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Student success in a communicative classroom: A grounded theory
Abstract
In the field of second language acquisition there is no shortage of research that examines, from the perspective of practitioners and scholars, the use of communicative approaches for teaching a foreign/second language. What is missing, however, is the perspective of the student. The purpose of this study was to explore and understand the experiences of college students in foreign language classes in which a communicative teaching approach was used. A grounded theory methodology was used to develop a theory that explained the factors that impacted the experience of the students and described the adaptation process that evolved as they encountered a communicative approach for the first time. The central idea that emerged from the data centered around the concept of success: how the participants perceived their success in the CLT classroom, the behaviors they undertook to achieve that success, and the personal and environmental factors that influenced their behaviors. The theory states that when causal conditions exist (comfort level, effort, acceptance of responsibility, a communicative approach), and these conditions lead to the existence of a phenomenon (the achievement of success), the context (college environment, use of the target language, student-to-student interaction, level of language study, materials, classroom demands) and intervening conditions (background, motivation, perceived self-efficacy) influence the strategies that are used (cognitive, metacognitive, social, affective), resulting in certain consequences (learning, comfort level, motivation, perceived self-efficacy, effort, continued study). This study advances theoretical propositions that emerged from the data, all of which merit further exploration. The level at which a student is exposed to CLT, the importance of preparing the students for the CLT approach, the impact of the teacher, the use of self-management techniques by the students, and the role that anxiety, motivation and self-efficacy play in the achievement of success are all examined. Further investigation is needed to find ways to facilitate the adaptation process for students in communicative classrooms and thereby enhance their chances for a successful experience.
Subject Area
Language arts|Curricula|Teaching|Educational psychology
Recommended Citation
Ricaurte, Rita Ann, "Student success in a communicative classroom: A grounded theory" (1998). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9917854.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9917854