inconsistent (e.g. a mix of techniques unrelated
  to proving the hypothesis). Some have no idea
  how to collect useful or convincing data.

• Point out the key problem area(s) as early as
  possible so that they can revise their work.
  Refer them to supplementary materials on the
  e-platform, citing specific units.

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Successful Projects

• It has been our experience that if the student
  designs the project well, then carries it out
  according to the plan, that writing a report is
  relatively trouble-free. (The student can focus
  on using proper academic language and format.)
• If mistakes in the ELTM project are not fixed
  early on, then tutors must deal with these issues
  at the same time as supervising the writing of
  the students report.
• Obviously, it is a lot less trouble to supervise
  a successful project to the final stage.

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4. The Final PPD Report(BA Degree Paper)
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Three Drafts Are Required

• Tutors have 2 chances to correct the students
  work before marking the final draft.
• For the first draft, the tutor should focus on
  correcting any flaws in the students research or
  reasoning (e.g. claiming that data proves
  something it does not). Hopefully, by the second
  draft, the tutor can focus on correcting
  writing/format errors.
• All students must complete 3 drafts. In our
  experience, students need to revise their work
  more than once in order to produce an acceptable
  final report.

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Feedback for Drafts 1 and 2
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Feedback for Drafts 1 and 2

• For the first 2 drafts, tutors should check a
  list of criteria as being either acceptable or
  requiring revision.
• The tutor should provide specific comments in the
  text of the students paper, showing where
  changes are needed.
• The tutor should also provide a general comment
  with some positive feedback as well as noting key
  areas that require improvement.

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Key Requirements

• Student papers must have the following main
  components
• Title page,
• Abstract (English and Chinese),
• Sections for Introduction, Methods, Results and
  Discussion,
• Cited references, bibliography, and appendices.

• Tutors must check that the data is authentic.
• The paper must be written using a level of
  English that would be expected of a Bachelors
  student.
• All of the work must be original (no plagiarism).

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Marking Criteria for Final Draft
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The Final (3rd) Draft

• The criteria for the final draft is much shorter
  than the feedback criteria for the first 2
  drafts. There are only 10 items, worth 10
  percent each.
• The mark (gt60) will be used to determine whether
  the student can proceed to the oral defense, in
  which the student must give a brief presentation
  (5 minutes) and answer questions about his/her
  research. Afterwards, the student may get a
  Bachelors degree.

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5. Challenges in Supervising BA Degree
Paper/Report Writing
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1 A Lack of Real Data

• Some students try to get out of the
  implementation requirement, or they fail to
  collect real or convincing data.

• Check their data as early as possible. Require
  them to collect more data to support their
  hypothesis.

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2 Poor Writing Skills

• Some students are not good writers. Their papers
  contain numerous mistakes and are poorly
  organized.

• Get them to reorganize their papers first, using
  the IMRAD structure. Note key problem areas.
  Refer them to supplementary materials and samples.

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3 Inattention to Requirements

• A few students will ignore the requirements and
  hand in work of poor quality.

• Advise them of the standards. Let them know that
  they cannot pass if they do not do the revision
  work. Remember that students want their degree
  and will make changes if they know they must!

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6. Frequently Asked Questions
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FAQ 1

• What if the student is not currently teaching?
  Can the student use old data or data gathered by
  another person?

• The student may assemble a private training
  class. Data from previous years or data gathered
  by another researcher cannot be accepted.

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FAQ 2

• What if students do not attend tutorials?

• Regular emails can be sent out to all the
  students that a tutor is responsible for
  supervising (using a mail list). Tutors can also
  make phone calls or send messages. If students
  do not respond, the tutor will have fulfilled
  his/her responsibility.

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Thank you for listening!
Questions are welcome!