Table of Contents

Title 2

Authors 2

Research Question 2

Context 2

Objectives 2

Approach 3

Findings 8

Discussion 12

Bibliography 14

Useful Links 15

1

TEAM 3

RESEARCH REPORT

05.06.2017

Title: Paraphrasing

Authors: Aslıhan AKIN, Betül ÇELİK, Fırat AKDOĞAN

Research Question: What kind of activities might help students improve their paraphrasing

strategies in academic writing?

Context

This research took place at the University of Turkish Aeronautical Association, Department of

Foreign Languages in Ankara in 2016-2017 Academic Year spring semester. It was conducted

with two different department students; Astronautical Engineering and Business

Administration in Academic Writing Skills course. The research lasted for 6 weeks from

April 17, 2017 to May 23, 2017.

In 2016-2017 Academic Year, there were 28 sections of Academic Writing Skills (ENG 106)

course. Out of these sections, two of them were picked; ENG 106(9) Astronautical

Engineering with 20 students, and ENG 106(26) Business Administration with 25 students.

They were mostly first grade university students

In the research team, there were 4 instructors of English working together at UTAA,

Department of Foreign Languages. The instructors took role of Teacher 1, Teacher 2, and

Observer in rotation except for the one facilitator of the research.

Objectives

First, in order to detect problems in the course, a mini-survey was conducted to have an idea

about students’ perception on academic writing problems. The following questions were

asked to students in their native language:

- How should Academic Writing Skills course be conducted?

- What do you find the most difficult in this course?

The survey was conducted to the students and according to the results obtained from the

survey, and instructors’ opinions, the team decided to investigate into paraphrasing skills with

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a research question: What kind of activities might help students improve their paraphrasing

strategies in academic writing?

The main purpose of this research was to improve students’ paraphrasing skills in academic

writing such as essay, research proposal, and report writing. In order to attain this goal, the

instructors collaborated in the process of preparation, planning, implementation and

evaluation in harmony. At the end of this research, it was planned to share the experience

obtained with the other instructors for the next academic period so as to teach paraphrasing in

an ideal way.

Approach

During team-teaching process, we followed 5 phases. These are preparation phase, research

phase, planning and implementation phase, evaluation phase, and dissemination phase as it

can be seen in the Figure 1 below:

Figure 1: Team Teaching Procedure in the research

We started our team-teaching process with the preparation phase. For this stage, we had

meetings as the third team-teaching group instructors. We discussed what our students needed

and what should be done for this purpose. We also had recorded what we did. We continued

to the team blog that previous teams created. We contributed it with our work. In this blog, we

included everything that we had done during this process. We shared ideas with the previous

team-teaching group. We had their help and their advices for the process. After these, we

wrote our professional development plans for this research. We included the areas of strength,

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areas of concern, professional aims, learning objectives and expected student learning

outcomes. Then, we passed to the second stage of the research. We trained ourselves in the

team-teaching field. We read articles and journals and discussed these in our weekly

meetings. We thought how we could use team-teaching and adapt it to our academic writing

lessons. We thought about our teaching philosophy and then write a teaching philosophy of

our own. Before writing a detailed lesson plan, we conducted a lesson as a demo. For some of

us, it was a first experience. We recorded our lessons and then watched it. First, we watched it

alone and then we watched it with our partners and facilitator. We discussed the strengths and

weaknesses of our lesson. We talked about what should be differently and the things that we

should be more careful about. It was great to see ourselves with another teacher in the class.

We experienced the feeling of being in the same classroom and teaching the lesson with

another teacher. Our first impression was definitely positive.

In the Research phase, our first aim was to find the students’ learning difficulties. We

gathered with our group members and discussed this issue. We thought the students’

situations in the classrooms. We decided to carry out a mini-survey with two questions. The

questions were “how should academic writing course be conducted?’’ and “What do you find

the most difficult in this course?” We asked these questions in the students’ native language.

Based on the results of this survey and also our observations about the students we decided to

work on paraphrasing skills. We decided to overcome this problem with the team-teaching

method and help the students improve their paraphrasing skills. So, after reading articles

about team teaching, we started to read articles about “how to paraphrase?”. All of us read

different articles about the topic. After reading, we again gathered and discuss the articles. We

found out that some teachers from different places also worked this paraphrasing issue and

wrote a report about it. We read those reports and tried to find the differences and similarities.

We eliminated some activities that we found because we thought those were not appropriate

for our aims. We discussed what we could do in the classrooms and what activities we could

use. We tried to image our first lesson in our minds. We tried to adapt some activities

according to our students’ level roughly. All of us shared information through the PPT that we

had prepared. We shared our ideas about the activities.

In the planning phase, we started searching specific paraphrasing activities for the lesson 1A-

B. We took the students’ English level into consideration. We adapted the activities to their

level. We had lesson plan meetings before each lesson. In these meetings, we discussed the

activities that we had found. We tried to adapt the activities and came up with the best one for

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our students. We wrote the lesson plan together as a team-teaching group. Those meetings

lasted 1 week and after that week, we had our lessons. In those meetings, together with the

group we decided the activities that we were going to use in the lessons. After preparing the

activities, we shared roles. We were equal partners in this team-teaching process. In every

lesson (1A-B, 2A-B, 3A-B) our focus was paraphrasing skills. As for the first lesson (1A),

first, we taught the techniques for paraphrasing. We thought paraphrasing in the sentence

level would be the best for the students because paraphrasing was something that they had

difficulties. That is why we decided to begin with the easiest form of it. For the revision

lesson (1B), we simplified some sentences because we saw that the students had difficulty

while paraphrasing some sentences. Apart from that, we changed the format of the worksheet.

For the second lesson (2A), we went on with paragraph paraphrasing because we thought they

were successful with sentences. It was time to move it a higher level. We had 4 activities. We

did not want to start with paraphrasing paragraph directly. We wanted to go step by step. In

the first activity, we just wanted them to match the sentences with paraphrased ones. We saw

that they did this activity without any difficulty. In the second activity, we wanted them to

find the techniques that are used in the paraphrased sentences. Again, they did it. They found

out that some techniques like word order or synonyms are the basic techniques for

paraphrasing. For the third activity, we wanted them to find the main ideas of a paragraph and

then paraphrase those sentences based on the techniques that they learned. Our aim in this

activity was to show them that in a paragraph, we did not paraphrase everything. We just

paraphrase the main points. As for the last activity, we wanted them to paraphrase a whole

paragraph but sentence by sentence. At the end of the lesson, when we gathered with our

group members, we saw that the students had some difficulties at some points and the last

activity was too long for them. That is why for the revised lesson (2B), we shortened the last

activity and simplified some sentences. We saw that this revision was right because the

Business Administration group’s English level was lower than the other group. In the last

lesson (3A-B) we decided to move on with free activity. In total, we had 3 paragraphs. We

made one of them together as an example which the students found very beneficial according

to their feedbacks. And then we gave them the other two and wanted them to paraphrase that

paragraphs. We saw that the students could paraphrase them without much difficulty even

though they were free activities. We realized that, in the last lesson, our students knew how to

paraphrase. For the revision lesson, we did not make any major changes because everything

was appropriate for both groups. We did all these activities and all these revisions as a team

together in our meetings. We planned everything together.

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In terms of implementation phase, two of us were actively teaching while the other team

member was team observer. Team observer changed during the process. Team observer’s role

was to observe case students regarding their behavior, participation and responses in the

lessons. The observer took notes of case students during our lessons. We chose three case

students. They were chosen according to their English levels such as high, medium and low,

and their motivation and participation. In Astronautical Engineering, as high achiever, E.Y.,

as medium achiever, H.İ.A., and as low achiever, D.G. were observed. In the last lesson of

team-teaching, H.İ.A. was absent. So, D.E.Y. was chosen as medium achiever. As for

Business Administration class, again three case students were chosen. As high achiever, A.A.,

as medium F.N.B. and as low achiever, Ö.T. were chosen. In the second and third lesson A.A.

was absent. So, we chose E.B. as high-level student. Also, in the third lesson Ö.T. was absent.

B.A. was chosen for low level student in this lesson. Their reactions to the lesson and to the

teachers were so important. They were representing other students. That is why after every

lesson we had interviews with these students. We asked specific questions about the lessons

and took their feedback. The questions were;

What did you like the most in this lesson?

What did you learn in this lesson?

How do you understand what you learned in this lesson?

Which activity did you like the most in this lesson?

Which activity helped you to listen more effectively?

Do you think team-teaching helped you learn more effectively?

What are your suggestions?

We prepared each lesson regarding their ideas. While we were revising the lesson for B, we

took their ideas into consideration. All of them thought team-teaching was very useful for

them and they enjoyed it.

In the evaluation phase, we as a team came together and revised the A lessons. After every

lesson, we watched our videos. We had meetings with three group members and our

facilitator. In these meetings, we discussed the lesson and talked about the revisions that we

should do for the lesson B. We also talked about the situation of the case students regarding

the notes of the team observer. We revised our lesson based on our discussions about the

student’s feedback and the team observer’s feedback. As a result of these meetings, we

revised our lesson if necessary. After the lesson B, again we came together and followed the

6

same steps as in the meetings for lesson A. After we had our both A and B lesson meetings,

we wrote a reflective lesson report. In these reports, we talked about what worked well, what

did not work well, what should be done differently, the differences or similarities between

two lessons and the things that we learned from this experience. We did this process after

every A and B lessons. When all the lessons were finished (1A-B, 2A-B, 3A-B) we wrote a

full research report. We reflected our whole experiences in this report.

In the dissemination phase, first, we combined everything that we did and form it into a

report. We explained everything that we did during team-teaching process in a detailed way in

this report. We will share this report with other co-workers. We will make a presentation as

part of ELT Fusion held by University of Turkish Aeronautical Association. We will try to

reflect our experiences with other people. We will share our ideas and thoughts about team-

teaching based on our experiences during this process. And in the end, we will put this report

into our website as a portfolio. Below you can see the schedule of our lessons during team-

teaching process.

Table 1: Schedule for team-teaching process

Lesson Date Class Duration Team

Teacher

Team

Teacher

Team

Observer

1A 17.04.17Aeronautical

Engineering

Approx.

90 minutes

Betül

Çelik

Fırat

AkdoğanAslıhan Akın

1B 20.04.17Business

Administration

Approx.

90 minutes

Betül

Çelik

Aslıhan

Akın

Fırat

Akdoğan

2A 08.05.16 Aeronautical

Engineering

Approx. 65

minutes

Betül

Çelik

Fırat

Akdoğan

Elif Meltem

BİRSÖZ

ÖZKÖSE

2B 11.05.17 Business

Administration

Approx. 60

minutes

Betül

Çelik

Fırat

Akdoğan

Elif Meltem

BİRSÖZ

ÖZKÖSE

3A 22.05.17 Aeronautical

Engineering

Approx. 80

minutes

Betül

Çelik

Fırat

AkdoğanAslıhan Akın

3B 23.05.17Business

Administration

Approx. 80

minutes

Betül

Çelik

Fırat

AkdoğanAslıhan Akın

7

Findings

The findings of the research were obtained by the team observer and analysis of the students’

worksheets, and written & oral feedback from the students (see Appendix). Below are the

observers’ notes about the case students in each team teaching lesson:

Observer comments on case students` attitudes, responses and participation:

Table 2: ENG-106-9 AST. 17.04.2017 Lesson 1A

Case Students & Evidence of Behavior

Attitudes Responses Participation

E. Y.(high) She had a positive attitude.

She seems motivated and engaged.

She did given tasks.

She was silent in general but attentive.

She actively participated and most of her answers were correct.

In pair works, she was more focused and helpful for her classmates.

She was not willing to participate individually.

H.İ.A.(mid) He had a positive attitude.

He seems engaged.

He didn’t take his job seriously.

He responded to many of the questions correctly.

He had difficulty in transferring his previous knowledge.

He sat silently without participating for a while at the beginning.

He skipped some of the activities.

D.G.(low) He had a positive attitude.

He was engaged. He was active in the lesson.

He responded to the questions. He was not good at grammar and pronunciation but he tried to do all the tasks.

He was willing to participate. He needed teacher help. It takes time him to focus on the task.

Table 3: ENG 106-26 20.04.2017 Lesson 1B

Case Students & Evidence of Behavior

Attitudes Responses Participation

A. A.(high) She didn’t have a positive attitude.

She dealt with her mobile phone during the presentation of the subject.

However, she was engaged in the exercises.

She was silent in in the first hour.

She speaks below her breath.

She actively participated and most of her answers were correct.

In pair works, she had tendency to use L1.

She did not participate much individually.

F. B.(mid) She had a positive attitude.

She seems engaged, but a little bit shy.

She responded many of the questions correctly.

She involved each step. She was willing to participate. She kept

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She listened to the lesson carefully.

answering silently.

Ö.T.(low) He had a positive attitude.

He was not engaged.

He was passive in the lesson.

He responded too silently. He was not willing to participate. He did not involve in the process.

He helped his group only in answering parts not during the task.

Table 4: ENG 106-9 08.05.2017 Lesson 2A

Case Students & Evidence of Behavior

Attitudes Responses Participation

E. Y.(high) She had a positive attitude.

She was engaged and joined exercises

She took her job seriously.

She responded with a good command of English.

She involved in each step.

Her answers were correct.

She participated actively.

She was eager to participate.

She completed all the activities.

H.İ.A.(mid) He had a positive attitude.

He was calm.

He engaged in the exercises.

He listened to the lesson carefully.

His answer was correct when he responded.

He was attentive.

He answered when he is asked.

He finished the activities earlier and he dealt with his phone.

D.G.(low) He had a positive attitude.

He was calm.

He did the exercises.

He listened to the lesson carefully.

His answer was correct when he responded.

He actively used dictionary.

Sometimes he dealt with his phone.

He was not willing to participate.

He did not involve in the process.

He helped his group only in answering parts not during the task.

Table 5: ENG 106-26 11.05.2017 Lesson 2B

Case Students & Evidence of Behavior

Attitudes Responses Participation

H. A.(high) His attitude was generally positive.

He tried to be engaged in all the activities.

His answer was correct when he responded.

He was active.

He involved in each step.

He actively participated and answered the questions eagerly.

F. B.(mid) She had a positive attitude.

She was good at recognizing the techniques.

She did the exercises.

She listened to the lesson carefully.

Her answer was correct when she responded.

She was attentive.

She seemed to be interested in the lesson.

.

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She was active and tried to speak in English.

She asked questions when she didn’t understand.

She was eager to participate

Ö.T.(low) He was calm.

He was silent in the lesson.

He did exercises.

He listened to the lesson carefully.

He talked to his friends on the activity.

He was not willing to participate.

He did not involve in the process.

Table 6: ENG 106-9 22.05.2017 Lesson 3A

Case Students & Evidence of Behavior

Attitudes Responses Participation

E. Y.(high) She was attentive.

She was calm but willing to participate when she is asked.

She responded finishes exercises earlier.

Her answers were correct.

She participated actively.

She likes group work.

She completed all the activities.

E. D.(mid) He had a positive attitude.

He was calm.

He was dealing with his mobile phone.

He had tendency to talk in L1.

There were mistakes in his answers.

In the last exercise, he was not good enough.

He was attentive.

He preferred asking teachers rather than dis"

D.G.(low) He had a positive attitude.

He was calm.

He did the exercises.

He did not hesitate to ask for help.

He was aware of the techniques he used.

His answer was correct.

In the last exercise, he did really well.

He was willing to participate.

He helped his group and he was good at group work.

Table 7: ENG 106-26 23.05.2017 Lesson 3B

Case Students & Evidence of Behavior

Attitudes Responses Participation

E. B.(high) He had a positive attitude but he interrupted teaches’ speech a lot.

He likes individual studies.

His partner was also a high achiever in studies, so they completed earlier and cheated His answer were correct when he responded.

He was active.

He involved in each step.

He was willing to participate.

He actively participated and answered the questions eagerly.

F. B.(mid) She was pretending as she was dealing with her task, but her partner did the job.

She was not motivated, but she

She listened to the lesson carefully. Her answer was correct when she responded.

She was active and tried to

She was attentive.

She seemed to be interested in the lesson.

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speak in English.

She asked questions when she didn’t understand.

She was eager to participate

B.A.(low) She was silent during the lesson.

She did not do the exercises.

She had tendency to talk in L1

She did not answer any of the questions.

She was not willing to participate. She did not involve in the process.

She expected her partner to represent their group.

This research showed that team-teaching might help students’ paraphrasing skills in academic

writing. At the beginning, students had prejudices. They stated that one teacher was enough in

a class, but after the first lesson, team teaching became interesting for them.

After each lesson, a survey was conducted to receive feedbacks from students. The

questionnaire included the questions to mention the things that they have learnt and the

good/bad parts of the lesson. Thus, awareness was created among students. Then the research

was developed according to the feedbacks from students in these surveys. Students stated that

they liked team teaching for many reasons. One of them was that teacher could have more

time to help them individually. The other one was that the exercises were really to the point

and useful. Another one was that they could focus longer because there were two teachers,

and their tone of voices worked as stimulators when they shifted. Also, they stated that

witnessing the harmony between two teachers was motivating.

Additionally, the process was checked by interviews with the sample students from three

different levels (a high achiever, a medium achiever, a low achiever). They also validate these

data on benefits of this study in paraphrasing skills.

Also, a survey to designate the most useful activity from students’ points of view was

conducted. It was expected from the students to choose the exercises they liked the most. We

evaluated the survey and according to the results, students liked free paragraph paraphrasing

activity the most (Lesson 3A-3B) and found them useful because it was an individual activity

and it showed them that they learnt the subject.

Finally, team teaching made differences with shy students more. At the beginning, they were

hesitated to ask questions. They were shy and silent. However, their performance in team

teaching classes became praiseworthy. They were really good at group works. They were

engaged and motivated. They did all the activities. Even if they couldn’t manage to complete

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the tasks, they asked for help. They had tendency to use L1 in the classroom. They were

dealing with their mobile phones until they saw that they could do paraphrasing activities.

Then they gained self-confidence and did a good job. Thus, one of the objective of this

research, motivating the students, was accomplished.

Discussion

Teaching is a detailed job, yet thanks to team teaching, we could share our responsibilities and

with brainstorming, we came up with different viewpoints and adapted these to our teaching.

We discussed how to teach paraphrasing to students effectively and exchanged ideas. We

were used to planning our lessons alone but this time it was different; we planned and

prepared everything collaboratively.

At the beginning of team teaching process, some students were really shy. They had difficulty

in asking questions to teachers. Even if they know the answers, they could not respond. At

this point, team teaching provided them the opportunity to work in pairs and to ask for help

from more than one teacher. When they saw two teachers in the classroom for the first time,

they were surprised and thought that they would not like the implementation. However,

according to feedbacks from students, it can be mentioned that they liked team teaching and

found it useful.

The lessons we have prepared within the scope of team teaching provided students with more

and more opportunity to practice paraphrasing. When we take our main goal into account,

which is to teach paraphrasing techniques to students effectively, we have seen that students’

perception to the topic has changed in a way that they thought they could paraphrase much

more easily.

We shared the ideas from articles with each other. This helped us find and create new ideas

about the lessons and the activities. We learned how to think collaboratively and how to work

well in a harmony with each other. The presence of two teachers let the students ask for help

more easily and the teachers can reach all the students without much difficulty. Regarding the

thoughts of our students’ and our experiences, we think that team teaching definitely helps the

students improve their writing skills. Especially, when they are working on a task, team

teaching’s influence is undeniable.

It is an undeniable fact that our experience of team teaching has also contributed to our

professional development. First and foremost, it raised awareness of our own teaching. We

12

have realized that there are some common positive and negative sides among us. We spare

enough time to plan our lessons and prepare materials that we think students will benefit. On

the other hand, we have seen that teacher talking time in our classes should be decreased.

Another point is time management; the amount of time we allocate to the activities plays a

crucial role for students and for the flow of the lesson. Clear instruction is needed by students

in order to have fruitful outcome, yet we were not clear while giving instructions. When we

saw our recordings, we realized that the students sometimes looked confused after the

instructions. Thanks to team teaching, we helped each other realize how it was like to hear

ourselves from a different point of view. Last but not least, we saw that being in a class with

another teacher was not so worrying. When you actually cooperate with another teacher, it

turns out to be an advantage rather than a disadvantage. Throughout our team-teaching

experience, we observed each other and we came to terms on certain things as mentioned

above and tried to take measures against any problems we came across.

13

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Useful Links

http://utaateamteaching.weebly.com/

http://faculty.virginia.edu/coteachUVA/whycoteach.html

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/reflective-teaching-exploring-our-own-classroom-

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https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/right-way-to-learn-language

https://eal.britishcouncil.org/teachers/great-ideas-pages

http://www.tesol.org/docs/books/bk_morethannative_325

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5w-MV4haW4

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/checking-understanding

http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2493/Team-Teaching.html

https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/teamcollaborative-teaching/

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