Rafik Hariri philanthropic and developmental contributions are countless. The most remarkable being the multifaceted support to educate more than 36,000 Lebanese university students within Lebanon, and beyond.
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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR AND PROFICIENCY A LEBANESE CASE STUDY
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Ali A. HUSSEINI
|
Univ. |
Newcastle Upon Tyne |
Spec. |
Education |
Deg. |
Year |
#Pages |
|
Ph.D. |
1992 |
383 |
This study aimed to explore the relationships between the success of a group of teenaged Lebanese learners and some aspects of classroom interaction. This was carried out in two classes (Mathematics and English) to see how the learner's participation and their teacher's behavior in both classes were related to their success.
The main aim of the study was to assess whether the findings of the very few similar studies are applicable in other contexts. Some factors related to second language acquisition were also examined. These factors are : use of the L2 in content classes, topicalisation and personal characteristics.
To cover these issues, data was collected in the following ways.
- Proficiency pre-tests and post-tests after eight months of instruction
- Learners' monthly school tests (English and Mathematics)
- Observation and audio-recording of 56 hours of classroom interaction over the period of eight months; 34 hours of English and 22 of Mathematics
- Questionnaires on background information and personal factors
- Monthly structured questionnaires about learner's class experience
- An experiment to test the implementation of the recommendations of the study on an experimental group .
The relationship between participation and learner's proficiency was complicated. Participation in the classroom correlated positively with proficiency; the quality of interaction was not much more important than its quantity, contrary to the claims of some studies. The learners' oral participation showed a stronger relationship with their oral interaction and fluency than with accuracy. Learners' involvement was related to some of the teacher's done, found weak evidence both that participation may cause success, and vice versa behavior. Teaching English through Mathematics was not useful in this context. A strong positive relationship was found between topicalisation and proficiency. The experiment, which was carried out the year after the study was done, found weak evidence both that participation may cause success, and vice versa .
