The Design of Classroom Action Research in Teaching English Research

POSTED BY TEACHING ENGLISH 4 ALL ⋅ JUNE 29, 2010 ⋅ 5 COMMENTS

FILED UNDER  ACTION RESEARCH, CAR, CLASSROOM ACTION RESEARCH, DESCRIPTIVE, RECOUNT, REPORT, TEACHING ENGLISH

Nowadays, in teaching English, a teacher usually makes and needs development and empowerment into his class. One way to improve the quality of the teaching English process is to do Classroom Action Research (CAR). The term “classroom action research” is very familiar with English teachers, particularly professional or certified teachers. In doing it, the teacher also functions as a researcher because it involves teachers inside the classroom rather than being carried out solely by specialists from outside the classroom (Phillips & Carr, 2010). From this way, it is well-known for teacher-researcher.

The Classroom Action Research is a part of various kinds of action research out of some other themes like participatory research, critical action research, and action learning (Phillips & Carr, 2010). Considering this, the following explanation starts from presenting definition of action research and then goes to the detailed explanation about the Classroom Action Research.According to Koshy (2005) & Bassey (1998) action research is an enquiry which is carried out in order to understand, evaluate and then modify educational program in order to improve educational practice. Koshy (2005), furthermore, states that an important characteristics of action research is that it proposes opportunities for collaborative work.

In addition, Mills (2003) says that action research is any systematic inquiry conducted by teacher researchers, principals, school counselors, or other stakeholders in the teaching and learning environment to gather information about how their particular schools operate, how they teach, and how well their students learn.

The explanation above implies that one of the proposed designs of action research is Classroom Action Research involving a teacher in the classroom to empower and develop the quality of the classroom process. The design of classroom action research based on the consideration that the researcher attempts to solve the problem of the particular classroom. It provides a way of thinking systematically about what happens in the school or classroom, implementing critically informed action where improvements are thought to be possible (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1992).

Snell (1999) states that action study is concerned with trying to improve one specific point in a teacher’s technique in a particular classroom using empirical measurement. Additionally, Kasbollah & Sukarnyana (1988) states classroom action research is a reflective research conducted by giving a certain action to improve an unsatisfactory condition and increase the quality of teaching practices in the classroom in order that those practices become more professional. In short, a classroom action research focuses on a particular classroom problem or a group of students and aims at helping the teacher solve the problems in finding an appropriate technique in teaching.

Classroom action research is also done by a teacher on the basis of the phenomena on his/her own classroom. McNiff (1992) asserts that a classroom action research is participatory and collaborative. That is why, the researcher participated as the teacher who is teaching English through a proposed strategy. The phenomenon is usually an issue in the classroom, e.g. for MTs or SMP English teacher, he/she faces a problem on a strategy to enhance or improve the students ability in specific type of genre such as: recount text, narrative text, descriptive text, report text, and procedure text. In brief, classroom action research functions as a way, which is designed to enhance the quality of both result and process of the teaching and learning due to satisfactory condition that takes place in the classroom.

There are various kinds of classroom action research models. I would like to describe the model of Kemmis and McTaggart (1992). In implementing this model, the following visualization is presented:

The Design of Classroom Action Research

The model consists of four steps: (1) planning of the action, (2) implementing of the action, (3) observing of the action, and (4) making analysis and reflection. This advantage of this model is that within the model, a new cycle covering those above stages can be re-implemented if satisfactory results of the teaching and learning process are not achieved.

References

Bassey, M. 1998. Action Research for Improving Practice. In R. Halsall. (Ed.). Teacher Research & School Improvement: Opening Doors from the Inside, (93). Buckingham: Open University Press.

Kasbollah, K.E.S. & Sukarnyana, W.I. 1988. Penelitian Tindakan Kelas. Malang: Penerbit Universitas Negeri Malang.

Kemmis, S. & McTaggart, R. 1992. The Action Research Planner. Victoria: Deaken University Press.

Koshy, V. 2005. Action Research for Improving Practice: A Practical Guide. Great Britain: TJ International Ltd.

McNiff, J. 1992. Action Research: Principle and Practice. New York: Routledge.

Mills, G.E. 2003. Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher Researcher. (2^nd Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Phillips, D.A. & Carr, K. 2010. Becoming A Teacher through Action Research. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Snell, J. 1999. Improving Teacher-Student Interaction in the EFL Classroom: An Action Research Report. The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. 5, No. 4. (Online) (http://iteslj.org)