The Effect of Interaction Strategy Training on Students’ Participation in Small Group Discussions: The Case of Awassa College of teacher Education
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Date
2008-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This research project was designed and conducted to provide students with strategy training in order to ensure more effective communicative interaction during group work carried out in the language classroom. The assumption is that appropriate classroom organization and detailed task definition, although imperative, are not always sufficient for achieving successful interaction. One way to improve the quality of communicative interaction in the class room is increase students’ use of interaction strategies. The concern of this study is to show how training in such strategies improves interaction in small group discussions. Forty two 3rd year diploma language stream students in to two classes at Awassa College of Teacher Education participated in this study. The classes were randomly assigned as an experimental group and a control group. Both groups were involved in similar cooperative group work activities, but the experimental group underwent special training in the use of interaction strategies. Each group was video recorded before the six week experiment and at the end of this period. The finding indicates that as a result of the training in the use of interaction strategies, the experimental group used more interaction strategies than the control group. The increased use of interaction strategies improved the students’ communicative interaction and decreased their non-interactive participations in the small group discussions.
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Training on Student