Schema Association Training: Empowering Students for Speaking Assessments

Abstract

This article describes Schema Association Training (SAT), an enrichment programme designed to develop students’ confidence and ability to sustain discussions during speaking assessments. The author observed that many students had difficulties introducing relevant ideas to prolong discussions during Spoken Interaction, an assessment component of the Singapore-Cambridge GCE O-Level English language oral communication exam. Notably, there appears to be a tendency for students to compartmentalize the content knowledge they possess, often resulting in missed opportunities to surface relevant ideas that could possibly add depth to discussions. This raises a need for classroom preparatory work to move towards encouraging learners to make meaningful connections between related topics. SAT was thus implemented to achieve this. During SAT, students first go through an individual Spoken Interaction exercise which is audio recorded. This audio recording is subsequently utilized during an individual reflective conversation with the teacher. Finally, students consolidate their learning via an online learning module. This article describes the steps involved in carrying out SAT, and also presents preliminary findings that suggest the potential benefits of SAT in helping learners elaborate better during speaking assessments.

Keywords

Mediated development dynamic assessment speaking assessment systemic theoretical instruction IELTS Speaking Test Spoken Interaction GCE O Level English Oral reflective conversation

Introduction

Many students find it stressful to sit through the Spoken Interaction assessment of the Singapore-Cambridge GCE O-Level¹ English language oral communication examination. Candidates in similar assessments such as the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) Speaking Test also face the same problem (Issitt, 2008). Not only are students in such situations expected to provide responses which are grammatically sound, they are also required to produce what Brown and Yule has described as an ‘extended transactional turn’, (1983: 27) a task which many find challenging, even daunting. The ability to elaborate relevantly and sufficiently is a significant determinant of one’s score in the IELTS Speaking Test (Seedhouse, 2019). Likewise, in the Spoken Interaction assessment of the Singapore-Cambridge GCE O-Level English language oral examination, candidates’ ability to introduce relevant ideas to sustain an interaction is also evaluated to determine a final score.

The Teaching Context

In preparing students to elaborate sufficiently in the Spoken Interaction assessment, English language teachers in secondary schools often engage students in what Issitt (2008) refers to as theoretical perspectives. For instance, preparation work often involves epistemological discussions of popular themes such as social media, environment or globalization, just to name a few. While this method might be helpful for situations when such topics appear during assessment, I have observed on many occasions that students, especially the weaker ones, fail to invoke their knowledge of these topics flexibly, even when the situation allows them to. To illustrate, these students may invoke what they know of environmental issues only when dealing with the topic of environment per se but fail to recognize that this knowledge is also relevant to topics like globalization. In other words, there appears to be a tendency for students to compartmentalize the knowledge they possess, and this suggests that preparation for the Spoken Interaction assessment needs to extend beyond that of mere ‘information-giving’ but move towards encouraging learners to make meaningful connections between topics. In Seedhouse’s (2019) analysis of IELTS Speaking Test responses, he found that high scoring responses tend to go beyond the topic that was asked, while still maintaining its relevance. For instance, when a high-scoring candidate was asked what qualifications or certificates he hoped to get, he went beyond the answer ‘I hope to get an MBA’ and, instead, further elaborated on his aspirations and what he needed to do to achieve his goal (Seedhouse, 2019). Seedhouse (2019) termed the initial response ‘topic-as-script’, while the latter expansion of the topic as ‘topic-as-action’. Therefore, by encouraging students to make meaningful connections across themes and topics during preparation, we are empowering them to develop ‘topic-as-action’ instead of merely responding with ‘topic-as-script’ type responses. To help learners develop their proficiency and confidence in this area, I piloted an enrichment programme for a small group of secondary school students which I term ‘Schema Association Training’ (SAT).

The Innovation – Schema Association Training

The design of Schema Association Training (SAT) took reference from Mediated Development (MD), an instructional approach discussed in Poehner and Infante (2017). In brief, MD is a combination of two strands of pedagogy grounded in Sociocultural theory research – dynamic assessment (DA) and systemic-theoretical instruction (STI). In SAT, DA manifests as one-to-one reflective conversations, while STI happens through an online learning module that teaches the concept of schema. Schema has traditionally been described as an abstract mental representation of networks of knowledge which are composed of information, ideas, phenomena and concepts gathered from one’s life experience (Anderson and Pearson, 1984). The teaching of schema as a concept in SAT is motivated by its potential to develop learners in the area of speaking, as demonstrated in the literature (Sharifian, 2008; Cui, 2015).

Implementation of SAT

This section describes how SAT was implemented with each of the four mid-ability, 15 year-old Secondary 3 students from the Express² stream who were from the same school. All 4 of them attained a grade of either B3 or B4 in their most recent school-based English language assessment. At home, they speak a mixture of Standard English, colloquial Singapore English and their Mother Tongue.³ They were recommended by their teachers and were asked if they would like to be involved in the enrichment.

Phase 1 – One-to-One Spoken Interaction Exercise

Phase 1 is a simulation of a spoken interaction oral assessment in the GCE O-Level English language oral communication exam. At the beginning of the exercise, I showed the student a photograph that depicted the National Day Parade, a significant event which commemorates Singapore’s independence since 1965. The student was given approximately 5 minutes to prepare for the spoken interaction exercise and did not know what conversation prompt he would be given. After the preparation, I asked the student to respond to the conversation prompt, ‘How do you feel about the National Day Parade?’ With permission from the students, the audio recording of the entire session was acquired and used later in Phase 2.

Phase 2 – One-to-One Reflective Conversation (Dynamic Assessment)

After Phase 1, I arranged to meet up with the students individually in school for a reflective conversation. The aim of this conversation was to help each student to expand and improve on the elaborations which were supplied in Phase 1. I first allowed the student some time to listen to a playback of his or her actual performance. Following this, I focussed on the student’s weak elaborations, and supplied hints to the student to encourage further elaboration. During one such session, I noticed Student A’s difficulty in providing a detailed response to the conversation prompt. I supplied the hint, ‘people’s honest feelings towards National Day’ in an attempt to activate his existing knowledge (content schema), and to encourage the use of this knowledge to build on his initial response. I allowed Student A some time to consider how this new hint could be integrated into his initial response, and this was how he responded:

Student A:

I still feel proud about the National Day Parade but I think that other people such as youths may feel that National Day is a bit of a hindrance to them, as during the National Day period, they are to stay back for co-curricular activities and practise for performances they are to put up. Some even have to perform in the parade themselves, which can be really difficult for them. So they might not like it as much as I do. I feel that youths today sometimes may take National Day for granted. They lose the meaning of National Day as what they care about during the National Day period is to take the nicest photos in their red and white outfits, and post them onto social media. I think what can be done about this is – youths should read up more about our national heritage and culture so that they would not take it for granted.

As seen above, Student A was able to express his view that ‘youths today sometimes may take National Day for granted,’ a point that adds a great deal of maturity and depth to his response. In this case, external stimuli (the hint supplied) has activated the student’s prior knowledge, thus leading to its application in the current situation. This newly acquired awareness of how the schema of ‘honest feelings’ may be related to this scenario is then integrated into the student’s existing mental schema, allowing him to better manage similar situations in the future (Cook, 1989). Thus, teachers may enable students to access their ‘honest feelings’ schema during reflective conversations to improve the quality of elaborations. To further encourage the use of this schema, the teacher could also provide the necessary scaffolding to help students convey their honest opinions in a tactful manner, at the same time achieve originality in their responses. For instance, students could be taught phrases like ‘while some might disagree with what I have to say, I personally feel. . .’ to hedge and mitigate the strength of assertions. Furthermore, this example also exemplifies how a teacher’s knowledge of his or her students is capable of informing the types of schema associations that can be encouraged during reflective conversations. Teachers may repeat the above process as many times as required to address areas that students could have elaborated better in. In Table 1 below, I suggest some examples of scaffolding questions that teachers could use during reflective conversations with their students.

Table 1:

Scaffolding Questions Teachers Can Use to Assist Students.

Intended Schema Activation	Example Scaffolding Questions (Hints)
Honest feelings Aim: Encourage students to share their unique viewpoints appropriately. Often, these are original and novel points that examiners would appreciate during assessment.	● How do you honestly feel about attending online lessons? ● I noticed you were trying to say something, but you stopped yourself rather abruptly. What was it you were intending to say? Phrases that can be taught to students to express potentially contentious viewpoints: ● While there might be people who may disagree, I personally feel. . . ● Even though generally I think that online learning is helpful, I have had negative experiences with. . . ● I might be wrong about this, but my honest opinion is that. . . There are a lot of different viewpoints on this matter and they are valid in their own ways. For me, I feel. . .
Knowledge that is unique to individual students Aim: Encourage students to tap in to knowledge they currently possess to provide further elaboration:	● I understand you are currently taking History lessons . If I were to provide this hint ‘factors accounting for Singapore’s success,’ do you think you’d be able to provide more details to explain why you feel proud about the National Day Parade ? ● Your football team did a great job during the recent national competitions – Do you think you can elaborate more on the importance of perseverance based on what you’ve learnt in football? ● I’m aware you’re the only child, and you shared that you’ve always wanted an elder sister. Recalling that experience, do you think you’d be able to further your discussion as to how companionship is important to the elderly?
Knowledge relating to specific content areas such as ○ Environment ○ Social Media ○ Technology ○ Culture ○ Globalization ○ History ○ . . . and many others Aim: Encourage students to make meaningful connections across topics or themes:	● The conversation prompt given to you was: ‘What are your thoughts on social media ?’ You gave some valid points, but here’s something for you to consider further – do you think social media can be used to manage environmental problems? Try elaborating further with this hint that I have just provided. ● Earlier you were sharing with me how globalization has made it easier for people to travel around the globe. What about the impact of globalization on the environment? Do you think you can elaborate a little more? ● You talked about how technology has made it more convenient for people to communicate. So how did people communicate in the past? Do you think you can use this hint to improve your elaboration? The conversation prompt given to you was: ‘Tell me more about some aspects of your culture that you find interesting’ and I noticed you had some difficulty elaborating your points. Consider the impact of globalization on culture – would you have anything to add on with this hint that I provided?

Phase 3 – Online Learning Module (Systemic Theoretical Instruction)

In Phase 3, students accessed an online learning module which introduced the concept of schema and explained how the concept would help them to elaborate better during the Spoken Interaction assessment. Students were also shown how the concept is relevant in their day-to-day lives, as seen below:

To facilitate students’ understanding of the concept, I included multiple illustrations of how relevant schemas may be evoked when dealing with different topics during the Spoken Interaction assessment. The following example shows how schema association may be applied to get around even difficult or unfamiliar topics during assessment.

Essentially, the online learning module is aimed at encouraging students to consider other relevant content that may be brought into a discussion, instead of merely giving ‘topic-as-script’ (Seedhouse, 2019) type of responses which students are overly prone to.

Possible Benefits of SAT

At the end of SAT, the four students were asked to complete an online task. The task required each of them to type out their responses to a conversation prompt pertaining to a topic that was not previously explored – ‘What is your opinion about snacking on insects?’ Their responses were then compared against four others who did not go through SAT to shed further light on the possible effects of the enrichment. All eight students were of similar language proficiency.

The general trend observed was that students who participated in SAT produced more detailed responses (mean length = 168 words) than their counterparts who did not go through SAT (mean length = 101 words). By means of a thematic analysis, the average number of content schemas activated by each of the students in the SAT group was 4.5, while only 2.5 content schemas were activated by each student who did not sit through SAT. For the sake of brevity, the following section details just two typical responses of each group.

Response of Student who Went through SAT

My opinion on the video is that it is certainly a unique form of street food. I felt a bit disgusted at the sight of the bugs being sold as food as they are usually not what one would expect to eat and is probably an acquired taste for braver foodies. [honest opinion] However, this is not the first at time I have been introduced to the idea of eating insects as I have recently read a news article citing UN Scientists saying that bugs are an excellent alternative form of protein and that consumption of insects may increase in the future. [general knowledge of insects] [related media] Replacing protein in our diets with bugs would also be good for the environment due to the cutting of resources needed to mass produce bugs for consumption instead of using it on raising farm animals for eating. [environment] Humans have been eating insects in the past and it is only with modernization and the rise in standard of living that makes the act seem disgusting. [history] I think my family and friends would also be grossed out by the thought of eating bugs as they are not used to the idea like myself. [honest opinion]

As shown above, the student who went through SAT activated a total of five content schemas when responding to the conversation prompt. Notably, the student considered insect-eating as part of global efforts towards creating a sustainable environment; a connection that could arguably be a result of SAT. In contrast, the following was from a student who did not go through SAT.

Response of Student Who Did Not Go through SAT:

I think that visiting such food markets is an interesting experience as it allows one to be able to step out of one’s comfort zone. [honest opinion] Eating insects is such an unusual thing to do, yet in some countries it is extremely common and is part of Everyday life. [general knowledge of insects / culture] As someone who is revolted at the thought of eating bugs, going to this food market will definitely be frightening, yet also intriguing. [honest opinion] It is important to understand and get to know more about different cultures and visiting these places is a good start. [general knowledge of insects / culture]

Compared to the earlier response, this student was only able to activate two content schemas and did not attempt to relate the topic of eating insects to broader themes like the impact on the environment. Overall, the length of this response was also significantly brief.

Overall, it appears the four students who went through SAT were generally able to produce more detailed responses and were more likely to make meaningful schema associations as compared to those who did not go through the SAT.

Reflection and Future Directions

In this article, I have shared an innovative practice that is aimed at helping students gain confidence and perform better in the Spoken Interaction assessment of the Singapore-Cambridge GCE O-Level English language oral communication exam.

The implementation of SAT could positively shape how preparation time allocated to candidates during the examination may be better utilized. Students who have gone through SAT are likely to make good use of time to make meaningful schema associations before the assessment. Not only does this increase the chances of them producing more detailed and mature responses, it also gives them a fighting chance to work around topics they might otherwise be unfamiliar with. Before undergoing SAT, it is questionable as to how productively the preparation time allocated would be utilized by students.

The evidence described remains anecdotal and further research is still needed to verify the efficacy of SAT given the small number of students involved. Modifications to SAT will also be necessary to suit the context and needs of different classes. For instance, teachers could consider carrying out the reflective conversations (Phase 2) in small group settings in the interest of time. Also, while SAT encourages students to make meaningful connections between various themes or topics, students may need reminders to maintain their focus on the conversation prompt to ensure the relevance of their response.

All in all, there are potential benefits to implementing SAT. That said, it is still equally important to expose students to a variety of theoretical perspectives and reading materials to boost their general knowledge. In the same vein, there needs to be continued focus on the grammaticality of responses. SAT is intended to complement these approaches, not replace them. I believe teachers preparing students for speaking assessments of a similar nature such as the IELTS Speaking Test would find SAT particularly useful given its potential to empower learners with a valuable skill to negotiate even difficult or unfamiliar topics.

Footnotes

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Gavin Liu

Notes

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