Action research cycle 2 Teaching and Learning Process throughout the Action Research Cycles

113 had no idea on what to say. He scratched his head and kept looking to the right and left. R FN 8.5 From the field note above, it is seen that Titus was one example of the less active students. Titus was, in fact, aware of his inferiority as it was written in one of his reflective journal: I feel like I haven’t done enough speaking practice because I haven’t been able to speak English yet. Translated, Q ST01-REFL 4.4 Throughout the learning process, his biggest hindrance was being able to formulate utterance spontaneously as he needed more time to think of the vocabulary first and process them into utterances. The same problem sometimes occurred also to some other students. In order to deal with this problem, the teachers usually appoint students with less contribution directly, which sometimes also did not work as it is reported in the field note. To respond to this problem, in other speaking opportunities, students were given some time to prepare themselves and formulate what to say before performing a speech, instead of asking them to do impromptu speech. In another speaking activity in lesson session 6, the students were to present their results voluntarily in front of the class after interviewing friends within the topic of “predictions on the future of technology”. The situation is portrayed in the following field note: Ms. Nora invited the students to share their interview results voluntarily. Some students volunteered themselves: Desta, Yosep, Satria, Ben, and Vino. Unfortunately, the time was not enough for everyone to speak R FN 9.18 The above field note reports the moment when some students who used to be passive volunteered themselves to speak up. Desta and Satria were two of the 114 bottom tier students who now were confident and brave enough to speak individually in front of the class. This voluntary speech was a big leap for them. The issue of inferiority and confidence was not only experienced by the less-competent students. It turned out that inferiority did not occur based on students’ competence. Amin, one of the middle tier students seemed not to talk a lot during whole-class discussions. When I clarified this during the interview session, here is Amin’s response: Because I don’t master enough vocabulary, I don’t have enough confidence to speak. Translated, P ST02-INT 22 Similarly, Ben, one of the top tier students frequently wrote about his incapability in speaking performance as well as group interactions in his reflective journal: I am not to dare to speak to everyone yet. Q ST03-REFL 4.4 I feel like I haven’t been able to help my classmates yet, because my English is still bad. Translated, Q ST03-REFL 5.4 Not yet. For this meeting, I feel like I was too quiet and I didn’t do a lot of interactions Translated, Q ST03-REFL 6.4 In fact, the sense of inferiority could lead to demotivation both in individual and collaborative learning process, among which was shown in students’ low participation during speaking practice activities. In addition to poor speaking practices, students’ demotivation led to their lack of participation in the process of collaborative learning. The following interview transcript depicts students’ reluctance to contribute in group works: I haven’t given enough assistance to my friends because first, when I thought that my friend ‘s sentence was incorrect, maybe he did not find it incorrect as well. So I did not dare to give them inputs on that. Translated, P ST09-INT 26 115 From the data above, it is understood that the student was reluctant to contribute to peer’s improvement because of his lack of confidence. He was not sure about his capability to correct his peer’s work. The fact that inferiority could be experienced by any students in any levels of competences made it necessary to raise all students’ confidence as well as belief in their own capability. Therefore, at the end of the last lesson session in cycle 2, I conducted a whole-class reflection session in the purpose of regaining as well as increasing students’ motivation. The session episode is portrayed in the following field note: In the last ten minutes, I invited the students to do another reflection since this was the end of cycle 2. I invited them to recall our goal and all of them still remembered it. I asked them reflective questions on what progress they had make. I showed th em a poem entitled “Be the Best of Whatever You Are” by Douglas Malloch. I encouraged them to be the best of whoever they were and not to worry about not being able to be as competent as others. The students were all attentive and hopefully, their willingness to develop improved. R FN 9.20 This effort was hopefully embraced by all students to appreciate their own capability, so that they could be confident with themselves. b Students’ awareness of different personal competences The second issue emerging in the collaborative learning dynamics was related to students’ higher awareness of their classmates’ competence. As the process went by, students knew better both their own and each other’s learning capability. This fact affected the participants in both positive and negative ways. One of the positive impacts was that the students were more reflective as they understood their own capability. The students who were aware that they lacked competence made more efforts to develop themselves. One of their efforts was 116 done through completing the vocabulary listing task, which was made as the project of this cycle see section B. 1. b. 1 Planning. This lesson episode is portrayed in the following observation field note: While waiting for all students to gather in the room, I went around to check their vocabulary project. Each of them had a unique way to list the new vocabulary. Desta wrote them on a tiny notebook with small letters. He said he liked to make it small since he could bring it everywhere in his pocket, so he could memorize the words anytime. Amin typed his word list tidily and printed it. He wrote the English words and their meanings in Greek. He said he did it to make him always remember the words from two foreign languages that he had learned. R FN 8.1 From this field note, it is understood that students were facilitated to learn according to their individual preferences. Students knew the best way to develop themselves and were willing to make an effort the best that they could. Realizing that they needed to develop their English competence, Titus and Amin testified how they study outside the class as one of their individual efforts to develop their English competence. It is depicted in the following interview transcripts: Yes. I usually discuss with friends outside the class. I read the tenses book. When I don’t understand, I ask Arka or Yosep. So they explain. Most of the time, Yosep can explain the difficult material. Translated, P ST01-INT 19 This interview transcript describes that Titus had the initiative to learn more from a friend whom he thought was more competent than him. It was impressive that Titus did not hesitate nor feel inferior to consult his peer for developing himself. Vino and Dony, in fact, performed similar efforts. These following transcripts present their answers to the question “What kind of efforts have you made outside the class to improve yourself more?”: PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 117 ...sometimes I read one book loudly in my room to push myself to speak. Just a simple book like “The Story of Bear”, for example. If I find new vocabulary, I underline them. Then when I don’t know how to pronounce particular words, I ask Br. Stefanus or Fr. Bayu. Then, I try to find out the meanings of the new words that I haven’t known the meanings by myself. Translated, P ST06-INT 13 Well... I practice speaking. I try to speak with friends especially on English day. Translated, P ST07-INT 26. Usually, I practice conversations with Br. Stefanus, because it feels more relaxed to talk to him. Translated, P ST07-INT 26. Those students had a remarkable initiative to make extra efforts outside the class to improve their English speaking competence. This indicated that they had performed independent learning, which made them autonomous learners. Despite this, the fact that they prefer to get assistance from seniors could indicate that some of the students had a kind of distrust of their classmates, which was also an issue in cycle 1 see section B. 1. 2 d Students’ collaborative attitude outside the classroom. This could probably happen because those students know their friends’ capability, so they did not trust that their friends were able to help them. Responding to this matter, I self-reflected on why this kept occurring. Then I decided to find out more from Arka, a student who always preferred to have his works checked by Br. Stefanus, his senior. In an informal consultation session on August 17 th holiday, I talked to Arka personally. The episode is depicted in the following field note: After we finished discussing the role play, I reminded them not to forget to do their homework on information-gap conversation, which they had to exchange with friends. As the discussion finished, Titus and Dony left, but Arka remained in this room. So I asked his opinion about the exchanging work activity. From Arka I understood that he preferred his work to be checked by seniors, just as what he used to do. He told me he simply wanted to be corrected by someone that he thought was capable enough to check his work. R FN 8b.5 118 It was understandable that some students might have wanted to consult with their seniors or anyone else from outside the class, who were considered more capable. After contemplation, it was realized that they should not be stopped from doing that action, since it was one of students’ individual efforts to develop themselves, which had to be respected. Therefore, as their teacher, I let them continue doing that as long as they still respect their friends in the context of their group’s collaborative learning environment. Further, it was evidenced that despite any students’ efforts to consult their seniors, they still kept the values of collaborative learning very well. From the classroom dynamics, it was found that students were still caring and collaborative with each other. Particularly, the higher competent students were more responsive and helpful to those less competent peers. The condition is depicted in the following observation field notes: ... During this vocabulary building activity, all students were attentive, except Titus. While other students were taking notes, he did not. Titus did not seem to focus on the lesson. Responding to this, the teacher asked him the English word for ‘kutub selatan’. Titus could not answer, even the answer was written on the board. Yosep, who sat across him kept blinking his eyes to Titus while pointing his finger to the board, trying to give a clue on the answer, which actually was written on the board. R FN 7.4 The students were divided into 4 groups, in which they had to pick their own partner... It was interesting to see that Arka came to Titus and Satria and volunteered to be one group with them. R FN 7.13 From the field notes above, it is depicted that the more capable students, Arka and Yosep had a high initiative to help less competent peers. Additionally, Arka’s behavior in the grouping activity really indicated that he was aware of the fact that his weaker friends needed a stronger partner like him. Thus, he volunteered 119 himself to collaborate with his less-competent peers. His willingness to volunteer himself, therefore, indicated that his sense of collaboration has grown stronger. After all, it was found out in three lesson sessions that whenever students were asked to determine their own group members, the group composition was always in mixed-competence. Here, it was indicated that the students were aware of their own capability as well as situation, and they knew how to deal with that situation positively. The mutual tolerance among students demonstrated that they had built emphatic understanding among each other, which was manifested in equal distribution of competence variance in spontaneous accidental grouping. The awareness of personal competence has led one of the students to notice that he was regularly put in a group of low competence students, which made him feel uncomfortable. An interview result with one of the bottom tier students revealed this discomfort. The following interview transcript portrays this student’s response toward the question “Which learning activity do you dislike most?”. Well... I don’t like when I have to do a task in a group with Titus and Desta. I hope that the three of us are put in separate groups, so we could get more assistance from more competent friends. I mean, yes, please change the group members. Translated, P ST09-INT 16 The information from this interview transcript signals that students did not feel comfortable being grouped with similar competence students. In fact, they felt discouraged. In addition, they found it difficult to develop when they study with the same low competent peers. Students’ disapproval on homogenous grouping might have been the expression of “more negative attitudes about themselves” Matavire, Mukavhi, Sana, 2012, p.284. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 120 Similarly, another student shared his aspiration regarding the need to group higher competent students with lower competence students, as presented in the following interview transcript: ... what I see is that when we are having a group discussion, some more capable friends need to be put in different groups. For example, Yosep, he is capable. So, he needs to be grouped with those who are less capable. P ST06-INT 18 After all, findings show that there were forms of rejection addressed to the homogeneous grouping strategy from both bottom tier and top tier students. These findings, thus, support the notion that grouping students based on ability brings more negative effects than positive effects Adodo Agbayewa, 2011; Matavire, et al. 2012. This is because ability grouping could potentially deprive students’ opportunity to learn better, particularly those who are placed in low ability level. Consequently, the students become “unmotivated to learn because of peer, personal, and teachers’ expectations of poor performance” Adodo Agbayewa, 2011, p.49. Embarking from this finding, the ability-based grouping strategy was discontinued starting from the third meeting of action research cycle 2. c Promotion of s tudents’ learning autonomy The previous reports on students’ inferiority as well as increasing awareness of learning have produced some indications. One of which showed that students were found to have become more aware of their individual learning progress as they could remark their learning habits and deficiencies, and they had attempted to overcome those. Here, the collaborative learning process was found to facilitate students to perform different ways of learning English, which implied 121 that they became more autonomous in learning. Collaborative learning strategies which were adopted throughout the action in cycle 2, were also intended to solve the problems by making students able to “take responsibility for their own learning” Bremner, 2008, p.8, so that they could achieve learning autonomy. In the purpose of building learning autonomy, at the beginning of each lesson session in cycle 2, the students were in vited to find out that day’s lesson objectives, in the hope that they could take control of their learning process in order that the course goal could be achieved. The following field note portrays a lesson episode concerning the respective matter. I invited the students to answer teaser questions on conditional sentences and expressions of agreementdisagreement based on the previous vocabulary building activity. This was done to help students figure out today’s objective. The first teaser question was “If it is raining, what will you do?”. There were three alternative answer that students could choose. Vino answered “I will go out and play in the rain.”, while Ben and Desta answered “I will go to sleep.” I asked the next question to Satria “Do you agree or not with Ben?” Then Satria said he did not agree. He said he would stay in the room and pray if it is raining. From this discussion, I asked the whole class what they were about to study. They then stated today’s objectives, pioneered by Yosep, which were to be able to use conditional sentence within the topic of natural phenomena and give responses using the expressions of agreementdisagreement. R FN 7.6 The process of involving students in formulating lesson objectives as described in the field note above was a form of building students’ sense of responsibility as well as encouraging them to take an active part in making decisions in their learning. When students had understood their own goal, it was expected that they were able to determine how to learn and how to achieve it as well. In the attempt to seek their contribution to determine their own learning, the students were given selections of activity with equal difficulty level, as a manifestation of differentiated instruction principle. They were given the freedom 122 to choose the task as well as topic they preferred in order to achieve the lesson objectives. Field notes taken from lesson session 4 captured the respective lesson episodes. Following the listening passage, the students were given different projects to accomplish in the attempt to achieve today’s objectives. Project A = Identifying conditional sentences. Project B = Identifying expressions of agreement disagreement. Project C = Giving responses using the expressions of agreementdisagreement. Each student was allowed to choose which project he would prefer to accomplish. They had to finish the project individually within 5 minutes. They were still allowed to consult their peers. R FN 7.9 The students were divided into 4 groups, in which they had to pick their own partner. Each group chose a debate notion and decided to support or go against the notion. Then, they prepared notions according to whether they were pro or con in their group... R FN 7.13 The first debate notion was “If there is an earthquake, people must go out of the buildings quickly”. Group 1 and group 2 chose this notion. Group 1: Yosep and Dony was the “Pro” group, while group 2, Ben, and Vino, was the “Con” group. Group 3 and 4 chose the second debate notion “If there is a lightning thunder, we must not use the telephone.” Group 3: Amin and Desta, was the “Pro”, meanwhile group 4: Arka, Titus and Satria was the “Con” group. R FN 7.14 The lesson episode above represents how the learners were involved in determining how to achieve the lesson objectives according to their interests as well as preferences. Letting them select their own preferred task and topic was, in fact, found to be an effective way to encourage students to take responsibility on the tasks that they had chosen themselves. By having a task according to individual preferences, they could be more motivated to accomplish it. Autonomy in language learning, according to Benson 2013, p.840, refers to “learning practices involving learners’ control over aspects of their learning or, more broadly, learning that takes place outside the conte xt of formal instruction.” A number of data entries supported this notion as well, especially those obtained from students’ interview, among which have been elaborated in the previous sub- 123 section see section B. 1. b . 2 b Students’ awareness of different personal competences. During the interview, some students testified their own or other peer’s efforts that represent autonomous learning attitudes. The interview transcripts below present their testimony: Maybe it depends on the assignment. If I can do it myself, then I’d better do it independently. But if I can’t do the assignment or it takes some people to do the task, then I prefer to do it collaboratively. For example the last role- play task or vocabulary task. I couldn’t do those by myself. Translated, P ST03-INT 29 Well... it’s like...errr...Titus. He studies. Sometimes he studies also and he has an English tense guidebook, then he actively asks Arka about new vocabulary. He also learns reading with Arka. These past 2 weeks, he started to be confident to express himself during the English day. For example with Father Sussanto. Something like that. Translated, P ST06- INT 14 From the interview transcript above, it is understood that the students performed independent learning outside the class. In this case, they could take control over their own learning even without teacher’s assistance. They could have an initiative in determining what, when, and how to learn using their individual capacity and responsible for their own learning. This indicated that some students had gained learning autonomy. However, there has only been small number of evidence showing autonomy in studen ts’ learning. Therefore, a lot more efforts need to be performed to grow s tudents’ learning autonomy in the upcoming action research cycle. 3 Reflecting The classroom dynamics of the cycle 2 of action research was colored with diverse findings. Some improvements were identified, yet some stagnation 124 remained. Reflecting as one of the most important elements in action research undertakings was performed in order to continually evaluate as well as improve the situations existing in mixed-competence English speaking class. This reflecting section, again, is divided into two parts. The first one elaborates the improvements achieved during cycle 2, while the second part discusses some points to improve in the upcoming cycle. a Students’ improvements during action research cycle 2 A number of improvements have been implicitly elaborated in the sub- section of acting and observing. The improvements took place in students’ both learning process and learning achievement. In terms of learning process, the first obvious improvement was the emergence of learning autonomy, as it has been discussed in the previous section see section B. 1. b. 2 c Promotion of students’ learning autonomy. Students’ autonomy in learning was seen through their personal willingness to keep up with other peers as well as develop themselves on their own ways. Some students like Arka, Vino and Dony loved to practice speaking outside the class and consult with seniors whenever they had difficulties. Some others enjoyed studying independently, just like Ben. All in all, different learning preferences are welcomed in mixed-competence environment as individual learner’s diversity is embraced towards learning success. The emergence of learning autonomy among students had made them able to give more contributions in the collaborative learning process. A finding from researcher’s field note depicts how autonomous learning attitude was demonstrated in an out-class group work in preparation for a role-play 125 performance. The respective field note script taken in an informal consultation session on August 17 th is presented as follows: The second group showed up. They were Ben, Satria, and Amin. They had a clear initial idea on the role-play story overview as they could explain the story concept well. Their role- play topic was “Magic book”. The flow of the story was clear and they had started writing their draft, although it was not complete yet. The three of them could explain well when I asked them one by one things related to the story flow. This could indicate that they built the story together so everyone had a good understanding of it. Then, I asked them to continue their good work since they did not have more questions to ask me about. R FN 8b.3 The outstanding progress of group 3 in role-play preparation indicated that they did excellent collaboration within the group. This was inseparable from their individual capacity of learning autonomously since the process was carried out without teacher’s assistance. Here, student’s autonomous learning had led to their group’s success. The second improvement was that some students who used to be passive and reserved became more contributive in collaborative learning process. One distinct example was experienced by Satria. As one of the bottom tier students, he was usually passive and receptive. However, in cycle 2, he made significant improvement as what he wrote in his reflective journal. I made improvements in terms of group discussions. I stated some ideas. I can already participate in group discussions and try to correct friends’ works Translated, Q ST09-REFL 6.3-4 Satrias reflection was in line with what Amin testified in the interview session. In the interview session with Amin, he was asked if any of his group mate in the role-play group was not contributive enough, and he said yes. The following transcript shows Amin’s further elaboration on his effort to help Satria become more contributive in his group dynamics. 126 ... An example is when we were working on the role-play dialog. When Satria was quiet, I started to tease him with some jokes. because if I didn’t, he would have remained quiet. Well, with a few jokes first, then he will involve himself in the discussion. He could eventually express his ideas. Translated, P ST02-INT 28 Both Satria and Amin demonstrated remarkable example of collaboration skills. They both support each other to gain mutual benefits in the attempt of achieving the same goal: being able to create a role-play dialog. Further, a number of findings indicate students’ various improvements in learning achievement, as it has also been presented in the acting and observing discussion part. It was obvious that both bottom and middle tier students made significant improvements in terms of speaking skills. The following field note describes the respective issue when students were performing a debate. The groups started to go on the debate round. All the students stated their arguments based on what was prepared in their notes. However, some students like Amin, Desta and Arka were willing to deliver arguments beyond what was written in their notes. During the debate, Amin and Desta seemed to be the toughest competitors who continually state their argument to win the debate. They kept building new arguments whenever the opposing group conveyed rebuttal. However, they had to stop because the time was up. R FN 7.16 In a debate competition to practice making arguments and expressing agreement or disagreement, Amin and Desta were successful in conveying their arguments as well as rebutting opponents’ statements without relying much on the notes they had prepared. Here, their impromptu speaking skill had developed. In another activity in the form of role-play, again, a bottom tier student showed significant improvement. Satria, who used to be a quiet and reserved student, performed laudably in a role-play activity, as described in the following field note. 127 Group 2, Ben, Satria, and Amin showed great entertaining performance in the topic of “Magic book” technology. Their acting was also impressive. Outstanding teamwork, everyone had balanced portion of talking. The language focuses required were well included in the dialogs. Satria’s performed all his dialogs without reading the script. He did not make frequent pauses as well in his speech... R FN 9.6 From the field note, it is depicted how Satria, who used to be a timid students had gained confidence in speaking as he could perform his dialogs smoothly without looking at the scripts. The success of group 2’s performance was inseparable from everyone’s contribution in a series of collaborative preparation. The outstanding speaking performance demonstrated by previously less competent students signaled that every student could excel in the task and learning environment that suits their preferences. Amin and Desta were good at building arguments in debates, while Satria was excellent at performing role-play. The extensive speaking activities did not only benefit the bottom and middle tier students. In fact, they also benefited the top tier students, as students like Arka, Yosep, and Vino usually excelled at delivering impromptu thoughts during the classroom and group discussions, as they were usually standing at the front line when no other students were willing to volunteer to speak in the discussion. Here, learning in differentiated instruction environment had benefited different students in different ways. Thus, the extensive variations of speaking activities were effective in developing students’ speaking proficiency as it could provide broader opportunities to the diverse needs of learners. 128 b Points to improve in the next cycle Based on the findings throughout the cycle 2 of action research, there were some reflection points that needed improvements. Firstly, responding to students’ inferiority in collaborative learning environment, there was a need to boost their self-esteem. Always giving students opportunities for prepared speeches instead of impromptu speeches could be one alternative to solve this problem. In addition, regularly putting students in mixed-competence group was the suitable alternative to solve this problem since lower competent students could get more assistance and therefore confidence when learning together with higher competent peers. This heterogeneous grouping strategy could also be the solution to improve the situation complained by students regarding their discomfort of being grouped with the same competence peers. Giving students the freedom to select their group partners was undertaken, as students had been aware of each other’s competence and they were always able to form well-balanced mixed-competence groups, which was noticeable in every free-grouping opportunity. The regularly changed seating arrangement was usually effective in helping students form their own group more flexibly. The homogeneous competence grouping strategy, on the other hand, had better be discontinued as it did no longer benefit the students. In fact, some students reported that homogenous competence grouping strategy deterred them from developing optimally. The second reflection point was related to the need of developing learners’ autonomy. It has been reported that the students gained learning autonomy throughout the two cycles, which was presumably impacted by studying in a 129 collaborative learning environment. As a response to this, there was a bigger necessity to help students become more autonomous in learning. This is because the action dealing with growing learning autonomy in the cycle was not optimal enough since there had not been major evidence of significant improvements shown in students’ autonomy. In fact, only a small number of students demonstrated autonomous learning, yet the others had not. This notion was supported by some interview results obtained throughout cycle 2. In one of the interviews, Ben, one of the top tier students, stated that he had difficulty in constructing long sentences, especially transferring his ideas into English sentences because he sometimes could not find appropriate translations after looking up in the dictionary. Then he was asked what efforts he had done to overcome that. The following transcript presents his answer: I usually find... other words to replace them. Well... asking for friend’s help... maybe I have never done that yet. Well I’m not sure about that. If I study without the teacher, I feel reluctant. Translated, P ST03-INT 23- 24 From the interview transcript above, it was understood that the student felt under motivated in learning independently. Also, he did not seem to try other ways to solve his personal problem related to studying English. This indicated that there still existed a problem hindering the student from taking an active part toward his own learning. In other words, this problem hampered him from achieving autonomous learning. Similar to Ben, Amin also experienced a problem that retarded his learning autonomy, as captured in these following interview transcripts: Well... take-home assignments are not annoying, but there is laziness inside me. giggles. Well probably... something like that. I ran out of 130 time, so I did the reflection late at night as well. Translated, P ST02-INT 15-16 The interview transcript implies that time limitation was an obstacle which made Amin dislike take-home assignments besides the fact that he was also demotivated. As a reflection from this finding, it was necessary to provide students with take home tasks that raised students’ motivation and did not consume too much time, yet still effective in promoting learners’ autonomous and collaborative learning, as well as improving their English proficiency.

c. Action research cycle 3

This section discusses the dynamics of the last cycle of action research. Therefore, important findings related to the conduct of action research cycle 3, which was conducted in four lesson meetings are elaborated here. The discussion is divided into three parts, namely planning, acting observing, and reflecting. 1 Planning The planning stage of cycle 3 was based on the findings obtained during the second cycle of action research. There were same strategies maintained in the third cycle ’s action, but new strategies were also included in order to enhance effectiveness in solving the TL problems in the mixed-competence English speaking class. The first strategy maintained in cycle 3 was differentiation of individual tasks that were still based on open-ended principles. This strategy was still employed since positive results were continually obtained through this strategy implementation, which was evidenced in the following students’ 131 reflective journals responding to the reflective question “Were you provided with sufficient activitiesexercises that suit your ability?”: I guess the activities and forms of exercises are suitable with my ability. Translated, Q ST01-REFL 6.2 Yes, you were provided with sufficient to me about natural phenomena. Q ST02-REFL 4.2 Yes. It makes me have a spirit to study hard. Q ST05-REFL 4.2 The reflection journals above were written by three students from the three different competence levels. Those journal transcripts suggest that the students agreed that the tiered activities and tasks given suited their competence well. The lower competence students found that the activities were sufficiently suitable with their competence, while the higher competence student’s testimony implied that the tasks were challenging enough since they motivated him to study hard. Therefore, in the upcoming cycle, the tasks as well as activities remained tiered according to students’ competences. Supports and scaffoldings given through the activities were also adjusted with students’ individual needs. The second strategy remained to be implemented was flexible grouping. Still keeping the differentiated instruction and collaborative learning principles, the flexible grouping approach was employed through giving students freedom to select their own group mates. This was done because in every implementation of this strategy, the students could always form heterogeneous groups as they had grown empathic understanding on each other’s capability and competence. In relation to this, the homogeneous competence grouping strategy was no longer employed in order that students could be exposed to equal learning opportunity. 132 Throughout cycle 2, various improvements were observed during the implementation of extensive speaking activities in the forms of group and class discussions, informal presentations, debate, and role-play. Therefore, varieties of speaking activities remained provided in cycle 3 in order to facilitate different learners’ preferences. Those were role play, interviews, presentations, discussions, and speech delivery. At times, students were also given the opportunity to select preferable topics for speaking that could accommodate their interests. These series of speaking opportunities were wrapped in fun, non-stressful learning atmosphere. This action research was aimed to foster democracy and emancipation among all participants. Therefore, any aspirations coming from the students were welcomed through a number of ways, i.e. formal interview session, students’ reflective journals, and aspiration box where students could write whatever thoughts or ideas they had in mind that could improve their learning. The aspirations that students expressed through both interview sessions and reflective journals showed that most of them wanted to be taught how to construct grammatically correct sentences in English. In other words, there were a number of requests for a grammar- focused lesson. Students’ aspirations are presented in the following data scripts, in which their responses to the question “What are your expectations for the upcoming classes?” were recorded. How to construct sentences. My sentences are still not well-constructed. Translated, P ST02-INT 34 I hope that the upcoming classes provide more practices to construct words into good utterances. Translated, Q ST06-REFL 5.5 133 Besides those direct aspirations, a student also expressed that he still found it difficult to construct grammatical sentences as depicted in the following interview transcript: I think I have a ... I difficult to translate from Indonesian to English. For example err... for example... about ‘yang’ or... mmm... for example when I have to construct sentences… well, when in bahasa Indonesia there are unusual words. P ST03-INT 16, 19 Although he could not express his difficulty clearly, it was understood that this student had difficulty in transferring Indonesian sentences in his mind into the proper English structure. These overall transcripts indicated that students wanted and needed an intensive grammar training. Thus, an extra lesson focusing on basic English grammar was provided. Initially, cycle 3 was going to cover three lesson sessions. However, due to the need to respond the high demand of intensive grammar lesson, an extra session concentrating on grammar and sentence structure training was conducted, so there was a schedule revision in cycle 3 timeline: it covered four meetings. To prepare for this meeting, the students were given a differentiated grammar exercise with different grammar focus for each student, the difficulty level of which was adjusted to each stu dent’s competence level. This task was given as the manifestation of students ’ agreement on a new individual project of cycle 3 in a meeting before. The process of agreeing this is captured in the following field note taken at the end of the progress test 2 meeting: Every student had finished doing the test. So, I gathered them back in the classroom. I announced that two cycles had already passed and there was one cycle remaining. I asked their opinion on how to optimize themselves within one remaining cycle. Since nobody stated an idea, I proposed a different individual project for them. I explained that within the limited time, there was still so much to comprehend, so they needed to prepare 134 themselves for the new material before the lesson. I offered a new project for cycle 3, which required them to do some take-home tasks related to the upcoming topic and materials. I asked if they agreed with this project, and they said yes. So, I distributed a take-home task within the topic of grammar. R FN 10.11 This newly-proposed individual take-home project for cycle 3 was applied as a response to the need for fostering learning autonomy in every student. This differentiated take-home project was expected to give the students more stimulation to study independently outside the classroom in order to prepare for the upcoming class. Therefore, the project was always related to the upcoming topic and material, the purpose of which was to help students prepare at home and be familiar with the topic before the class started. In performing the cycle 3 project, each one of the students was given a different task on a small unit of material, aiming to make them communicate with each other to comprehend the whole material unit. It was expected that by doing a small part of material, the students could try to understand the whole material unit through peer knowledge- exchanging. This was like giving each student a piece of puzzle, so that they would assemble it together into a whole piece of picture. This project was therefore used as a medium to also strengthen the collaborative learning since students could learn from each other during completing the project. In order to understand deeper students’ learning attitudes, the students’ reflection journal for cycle 3 was modified see Appendix L, so that it could accommodate the researcher in observ ing the improvement of students’ learning autonomy in relation to their contribution in the collaborative learning environment. In addition, the new version of reflective journal made it possible to dig more in-depth information from the students although there were no more