Methodology of journal

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Hello everyone! Welcome back on my blog. Today I will share the methodology of the previous journal that I have shared. Let's begin!

1. Research design
This research applied Classroom Action Research. Through self-inquiry and reflection about writers own teaching practice and experience, they will be able to find shortcomings in their teaching and formulate a plan to address it. Action research is an approach which encourages practitioners to be in control of their own lives and contexts (Hine, 2013). They believe that teachers can help to improve the standard of English in our country through the improvement of their own practice. The writers conducted this action research in order to improve their own self practice, and at the same time, contribute to the improvement of the English language among their pupils.

2. Participants
As a researcher, the writers carried out this action research to all pupils in 4J class. There were altogether 31 pupils in the class with 14 females and 17 males. Among them, there were two Malays and 29 Chinese pupils. They varied in English proficiency level from intermediate to
very low level.
They also looked at pupils’ performance on Section C of their English test which focused on sentence writing. I then categorized the results into groups of different grades. Referring to the pupils’ test results, 14 pupils scored lower than 50 marks and this proved the existence of the identified problem among the pupils.

3.  Data Collection Methods and Instruments
According to Whitehead (2008), the data collected must be able to help the researcher to judge the workability of the action. The writers utilized three methods to collect data which are pre and post-writing tests, pupils’ work, and teacher’s reflective journal with different rationales being justified:

(a) Pre-Writing Test and Post-Writing Test

This method utilized test as one of my data collection methods to quantify the knowledge learnt by pupils after the implementation of action. Pre-writing test was administered to pupils before action implementation in order to check their baseline knowledge and preparedness for sentence writing. After four weeks of action implementation, a post-writing test was carried out to look at pupils’ improvement on the subject matter. Bearing in mind the aim to examine the impact of colorful semantics on pupils’ sentence construction, the questions of pre-writing test and post-writing test were constructed with only a minimal difference. Pupils’ scores on both tests were further recorded as a quantitative data source.

(b) Pupils’ work
In this research, pupils were given a task sheet to be completed at the end of each lesson. Then the writers collected and
marked their task sheets for evaluation purpose. In fact, the task sheets served both learning and assessment purposes as they consolidated knowledge learnt in pupils as well as enabled me to check on their performance.

(c) Teacher’s reflective journals
This method reflected on the strengths and weaknesses of each lesson and jotted them down in a reflective journal. Besides, they also marked down what transpired throughout this action research along with my own personal feelings and emotion regarding the implemented action in the reflective journals. The collection of reflection notes was made continuously as a backup source of qualitative data.

4. Technique of Data Analysis
There were two ways of analyzing the collected data namely qualitative and quantitative analysis. The researcher marked the research participants’ pre-writing test and post-writing test and tabulated the scores into percentages and tables. On the other hand, teacher’s reflective journal entries and pupils’ work were analyzed and interpreted as qualitative data.

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Wassalamu'alaikum ^_^

Literature review of journal

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Hello everyone! Welcome back on my blog 🤗

In this opportunity I will share literature review on journal.

1. Scaffolding and Cognitive Learning Theory
The underpinning theories for this research are scaffolding and Cognitive Learning Theory.
Firstly, utilization of colorful semantics was in accordance to scaffolding technique because the color code cards acted as a guide in exposing proper sentence structure to pupils. Hence, pupils knew what was expected of them in writing sentences. They could also refer to the chart if they were unsure of the structure of a sentence. Next, underpinning the familiarization of pupils with different parts of sentences was cognitive learning theory proposed by Robert Gagne (1985). The core of this theory is Cognitive Information Processing (CIP) model which conceives learner to be a processor of information, in much the same way a computer is. In order to store information in pupils’ short term memory, repetition plays a crucial role as information tends to decay without being frequently attended to. Therefore, this method drilled pupils on words and sentence pattern frequently during the action implementation.

2. Colorful Semantics
This research utilized colorful semantics by Bryan (1997) to provide with a framework to construct sentence. Nouns, verbs, and other part of speech were written on cards of different colors and pupils would learn the way to join the cards to form a correct sentence.
In fact the action was chosen mainly because of this significant, workability, and practicality. First, the significance of this method can be seen through the positive result shown by 5 and 6 years old learning predicate argument structure of sentence in a study as cited by Bolderson at al. (2011). The colorful semantic also conveyed high workability. The color code cards helped to reinforce the knowledge on how and where words can be used in a sentence in pupils' mind. Then high practicality, it is can be seen through the low cost in printing the word cards, available sources such as workbook and pictures from internet, easy to mark questions and also relatively long time the color code cards were durable in information board.

3. Kurt Lewin's Action Research Model
This research used the spiral model founded by Kurt Lewin's as a basic feaframew of this action research. Lewin mde action research a method of acceptable inquiry which proceeds in a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of planning, action, and fact-finding about the results of the action (Burnes, 2014).

Thank you.. see you on my next blog that will share the next component of journal.

Wassalamu'alaikum ^-^