Moira Cluskey's M.ED dissertation

HOW CAN I FACILITATE LEARNING AMONGST MY LEAVING CERTIFICATE APPLIED STUDENTS?

Moira Cluskey

Dissertation in part fulfilment of the requirements for the Masters Degree in Education at the University of West of England

Supervisor: Dr. Jean McNiff

June 1997

CONTENTS

		Page
	Acknowledgements	2
	Assessment Criteria	3
	Abstract	4
Chapter 1	Introduction	5
Chapter 2	Context of Study	7
Chapter 3	Methodological Issues	13
Chapter 4	The Research	23
Chapter 5	Discussion	46
Chapter 6	Conclusion	51
	Bibliography	54
	Appendices	59

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Jean, my tutor, for her inspiration and unstinting support during this course of studies. Due to her unique style and commitment to teaching I have found learning and writing a labour of love. Many thanks, also, to my husband Ed who always listened to me, took a genuine interest in my studies and never lost patience on the many occasions when I needed his help with the computer.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

I wish to have my work assessed under the following criteria:

A Use of Workplace Experience

M3 Can analyse and reflect on professional practice using an identified framework

and/or general theory.

M4 Can critically evaluate workplace experience in the light of reflection and/or

enquiry so as to identify changed understandings of it and suggest future courses of action.

B Use of Reading

M3 Can use published research and other literature to evaluate findings of original

enquiry.

M4 Can give critical evaluation of existing research and literature in the light of

findings of original enquiry.

C Use of Research

M2 Can justify plans and methods on methodological / epistemological grounds.

M4 Can reflect and critically analyse the enquiry process and the outcome of this.

M5b Can discuss the implications of ethical issues arising from the topic of the line

of enquiry.

D Content of Unit

M1b Knows the significance of contextual and other factors in relation to the

concepts of the areas of study.

M4 Can critically analyse ideas and knowledge of the unit using experience and

reading.

ABSTRACT

"How can I facilitate learning amongst my Leaving Certificate Applied students"?

For many years my non-academic students have struggled to cope with the traditional Leaving Certificate course in French. It has served them poorly. Last year the Department of Education introduced the Leaving Certificate Applied (LCA) programme which recognises a wider range of their talents and abilities. The value-basis underpinning this course is that it should be an interactive, applied approach where students should experience some degree of success in learning. Our school has chosen to teach French to fulfil the foreign language requirement on the Leaving Certificate Applied course. No prior knowledge of it is required. Although I welcomed this new Leaving Certificate course and the opportunity to teach French on it, I was anxious about its delivery as I was faced with a truly mixed ability class. Some had studied French up to Junior Certificate level with minimal to average success in it. Others had never studied it before. I wanted to keep everyone involved in a sense of learning and progress, neither overwhelming some nor underchallenging others. And in keeping with the value-basis underpinning the Leaving Certificate Applied course I wanted to help each student to validate their effort and achievement.

My research describes the steps I took to try to facilitate their learning, how I and my students tried to learn new roles as educator and learners, and how they, to greater and lesser extents, gradually embraced autonomous learning and peer teaching. The story of this change is told honestly, in all its chaos and triumphs, through observations, reflections and evaluations.

I believe I can show that, following this intervention, I facilitated learning amongst my students, that I have helped them to validate their learning, and that they and I have grown in our awareness of the learning process. Finally, I believe that I, most of all, have learned that improvement is always possible if I am willing to commit myself to change, willing to take a risk.

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

My research focuses on the question of how I, as a teacher of French, might best facilitate learning amongst my Leaving Certificate Applied students.

Chapter two contextualises my teaching experience and how teaching in vocational schools has differed for me to teaching in convent schools. I explain the historical background to the introduction into Ireland of vocational schools, the clientele they targeted, the type of education they were intended to provide, the limitations which were imposed on them and the problems which arose therefrom. The traditional Leaving Certificate, which has served most of my students poorly, has been the only examination available in Ireland to mark the completion of second level schooling. The Department of Education finally introduced a new Leaving Certificate course last year, the Leaving Certificate Applied, which recognises a wider range of the abilities of my students, and I explain its approach and assessment procedure in this chapter. Despite my pleasure in finally seeing my students' abilities recognised by the Department of Education I found myself in the invidious situation of having to teach French to a class of mixed ability students. Most students had studied it for three years and had differing but mostly minimal levels of success in it, but some were studying it for the first time. This obvious mixed ability, the value-basis underpinning the LCA approach to teaching and the methodologies to be employed are discussed in chapter two.

Methodological issues are the subject of chapter three. In order to justify why I have chosen to follow an action research paradigm I first explain two other educational research paradigms on which it draws and also challenges - the scientific, which relies on quantitative data, and the interpretive, which depends on qualitative data. The advantages and disadvantages of the methods of data collection employed by these two research paradigms are discussed in the light of an action research enquiry. I continue by explaining the nature of my enquiry and the educational values I hold which promote the idea of autonomous learning as an indispensable element in facilitating learning amongst mixed ability students. I outline briefly the research process I adopted, the plan I devised to facilitate autonomous learning, the data I gathered and ethical issues around the research.

Chapter four deals with the research in detail. I describe my class and why I was concerned. In response to a questionnaire I changed the structure of my classroom to facilitate group and pair work and devised the idea of a chart comprising various learning tasks which were intended to keep everyone busy, irrespective of standard. The chapter goes on to relate the chaos and dejection of the early days as we all tried to learn a new role, especially me, the glimmers of improvement along the way and then the more obvious ones. It reports my reflections, evaluations and observations, their reactions, feedback and progress and how I tried to overcome problems which arose during those months. The final interviews try to establish what progress the students believe they made during that period and what they found of value in the changed classroom practice.

In chapter five I examine the main areas of understanding and growth which I experienced as a result of the research. These include a genuine insight into the value of experiential learning as opposed to taught courses; the unmitigated strength of an action research approach to an enquiry intended to bring about improved practice; the value of student/teacher and student/student collaboration; my changed perspective on mixed ability learning and the value of writing as an aid to reflection and consciousness-raising.

Chapter six concludes my research as I reflect on how I will improve my practice in the future, the unresolved issues which arose during the research, and the strengths I have gained through my involvement with action research which will help me to confront future educational challenges.

Chapter 2

CONTEXT OF STUDY

2.1 My Teaching Experience

I am the product of a typical middle-class, convent education. I was a willing student and liked to achieve. Although I remember school as quite a boring experience I chose to become a teacher because, at the age of sixteen, I was profoundly influenced by a teacher who showed an enthusiasm for learning and a respect for her students' opinions that I had never before encountered as a student. I wanted to bring the same sense of self-esteem and joy of learning into young people's lives.

I did my teaching practice in my old school where nothing had changed. It was still a well-run school with no discipline problems. The students I taught were preparing for their Leaving certificate and were motivated to succeed. Their willingness to learn and the distinction I was awarded in my teaching practice convinced me that I was a good teacher. My next teaching experience was in a vocational school. I was shocked at the resistance to learning shown by my students and the enormous discipline problems I encountered. This teaching experience was followed by another period in a convent school which was similar to the year I spent on teaching practice - easy and satisfying. In 1979 I joined my present school, a vocational one, in what was my first permanent teaching position. I was once again confronted with huge discipline problems and a lack of respect by my students for what I was trying to teach. There was no support system in place for new teachers and I began to notice that the students' indiscipline was something akin to an initiation rite meted out to unfortunate new teachers. My colleagues guaranteed me that it would wane with time, which is true, but I have never since met with the same compliance and ease of teaching as that experienced in the convent schools.

Maintaining discipline is always an issue in teaching, but it appeared to be a much greater issue in teaching in vocational schools. Although I attributed pure boldness to many of my students in my initial time teaching in vocational schools I have come to realise that their behaviour was the result of a great malaise they experienced with the type of education being offered to them. I recall how my friends and I, at the age of twelve, were amazed to hear that the most intelligent girl in our class had chosen to pursue her second level education in the local vocational school instead of the convent. The only other girls who were to take the same route were those who were not academically bright. We wondered why our friend had chosen to attend the vocational school when it was firmly implanted in our minds that it was a second rate type of schooling. It was many years later that I learned about the purpose and ethos of vocational schools.

2.2 Vocational Schools

In 1930 thirty eight vocational educational committees were established throughout the country to provide continuation and technical education to poorer children. Coolahan (1981) explains the purpose of vocational education:

The term 'vocational' embraced two distinct elements incorporated in the Act (Vocational Education Act of 1930) - continuation education and technical education.......Continuation education was seen 'to continue and supplement education provided in elementary schools and to include general and practical

training in preparation for employment in trades etc. and also general and practical training for improvement of young persons in the early stages of employment'.

Lee (1989) accounts for its perception as second rate education:

The schools were, however, deliberately deprived, partly at clerical insistence, of the opportunity to prepare students for the Leaving Certificate, the then status symbol of a completed secondary education. They were thus stamped from the outset as second rate by a public weaned on the primacy of the more remunerative traditional education.

Coolahan (1981) mentions many of the problems which limited the role of the vocational education including small schools, distribution linked to demands for evening classes rather than day courses, a high drop-out rate from the two year course and competition from local secondary schools. He also refers to vocational schools catering for "a more than normal distribution of dull or under-motivated pupils who saw the 'tech' [vocational school] as a convenient stop-gap until something better turned up". Some of these pupils, he explains, may also have failed to reach the entrance standards of secondary schools or have been unable to pay their fees. Greaney and Kellaghan (1984) conducted a study in 1967 of eleven year old students entering vocational school. They were seen to be disadvantaged in the following ways: they belonged to families of relatively low socio-economic status; they tended to have more siblings; they were generally below average in terms of primary school attainment and attendance; they received poorer ratings in terms of satisfactory classroom behaviour. The profile of the students had not changed in the intervening thirty years.

This second rate attitude to vocational schools has persisted in the cities and towns where choice of school is available. In the past, the less academic or disruptive student in the primary school failed the school's entrance test and continued their second-level education in the vocational school. Now, however, they are simply discouraged from applying to go to the local secondary school by their primary school teacher. As many of the secondary schools now offer a technical training the student's decision to attend vocational school is based more on academic inability than on the opportunity of technical training. Students attending the school in which I work tend to feel stigmatised and of lower intellectual ability. They refer to the students attending the local secondary schools as "brainboxes".

2.3 The Leaving Certificate

As in many other vocational schools the Leaving Certificate was introduced to our school in 1980. Up to that point our students left school at the age of fifteen or sixteen on completion of their Group Certificate to take up apprenticeships which seemed to be quite plentiful and offered the prospect of permanent employment. The Leaving Certificate offered the possibility of a more complete second level education and alternative career avenues for those students with different aspirations. Despite its academic difficulty and literacy problems amongst a sizeable number of our students, enrolling for it has become the norm. Although this enrolment is perhaps due more to the increase in unemployment coupled with a decrease in available apprenticeships I have, nonetheless, noticed a growing pride amongst my students in completing their second level education. While offering this opportunity should be seen as a positive step I have often had grave doubts about the quality of the Leaving Certificate curriculum and its suitability to the academically weak student. Humphreys (1993) claims that "education is not just about developing intellectual and occupational skills, it is also about helping students to understand and value themselves". What an impossible task when the curriculum is intellectually oriented and leaves little scope for the recognition of other qualities in the student. While some of our students manage to succeed in the Leaving Certificate examination a minority continue to fail dismally. They find it impossible to commit themselves to a course that bears no relevance to their experience and their capabilities. I have often wondered what it does to their self-esteem to experience intellectual failure each day. Drudy and Lynch (1993) have stressed the personal damage caused by failure in school: "Failure in school is construed as a problem of individual incapacity: we blame the victim for the inadequacy of the system, and the victim in turn internalises a sense of personal failure through the continuous experience of being labelled". For far too long we have failed to be critical of the educational system and its failure to cater for the academically weak. Richards (1991) associates a sense of justice with the idea of equality: "when social structures are planned no individual or group is to be given more consideration than any other". Yet we have persisted with this discriminatory practice in the field of education towards what McNiff (1995) describes as "systems disadvantaged people" and have allowed them to be labelled as slow, weak, dull etc. We have blamed them for their inability to cope with the educational system rather than blaming the educational system for failing to acknowledge their strengths and working to them. They have become an invisible, voiceless minority who struggle to survive within an uncaring system (Cluskey, 1996). "We need to devise systems, educational and otherwise, that acknowledge difference and plurality, divergence and individual creativity" (McNiff, 1995).

2.4 The Introduction of the Leaving Certificate Applied

Drudy and Lynch (1993) maintained that the Irish educational system had failed many children because of its ideology of fixed ability. This "exonerates us as teachers and educators......as it places the responsibility of continued working-class underachievement in schools on the pupils themselves" (ibid). They believe we should see intelligence more as "a quality of human behaviour - not a mental quantity" (ibid). They refer to the work of Howard Gardner (1983) who maintains that there are at least seven forms of intelligences, the linguistic and logical-mathematical being the two upon which our school curriculum puts most of its emphasis. As such it largely fails to recognise the other abilities of our students.

The Leaving Certificate Applied, introduced in 1995, is the first effort by the Department of Education to give official recognition to the talents of the non-academic student at Leaving Certificate level. It targets the non-achiever, the likely drop-out. It is modular in approach and differs fundamentally from the traditional Leaving Certificate in that assessment is continuous. Students are awarded credits for attendance and participation in the various courses and completion of tasks. Final examinations only account for a third of the total marks. As such it is a recognition of a student's personal effort to learn, rather than their ability to achieve a certain national standard of learning which may be unattainable for them. Teaching is to employ active methodologies and the completion of tasks requires an inter-disciplinary approach. Although there has been no overt reference to the multiple intelligences theory of Gardner in the LCA guidelines the recognition of multiple intelligences is implicit in the organisation of the modules and has been referred to in in-service training. It has also been very evident to me in the teaching of the course.

When introduced to the Leaving Certificate Applied programme I was immediately attracted to the fairness and inclusiveness of its approach. The weaker student who applied him/herself to learning could succeed perhaps even better than the more able but less committed student. As outlined in the stated purpose of modern languages "the scope of the modules goes beyond the students' language needs to address their need to experience some degree of success in learning generally and to improve their confidence and self-image" (LCA Modern Languages 1995).

The modules in French aim to equip the students with social/survival skills as a traveller or customer in France. Although no prior knowledge of French is required, my class is very mixed in both ability and standard. Nearly a quarter of the class had been in a remedial stream and received extra attention in their reading and writing in the junior cycle. Some others would have benefited greatly from the same intensive work. (As I have already explained, many of our students would have been discouraged from applying to enrol in the local secondary schools on the grounds of poor academic standard or poor classroom behaviour). A minority in my present fifth year class have never studied French before, half of the remainder had failed their Junior Certificate examination, the other half had just passed it. No matter how poor their grasp of French is they had, nonetheless, studied it over a three year period and were at a considerable advantage to the novices to French. The value-basis underpinning the approach to learning in the LCA is that it should be an interactive, applied experience, involving cross-curricular work to aid task completion. The use of specifically targeted teaching methodologies which would be appropriate to supporting such pedagogical aims, coupled with the varying standards within the class have caused me to re-examine my teaching style and its underlying assumptions. This fifth year LCA class poses a great challenge to my teaching methods which have been dictated more by the success criteria of national examinations than by students' learning needs.

Chapter 3

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

3.1 Choice of Methodology

In a previous article (Cluskey 1995), I referred to the claim made by Whitehead (1989) that "education is a value-laden practical activity". As educators, we teachers have our own set of values embodied in our practice, helping to guide us through our teaching lives and focusing us on our goals. In researching our classroom practice we attempt to establish if our goals are being met. Lomax (1994) refers to this research as an attempt by teachers to make sense of their practices and to improve them. Some educationalists (e.g. Bassey, 1990; Carr and Kemmis, 1986; Mc Niff, 1988) have conceived of educational research as informing three paradigms - the scientific, the interpretive and action research. Each has evolved from a particular view of the nature of educational knowledge.

3.1.1 The scientific research paradigm.

The scientific research paradigm, as part of a positivist approach, maintains that reality exists irrespective of people and may be discovered through observation and the senses. This method is employed in the physical sciences with a good deal of preciseness and is based on data collection which is usually numerical and statistical, in other words quantitative rather than qualitative. Its goal is to understand particular phenomena and through that understanding to produce general laws which will predict future educational outcomes. As Bassey (1990) says the positivist researchers do not believe that they themselves are significant variables in their research. Therefore, they seldom personalise their report and refer to themselves as 'the researcher'. While many researchers would claim that the quantitative nature of the scientific paradigm was the only authentic way to validate claims to knowledge Ernest (1994) maintains that there are other valid ways of obtaining knowledge, "and so any claim of exclusive rights on truth is arrogant and cannot be sustained".

3.1.2 The interpretive research paradigm.

A second paradigm of educational knowledge is the interpretive method. A researcher using this method does not believe that reality exists irrespective of people but rather that people construct their own reality. "Because of differences in perception, in interpretation and in language it is not surprising that people have different views on what is real" (Bassey, 1990). In recognition of this possibility reports are personalised and researchers refer to themselves as 'I'. This method, popular in the 'people' sciences, is based on field notes, conversations and observations. It is, therefore, qualitative rather than quantitative. In its detailed study of a particular case it hopes to create more understanding of general cases. "It may offer possibilities, but no certainties, as to what may be the outcome of future events" (Bassey, 1990). It does not necessarily lend itself to rigorous statistical analysis but, as Ernest (1994) says its strength lies in its rich accounts of case studies which are intended to illustrate the general, not with the precision of the exact sciences, but as a suggestion of a more general and complex truth. As a teacher-researcher I value the interpretive approach to research more than the scientific. It acknowledges the great complexities of people and the difficulty of quantifying their responses.

3.1.3 Action research

A third research paradigm is action research, as part of a critical theorist approach to research. Where the aim of the positivist approach is to predict and control and the aim of the interpretive approach is to understand, the aim of the critical theorist approach is to emancipate - "to uncover aspects of society, especially ideologies, that maintain the status quo by restricting or limiting different groups' access to knowledge" (Nielsen, 1990). Hopkins (1985) sees this emancipation as empowering people to take control and direction over their own lives thus enhancing what was heretofore an experience limited by their socially constructed thinking (Carr and Kemmis, 1986). As part of a critical theorist approach action research aims to enhance lives by improving practice. It is about teachers researching what is happening in their own classrooms. Hopkins (1985) states: "The original purpose of teacher research was to free teachers from the limiting constraints of prespecified research designs". For this reason action research has rejected adhering to any one methodology lest it restrict the goal of improvement. Bell (1987), likewise maintains that no approach should depend solely on one method any more than it would exclude a method merely because of its label. Much action research is eclectic in that it employs the methodology of both the scientific and the interpretive approach. It recognises the value of data collection as in the scientific method and the sensitivity we need to have to human responses as in the interpretive method. But its pragmatic basis of being an enquiry carried out to improve practice in the classroom is what attracts me most to it and what I have found most helpful about its approach. As McNiff (1988) says: "The concept ‘educational’ involves the notion of ‘improvement’" and as such, through action research, I have found that I can more fully live out my values as an educator. Its approach is wise enough to recognise the value of the two other research methodologies and to use them where suitable. The continual cycle of action - reflection, in other words a trial and error approach, where we admit that "there is no consistently 'right' way of doing things" (McNiff, 1992), frees us from previous constraints and promotes a humble and honest approach to research.

3.2 The Nature of my Enquiry

I have always wanted to be the kind of teacher who "respects students as potentially autonomous learners" (Lomax, 1994). My own experience of academic learning has belonged to two schools. I have had learning imposed on me in school as a young person and also in my undergraduate years in university. Apart from one exceptional teacher when I was sixteen years old, I always felt I was being treated as an empty vessel devoid of any potential original thought. Consequently, I believed I had none and deserved to be treated as such. I was only bestowed with knowledge that was both safe for the status quo and understandable. My learning was controlled. When I joined an action research group in 1994 and later enrolled for a Master's degree, I learned in an exciting way. My tutor always acknowledged our group's ability to learn autonomously. She allowed us the opportunity to deconstruct and reconstruct our own thinking. We never had the ideas of famous educationalists imposed on us. Some of my previously held views were either firmly reinforced or rejected as unsound. Little (1991) describes autonomy as a "capacity - for detachment, critical reflection, decision-making, and independent action". This wonderfully exciting way of learning, which always made me yearn for more, had a very disquieting effect on me. It made me examine critically my own style of teaching and I was forced to acknowledge the lack of respect I showed for my students' ability to learn autonomously. Despite wishing that my students would show more responsibility for their learning, I seldom afforded them the opportunity. I was repeating the cycle of imposed learning which I had found so boring, uninspiring and dismissive of the learner's ability. I saw myself as a "living contradiction, holding educational values whilst at the same time negating them" (Whitehead, 1989). Whatever my reasons for denying my students this opportunity - professional insecurity, lack of trust, laziness, undue absorption with a national examination curriculum - I believe it is detrimental to the development of responsible, independent, fulfilled human beings. We expect them to be confident of their ability to make wise choices in life yet oblige them to spend their most formative years being passive, having the pace and quality of their learning dictated to them by teachers who have become too absorbed with the national examination system. Far from "helping our students to find meaning and purpose in their educational lives" (Lomax, 1996) we condemn them to a vacuous experience on the periphery of learning.

I experienced a second awakening when our study group engaged with feminist research methods. Pettigrew (1981) described her growing sense of invisibility, of someone without a voice or the right to be heard as she adopted the customs of a Sikh woman. I saw a direct analogy with my teaching situation. For years I had been teaching students whose abilities were not reflected in the national examinations. They and I had become the invisible minority, whose self-esteem had been so systematically battered by the examination system that we had finally become disempowered. We spent so much energy struggling to survive within a system which ignored us that we failed to demand recognition, to demand justice. Harding (1987) saw feminist enquiry as similar to other ‘underclass’ approaches in that it insisted on the importance of ‘studying up’ rather than ‘studying down’. I had always wondered why my students did not succeed in the national examination system and tended to blame them as deficient in some way or uncommitted to learning. I had failed to examine that system critically. Rather than blame the system for failing to recognise my students’ abilities I blamed my students for failing the system. We all internalised a sense of failure. Failure in the national examinations highlighted what they had not learned. The effort they had made and the learning they had accomplished was seldom acknowledged. All this would change with the introduction of the LCA course and I felt the burden of failure lift from my shoulders. At last my students’ success in their learning, no matter how small or great, was about to be affirmed. Their voices would at last be heard. I determined to assert always their right to this recognition and soon found myself in a position of having to do so, even amongst a few colleagues. Old habits die hard and familiar expectations do not suddenly disappear. But my reading had provided me with new insights and understandings and a conviction to see justice done. My own intellectual abilities had been treated with disdain when I was young, but I had at least managed to pass the national examinations and experience success in learning. My non-academic students have experienced the ignominy of failure within this examination system and what strengths they have are largely ignored. I do not support this elitist attitude to learning, nor the power structure which favours the academic student and ignores the alleged ‘non-academic’. No caring system could possibly spurn a sector which it purports to represent in such a duplicitous manner. Glasser (1984) maintains that there are five basic needs in people without which we cannot survive. These are a sense of belonging, power, fun, freedom and survival. We feel powerful when we respect those who respect us and we feel free when we are allowed to think and act for ourselves. I believe it is my duty as an educationalist to respect my students’ humanness and to encourage them to think and take responsibility for their actions. In so doing I enhance their lives and affirm the strengths which they express in their learning.

I decided that my enquiry would centre around my fifth year LCA French class. Their mixed ability and standard in French made them the ideal choice for me to stretch my own organisation and thinking in an effort to facilitate each individual's desire to learn. The poor results that most of them obtained in French in the Junior Certificate and the fact that some of them had never studied French before indicated that their confidence in their ability to learn would probably be quite low. I hoped to help each of them to validate their effort and learning according to their own ability

3.3 The Research Process

My research commenced late September 1996 and concluded four months later when the module in French ended. I started the research by explaining to my class about the enquiry I hoped to engage in with their support and how its aim was to enhance their learning through the improvement of our classroom practice. Having obtained their written consent to engage in the research (see appendix 1, also 3.4 ‘Ethical Issues’) I decided to introduce them to it by asking them to respond to a questionnaire. Hopkins (1985) says that questionnaires are a "simple way of obtaining broad and rich information from pupils" but warns that although this information is quantifiable "children will try to produce the right answers" (op.cit.). I have the same reservations about the reliability of questionnaires, having found from my previous use of one in classroom research (Cluskey, 1996) that it is safer not to accept their results as an unchallengeable truth. On that occasion I had asked my students if they normally did their homework thoroughly, which included revising their class lesson before they did their written assignment. Sixty two percent of them replied in the affirmative but my subsequent observation of them in class definitely belied that claim. Nonetheless, I do see it as a valuable way of introducing students to the research being undertaken, of soliciting their co-operation and raising their awareness of the learning process. I agree with McNiff (1988) who says that "in an action research enquiry, questionnaires will probably be used in an exploratory fashion to get an idea of trends". Bell (1987) also cautions researchers to examine if a questionnaire is the best way of obtaining information as it is very time-consuming to devise, although at a later stage in the research "the interview can yield rich material and can put flesh on the bones of a questionnaire" (op. cit.). I found it quite a useful exercise in subsequent interviews with my students to tease out information which had come through in the questionnaire.

I hoped to establish through the questionnaire what style of teaching my students found most conducive to learning and, based on their responses, I changed the physical structure of my classroom to better facilitate group learning. Dam (1995), in her very practical book on learner autonomy, spoke about the purpose of keeping a student diary. One of the reasons mentioned was that it would act like a calendar - "you can see what you have done". This gave me the idea of designing a learning chart so that my students might all have a task in hand which they could proceed to independently of others. As I expected that their pace of learning would differ according to ability and previous knowledge it would free me to give more attention to the novices to French while challenging the more advanced students. This learning chart included tape recording tasks for which they were provided with blank tapes. Many of the tasks were pair and group oriented, in keeping with the methodologies encouraged in the LCA. As they completed each learning task on the chart they were to highlight that section. This was intended to spur them on as they saw themselves complete one learning task after another. It would also act as a way of validating their own learning. I saw this chart as facilitating autonomous learning in that each student could decide to move on to a new task as a previous one was completed and would thus be acting independently, managing their own learning. However, as Little (1991) had warned that "autonomy is likely to be hard-won and its permanence cannot be guaranteed" I was not expecting an immediate transformation in either teaching or learning strategies but I was certainly determined to try to let go the reins of power and hoped that my students would gradually learn to take hold of these reins themselves. As explained by Page (1992) it is not just a matter of organisation but "requires a change of attitude by both teachers and learners.........Teachers have to learn to let go and learners have to learn to take hold. Learners must be seen as having value as learners and not being in some way defective". I have been too heedless of Dewey (1956) when he warned that subject-matter can never be imposed on the child. "Learning is active. It involves reaching out of the mind.......It is he [the student] and not the subject-matter which determines both quality and quantity of learning" (op.cit.). Although very well intentioned in my endeavours as a teacher, I don't know how I was ever led to believe I could dictate my students' learning. How did I ever assume such power?

The data I used was mainly qualitative in nature. In my diary I made observations which helped me to focus on the most important issues in hand and to recognise signs of inadequacy or improvement in our classroom learning. Hopkins (1985) maintains that field notes are the easiest and least time-consuming method of data collection to operate, and provide surprisingly candid information. As I have already said, on a previous occasion I found that my field notes were more reliable in discovering whether people act according to their claims than the information given to me on a questionnaire. I gave my students a diary sheet to complete each day. In this they were to record whether they had carried out any plan from the previous day, what they had studied that day, how they worked on it, what was difficult or easy and what plans they had for further work. They gave me written evaluations of their learning (see 4.2.5 below). I changed my style of evaluating their work. The normal corrections and help was given as they completed tasks but my feedback was of a totally different nature to my normal style. I focused on the students’ effort as I had observed it during the previous weeks and responded in writing to the work handed in to me. Because I focused on the person rather than the exercises I found a lot more good in my students than I normally convey to them. Of course, this more empathic style was due to the example I was getting from my own tutor. She had the perfect combination of a hard task mistress who pushes her students towards excellence while at the same time validating their effort and guiding and encouraging them through difficult stages of learning and writing.

I chose a small representative group to help me monitor the effectiveness of our learning strategies. They included the following: a novice to French; two people who had learned French before but had failed it quite badly in the Junior Certificate examination and one of whom felt particularly negative after the first evaluation; two students who had passed French but one of whom had been a very reluctant learner the previous year. Within this group of five there were really only three standards but I was being cautious lest any of them dropped out of school. In keeping with what Lomax (1994) said about validation being an “on-going event rather than a one-off at the end of a project” I hoped to show through our conversations, interviews, student diaries and field notes that they were being challenged in their learning, that they were taking more responsibility for it and that their French was improving. I also hoped that they would feel enhanced self-esteem through their achievements and my support. Excerpts from these tape recordings and diaries are presented as evidence in written form in the appendices as also is the evidence from a colleague who attended one of our classes and with whom I shared some of my ideas and thoughts. Also presented as evidence is the validation of a member of my peer group in the Masters course of study.

3.4 Ethical Issues

In engaging in research one must always adhere to an ethical code. McNiff, Lomax & Whitehead (1996) provide a very clear checklist of points to remember when carrying out research. The most important one, in my opinion, is getting permission from the people I hope to involve in the research, and to impress upon them that they are "participants and co-researchers............you are studying yourself in relation to them" (McNiff et al. 1996). Lomax (1994) refers to treating them as "principals (not underlings) in the research". This is the kind of respect and consideration I would wish to show my students - the kind I wish I had received as a young person myself. I made sure to preface my research by first obtaining this written consent. There has never been a problem for me in this regard. Young people always seem happy to give their opinions and to have an audience. It is in depriving them of this voice that problems arise. Furthermore, when I needed to choose a small representative group at a later stage in the research I had many offers, such as: "Miss, if you need someone who failed the Junior Certificate and is now learning, I'm perfect for the job", and "if you want to interview someone who never studied French before, I'll do it". They were clever enough to know the different levels in the class I would need to investigate.

People are entitled to their privacy and to the truth. It is essential to promise them confidentiality - never to reveal a participant's name without their permission or to reveal anything of a personal or sensitive nature. Fictitious names are discouraged as they may belong to somebody else and for this reason it is preferable to use initials or numbers. Never interview a person without their permission and always check that they agree with the transcriptions or edit accordingly before they are published. Again, I have had no problem in that area except where tape recordings were muffled or difficult to understand, in which case I have asked the interviewee to try to recall or explain what he/she was saying at that point in the interview.

Bassey (1990) cautions us to be mindful that we engage in research in a quest for knowledge and as such must be scrupulously honest in the analysis and reporting of data. Bell (1987) warns us that "it may be easier to recognise bias in others than ourselves, and it is tempting to reject evidence that does not support our case". We should, therefore, "question everything and qualities of scepticism as well as empathy need to be developed" (op.cit.). I have sometimes found myself wanting to reject or enhance information that has not produced the desired results for my research. The issue of truth at all costs has been a beacon, therefore, in guiding me through my research.

Finally, participants also have the right to withdraw from the research whenever they wish and must be informed of this right. It is only fair and to the benefit of their continued interest in the research "to keep them involved and informed" (McNiff et al. 1996). In the course of my research I interviewed my research group twice. On these occasions I showed them how I was charting their progress through key issues which had come to my attention in the course of my evaluations or previous interview, a study of their diaries, my observations in class and the execution of their learning tasks. I thus kept them informed and, hopefully, involved in the research and their participation in it. At least, by the end of the research, the same students were still involved in the enquiry although it required them to be interviewed in their free time. They were under no obligation to do this.

Chapter 4

THE RESEARCH

4.1 My Concern

I was concerned about my fifth year LCA French class. As soon as I noted the names on the register I knew that nearly a quarter of the students had never studied French before. Although the LCA course is very suitably designed for the low achiever and likely drop-out I felt very uncomfortable about trying to cater for the different standards of French in the class. Some of the students also had a reputation for being either lazy, unruly or very slow at learning. I worried that their difficulty in French would cause them to be even more unruly or lazy. The module in French required no prior knowledge of the language which was to the advantage of the novices to it. However, I feared that those who had previously studied French would get bored very quickly by an absence of challenge. Would I try to counteract that possibility by moving too fast through the material for the novices? My question was how could I facilitate mixed ability learning? How could I keep everyone involved in a sense of learning and progress, neither overwhelming some nor underchallenging others? Implicit in that question was the idea that each student should be validated in their individual learning and effort.

4.2 My Action

4.2.1 A Questionnaire

Two weeks after the module started I discussed with the students the difficult learning situation we were in, how challenged I felt trying to cater for their needs and how I feared I might fall between two stools and service nobody. They agreed to become involved in researching the issue and gave me their written consent. I had prepared a questionnaire (see appendix 2) for them in the likely event that they would agree to participate in the research. The issues I wanted to get information on were their attitude to learning French, to homework, their apparent standard in French and, most of all, their preferred learning strategies. Also, through the questionnaire, I wanted to raise their awareness of their concentration levels in class, what helped or disrupted them, and how they behaved when they did not understand something. When I analysed the data received from the questionnaire I realised that it was flawed in its design in that only four of the seven questions were easily quantifiable. However, the information gleaned on the other three gave me a good idea of trends and, in any case, I have a certain scepticism regarding exact statistics arising from questionnaires in people-centred sciences.

4.2.2 Results of the Questionnaire

Q.1a. I was pleasantly surprised that more than three quarters of the class were happy to learn French (figure 1).

Figure 1

Q.1b. Most of them were motivated by the possibility of gaining a credit for it in their LCA results. The desire to be able to communicate through it with a French person and the appeal which the language held for them was not as high on their agenda. The possibility of increasing their job prospects appeared to be the least significant factor (table 1).

Table 1. Reasons for wanting to learn French

Reasons/Order of importance