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Anne Lanham, Lillian Mwanri

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Perceived Enhancement of College Students’ Communication Skill through International Co-Teaching for Globally Competitive Markets

Leonicia S. Marquinez

Mindoro State College of Agriculture and Technology – Calapan City Campus, Masipit, Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro, Philippines

Abstract: Co-Teaching is defined as two teachers (teacher candidate and cooperating teacher) working together with groups of students; sharing the planning, organization, delivery, and assessment of instruction, as well as the physical space. The study determined the impact of one (1) international co-teacher working with six Filipino teachers on college students’ communication skill at Mindoro State College of Agriculture and Technology, Calapan City, Philippines. The respondents of the study were 150 using purposive sampling. The study used interviews; and questionnaires were the data instrument in the study. The study found out that students increased their language competency in English as well as gain knowledgeable content for their field of study using international co-teaching. One of the benefits of co-teaching in the tertiary level is that two teachers can learn from each other because of the teaching experience they both have. For instance, in Mindoro State College of Agriculture and Technology, a teacher who is a native Filipino can interact with the students because they share a common culture; on the other hand a teacher who is native English speaker can provide another perspective a new dimension of teaching English. Both teachers can collaborate with one another when it comes to planning, instruction and evaluation of the teaching and learning process. The idea of being handled by two instructors who have different cultural background, with different nationalities can provide a more engaging discussion and classroom interactions for the students. Thus, the main concern of this study is to identify the impact co-teaching between native English speaker and Filipino speakers on the student learning outcomes.

Keywords: communication skill, teaching, student outcomes

Citation: Leonicia S. Marquinez, Perceived Enhancement of College Students’ Communication Skill through International Co-Teaching for Globally Competitive Markets. American Journal of Educational Research, 6 (7). 952-956. January 2018. doi:10.12691/education-6-7-9

1. Introduction

Co-Teaching is defined as two teachers (teacher candidate and cooperating teacher) working together with groups of students; sharing the planning, organization, delivery, and assessment of instruction, as well as the physical space [1].

As the cliché goes, two heads are better than one. Collaboration, between two or among teachers, invites a more challenging situation on the part of the teachers and at the same time, this is definitely a promising situation for the teachers and learners. This scenario also provides more engaging topics and activities for the learners. Because this situation motivates teachers to go out of their comfort zone and expose themselves in an environment that is totally new to them. In this case, learning from each other in an environment that is totally new to them. In this case, learning from each other is the key element in order to help our students enhances their communication skills. Having two teachers taking the same responsibilities for all students grouped in the same classroom will help the students to develop communicative competence and gain cross- cultural awareness. This will also encourage team-teaching and a more collaborative classroom environment for the teachers and students. Hence, the experience of having a native English teacher and native Filipino teachers in the same classroom will make the students experience the best of both worlds.

Likewise, co teaching as a strategy in the classroom has been around in the college. Two teachers have the potential to attend to the needs of the students more efficiently and increase the success of students in their classrooms. Co- teaching revolves around qualitative measures; the study can be found focusing on quantifiable data. The general definition of co-teaching boils down to two professionals working together to teach diverse groups of students. Co-teaching presumes that both educators actively participate in the delivery of instruction, share responsibility for all the students assume accountability for student learning and acquire instructional resources and space. Bringing together two skills with a purpose to provide the students more opportunities is the basis of the co-teaching model. With international co-teacher, students are provided with the expertise of their local and national programs along with that of a world view. These skills set from each instructor are meant to broaden the students learning experience and increased their educational performance.

The Philippines is a country with a rich cultural history, bringing diversity completely unique in the Asian community. This diversity has created a variety of languages used across this small island nation. English is not only a tool that Filipinos use to communicate around the world, but also across their own country. Students who are more proficient in English will be more globally competitive as well as more competitive in the Filipino Market. English is the second largest language spoken across the world, and the language used in most international business collaboration. According to business world online, The Philippine Statistics Authority’s language, may use the language inappropriately or within the wrong cultural context, thus defeating the purpose of learning a language”.

In Learning more about language, especially, its etymology or origin, we can use several resources, like dictionary, encyclopedia and through internet as well as through social media. Nevertheless, learners can gain more information through these reference materials. However, these are students who have no easy access to electronic gadgets. Considering this situation, it is necessary to have the presence of a classroom instructor who is a native speaker of English in order for the students to listen to the proper utterance of words from a native English speaker/teacher. The students will also have a chance to ask question for better comprehension of the topic in English.

“On a practical level, language has to do with sounds, symbols and gestures that a community puts in order and associates so that they can communicate. On a deeper level, language is an expression of who we are as individuals, communities and nation. Culture refers to dynamic social system and shared patterns of behavior, beliefs, knowledge, attitudes and values. Culture provides the environment in which languages develop, even as it influences how they are used and interpreted” [2]. For this reason, a combination of two teachers in the same classroom, achieving the same goal, sharing their knowledge, supporting each other, creates a better learning and more effective style of teaching.

The study intended to determine the impact of co-teaching by a native English speaker and a Filipino teacher on the students’ communication skills. The research questions are: How does international co teaching affect the communication skills of the students? What are the differences between the students’ perceptions before and after the use of international co- teaching strategies? What are the differences in students” performances in internationally co taught classes versus the traditional method?

2. Methodology

This study utilized both qualitative and quantitative. Over the course of two school semesters, 150 MinSCAT college students were randomly selected to take part in an internationally co-teaching class. There students were asked to reflect on the experience through questionnaires. Additionally, randomly selected students were asked to participate in focus group interviews, and/or one on one interviews. These were designed to get students to discuss their growth, comfort, and concerns with being in an internationally co-teaching classroom. Initial questionnaires were used to redirect the future surveys, questionnaires, and interview questions.

The objective of the open-ended questions was meant to allow for the participants to develop responses in a natural and honest manner. This allowed for genuine answer to the research questions and future development of international programming and research. Furthermore, students are given the chance to express their insights about the co-teaching environment and to reflect on the experiences. In order to offer quantifiable data, the research also looked at the grades of student (PSA) 2014 Survey on Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) increasing to 2.32 million last year, with an increase of 1.5% in 2013. The bulk of these workers are Filipinos age 24-35, thus, the importance of these age groups in developing their English skills is significant to gain better opportunities. OFW’s account for hundreds of billions of Pesos contributing to the Filipino economy, the use of English is a critical element to the continued of the economy.

The idea of using native speakers to promote language acquisition is not a new one; in fact many studies have shown that native speakers increase the learners’ speaking and comprehension. In order to fully analyze the relationship between native speakers and non- native speakers teaching students a second language like English, one must look at how humans acquire language in the first place, while it is engrained in the human experience, the development of language is a social acquisition that takes time and a lot of trial and error. Children are both with innate ability to make all phonemic sounds, even those who are not a part of their cultural background. According to Purves et.al [3], by 6 months of age, infants show preferences for phonemes in their native language over those in foreign languages, and by the end of their first year, they are no longer respond to phonetic elements peculiar to non-native languages. This innate ability to distinguish phonetic contrasts apparently manifests at very young ages. Children below 7 to 8 years of age have the capacity to speak a fluent second language in the absence of accent. However, this decreases with age, exposure, practice and performance. As college students working with English as a second language. They are already at slight disadvantage in acquiring the fluency needed to be globally competitive, despite having worked with the language starting at a young age. The idea of using native speak allows for students to hear those sounds as they are pronounced within a culture that actually develops those sounds since birth. Prolonged exposure to these sounds can help promote language fluency. Vygotsky’s theory of language development emphasizes that we learn language through our social experiences [4]. Thus, students will develop the skills needed more proficiency when exposed to English more as a social interaction over a formal language lesson. While both may be needed to comprehend the language, the advantage of having a native speaker helps to secure the cultural connotations needed for full comprehension and fluency.

Mindoro State College of Agriculture and Technology (MinSCAT) is the largest public college in the province of Oriental Mindoro part of MIMAROPA Region of the Philippines comprised of three campuses, the Calapan city campus supports the largest student population (slightly over 4,000.) The campus contains six different departments; BS Education, BS Criminology, HMD, BS Information Technology, Bachelor of TECHNICAL Training Education, and Bachelor of Arts (English and Psychology.) This study covers courses offered in 3 of those departments, 6 subjects; Teaching Strategies (BTTE 3rd year students), Speech and Stage Arts (BS Ed 3rd year students, BA English 4th year students), Teaching Reading and Writing (BS Ed 3rd year students), Developmental Psychology (AB Psychology 2nd year students, and British and American Literature (BS Ed 3rd year students). The BSEd students were the same for the three different courses, thus they were exposed to the same international co teacher for 9 hours a week, and however the Filipino counterpart in each class was different.

While this study was being conducted, the Philippines were still running a k-10 program, meaning students entered college after their 10th grade year. The students taking part in this study were 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students, making the age range from 17 to 46 years of age. The majority of students however fell between 17-21 years of age. In traditional Filipino schools, English is taught as early as 1st grade exposing students to vocabulary, by 4th grade students are being taught all subjects(apart from Filipino) in primarily, English. The curricula distributed by the department of education are written in English and teachers are expected to teach in only English (with the exception of Filipino as a subject.)

Molly McCormick is a US Peace Corps Volunteer serving a two year contract in the Philippines and is placed at MinSCAT Calapan City Campus. The primarily mission of the US Peace Corps education is to promote English competency and literacy. As the international teacher taking part in this study, Molly was fulfilling one of the elements to that mission. Having a background in education, Molly graduated from Central Michigan University with a Bachelor degree in Special Education for students with Cognitive Impairment and an emphasis in Child Development. She also taught for 5 years in a public charter school in Michigan prior to her experience teaching in the Philippines. Due to her background, courses were selected to match both education and psychology subjects. Meanwhile, the six (6) Filipino teachers who worked with Miss McCormick are Miss Nimfha Maligaya, Miss Rowena Esteban, Mrs. Emelinda Rivera, Dr. Vilma Manansala, Miss Alice Ramos and the proponent of the study, Dr. Leonicia S. Marquinez.

“Students are encouraged to use the types of communicative strategies as means of sharing information which are adopted to achieve a particular social, political, psychological, or linguistic purpose. One of these types is turn-taking Communicative Strategy that requires that each speaker speaks only when it is his/her turn during an interaction [5].

Aside from being exposed to a more interesting way of learning the English language, students will have a greater chance to appreciate more the Filipino cultural heritage and at the same time, understand other nation’s culture and belief.

“Teachers must instruct their students on the cultural background of language usage. Comparison was made in the grades of students in an internationally co- teaching class with students taking the same class in a traditional setting in addition to grades, the research was focused on randomly select students who take a pre and post-test of English proficiency. This was to analyze and evaluate their English fluency and observe any growth during the course in an objectively quantifiable way.

Reflecting on the questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups, the study revealed the students perceptions and attitude on the teaching and learning environment, is an important component to students’ learning, this helped to draw conclusions when compared to the quantifiable data collected. The goal is to obtain data to show the impact of using both a native English speaker and a native Filipino teacher in a tertiary classroom, working together, supporting each other, in spite of the differences in personality, language and culture shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Summarized mean perception of students before and after integration of co- international teaching strategy

Figure 1. Summarized mean perception of students before and after integration of co- international teaching strategy

3. Results and Discussion

The study found out that the international co-teaching affects the communication skills of the students. As shown in Table 1, it is evidently that there is a significant difference between the students’ perceptions before and after the use of international co-teaching strategies. Results show that after the adaptation of alternative strategy, there is an increase in mean perception of the students in comprehending the lessons taught in English language (4.9) and that students are more comfortable expressing themselves in English (4.55). Consequently, students perceived that they learn more (4.3) using the international co- teaching strategies than that of traditional method (4.05) because of effective communication and delivery of lesson by the teacher. Furthermore, there is a high extent (3.78) of perception by the respondents that it is more convenient having two teachers in the classroom. It is also remarkable that the mean perception of the respondents about talking with international co- teacher and Filipino teacher on issues affecting their learning is the same, an indication that both teachers are preferred to have an equal role in fulfilling the needed guidance of the students. This study also revealed that students will be more interested to attend class if there are two teachers in the classroom, one being a Filipino and one being international teacher (4.7). This is because they feel like they learn more inside a co-international teaching classroom.

Tabular and graphical representations in the succeeding pages show the summarized mean perception of students on enhancement college students’ communication skills through international co- teaching.

Tables below show that based on the data gathered, there is a significant difference on the extent of perception by the students before and after implementation of international co- teaching strategy with a degree of freedom 9 in both 1% and 5% level of significance.

Table 2. Test of difference between the perception of students before and after integration of co- international teaching strategy in 5 % level of significance

Table 3. Test of difference between the perception of students before and after integration of co- international teaching strategy in 1 % level of significance

As presented in Table 2 and Table 3 on the previous page, with the degree of freedom 9, the computed t- value (8.910886607) is higher than the critical value using 5% level of significance (2.262157163) and 1% level of significance (3.249835542).

Therefore, there is a significant difference between the mean perception of students before and after the integration of international co- teaching strategy.

Qualitatively, the students were asked about their perception on the extent of effectivity of the alternative teaching strategy. The data are presented according to the sequence of the open- ended questions asked during the interview.

Reaction on the use of international co- teaching strategy.

“For me it’s okay whether my teacher was Filipino or foreign as long as when they are teaching the student will learn and gain an idea to thing that they talk about.”

“Having an international teacher such as Miss Molly made out learning more interesting and enjoyable. I found it as an innovative way of enhancing Filipino students English speaking and writing skills.”

“I prefer intensive (longer time, in-depth discussion, more activities) classes w/ the international teacher.”

“Thank you Miss Molly! Thank you for being patient and understanding to us. Thank you for making our classes more fun. God Bless!”

“I love every single teacher regardless of the nationality, as long as they make me learn and make me love the profession more. I have really high regards on teachers for we not only share a common field, but rather we share the same heart.”

“It depends upon the teacher and students communication/relationship. Teaching w/ the heart and listening w/ applying.”

“I feel more comfortable within Ma’am Moley’s class. I can understand her because she teacher every single piece of the lesson in funny but in easy ways”

“Ms Molly is a great instructor.”

“I want to gain more knowledge to lesson that we tackled specially to “Disabilities”.”

“Having a international teacher is a privelage to us. Makes us feel more professionals. It’s an honor having an international teacher. Better than Filipino teachers.”

“I feel comfortable talking about issues with the same teacher.”

“We are so glad in having an international teacher like her.:)”

“It’s more fun to talk or having a chit-chat on a teacher.”

4. Conclusion

Based on the thorough analysis in the preliminary interviews and observations about the international co-teaching conducted in MinSCAT, Calapan City, the said teaching practice is beneficial to both students and the teachers. Discussion of results in the previous section shows that there a significant difference exists in the perception of the students before and after the integration of the alternative strategy posted by this study. With this, it is evident that the communication skills of the students have improved. As a result, more students have developed a higher interest on learning, thus improving their grades and attitudes toward learning. There is also a positive result on the way the student interacts and socialized with each other.

Furthermore, the attitude of students towards learning English as their second language has a created a more positive impact because of the presence of the two instructors coming from different backgrounds, yet, they share the same advocacy and commitment of educating the students and bringing out the best in them.

Aside from the things mentioned above, working hand in hand with another instructor creates a more positive environment because both instructors could have a chance to share with each other the best teaching method and strategies suited to the needs of the students. It was also observed that having two teachers in the same classroom, teaching the same students, motivates the students to participate in class discussions and activities.

In the case of having a teacher who is a native English speaker, students are encouraged to communicate in English, for them to be understood by their teacher. On the other hand, students feel more comfortable with the presence of a Filipino teacher who speaker English because aside from motivating the students to speak the language, they can easily relate with each other because they have similar culture. Thus, conducting co-teaching in the tertiary level classroom is an effective way to create a more positive teaching and learning environment.

5. Recommendations

Co-teaching between a native English speaker and non-native English speaker should be conducted in the tertiary level for a more affective teaching-learning environment. Moreover, through the preliminary research and study conducted by the researcher about co-teaching, this kind of endeavor can be achieved through proper orientation and training to the people who are involved in this approach, for instance, the both instructors who handle the same class. Lastly, proper guidelines and procedures about co-teaching should also be implemented for the welfare of the instructors and students; also, to have a more organized delivery of the said teaching approach.

References

[1]   | Bacharach, N., Heck, T. W., & Dahlberg, K. (2011). Co-Teaching In Higher Education. Journal of College Teaching & Learning (TLC), 5(3).
[2]   | SIL International. (n.d.). Retrieved December 15, 2017, from https://www.sil.org/.
[3]   | Purves, D., Augustine, G. J., Fitzpatrick, D., Hall, W. C., LaMantia, A. S., McNamara, J. O. & Williams, S. M. (2004). Neuroscience (3th ed.). Massachusetts U.S.A.: Sinauer Associates, Inc.
[4]   | Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and language. London: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
[5]   | Gorjian, B., & Habibi, P. (2015). The Effect of Conversation Strategies on the Classroom Interaction: The Case of Turn Taking. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Learning, 1(1), 14-23.