Mini research work of Unico Center team with the target groups, 2015−2016

  1. Tacit Skills and Prior Learning: concepts, characteristics, issues of recognition and evaluation" with Dr. Natasha Kersh
  • After the training sessions on the topic «Tacit Skills and Prior Learning: concepts, characteristics, issues of recognition and evaluation» with Natasha Kersh in Institute of Education, University of London we were sure that this problem is very acute in teaching ESL students of Unico Center at NSU.
  • For this purpose in mind the team decided to investigate students' behaviour in their target groups.
  • Research was done by the coordinator of the project Dr.N.Chorobaeva and UNICO Centre Instructor Dr.A.Aidaralieva.

The data analysis was collected based on the investigation of the 1st Cohort School Students' behavior who were involved in Shakespearean Drama theatre and Poetry Club activities during the course.

  • Importance of the research lays in the fact that inclusion of extracurricular activities in the educational environment gives students a chance to develop their personality and creative individuality. It provides equal opportunities in the creative self-expression, self-realization and self-determination of students and at the same time to uncover and develop their tacit skills.
  • The results of the research gives us an answer what difficulties can be considered as difficulties to develop tacit knowledge and reinforced our hypothesis that creating a favorable environment for students gives its benefit to the development of students' tacit skills in any age
  • Statement of the Problem
  • Every human being possesses tacit knowledge for everyday activities but some of the difficulties encountered in its use including education. Teachers pay attention to the «bright» children with leadership abilities, so children with low mobility and shy «drop out» of their field of view. It is explained by the lack of information about tacit knowledge and lack of staff training in tacit knowledge which works only with explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge is remained as unknown.

Research Questions

  • In line with the identified problems above, the following research questions were raised:
  • What kind of difficulties in discovering of «hidden» talents can we explain?
  • Why extracurricular activities are one of the main sources in training tacit skills?
  • To what extent does teaching-staff discover students' tacit knowledge?
  • What kind of atmosphere is it necessary to conduct to increase tacit knowledge?
  • Is there any extra means for developing tacit knowledge among the members of the drama circle?
  • How successful have students found a work of drama circle in creating of an atmosphere to develop abilities that promotes authentic and self-directed learning?

Purpose of the study

  • The purpose of this study therefore is to point out the effect of using extracurricular activities which:
  • help to discover potential, develop tacit skills and creativity of the individual student and how it effectively helps in the learning process of English Language;
  • create a comfortable communication environment where their skills can be shown;
  • determine the importance of effective and efficient staff training from Naryn Drama theatre as extra means in order to help students to awake their introvert skills.
  • Methodology
  • In the first stage, we recruited 11 school students of our 1stCohort courses, who have desire to take part in a work of a drama circle. The demographic characteristics of the participants were diverse including both male and female. The instrument used to gather data for this research work is the questionnaire which was personally administered by the researcher to respondents. All participants took part in the questionnaire.
  • Questions
  • Have you ever tried to write poems?
  • Have you ever composed music?
  • Do you sometimes draw?
  • Do you like to invent something new?
  • Have you ever played in a theatre
  • Results of the questionnaire
  • It turned out that 48% of students claimed that none of the above, they were not trying to do. «I Do not try, because it still does not work»; «I Do not like it, so do not try.» Lack of faith in their abilities and interest in creativity was alarming for us!
  • During the interview and after providing a questionnaire teaching staff from NSU and Naryn Drama theatre identified 8 students as talented.
  • However, an additional 4 students who were not noted by the teaching staff as talented, but by the differentiated assessment with using specific scales received high scores. Therefore, we have identified them as children with a ‘hidden' talent.
  • Furthermore, it was an opportunity for teaching staff to work with the last group of students to develop their tacit knowledge and participate in the puppet club of Unico Center
  1. The implementation of training materials in the teaching of Unico Center target groups
  2. Materials Development in Teaching Reading
  • Work was done by the UNICO Centre Instructors Kosmira Zhaparova and Kanykei Zhaparova.
  • After the trainings that were held in Cordoba University, Spain in 2014, September 13−29, Dr. Javier Avila’s presentation on ELT, Materials Development, UNICO Center team made their mind to make some research on materials development problem at Naryn State University.
  • According to Dr. Javier Avila’s presentation: Effective instructional materials in teaching a language are taken according to the number of factors, including teacher, learner, and contextual variables.

Developing materials also contain motivational strategies like generate and maintain interest, promote success, promote fun in learning, and provide opportunities for students to speak about themselves.

Materials can be linguistic, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Materials that we use during the classes include textbooks, audio-visual aids, internet resources, newspaper articles, posters and others

Questions of the research

Do you like reading?

Why do you read mostly?

What texts do you like reading most?

Is reading is an important part of learning English for you?

Do you get useful information from reading?

Do you want to do your reading more interesting?

Do you like the methods of teaching reading in your class?

What environment do you prefer in teaching reading?

Results of the questionnaire

In the questionnaire students answered that they like to read, they read for getting information, for spending their free time, for learning, and they like to read texts about life, sport, fashion and animals. Students thought that reading plays an important role in learning English, but it is boring to read and translate and there is no any motivation in learning language.

So during the course we tried to take into consideration all the ideas that were pointed out by our students, and used various materials in order to motivate students, taking into account the advices and materials from Javier Avila’s presentation on materials development in Spain.

  • We experimented several strategies for reading and writing and here we get an example of four of them.

* Two-part diary

*Stop Reading

*Cinquain

*Venn Diagram

After the classes where we used above mentioned materials students were motivated, interested and they emphasized the benefit of learning language with the help of these variable materials. Still teachers should consider some issues, as we mentioned above students' levels, their interests, motivation, and background knowledge. The benefit of these strategies are their interactive character, which are useful for improving integrated skills speaking, writing, reading and listening.

  • The main idea of the research is reached by presenting of different innovative methods in the teaching classroom. It proves that different teaching strategies are actual with suitable authentic context.