Научная статья на тему 'Development of collaborative abilities and effect of peer instruction in learning English'

Development of collaborative abilities and effect of peer instruction in learning English Текст научной статьи по специальности «Науки об образовании»

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PEER TEACHING / EFFECTIVENESS OF PEER INSTRUCTION / COLLABORATIVE WORK

Аннотация научной статьи по наукам об образовании, автор научной работы — Matveeva Irina Aleksandrovna, Arzieva Dilfuza Tashlanovna

The basic concepts of this technique were reflected in the works of professor Eric Mazur, Harvard University. A new approach to the concept of partnership in education, known since Aristotle's time, has taken on new forms these days. The experience and results of work in this area at world universities, as well as their own point of view on this aspect, are presented in this article.

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Текст научной работы на тему «Development of collaborative abilities and effect of peer instruction in learning English»

DEVELOPMENT OF COLLABORATIVE ABILITIES AND EFFECT

OF PEER INSTRUCTION IN LEARNING ENGLISH

1 2 Matveeva I.A. , Arzieva D.A.

1Matveeva Irina Aleksandrovna - Senior Teacher;

2Arzieva Dilfuza Tashlanovna - Senior Teacher, DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES, PEDAGOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY, ANDIJAN STATE MEDICAL INSTITUTE, ANDIJAN, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN

Abstract: the basic concepts of this technique were reflected in the works of professor Eric Mazur, Harvard University. A new approach to the concept of partnership in education, known since Aristotle's time, has taken on new forms these days. The experience and results of work in this area at world universities, as well as their own point of view on this aspect, are presented in this article.

Keywords: peer teaching, effectiveness of peer instruction, collaborative work.

Relevance of the topic. Nowadays Peer Instruction is a very popular and common method of teaching in higher school; Lesson Plan of English lessons in our institute includes such a kind of interactive work. Practical points on this subject enable us to use a great variety of class activities and this fact made us consult available literature on this subject [1, 5]. Peer teaching is a suite of practices in which peers instruct each other in a purpose-driven, meaningful interaction. Many programs feature older, more experienced peers, or those with greater mastery in a subject area teaching younger, less experienced peers or those who are yet to master the skills and content of the subject area. Others organize students within a course to collaboratively notice areas or items that they do not know and then to learn and teach each other.

Research demonstrates the effectiveness of peer instruction and the use of wikis to enhance collaborative pre-class work over more traditional teaching methods. Students' ratings have shown a higher level of satisfaction after one semester of peer instruction teaching method already [3]. The method is taught with the use either of flashcards, clickers or on the Internet with an interactive website called "Learning Catalytics" which allows teachers to make new questions or to take some from the 7000 questions existing on the database. Students can then answer the questions using a smartphone, a tablet or a computer. The European Research Project Wikiskills has been integrated in this study [4].

The authors showed how to foster college students getting deeply engaged in learning a foreign language using a collaborative method of teaching called Peer Instruction (Mazur 1997). The study is about a student-centered approach involving flipping the classroom. The use of Framapad as a wiki allows the professor to follow each student's contribution and the history of all the changes in the document. This information is relevant to organize the class teaching to let students assimilate new concepts based on what they worked on before the class meeting (Schell 2013). Soliciting feedback from students on coverage activity require them to respond to one conceptually based question which students can get right if they have done their homework [2, 4]. Professor Eric Mazur suggests asking a feedback question such as: 'What did you find most confusing or difficult about what you read, watched, wrote? Students' answers will allow pointing out at common misconceptions or misunderstandings about the concept and giving material to the classroom teaching. Writing effective questions for fostering deep learning may not be an easy task. We have been using a prompt cycle developed at Harvard (Schell 2013) pertaining to the chosen concept [3]. "It's not the technology, it's the pedagogy," says Eric Mazur, the Harvard Professor founder of the method. At Yverdon University of Applied Sciences, we opted for the use of clickers and the technology of turning point, but we could have chosen to use flashcards or an online website called learning catalytics and developed by Professor Mazur and his group. Peer

Instruction can be used with any topic, concept, or idea; it has appeared that in our practice that it was relevant to ask grammar questions, language base concepts about writing and levels of language, i.e. formal versus informal language [5]. Questions that work the best are usually those that address concepts or ideas students find tricky, difficult, or often misunderstand and are key to deep understanding of the subject. For each concept, idea or topic that we wanted to implement with our engineering students learning English as a foreign language, we first used to set the stage and give a brief presentation to put the concept in context.

The methodology of Peer Instruction is based on polling students and challenging about their answers. First, a question called ConcepTest is posed to students, they are then given time to think about their answer individually. Poll students to respond using clickers or flashcards. The next test is to ask students to find a peer with a different answer and convince them of their response, this step is the heart of the Peer Instruction method [3, 4]. Letting students explain to each other and obliging them to make a choice accordingly. Finally, students are polled again and the professor who provides closure explaining the correct answer or asking for students' volunteers analyzes feedback. The cycle is then repeated (Mazur 1997). We observed a rise of intrinsic motivation during our Peer Instruction classes, which resulted in a high level of attending students, and very positive comments from the students at the moment of teaching and in their evaluation feedbacks. To measure our students' learning experience and satisfaction, students' feedbacks on the English course taught with wikis and Peer Instruction have been analyzed. Research shows that students' feedback are relevant to state about their learning experience and satisfaction ) and hence provides a tool for measuring certain aspects of teaching quality. Students express their happiness in their comments, which focus on how 'entertaining, fun and motivating' the course was taught. They also express a feeling of a high learning, understanding and personal involvement [2, 5].

The above-discussed method of teaching provides schools teaching foreign languages with a context to use technologies in learning environments. Indeed, students can practice the use of wikis for their learning experience, they also have the opportunity to extend, and practice previously acquired skills such as you-tube, discovering new perspectives in educational settings allowing co-construction of knowledge and communication. During "English in Medicine" lessons in ASMI, we use this method in any stage of the class. It helps to intensify the educational process and elicit medical students to go ahead in their learning medical English. We think this method will be developed further in language teaching practice and it is worth to be the point of future scientific research [1, 2].

References

1. Centra J.A., 1993. Reflective faculty evaluation: enhancing teaching and determining faculty effectiveness. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

2. Marsh C.J., 1997. Key concepts for understanding curriculum. London; Washington, Falmer Press.

3. Mazur E., 1997. Peer instruction: a user's manual. Upper Saddle River, N.J., Prentice Hall.

4. Schell J., 2013. "blog.peerinstruction.net Turn to your neighbour."

5. Wolff D. and Marsh D., 2007. Diverse contexts, converging goals: CLIL in Europe. Frankfurt, Peter Lang.

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