Page 41 - Apuntes de Investigación en la Enseñanza de Idiomas

25 Apuntes de Investigación en la Enseñanza de Idiomas

Methodology

The authors decided to carry out qualitative research; therefore, action research was used to do this
investigation. The participants were students from three classes from the BA in Language Teach-
ing at the School of Languages in the University of Colima. From August 2017 to June 2018, the
teachers participating in this project involved students in different ways in the decision-making about
their learning. At the end of the school year, researchers asked participants how they felt in regards
to making decisions about their learning, as well as how their learning was affected by this practice.
The data collected from this inquiry was complemented with student-observations carried out by the
researchers. The data was analyzed by using coding and it was triangulated from the two instruments
employed by the researchers.

Results

The data collected indicates that students can be involved in the decisions that are made throughout
their learning process. In addition, they show that giving students the opportunity to participate in the
decision-making process in the classroom benefits them in several ways: students’ anxiety towards
the evaluation process decreased and their confidence increased; they spent more time on their
learning activities and graded assignments; the quality of their work improved as well; there was more
collaboration among classmates; their scores were higher and their attitude towards the class and
learning were better. Some negative effects emerged as well: some stress was experienced by par-
ticipants when they were first asked to make their own decisions. Moreover, the lack of appropriate
time management skills among learners caused them to procrastinate, which resulted in low quality
in some students’ work. Finally, some rejection was presented among learners when such teaching
practice was implemented.

Conclusions
The results obtained from this investigation suggest that it is possible to involve participants in their
learning in each stage of the process in order to allow students to make decisions about their learn-
ing. In addition, it seems that this teaching practice can have a positive effect on students learning
and their attitudes towards it. As it may happen with any new teaching practice implemented; it
appears that at the beginning of the implementation process, students may feel a bit of discomfort
because they are asked to do something they had not done before. This change, as most changes,
requires time, guidance, and support so that students adapt to it. It seems that it is possible to pre-
vent or decrease the shortcomings that emerged from this practice if the change is carefully planned
and introduced, as well as different types of scaffolding are provided to assist learners while they
adapt to this new teaching practice.