The first subsection summarises how the course and studies there served the students in the promotion of their oral English communication and how it fulfilled their expectations and needs. The data come from the conversational data category under the name “Course qualities facilitating and promoting speaking”. These results relate to the students’
assessment of their gain from the course and their participation in it such as it appears in the light of the data. In contrast, the summary towards the end of Part II told about the students’ course experiences and through this provided information on the course as the source of the promotion of the students’ oral English communication described in Part IIIA. The second subsection describes the students’ gain from the viewpoint of their oral English use during the year following the course. Thus, this subsection answers the question, which way the course had motivated and supported the students in their use of English in real life and in their continued English studies.
A review of the students’ course gain in oral English proficiency and in learning supporting it
The course gave students opportunities to experience speaking, to converse and learn useful vocabulary for speaking. Communication contained both everyday talking and conversation in real-life situations. Listening and reading were helpful. Even if you knew your English was imperfect, performing on the course in the context of the tasks made you like speaking. As a result, you started to like speaking also elsewhere. The course stimulated speaking, gave opportunities to try and use your English. It gave you the freedom to expand on what you said and helped you to learn spontaneous speaking and in a good way, obliged you to speak. It also gave a spark to continued English studies. You learned to know what you knew and could speak and what you needed in order to progress with your English.
You learned to rely on yourself when having to speak English, which was more important than learning for example more words. The course helped you to find the right way for yourself to learn. On the course, you started to study for yourself, not for the teacher as you had done at school. Even if the progress often took place in small steps, the course helped you in having faith in your ability to communicate and learn new things. You noticed that you could really express yourself in English. The course helped you to find the encounter situations in real life and become an active and spontaneous speaker who is not afraid of mistakes. The course increased your zest as a student and user of English and gave ideas what and how to study next. More independent studies on your own alongside the course would have increased the gain. Someone was of opinion that it was not realistic to expect
much of a short course like this. Another said it was as much as was possible to get from a good course.
The account of the course participants’ gain above reveals their different levels of English and differing gains, but most people had got what they had expected of the course. Listening to the others, reading for pronunciation and not getting tongue-tied when having to speak in class had been rewarding. For some others, becoming active and spontaneous speakers on the course and participating in conversations available here which all students can and ought to find important. These included, for example participation, situations resembling those in real life, increased confidence in one’s speaking, reliance on oneself as a speaker, awareness of one’s learning and of what one needed next and what one would study next. Performing, speaking and perhaps at the same time doing something in front of other people, starting to like speaking in English, increased zest as a student and user of English ought to be important for everyone.
Getting rid of your low self-esteem as a speaker of English leaves more resources to trying.
Finding the right way to study refers to the fact that adults are good learners, if they find a way that serves them and helps them draw benefit from resources adults have. The recognition of yourself as the key person in studying, finding your own way to study and studying for yourself were gains that tell about the growth of the ownership of their English studies. Learning useful vocabulary is good but the growth of self-confidence supports you in all speaking. For some students, the course had not brought any particular, welcome gain worth mentioning in the interviews. However, all people had achieved at least something that they had expected of the course. Particular prerequisites for the gain had certainly been the course climate, the ample participation and the people there, especially the students themselves, because they were so committed to speaking with each other most of the time. The first subsection in Part IIIA examines these prerequisites.
It is also possible to learn something about the experiences of those people who discontinued the course. Several students volunteered to participate in the first interviews, even if they discontinued their studies after studying about half or more of the course. Thus, it is possible to compare what these people told about their expectations, aims and needs either in the sessions or in the interviews and how the course programme had fulfilled these expectations. Aino, who had expected conversation at a level above the familiar common speech situations and failed to participate in several consecutive sessions, said that her courage to speak and think in English had awoken on the course, but there had not been much growth after the halfway point. She believed that a more systematic grammar revision could have been useful for her. Minna had hoped for plenty of opportunities for conversation. She decided that her gain from the course was minor given her English level and the two whole-day weekend sessions. She was also studying full-time elsewhere. Merja had come for conversation, which turned out to be too demanding for her. It was clear that the course had not met their expectations. For these people, the course level, unavoidable absences, lack of grammar and also their other studies or commitments became the reasons for leaving the course. They were well-grounded and told of autonomous decision making. In fact, several students said, the level had not been a central criterion. Not all of them knew exactly what A2–B1 denoted. The location of the course, the course timing and above all the focus on oral English communication had been important for them.
Speaking English after the course
This subsection examines this aspect by comparing what the course participants had said about their oral English use in 2004 and what they said in the second interviews in 2005, even if not everyone mentioned them. In 2004, Kirsi, Tuuli and Maarit said that they had not been able to make themselves speak English, but at least Tuuli and Maarit were used to reading material written in English. Pia said that she manages to speak English only on a holiday abroad provided it is long enough. Kirsi had traumas about speaking English. After the course Kirsi spoke English in London and used it with her foreign business partners.
Maarit participated in seminars abroad where English was the language of communication.
Also Tuuli had gained courage to speak and Pia spoke English daily at her work. These four students were among those, who had the longest English study histories and a good general command of English. For them, the course and participation in it removed the impediments to their speaking. They achieved the aims they had set for the course. The subsection “Student reflections on English as a foreign language and on communication in English” tells more about Tuuli’s and Maarit’s new understandings of their oral English use.
Ari, Annukka, Mika, Ilkka and Vesa, for example, had studied less English at school than those mentioned above. They had spoken English on the phone and face-to-face at work already before the course and did so after the course, too. Even before the course the duties of one of them had included guidance of visitors. Now it was almost daily and he enjoyed it and was content with these opportunities. Another had duties that demanded increased travelling and using English. One of them also practiced English at home with his spouse. One student, who had been afraid of speaking because of her school memories, counseled immigrants in English at her work. In fact, people whose daily work demanded communication with their customers and business partners and who represented about the medium English level on the course had got many opportunities to speak. Maria, who had claimed to be shy of speaking and not good at it, used English on her travels and later in her university studies. Another student who had no confidence in herself as a student of English occasionally had to use English at work. The student who rather would have spoken the two other European languages she had a command of and who needed a spur to speaking English did not avoid using it any more. These people’s life contexts, just like those of some others, had offered them suitable, natural opportunities for speaking and they had noticed that they could communicate quite well with their English. Instead, quite a few others had no opportunities to speak English at work. People employed by firms that use written CMC (computer-mediated communication) hardly ever spoke English at work. Holidays abroad were their main context of oral English communication. For some students, English courses seemed to be the only viable opportunity to speak English. The student who could easily converse in English already at the beginning of the course said that besides her enjoyment of speaking on the course, her gain from the course had been that she noticed it was the time to learn to speak correctly.
The course helped those people, who were not able to speak English at all or only little, even if they had a good command of English. After the course the impediments had disappeared and they had started to communicate in English abroad, at their work or in their personal lives. Their need had not been to learn more English but getting plenty of opportunities of speaking in a safe climate and secure course environment. The course had also invited many people whose level was the informed A2–B1, who already before had spoken English on the phone or face to face with their customers. After a year, their work demanded the use of English more often and they could cope quite well. Even if the speaker did not feel like a competent speaker, speaking with immigrant customers was rewarding. These people were also inventive in finding more opportunities of speaking. Participation in an oral English course encouraged even shy people to enjoy the challenges given by a new environment of English use. This course also gave a sufficient impact to the use of English, despite the choice earlier had been one of the other two foreign languages in her command.
A central criterion for the successfulness of a language course is whether it and the studies there support the students as speakers of English and increase their participation in English speakers’ communities. The course participation in oral English communication on the course should expand into their other communities of life that demanded English. The course had served most of the students as an opportunity to promote their oral English communication.
Most of them had communities that demanded English. On the other hand, some people did not have such communities. However, participation in the course prepared all of them for real-life English speaking communities of the future that could now become new communities of learning for them.
PATHS AND SIGNPOSTS TO IIIB PROFESSIONAL TEACHER
DEVELOPMENT
Part IIIB explores and answers the second research problem of what this kind of investigative teaching demands from a teacher and how it supports her and develops her professionalism.
The promotion of the teacher’s professional development covered the whole span of the research activities. The first subsection deals with the English course and the research on it as promoters of the teacher’s professional development. The decision on an additional research period for investigating the teacher’s professional development as a follow-up study at the UAS took place soon after the teacher-researcher’s return to her permanent work there. The recognition of the minor and one-sided attention to it during the English course in liberal education was one reason for this. A concrete impact on extending the research was the spontaneously continued writing of what later was called the teacher-researcher’s diary focusing on teacher development and the second interviews taking place during the follow-up research were concrete impacts on extending the research.
The writing was enriched by the reading of the first interview data and course diary data, which among other things contained the categories of “Teacher’s self-criticism” and “Teacher reflection” that related to teacher development. Researching at the UAS added much work that professional development as such would not have demanded. On the other hand, the research frame made the developmental process disciplined and served as its backbone.