DEMOCRATIC AND POPULAR REPUBLIC OF ALGERIA MINISTERY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH MOHAMED KHEIDHAR UNIVERSITY – BISKRA- FACULTY OF LETTERS AND HUMAN SCIENCES DEPARTEMNT OF ENGLISH IMRPROVING STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN AMERICAN CIVILIZATION COURSE THROUGH THE USE OF CULTURE-BASED LITERARY TEXTS: AN EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH THE CASE OF SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, UNIVERSITY OF BATNA THESIS PRESENTED IN PARTIAL REQUIREMENT FOR A MAGISTER DEGREE IN LANGUAGE AND CIVILIZATION PRESENTED BY SUPERVISOR HOUDA BOUHIDEL DR. HACHEMI ABOUBOU 2004/2005 DDDDEEEEDDDDIIIICCCCAAAATTTTIIIIOOOONNNN TTTToooo mmmmyyyy ssssttttuuuuddddeeeennnnttttssss TTTToooo mmmmyyyy ffffaaaammmmiiiillllyyyy TTTToooo mmmmyyyy tttteeeeaaaacccchhhheeeerrrr MMMMrrrr.... BBBBeeeecccchhhhaaaarrrr TTTToooo mmmmyyyy ccccoooolllllllleeeeaaaagggguuuueeeessss iiiinnnn BBBBiiiisssskkkkrrrraaaa AKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many are to be counted, but just One is to start with. If there is someone whose help I should acknowledge first, it would be God, the One and Almighty. Yet, thanking God requires a similar gratitude to His people. Therefore, I should acknowledge the fact that many people have been also so kind and so keen that they will dwell in my memory for their precious help and their kindness. First of these are my dearest parents. They were the king and the queen who ruled over the heart and have sustained the efforts of the mind to keep my person standing all along the way. Next to my parents is my supervisor Dr. H. Aboubou. He was really a second spiritual father and also one of my best teachers whose pieces of advice have been echoing in my ears all the time, and whose continuous help can never be forgotten. Thus, all the adjectives cannot describe his kindness and all the languages cannot translate the deep gratitude I owe him. A similar gratitude goes to the members of the jury who have accepted to read my work and given their time and effort for a fair evaluation. I am also grateful to many other people, such as my teacher Mr. Belhaddad, my teacher at Biskra University Mr. Rehal whose insightful remarks and pieces of advice cannot be described in few words, my dear friend Lynda and my sister’s husband Farid and not to forget my dear students at Batna and Biskra universities, who were truly the friends in need. Finally, there is a special person to be stated in this last passage, not because she has escaped attention or she is the last to be stated but, because the words have betrayed me and cannot find the adequate expression. Yet, I shall simply say to Hassina that no one knows what you mean to me or what I owe to you. 9 Research Methodology RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Introduction Unless research is conducted scientifically, it is unlikely that the researcher, who is investigating a problem, would find answers to his questions or settle the phenomenon under investigation intellectually, far from any emotional or intuitive statements. Using a scientific approach gives research a shape that defines clearly the necessary steps the researcher should follow, to anchor his problem safely on the shores of science. The investigator puts in clear terms the problem for investigation in a hypothesis; then, he starts collecting the necessary data using the appropriate method. After that, the collected data are submitted to analysis and interpretation adopting the appropriate tools and techniques. Finally, on the basis of what has been collected and analyzed, the researcher is supposed to reach certain conclusions, which would support his pre-set hypothesis or simply reject it (Billy and George, 1971). I- The choice of method There exist different methods in research, and only the problem under investigation can determine the method to be employed. In the field of education, unlike other fields, speculating about human issues is not an easy task that lends itself to the exactitude and explicitness required in science. As we attempt in our work to lay ground for the held assumption that introducing texts literary in the American civilization course would raise students’ achievement and understanding of the target culture in learning English as a foreign language. Therefore, we think that the experimental design would fit best the outlined objectives. (Billy and George, 1971). 10 Research Methodology I-1 The experimental method The experimental method is believed to suit our research, since it permits a close examination of the effects that literary texts may have on the students’ cultural awareness in learning English as a foreign language. Experimental research has gained an immense importance as “ many problems in education are best investigated by means of experimental research.” (Billy and George, 1971: p. 62). The condition being evaluated is known as the “independent variable” and the criterion used to evaluate this condition is the “dependent variable”. Therefore, the independent viable in the problem we attempt to investigate in this work would be the literary texts to be used in the course of the experiment, whereas the dependent variable would be the students’ understanding and awareness of the target culture. If the experiment is well conducted, the researcher is allowed to attribute any change in the dependent variable to the independent variable; yet, other factors than the independent variable may interfere in the course of the experiment and be a cause to the change observed dependent variable. So, to assume the above would be an oversimplification that may ruin the researcher’s efforts to reach objective and convincing conclusions (Billy and George, 1971). To guarantee the validity of the obtained results using an experimental method, the appropriate experimental design has to be adopted I-1-1 Experimental design The experimental design we believe it to enable us conclude that any difference is due to the independent variable and not to other extraneous variables, is the Pretest- Post test Control Group Design. The subjects who were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups are administered a pretest to evaluate their achievement level before 11 Research Methodology the experiment and a posttest following the experiment. The scores gained from the pretest to the posttest are computed and the t-test is used to test the significance of difference between the gain scores means. I-2 Strengths and weaknesses of the experimental method Being able to determine the relationship between the use of literary texts and the students’ understanding and awareness of the target culture in teaching English as a foreign language, would give credit to the experimental method. Demonstrating such a link between the two variables would shed light on further important issues. For instance, the significance that reading has acquired as a bridge leading to cultural literacy. Moreover, the experimental design permits to treat quantitative data, which if followed systematically, would allow for future generalization and open new ways for making use of literary texts, in teaching English as a foreign language, as manifestations of the target culture and new tools for achieving a better understanding and awareness of the target people’ attitudes, beliefs and values. Yet the experimental method has also its drawbacks. The major drawback of the experimental design is the difficulty to exclude all the extraneous variables, which, if not controlled or neutralized to the maximum, are to bring a bias to the work. Such factors can be classified under two major categories. First, variables related to the subjects on whom the experiment will be conducted. Subjects’ attitudes in the course of the experiment may be negative in the sense that their prior- knowledge that they are part of an investigation may cause a change in their behavior and this would ultimately be responsible on the change witnessed in the dependent variable rather than the independent variable itself. Another type of variables, which may be responsible for the shortcomings of the experimental method, is the whole context where the subjects are under experiment. This may range from the researcher’s biased behavior to the kind of tasks. The researcher may 12 Research Methodology unintentionally attribute any observed change to the independent variable, as he desires to prove that. Or he may double his efforts with the new tasks he uses in the experiment, which may lead to the expected change. However, an appropriate selection of the sample and an adequate use of data gathering material in addition to a systematic analysis and interpretation of the obtained results, would reduce the negative influence of such extraneous variables and make the experimental design valid and reliable to the work. II- The participants II-1 The population The population representing our study is second year students of the Department of English at the University of Batna. Choice had fallen on thirty students, representing ten percent of the whole population to make the sample of our study. On what basis the subjects were selected and on what grounds can we assume that the sample can be representative of the whole population will be examined with more details. II-2 The sample Working with the whole population of second year students whose number is around three hundred, sounds to be a difficult task, as it requires, more efforts, material resources and time. For these reasons, in research it is possible to work with a sample and be able to generalize the findings later on the rest of the population. Yet to make this condition possible in research, the appropriate sampling techniques must be followed. A sample in research methodology refers to “ a selected finite set of persons, objects or things that an investigator employs in this study.”(Billy and George, 1971: p. 107). Once the researcher has finished his study on a precise sample, he assumes that 13 Research Methodology repeating the same experiment with another sample drawn randomly from the same population would bring the same results. Therefore, random sampling is the basic technique to obtain a representative sample. As we aim to generalize the findings of this work on the whole population of second year students, we believe that random sampling would be the most adequate sampling technique to our work. A random sample can be obtained using different methods and as names of second year students are available on lists of an easy access in the administration, we have simply selected thirty names randomly to make the sample of our study. To assume that using literary texts would bring change and improve the subjects’ achievement in the civilization course and ultimately their understanding of the target culture, we need to work with two similar groups. Only one group will be taught using the literary texts, the other will be instructed in the traditional way. So that any observed change with the first group, can be attributed to the newly used technique and not to other factors. Therefore, the chosen sample will be further subdivided into two similar groups of fifteen students. The first group will make the experimental group with whom the literary texts will be used. And the second group will function as a control group, which will be taught using the traditional method. III- The Instruments The basic tools, which were employed to collect the necessary data, were: an attitude questionnaire administered to students and a rating scale to record the observed behavior of students in the course of the experiment. 14 Research Methodology III-1 The students’ questionnaire An attitude questionnaire was administered to a sample population of ten percent from second year students and it aims at collecting necessary data from students before starting the experiment. The data concerned their attitudes towards the civilization courses in general, American civilization with a particular focus, also, their attitudes and opinions about reading in general and reading literature in particular. The questionnaire is a thirty-one item questions divided into four sections. Section one It deals with students’ background information: their ages, gender and streaming. Section two It investigates students’ understanding of culture and civilization. How they value the civilization courses, but American civilization with a special focus. Moreover it tries to get their attitudes toward history and historical knowledge they always encounter in the civilization course. Section three It attempts to discover students’ opinions about reading in English as a foreign language, with a special focus on reading literature. Do they perceive the importance laying in such an experience or not. If they do not, what or who could be responsible on that. Section four It aims at getting students’ attitudes toward literature and the reading of literature. What are their preferences from the different literary genres. Information obtained from the questionnaire will make a useful reference to the planning of the reading sessions, as far as the choice of the texts and the kind of tasks and activities to be used along the readings are concerned.