Running head: PREPOSITIONS WITH SPORTS
Using Sports to Improve Student Knowledge of Prepositions
Jarred Kalweit
Endicott College
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PREPOSITIONS WITH SPORTS
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Abstract
This is a study researching 4th grade students’ knowledge of English prepositions using
traditional teaching methods versus learning them by having students create their own
sports and having to explain them will be conducted at a private bilingual school in
Jakarta, Indonesia. In addition, this study is seeking to analyze the sustainability of the
innovative teaching practice based on student and teacher enjoyment perceptions. The
quasi-experimental research design is made up of 46 fourth grade students that will be
divided into 2 separate groups: a control group and an intervention group. The
researcher will be assuming a null hypothesis for this experiment. There will be pretests for each group, and then each group will learn about prepositions. The intervention
group will experience the innovative approach and the control group will follow
traditional teacher-led instruction. Lastly, there will be a post-test for each group. The
researcher will conduct a two-tailed T-test on the percentage change of scores for the
control group and the intervention group to either reject or confirm the null hypothesis.
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Background
Study Location
The study will be conducted at Al Jabr Islamic School, located in Jakarta,
Indonesia. This private school offers pre-kindergarten through grade 10 and follows
three curriculums simultaneously: Islamic, International Baccalaureate (IB) and national
curriculums. There are approximately 600 students in the school. The school’s name
was originally attached to a mosque in 1994, but slowly the mosque branched out to
offer an educational garden in 1996, an orphanage in 2004, a playgroup in 2004, an
elementary school program in 2006, and finally a junior high school program in 2009.
The school is bilingual, using English and Bahasa Indonesian in classrooms and with
the community.
Student Demographics
The participants in this study are 4th grade students of Indonesian nationality. All
of the students study English as a second language. However, the students are middle to
upper class and most students have parents that speak some level of English.
The Researcher
The researcher performing this study has three years experience working with a
variety of ESL learners in Indonesia and holds a certification for teaching English as a
foreign language (TEFL). This will be the researcher’s second year teaching at the
school participating in the study.
Importance of the Study
Reasons for Undertaking this Project
This study is the researcher’s attempt to understand connections between
learning grammar with kinesthetic reinforcement versus using a traditional teacher-led
classroom lecture approach. The aim is to improve one of the core facets for ESL
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learners: prepositions. Since prepositions include relationships of place and direction,
the researcher has chosen the innovative approach of having the students create and
explain their own sports to teach prepositions in an attempt to use a different method of
engaging his students.
Significance for the Researcher
Since the participants are located in an International Baccalaureate school, there
is no curriculum of grammar for Language B English teachers to follow. Therefore, a
rigorous study that looks at an innovative way to teach grammar using an inquiry-based
project would be beneficial to all teachers in that position, no matter the location of the
school.
Significance for the School
Although the school in the study uses an international curriculum, it is still
subject to national standards and must participate in testing junior high school students
for regional and national comparison. This study would be beneficial to the school
because it would give the school evidence to support this innovative teaching strategy to
meet the criteria of the national standards.
Significance for the Students
The subject of prepositions is one of the weakest understood aspects of English
grammar by ESL learners. Therefore, the students would greatly benefit from a study
that could prove a certain method of learning prepositions more effective than the
traditionally-used method.
Literature Review
The theoretical background to this study lies in the theory of multiple
intelligences. This theory states that a broad range of people learn in a diverse number
of ways, which means teachers should approach education with a multiple types of
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instruction (Jackson, Gaudet, McDaniel & Brammer, 2009; Krashen, 1999; Masuhara,
2005; Tomlinson, 2000). It is well documented that a diversity of approaches to learning
can strengthen a student’s understanding of a topic, and Gardner (2000) believes that
teachers should support these multiple learning styles by diversifying their lessons.
When using a kinesthetic learning approach, students are more engaged and enjoy
learning because movement is involved in the lesson (Wood, 2008; Tuan, Luu Trong &
Nguyen Thi Minh Doan, 2010, Scott & Ytreberg, 1994). There is limited literature
connecting the specific idea of learning English grammar through kinesthetic activities,
but other studies have looked learning other subjects through movement. Lastly, by
using sports and games as a medium of teaching, students benefit from the introduction
of language through a natural process (Sawyer & Sawyer, 1993).
Statement of the Issue
English teachers are charged with the task of improving a student’s reading,
writing, speaking, and listening skills. However, a student’s knowledge of grammar ties
into all of these to improve their comprehension and coherency. Because the
participants in this study are ESL learners, they have less opportunity to learn about the
rules of grammar in daily conversation. Therefore, it is important to teach additional
grammar in English classes through compulsory education. Since learning grammar
through repetition and drilling can become monotonous, student engagement and
enjoyment in the activities suffer. In order to prevent this from happening, an innovative
way to teach grammar with high student engagement is needed.
Research Question
What happens to fourth grade students’ knowledge of prepositions as measured
by a knowledge-based pre and post-test (i.e. fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice) when
they learn prepositions by creating a sport and explaining it to others?
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Traditional methods of learning prepositions used by the control group include
teacher-led instruction with accompanying worksheets. The researcher will assume the
null hypothesis for the study.
Research Methodology
Sample
Two classes of fourth grade students, each class having 23 students, will be the
study participants. Each class will have two 45-minute sessions a week with the
researcher for four weeks.
Materials
The school in the study already has the resources available to conduct this study.
The resources needed for the intervention group consist of various kinds of sports
equipment, but this is available from the physical education teacher. The intervention
group can also make use of the indoor gymnasium and the two outdoor basketball
courts located at the school.
Instruments
The instruments used in this study will be knowledge-based test about
prepositions prepared by the researcher. The tests will be a mixture of fill-in-the-blank
with a word bank and multiple choice. There will be a pre-test and a post-test to assess
the improvement of the two study groups (See Appendix A).
Procedures
First, the researcher will talk to his administration to gain approval to start the
study. Second, the researcher will obtain consent from the participants’ parents via
consent letters. Before the study begins, the two sample groups will be informed about
their participation in the study. They will be told the researcher is looking to analyze the
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effectiveness of innovative teaching strategies. The sample groups will be aware that the
results of the study will not count towards their final grades.
Each group will have eight 45-minute sessions with the researcher over a span of
four weeks. During the first week, the intervention and the control group will both take
knowledge-based tests about English prepositions expressing relationships of place and
direction. After the class, each group will be introduced to the method from which they
will learn about prepositions. After the introduction, the control group will learn the
prepositions by means of traditional teacher-led instruction and the intervention group
will be introduced to different types of prepositions (See Appendix B). The intervention
group will then be told about their project: how they must create their own sport and
how they can use different prepositions to explain how to play the sport.
Towards the end of the study, the intervention group must give a presentation
within the class to explain their sport, stressing the use of different prepositions to
express place and direction. Lastly, both groups will take a post-test to measure the
difference in achievement.
The study design will be quasi-experimental. Figure 1 beneath shows the layout
of the study design, whereas “O1” represents the intervention group and “O2”
represents the control group. The “X” represents the innovative teaching practice and
the “—“ represents the traditional teaching strategy.
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Figure 1
Quasi-Experimental Design
____________________________________________________________________________
O1
X
O2
O1
__
O2
______________________________________________________________________
Calendar plan
The study will start in September, 2013 and complete in November, 2013. The
dates for the study with the corresponding planned action are listed below.
9th - 13th September
Request permission from the principal.
16th – 20th September
Create consent letters.
22nd – 26th September
Send and collect the consent letters.
23th – 27th September
Explain the project to the participants.
30th September – 4th October
7th – 25th October
Pre-test given. Intervention starts.
Intervention continues. The intervention
group presents their sports. The posttest is given during the eighth lesson.
28th October – 9th November
Data analysis.
Complete and submit report.
Data Collection and Analysis
Since there will be pre and post-tests to teach the intervention group and the
control group, the researcher will have four sets of data. The data will be analyzed in
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Microsoft Excel® using functions to measure central tendency (such as mean, median,
and mode) and to measure how spread out the scores are (i.e. standard deviation). The
percentage difference for each score will be calculated from pre-test to post-test. These
calculations will be used to do an independent sample two-tailed t-test with unequal
variances to compute if there was any significant difference between the two sample
groups. The result of a t-test is called a p-value, and if this value is less than 0.05, then
the researcher will reject the null hypothesis.
Results
The researcher will analyze the results after the study has been completed.
Extraneous Influences
The access to sports resources at the school might be limited because of planning
conflicts with the physical education teachers, but this can be solved by having the
researcher communicate his plans with the other staff ahead of time.
Another issue could be that the homeroom teachers of the fourth grade classes
plan field trips with the students during the assignment time for the researcher to meet
with the students. This can be avoided by having the researcher obtain field trip plans in
advance and moving classes to different days.
Another issue is depending on the time of day (i.e. whether or not the class is in
the morning or after lunch), the energy level of the students may differ. This is
something that cannot be avoided in this study.
Lastly, the two sample classes are juxtaposed each other. This might mean
students will share information about what is happening in their respective classes. This
could skew the results by introducing the Hawthorne effect.
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Implications for Teaching and Research
Limitations of the Study
One limitation of the study is that the samples were not randomly chosen, but
they were a sample of convenience due to the school classes already being grouped.
Another limitation is the fact that this study is only over a period of four weeks. This
time constraint could skew the results of the study. A more rigorous study would
include a longer time frame to study the effects of the intervention group compared to
the control group.
Implications for Teaching
Since this is the first study of its kind in an Islamic school in Indonesia, the
results of this study could lead to more innovative teaching practices.
Conclusion
This section has yet to be completed pending the completion of the study. Once
an appropriate observation and analysis has been done on the control and the
intervention groups, a conclusion can be formed about the effectiveness of the
aforementioned innovative teaching practice.
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References
Gardner, Howard (2000). Intelligence reframed: multiple intelligences for the 21st
century. Basic Books. 33–34.
Jackson, A., Gaudet, L., McDaniel, L., & Brammer, D. (2009). Curriculum integration:
the use of technology to support learning. Journal Of College Teaching &
Learning, 6(7), 71-78.
Krashen, S. (1999). Three Arguments against whole language and why they are wrong.
Portsmouth NH: Heinemann.
Masuhara, H. (2005). Helping learners to achieve multi-dimensional representation in
L2 reading. Folio, 9(2), 6-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccn028.
Sawyer, W. E., & Sawyer, J. C. (1993). Integrated Language Arts for Emerging Literacy.
New York: Delmar.
Scott, W., & Ytreberg L. H. (1994). Teaching English to Children. London: Longman.
Tomlinson, B. (2000). A multi-dimensional approach. The Language Teacher, 23, 2527.
Tuan, Luu, Trong, & Nguyen, Thi Minh, Doan. (2010). Teaching English grammar
through games. Studies in Literature and Language, 1(7), 61-75.
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Appendix A
These are sample pre-test and post-test questions for the participants in the study.
Answer the following questions by circling the appropriate letter
1. The runner had to jump ________ the hurdle.
a. through
b. around
c. over
d. under
2. The player has to catch the ball _________ his glove.
a. in
b. at
c. on
d. up
3. Throw the ball __________ the wall.
a. at
b. among
c. between
d. across
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Appendix B
Sample list of prepositions students will be expected to know.
Prepositions of place and direction
above
inside
across
into
after
near
against
next to
along
off
among
onto
around
opposite
behind
out of
below
outside
beside
over
between
past
by
round
close to
through
down
to
from
under
in front of
up