 |
| An Action Research by Mukesh Raut |
An Action Research on
Why Students Have Less Interest in Project Work Section Of English Book
Prepared by: Mukesh Raut
Basic Level English Teacher
Shree Shiksha Vikas Secondary School
Kanepokhari - 2, Morang
1. Introduction
Our English curriculum of Lower Secondary Level has clearly set communicative competence as the primary objective of teaching English. As for my concern, as an English teacher I always want my students to develop their English speaking competence. While teaching, I genuinely feel how important each part of a unit is, in the communicative competence development of the students. Whether it be reading section, comprehension section, listening section, speaking section or project work section. Though we all know that listening and speaking section is always neglected in classroom, there is one more section in every unit that is completely neglected and that section is PROJECT WORK SECTION. Neither the teachers nor the students pay due attention to it and is treated like a stepchild or a stranger. In my case, I know that involving students in project work is important so I tried to engage students in project work given in the last part of every unit of Class Seven English book but still the problem arouse. But the problem was in the part of my students. They hesitated to take part in Project Work.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Project work section in every unit is given with the intention of making students do practical work and develop their all round ability. Project is expected to allow students excel their ability by going outside of classroom doing various various different activities. But it is not happening so. Because of the exam centric mindset of of teachers, they seem to easily neglect project work thinking that project work is not so important from the examination point of view. But the problem with project work section doesn’t end here. Even if the teacher wants to make students do project work, the students seem to hesitate doing any extra activity rather than reading writing activity. They are so habituated doing exercises given in book that they don’t like any other activity at all. In addition, if the students want to take part in project work, only few good students come forward and rest of the class remain silent indicating that they are hesitating. I really feel that this is a serious problem which is creating some kind of hindrance in students overall development and therefore this problem should be shot out shortly. Therefore, in this action research I will try to find out the solutions to the problems.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The main objectives of the study are:
- To find out some exact reason why students don’t want to look at the project work.
- To find out practical measures of making students actively participate in project work.
1.4 Delimitation of the study
This study is limited to Shree Shiksha Vikas Secondary School and in Class Seven only.
2. Review of the Related Literature
I went through few case studies done by various scholars and students to gain some ideas which will be helpful in my study.
Sudhir Yadav (2013), in his research on "Importance of Classroom Activity for Developing Students Awareness" mentioned that various classroom activities along with book exercises play pivotal role in developing students' competence.
Similarly Keshav Joshi (2016) in his book "A Key to Success in Teacher Service Commission" has clearly mentioned the importance of Project work.
3. Methodology
3.1 Source of Data
3.1.1 Primary Sources of Data
My primary source of data was the students of class seven.
3.1.2 Secondary Source of Data
I collected various information regarding my research from these sources:
- Internet
- Library
3.2 Tools for Data Collection
I used the following tools to collect information regarding why my students don’t want to take part in project work.
- Interview
- Discussion
- Observation
4. Process of Data Collection
First of all I observed the students while I reached the project work section. Only few students agreed to do it and rest of the class remained silent because they didn’t want to. Then I discussed with them the importance of project work in developing their ability. I questioned them why they don’t want to take part in the project works. I also discussed with my colleagues about these issues and they also suggested some ideas to cope up with it. I went through some articles on the internet and watched some videos related to my research on YouTube to get some help for my problem.
5. Presentation, Analysis and interpretation
After collecting and analyzing the data collected from students and various other sources, I found out that the student tend to hesitate to take part in project work because they are not used to to do it because it was not in class six or any other previous classes. So they feel new and odd when they try to involve in project work.
Another reason is that some students have difficulty with speaking English. In addition, they have to complete the project task in English. Therefore, they hesitate to take part in it.
Other books like Nepali, Social Studies, Moral Education etc. also have project works given. But the teachers of those subjects skip them thinking that these are not important from the examination point of view. They also skip Project work section just to finish the course soon. Because of this condition, students also could not develop interest towards project work. They are made confined to the bookish exercises.
5.Findings and Recommendations
5.1 Findings
From the above interpretation, I found out the following things:
- Students are not exposed to project work. They are not familiar with it.
- Teachers also do not want to involve students in project work. They take it as a burden.
- The project work section in other books is also neglected.
- Only few students come forward to take part in project work.
5.2 Recommendations
However, the problems are many, but they are not without solutions. In my opinion the above mentioned problems can be minimized easily if the proper measures are implemented effectively. Therefore, I recommend the following things to be done to minimize the problem of lack of interest of students in PROJECT WORK tasks.
- Teacher should make students clear about the importance of project work in increasing their English speaking competence.
- Other teachers should also not skip the project work section in their classes. In this way students can be made habituated to project work.
- While pairing students for project work, good students should be paired with weaker ones.
- Teacher should not leave them all alone. Rather, he should help them wherever necessary.
- Student friendly environment should be created so that all the students; good or weaker ones, can participate without hesitation.
