Final Project

*This project was originally designed for use in ENS 5503, an English course for international graduate students, as an academically oriented project for investigating speech behaviors. This is a course which has two native speaking undergraduate assistants who engage in group work with the students.  It is designed as a qualitative study of speech behavior aimed at  improving students' skills of observation and critical analysis to help enable them to reformulate their own behaviors.  Students are encouraged to work in pairs using each step to guide their inquiry and produce a written report and presentation.  An example of one group's work is provided as an example.
 
 

What?
This project will be an investigation into real life speech using qualitative research methods.  This includes predicting, planning, data collecting, analyzing, and applying your findings.

How?
You will be given guidelines on using qualitative methods to investigate speech behavior ad guided through the process, step-by-step.

When?
You will conduct your investigation over this week and next week.  You will present your findings and turn in a written account at the beginning of the third week.

Where?
You will be expected you use your own time in addition to class time.  Investigation will require activity both inside and outside the classroom.

Who?
You will collaborate in teams of two.  Data can be collected from friends, coworkers, or strangers. You are encouraged to correspond with and check you ideas with me, the native speaking assistants, each other, and anyone else you like during all parts of your investigation.

Why?
At your level of study, it is important to develop autonomy.  That is, the ability to identify and answer your own questions.  You need more than to simply receive more information about spoken English, you need to actively experience these process and from them learn to reformulate your own behaviors.

*Don't take your ability to generate new knowledge lightly.  You will be surprised at what you will uncover.

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What you will investigate is up to you and your partner.  I suggest you base your decision on your interest or need, the availability of information, and the time involved (only two weeks). You can choose from several different areas such as:

Aspects of interaction we've covered in class

    clarification, active listening, turn taking, disagreeing, persuasion, apologizing, refusing

Functions tested on the SPEAK test

    giving directions, making suggestions, giving advice, telling a story, persuasion,
    explaining a concept

Situations in the world around you

    getting information, making a complaint, returning a purchase, buying a car

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Qualitative research may be different than what you're used to.  You do not need to form a hypothesis, design an experiment, and test it.  Rather you form a stance and investigate it, describe your investigation, and analyze what you find.  Though it does not require the same rigor as quantitative research, it does require validity in its results.  This is best achieved through 1) using multiple data sources such as observations, interviews, and written resources and comparing them and 2) constant checking and rechecking of your hypotheses as they emerge.  For now, you and your partner need to decide:

• What aspect of the speech behavior you have chosen do you want to investigate.
• What kind of data you may want to collect, where you can collect it, from whom and how.

For more details on how to investigate, see Methods of Investigation.

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By now, you should have a good amount of data collected and began to form some good ideas about it.  At this point, I want you and your partner to check your ideas with me and the native speaking assistants in this class and get some feedback.  Some questions you may want to address are:

• Are you finding what you want?  Can you improve your data collection by asking different questions, asking different people, or trying a different location?
• How can you begin to categorize your findings? For example: Are there gender based differences?  Are the types of responses following certain grammatical patterns or steps?  Do these categories give you any ideas about what to focus the rest of your investigation on?
• What ideas are you forming?  What do the native speaker feel about the accuracy or validity of these ideas?

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When you write up your project, use the following format.  Each section only needs to be one or two paragraphs long and should answer the applicable questions for that section. Don't be shy in asserting what you think you've found.

Background

• Why is this speech behavior important and to whom?
• What is already known about it?  (literature review)
• What will this paper tell the reader? (preview)

• How did you conduct your investigation?
• Why did you choose this method?  What did you think it would help you find?
• Who were your participants and where did you collect data from them?

• Here, provide a few representative examples of the data you collected.
• Include some context to help the reader understand the situation and why it's important to your study. (i.e. What does it show?)

• What do you believe you've found?
• Why do you think it's important and what makes you think that?

• Based on your findings, what should other learners and teachers do?  You can include 1) action learners should take 2) behaviors learners should adopt 3) aspects of this speech behavior learners or teachers should be aware of or 4) suggestions for ways to approach learning or teaching this behavior.

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