7.3.3 Promotion of positive affect and attitude change.
Zimbardo & Lieppe (1991:165) describe four psychological steps to attitude change through persuasion: exposure, attention, comprehension, and acceptance. The Freshmen programme focused on the first of these from day one of the course, introducing various innovatory ideas about learning and teaching, so that repeated exposure to these ideas would result in positive attitude change in the direction of CMI, learner training and self-assessment. The other three steps require conscious awareness of learning, and were therefore addressed in the longer-term (cf. Schmidt's [1990a] six influences which operate on "noticing", section 6.2.4.1), though the participatory nature of the task-based format allowed for unconscious processing of stimuli to occur "while conscious attention is occupied by something else" (Zimbardo & Lieppe 1991:287). Given also that "very subtle situational and interpersonal nudges in behaviour can sometimes translate into profound changes in attitudes, which, in turn, can influence subsequent behaviour" (Zimbardo & Lieppe 1991:123; cf. complexity theory, section 6.6), the aim was to "learn by doing", and to provide sufficient student/teacher support for this to happen, in a task-based problem-solving environment.

As with other factors, positive affect was promoted in general by the ethos of the programme and the student-centred nature of the textbooks. As with Legutke & Thomas's (1991) project-task typology, however, the textbooks went "beyond the experience-activating exercises of the humanistic approaches" (Legutke & Thomas 1991:64), and focused on activities which have a language-teaching orientation:

1. trust-building and relaxation (e.g. TWA page 110, "The Line"; page 162, "A Good Thing", appendices C-65/6);
2. awareness and sensitivity training (e.g. TWA page 121, "Eye to Eye", appendix C67);
3. information-sharing activities (e.g. TWA page. 111, "Please Fill This In"; page 67, "Norway",  appendices C-68/9);
4. thinking strategies and problem-solving (e.g. TWA page 154, "Eggs", appendix C-70);
5. imagination-gap, fantasy and creative expression (e.g. TWA pages 87/8, "Group Story & Mask-making"; page 95, "A Letter to Myself", appendices C-71/2);
6. role-playing and creative dynamics (e.g. TWA page 120, "The Best Person for the Job"; page 152, "Meetings Project", appendices C-73/4);
7. interaction and interpersonality (e.g. TWA pages 38/9,  "News Interview"; page 150, "Titanic", appendices C-26, 75);
8. values clarification and discussion (e.g. TWA page 168, "Loudly"; page 55, "Me-Bag", appendices C-76/7);
9. process evaluation (e.g. TWA pages 201, 182, 209-12, appendices C-62/3).

In addition to these activity types, the books were culturally sensitive, having been written in Korea by Korean and English co-authors, and therefore did not present white ethnocentric role models or espouse foreign values and life-styles, which might have encouraged students to withdraw from language learning (cf. section 2.6.3). Instead, regular "Culture Pages" (e.g. appendix C-11) encouraged students to examine their own culture, and to discuss other cultures from this perspective. Chapter 12 of NYT extended this approach by taking "Cultural Identities and Differences" for its title, and the original (1998) version of TMM used maps of Andong in Chapter 10 (a map of Seoul was substituted in the 2000 version).

A sample page from TWA (page 87, see illustration below) will serve to demonstrate the focus on positive affect. This page comes from the "Drama" project, and page 87 is part of the alternative schedule, appearing just after students have chosen a drama, roles and scenes (TWA page 86 – cf. item 6). The fact that students were allowed to choose a Korean drama is part of the trust-building and relaxation (item 1) that continues with the first activity on page 87 (below) – "Email". In this activity, students email each other, using a list of email addresses made in the introduction section (TWA page 15). Here, students are asked to copy their message to the teacher, but in similar activities (e.g. "Phone-call", TWA page 20), students are trusted to make the call and to talk to each other in English, without "proving" anything to the teacher. 

The final activity on page 87 of TWA is an introduction to the mask-making activity on the next page. Mask-building promotes positive affect, since students can fashion their own personality for their role in the drama. Use of English also becomes more meaningful, through its association with tangible items (glue, string, plates, paper, scissors), as students instruct each other in the making of masks. The explanation about mask-making on page 87 is a further example of the trust that is extended to students on every page of the books. Whatever the activity, (including assessment) the students are trusted to perform it and to succeed in doing so.

7.3.4 Assessment
Freshmen and Sophomore evaluation consisted of a "Final" oral test (15%) (available online (http://lc.andong.ac.kr/eng/students/frfinspr2000.html), an Attendance mark (10%) and a Participation mark (75%) (the self-assessment  instrument [TMM pages 20/21, 189/190] did not count for grading at this stage). Oral testing information was made available to the students from day one of the course, when they were invited to view (in their own time) the "Student page" of the Language Centre (http://lc.andong.ac.kr/eng/index2.html), in order to view class information (in English and Korean) (http://lc.andong.ac.kr/eng/class.html), final oral test information (above), and an explanation of marking criteria (http://plaza.snut.ac.kr/~lc/criteria.htm). These criteria were based on published rating scales (cf. table A-52), from which markers of range, fluency, attitude, delivery and conversation skills had been chosen as appropriate for ANU students (cf. North's [1991] "RADIO" criteria – range, accuracy, delivery, interaction, overall). A teachers' page offered the same assistance to teachers (http://lc.andong.ac.kr/eng/index8.html), along with a suggested marking sheet (http://lc.andong.ac.kr/eng/sheet.htm), and advice on filling in the university's attendance/grading sheet (http://lc.andong.ac.kr/eng/attend.html). This "open" policy was in line with Hills' (1976) findings on students' needs (cf. Section 7.3.7, items i, iii, iv & v), specifically regarding the need for information about the course and about testing methods.

In the Freshman and Sophomore years, oral testing consisted of a short individual assignment, followed by a group conversation (students attended in self-chosen groups of four). In the Freshman year this group conversation centred around personal information (semester 1: http://lc.andong.ac.kr/eng/students/frfinspr2000.html – Chapters 1-6 of TMM) or took the form of a role play in a restaurant (semester 2 - Chapters 7-12 of TMM were covered in this situational role play: http://plaza.snut.ac.kr/~lc/students/1test2.htm . In the Sophomore year, students still attended in groups of four, but the role plays focused on travel (semester 1) and general discussion (semester 2). Students were free to prepare for these tests at any time, since the test information was available on the LC home-page, so it was inevitable that some groups would compose and rehearse a lengthy dialogue for their role play. However, since an important aim of the programme and of the tests was to promote confidence in speaking and to lessen performance anxiety (a reason for assessing students in groups rather than individually), this was accepted by the examiners (the teachers) as an example of assessment and learning working together. Students who would have great trouble speaking spontaneously in a test situation were able to prepare their parts, and to perform a mini-drama instead, since the work that went into these performances was considerable, and entirely student-initiated[1]. Those who did feel confident enough to speak "off the cuff" were given credit for this, under the criterion of "fluency".

In the Junior year of the ANU language programme, assessment was process-based and reflective, the mid-term and final evaluation sessions (appendices C-62/3) functioning as signposts along the way, stimulating discussion and reflection on achievement of learning goals, and promoting planning for future learning. These evaluations were therefore "learning tools" rather than tests of proficiency, and could be incorporated into any stage of the project-making process.

In part 1 of the evaluation session (see illustration above), students talk about their initial learning goals (TWA page 21) and whether these have changed over the semester. In part 2, they then discuss the projects they devised and performed during the semester. Marking criteria are available online prior to the evaluation session (cf. section 7.3.4), and the teacher is allowed to join in the conversation to offer advice on issues that arise (see illustration above). Students are thus encouraged to see this as a useful (and painless) learning tool rather than a proficiency test.

The evaluation session was flexible in design, and could be viewed as an "Alternative Schedule" for assessment. Students were free to devise their own evaluation session if they wished (cf. McClean 1995). This occurred with some classes in the second semester of 1999, when devising how and what to assess took on the nature of an "evaluation project".

7.3.4.1 (Participation)
The high proportion of the final grade given to participation was allocated on the assumption that students who attended every lesson and participated fully would of necessity improve their oral skills (since they would be interacting in English in every lesson). Thus an "A+" for Participation implied that the student concerned had attended every class, had participated fully in classes by initiating and performing the tasks in the book (mostly in the L2), and had correspondingly improved his/her communicative competence in English. This emphasis on participation greatly eased the load on the teachers, who did not need to walk round the classroom with a checklist of SLA criteria for every student, but who could instead use a "participation sheet" (appendix C-64).

Self-assessment was not a part of the final grade in the Freshmen year, though teachers were encouraged to let students fill in the participation sheet and therefore to determine up to 75% of their grade. This was difficult for some teachers to agree with, and opened up debate about the validity of self-assessment, providing a valuable opportunity for discussing this topic and the associated one of fostering a trust-based relationship in the classroom. In the author's experience (in this study and while in the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong), students who were allowed to assign their own participation mark each lesson became more aware of why interaction was important for language learning, and were noticeably more responsible, seeing value in participating and in being on time. In other words, they were being "heard":

Our students don't necessarily need reassurance, what they need is to be heard. (Underhill: 1989:256)

This "participation" system was also beneficial in the promotion of CMI, since it applied to all students, whatever their linguistic starting point, and even those who were convinced that they were "poor learners" could achieve high grades (proficient speakers could also get low marks if they did not participate). Teachers were free to adjust the allocation of marks according to their own preferences (e.g. inclusion of assignments), but classroom participation remained the guiding principle for the majority of marks.

Continue reading this Chapter: "7.3.5 Involving the teachers"