The value of the course from the learners’ point of view

Introduction. As a highly motivated instructor, our instructor implemented this idea into practice; therefore an idea to review the course was suggested to the learners. We, the participants of it, felt that it was real implementation of the theory. And since it is about research work, everyone enthusiastically agreed to take up this mini project. The participants were then divided into groups of two or three and they were given guidelines to follow. However, they were given the freedom to choose research tools, select any themes and analyze the data themselves but within a given deadline. A course being offered in CIEFL (Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages) is a complex process. It goes through 3 levels of approval; at the initial stage teachers of the department approves the course and passes it on to the next level which is the Department of materials production. In a meeting they give their consent and pass it to the School of ELE. The course at any stage can get disapproval where the course instructor is recommended to redefine the course description or make it more suitable to the policy of the institute.

The process of offering this course “Introduction to ESL research” had to go through the same process and it faced the problem with the level of students to be offered and got disapproval at one of the levels. However the prospectus of the institute mentioned this course which was never offered as a credit course for MA participants. Therefore with this consideration it got its approval from all the 3 levels and was offered for the first time in 2006-2007 academic year.

• A.    Participants. For the purpose of this course review, we only considered participants of this course and the administration who gave the permission to offer this course. The research participants consisted of students who took ‘Introduction to ESL research’ course and teachers of ELE School. As for the teachers due to limited time we could involve only 4 teachers of ELE School, including the course instructor. 6 questionnaires were administered and all of them were returned (100%). The questionnaires were received from MA participants and PGDTE participants. Among the participants, 3 were female and 3 were male, and as for the teachers, out of 4 teachers 3 were female and 1 male.

• B.    Instrument. We have designed a questionnaire of 12 questions, which included both open -ended as well as close-ended questions. The questions were both quantitative and qualitative in nature, and were carefully selected for our specific objective as we review the course. We kept the questionnaire anonymous in the hope that the honest responses to the questions will remain confidential. We did not feel the need to interview the participants because we felt that we got enough information from the questionnaire itself and in fact, we did get a good response from the questionnaire, which was relevant to our research.

As for the interviews we designed a list of questions but since we conducted a semistructured interview the discussions on the questions were quite flexible. We focused on the history of this course; so that we could do a comparative study and how it has changed over the years. We asked about which semester participants are most appropriate to take this course and asked for their justifications for their answers.

• C.    Procedure. The first step was to design the questionnaire of the course keeping in mind the themes. Secondly, we gathered a list of teachers from ELE School, and categorized them according to their ranks. Then we met the teachers of ELE School to make an appointment for an

interview, for our luck all of them could give us time to interview them without any prior appointment. It took us around 15 minutes for each interview. Since this course review was done by three of us, one of us conducted the interview and the two other made notes of it. Thirdly, student participants were requested to fill in the questionnaire and return it. Finally we compared our notes and analyzed the data of the interviews and questionnaires.

• D.    Data Analysis. Quantitative data were compiled and percentages were calculated to present the result. Qualitative data was also added where relevant. For certain questions, which had strictly qualitative responses, the results were categorized such that the most common responses were grouped together and percentages were once again derived.

Results of the questionnaires and interviews are presented in this section. Each question or statement, taken directly from the survey.

The next question deals with which semester participants they think, from the teachers’ perspective, should take up this kind of course on research work. Two of them agreed that the 4th semester students should take this course because they need to write their MA projects and it is the right time to start practicing for research works because at this stage most students decide to go for research studies. The third teacher did not specify which semester students should take this course because according to her, it depends on the nature of their course since not all MA courses need a term paper that requires a research methodology. Then they were asked if they were given a chance to conduct such research course at an MA level which area(s) they would focus on, one replied by saying that she would focus on “How to get about getting information and also how best to present it, in other words, critical reading and ability to best assess it.” The other teacher said that she would focus on “how to construct research project – task designing a research, analysis.

Conclusion. We felt that it was a really good idea for beginner researchers to start their research works in groups. Even though this was a mini project and most of the guidelines were instructed by the teacher, it was a great opportunity for us to implement the theory of the course and to reflect upon what we have learned from this course. The suggestions given by our fellow peer participants and ELE school teachers are very valuable and should not be taken for granted because we feel that this will bring a qualitative change to the course. It was great learning opportunity.