Students’ Opinions of Participating in Classroom Activities

STUDENTS’ OPINIONS OF PARTICIPATING IN CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

Pınar A.WAHID 1**,   Canan AVAN 2***

PinarAwahid@gmail.com
cananavan89@gmail.com

    ABSTRACT:   The purpose of this study is to determine what students think about participating in classroom activities and to make students achieve better proficiency in the target language by classroom participation. Some students hesitate to participate because of some specific reasons. There are several points presented about how to foster students to be involved in participation. A good learning environment helps to improve learning outcomes and this makes students engaged in the classroom actively. Students’ opinions of classroom participation and their attitudes toward it are the main focus in the study. Also, encouragement and the learning environment have been affecting factors for students. The study was prepared to learn what students of ELT department think about classroom participation. In this study, descriptive method was used and the data was collected through questionnaire.

    Keywords: classroom activities, classroom participation, encouragement, learning environment

  1. INTRODUCTION

    Many researchers investigating students’ perceptions about language learning have made it clear that there are too many reasons that affect the students’ participations. The main purpose of this study is to tell the reader students' attitudes toward classroom activities and what they think about participating in certain activities. The current research aims to answer the following questions:
1. Why are some learners hesitant in participating in classroom activities?
2. How can learners be encouraged to participate in classroom activities?
3. Does the learning environment have an effect on participation?
    The first question indicates that students are hesitant in participating in classroom activities, because of some specific reasons. These are as follows: Fears and anxiety to foreign language,...