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摘 要

“翻转课堂”理念起源于19世纪中期，在2010年前后进入人们视野。翻转课堂作为一种新兴的教学模式，引起了全球教育界专家的兴趣。“翻转课堂”教学方法指的是重新调整课上和课下的时间安排——课前利用视频等教学软件完成新知识的学习，课上同老师同学一起完成学习研讨。这种方法旨在促使学生在自主学习的过程中更加专注和积极，并且更加深刻的理解知识；促使老师能提高学生在课堂中的参与度，同学生们一起讨论并帮助完成较难部分的知识理解，而不是单纯的教授。

近年来，利用该方法来实施教学，这是因为“翻转课堂”教学方法有如下几个鲜明的特点：一，颠倒传统教学过程；二，重新分配课堂时间；三，创新知识传授方式；四，转变师生角色。值得一提的是，在美国、澳大利亚等国家“翻转课堂”已投入到众多学校的教学中，且取得了积极的进展。因此，通过对外国反馈的有效信息进行分析，中国的教育专家对此也产生了浓厚的兴趣，逐步开展相关研究，对“翻转课堂”在二语习得视角下进行了可行性分析，强调外语教学引入“翻转课堂”能够有效促进语言输入、语言输出以及课堂互动，符合二语习得规律。

本研究以东南大学为例，研究翻转课堂在大学英语专业中应用情况，以及调查教师和学生对这一教学策略的态度和建议。因此，设计了两种类型的问卷调查问卷，分别向6名教师和102名学生发放。将收集的数据进行SPSSAU系统分析，从四个要素着手讨论翻转课堂在东南大学的应用情况，以及学生和老师对翻转课堂的满意度和倾向性。通过定量研究表明，这种方法已经在英语课上使用，但没有全面普及。根据调查数据显示，其主要原因在于传统教学方法的阻碍，学生学习能力有限，以及技术实施不完善这三个原因。而学生对翻转课堂的建议由于多种原因呈现出相反的两面，老师的建议则是多种多样的。另外作者在最后提出的一些建议，以进一步实践这一教学方法。最后，希望本文能为未来的翻译教学法研究提供帮助。

关键词：翻转课堂；应用研究；问卷调查；师生反馈

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i

English Abstract ii

Chinese Abstract iii

Table of Contents iv

List of Tables v

Chapter one Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the Study 1

1.2 Significance of the Study 2

1.3 Overview of the Thesis 3

Chapter Two Literature Review 4

2.1 The History of the “Flipped Classroom” 4

2.2 Different Elements of the “Flipped Classroom” 5

2.3 Current Conceptual and Empirical Studies on “Flipped Classroom” 7

Chapter Three Methods 10

3.1 Research Design 10

3.2 Instrument 10

3.3 Participants 11

3.4 Procedure 12

3.5 Data Collection and Analysis 12

Chapter Four Results 14

4.1 The Application of the Flipped-classroom Elements 14

4.1.1 The First Element: Reversing the Traditional Teaching Process 14

4.1.2 The Second Element: Re-allocating the Class Time 15

4.1.3 The Third Element: Innovating Teaching Strategies 15

4.1.4 The Forth Element: Reversing Roles of Teachers and Students 17

4.2 Attitudes on the Application of the “Flipped Classroom” 18

4.3 Problems and Solutions in the Application of the “Flipped Classroom” 19

4.3.1 Current Problems 19

4.3.2 Teachers’ and Students’ Suggestions towards the Application of the “Flipped Classroom” 21

4.4 Discussions and Implications 22

4.4.1 Strengthen the Creation of English Teaching Resources 22

4.4.2 Establish a Link with Several Learning Stage 23

Chapter Five Conclusion 24

6.1 Conclusion 24

6.2 Current Limitations 24

6.3 Future Research 25

References 26

Appendix Ⅰ 28

Appendix Ⅱ 29

List of Tables

Table 1 The Distribution of Students’ Years 11

Table 2 The GPA Distribution of Student Participants 11

Table 3 The Specific Questions in the Questionnaire Related to Each Research Question 13

Table 4 Use Frequency of Reversing the Traditional Teaching Process 14

Table 5 The Proportion of the Using Rate in Group Discussions and Qamp;A 15

Table 6 Research on How Often Students Use Any Kinds of Resources Given by Teachers and Research on How often Teachers Give out Any Kinds of Resources to Students 15

Table 7 Research on the Use Frequency of Traditional Resources Students Used before Class 16

Table 8 Research on the Use Frequency of Innovative Resources Students Used before Class 16

Table 9 Research on Students' View towards the Benefits gotten from the Reversing Roles of Teachers and Students 17

Table 10 The Students' Attitudes on Group Discussions and Qamp;A 18

Table 11 Students' Attitudes on the Application of the "Flipped Classroom" 18

Table 12 Teachers' Attitudes on the Application of the "Flipped Classroom" 19

Chapter one Introduction

“Flipped Classroom” is different from the traditional teaching strategy. The flipped-classroom model is a pedagogical approach that encourages students to do preview before class (e.g. via Internet, lecture videos), and then learn further knowledge via group discussions and tutorials in class. As “flipped classroom” is rarely applied wholesale, in this study, I examine how different elements of the “flipped classroom” are applied towards them. The ultimate goal is to work out an optimal model to improve the teaching of English as a second language in China.

1.1 Background of the Study

As one of the new models beyond traditional classroom teaching, the flipped classroom has attracted much attention in the global education community. “Flipping” the classroom is an instructional strategy in which students do homework in class and classwork at home, with the ultimate goal of spending more in-class time on problem-solving and individualized instruction (Maureen Lage, Glenn Platt, amp; Michael Treglia, 2000). It is also known as “Inverted Classroom”, referring to reallocation of the time spent in and out of class. In essence, it actually means to shift the decision-making power from teachers to students. Students can be more involved in learning and reach deeper understanding of the knowledge. Teachers can focus on more difficult knowledge rather than impart materials in general. This model is conducive to student’s self-learning and faculty member’s professional development.

The “flipped classroom” model is widely applied in the United States and Australia, and setting encouraging results. Given the positive outcomes of this model, educators from China begin to experiment in second language acquisition(SLA) classrooms.

In this study, I partition the “flipped classroom” into different elements and examine their application. I also incorporate stake holders (e.g. faculty members, students) attitudes and suggestions of improvement to work out a more optimal “adapted” model.

The concrete research questions are as follow.

1. What the current application of “flipped classroom” is in Southeast University?
2. How often do teachers reverse the traditional teaching process?
3. How do teachers re-allocate the class time and what do students think?
4. What innovative teaching strategies do teachers use in class?
5. What do students get from the reversing roles of teachers and students?
6. What is students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards the “flipped classroom” method?
7. What suggestions do students and teachers put forward?

1.2 Significance of the Study

As an English student at Southeast University, this study conducted a survey on the application of flipped-classroom method in my department and the attitudes and suggestions towards this teaching method.

Hopefully, this paper is projected to show great influence on three aspects.

First, this study shows the current situation existing in tertiary education in order to give some referential significance to teachers and educators. And this study is forecast to complement the research of “flipped classroom” in China.

Second, the participants spoke their minds during the survey. So this study conducts real feedbacks from teachers and students. It is like a link for them to know more about each other. Therefore, it is helpful for teachers to set an appropriate teaching method and for students to improve themselves. I hope that this special teaching method would close the distance between teachers and students and improve students’ participation in class activities.

Third, under the background of education reform, the “flipped classroom” method coincides with the aim of cultivating applied talents. Compared with traditional teaching strategies, the flipped-classroom method is catching the pace of educational trend, which should be the studied in China.

1.3 Overview of the Thesis

This thesis is divided into four parts. Following this introductory chapter, Chapter two is a literature review involving the history of, different elements of, and current research on “flipped classroom”. Chapter three details the survey methodology applied in this study. In Chapter four, I analyze what “flipped classroom” elements are applied, what are stake holders’ evaluation. In addition, I lay out teachers’ and students’ suggestions of improvement. In Chapter five, the concluding chapter, I write the summary of the current study as well as identify the limitations and possible areas of further research.

Chapter Two Literature Review

The Literature Review Chapter includes three parts. First, I trace the history of the development of the model. Second, I divide the model into four elements, detailing the meaning of each element. Third, I peruse the current literature, both theoretical and empirical, on “flipped classroom” to identify the gaps that warrant the current study.

2.1 The History of the “Flipped Classroom”

The idea of “flipped classroom” first appeared in literature aroud the mid-19^th century. At that time, General Sylvanus Thayer of the West Point of the United States asked his engineering students to study the core content of the classroom before the class (Ramsey Musallam, 2015); however, due to the lack of technical support and other reasons, this method did not have a significant impact.

It was in 1991, that the ideas became more familiar, Earlic Mazar (1991) adopted “Peer Instruction” method.

By 2000, American Maureen Lage, Glemm Platt and Michael Treglia (2000) introduced their use of the Internet and multimedia at the University of Miami to teach the "Fundamentals of Economics" course, so that students at home or in the laboratory can read some of the audio-teaching video, PowerPoint and other presentation materials presented to complete the independent knowledge of learning. In the same year, J. Wesley Baker put forward the model of “flipped classroom”: teachers use the network tools and curriculum management tools to present the teaching content and distribute it to students in the form of homework. The practice in the classroom is used by students to carry out in-depth active learning activities (Baker J W., 2000). At this point, a clear independent classroom concept – “Inverted Classroom” or “Classroom Flip” was presented.

“Flipped classroom” became widely accepted in around 2010. There are three people who had great impact on the development of the flipped classroom: Jon Bergmann (Tucker, Bill, 2012), Aaron Sams (Tucker, Bill, 2012), and Salman Khan (Salman Khan, 2014).

Jon Bergmann (2012) and Aaron Sams (2012), chemical teachers at the Forest Park High School in Colorado, USA, recorded the PowerPoint presentations into videos with real-time presentations and uploaded the videos into the web to help absent students to catch up with the lectures. Luckily, this teaching model had been widely welcomed by students, and yielded significant teaching results, and furthermore it had been vigorously promoted in various schools in the United States. Forest Park High School is also considered to be the United States primary and secondary schools (k-12) where the flipped classroom originates.

The third person, Salman Khan set up a non-profit "Khan Academy" website, with videos to explain the contents of different subjects, and answer the questions raised by users. In addition to video teaching, "Khan Academy" also provided online learning, self-assessment and progress tracking and other learning tools. Soon, the average monthly traffic on this site reached more than 200 million times.

2.2 Different Elements of the “Flipped Classroom”

As a new type of teaching model, the flipped classroom has realized the innovation of the traditional teaching structure. Compared with the traditional classroom, the flipped classroom has the following four interrelated elements that stand out, reversing the traditional teaching process, re-allocating the class time, innovating teaching strategies, and reversing roles of teachers and students.

1. Reversing the traditional teaching process: Reversing the traditional teaching process is the biggest feature of the flipped classroom. In traditional teaching process, teachers teach knowledge in the class, and students complete homework to reinforce and practice after class. The flipped classroom is just the opposite of the traditional classroom. Before the class, the teacher provides the learning resources based on teaching objectives for the students to study at home; in the class, students raise questions to the teacher. In addition, students can also discuss in groups to internalize the knowledge. Flipped-classroom method now has transformed into "self-learning before class and knowledge internalization in class" from the traditional "lectures in class and homework after class". All in all, the flipped classroom subverts the traditional teaching process and redefine the teaching process of the various parts.
2. Re-allocating the class time: The second feature of the flipped classroom is to reduce the teacher's teaching time in the classroom and leave the student more time to study. In the traditional classroom, teachers use most of the time to explain the knowledge, and students remain in a passive state. But in the flipped classroom, students spend more time interacting with classmates and teachers, for example, group discussions and Qamp;A.
3. Innovating teaching strategies: Short and pithy teaching videos are another important feature of the flipped classroom. Teaching videos are usually targeted for a particular theme, and the length is maintained within a few to ten minutes. Students can suspend and playback in the process of watching, which is conducive to students' autonomous learning. In addition, teachers may give out PPT first for students to preview the knowledge before class. Moreover, other kinds of conventional supplemental references (i.e. e-books, magazines, websites) are also used among teachers and students, unlike traditional classrooms that center on a few printed-out books.
4. Reversing roles of teachers and students: In the traditional classrooms, the teacher is the "protagonist" having the supreme authority in the traditional classroom. Teachers determine the contents, flow and teaching approaches in class with students left out in the decision-making process. In the flipped classroom, the power of decision considerably shifts from teachers to students. Students are involved in determining what and how knowledge should be taught, for instance, their questions serve as guidelines as to what should be the focus. Furthermore, in the “flipped classroom”, students’ role shifts from “passive recipients” to “active constructors”. Learning process will only be completed if they derive meaning pertaining to the learning materials through social interactions with either teachers or peers.

2.3 Current Conceptual and Empirical Studies on “Flipped Classroom”

Studies on conceptual research have been published in details. For instance, Karen Muldrow (2013) offered a valuable basic guide of designing a flipped classroom. As a guide book, it displays how flipped classroom works, how to flip, and how to get students involved in it. The most important part of her article is that she pointed out nine tools for teachers to use, which solve the tricky technological matter on the way of flipping the classroom. With the help of these tools, Muldrow (2013) stated that it is critical to engage the cooperation of students the to fulfill the achievement of the “flipped classroom”. But to some extent, Muldrow’s article is too general, because she didn’t show the specific theories of flipping classrooms.

However, Jacob Lowell Bishop and Dr. Matthew A Verleger (2013) did a more profound survey to make the theory clearer, which mainly contains a comprehensive survey of the “flipped classroom”, the current trend and the theoretical frameworks of it. One important figure describes that student-centered learning theories plus teacher-centered learning theories equals to the “flipped classroom”. And also they listed five learning styles and their connections with Venn diagram to discuss the “flipped classroom” theory.

Besides those articles generated in foreign countries, with the popularization of “flipped classroom” method in educational field, there are also many articles published in China discussing the feasibility of flipped-classroom method.

Some people hold objective opinion on the “flipped classroom”, a newly developed teaching method in foreign countries. For instance, Li Yun (2014) described a sinomania of flipped classroom and analyze its viability from an objective view that copying another teaching method is not reasonable. Li stated that “The wise choice for the heated ‘flipped classroom’ in China is to strengthen the systematic study of it, not implement with technique-oriented attitude and avoid ‘destrctive innovation’ behavior.” (Li Yun, 2014) So Li hopes the flipped-classroom method should be tested in a long run.

On the contrary, another group of people shows different attitudes. Zhu Zhiting, Guan Jueqi and Qiu Huixian (2015) studied the use of flipped classroom in China and concluded that it still had the potential to lead an education reform.

A large number of articles about the flipped empirical study have been found easily. The most common types of articles conducted on the flipped classroom explore cases with the surveys or interviews of students and teachers. For example, Adam Butt (2014) surveyed on a flipped classroom approach in the undergraduate actuarial program at the Australia Nation University. After the experiment during the whole semester, “over 75% of total respondents view the flipped classroom as being beneficial to their learning experience”. (Adam Butt, 2014) Butt concludes that students’ response to the flipped classroom is largely positive and recommends its usage in the future.

Similarly, Jennifer R. Winquist and Kieth A. Carlson (2014) also compares two groups of students, one taking traditional lecture course and the other taking flipped classroom. The results are obvious: “Over one year after taking the course (median = 20 months), students took a standardized test of their knowledge of statistics as well as nine other content areas in psychology. Students in the flipped course outperformed the students in the lecture course on the statistics portion of the test (d =.43), but not on non-statistics portions of the test.” (JR. Winquist, KA. Carlson, 2014, 1)

From what I have mentioned above, researches on the flipped classroom are abundant with articles conceptually and empirically. However, few, if any, discuss the current research of “flipped classroom” in China, because most of the foreign articles are related to their local schools or students. As an English-major student in China, I do not hesitate to claim that English, as a second language to us, plays an important role in our language learning. So we should focus more on the English teaching arena.

According to the research database, studies on EFL are limited. Only Marie Webb, Evelyn Doman, and Kerry Pusey (2015) made an experiment in China at university level. In this study, they investigate “the applicants of the flipped model with first-year English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in their classroom” in Macau, China. According to their research, they made conclusion that “though the findings from students and teachers indicate positive attitudes towards flipping the EFL classroom, several drawbacks were also noted.” (Marie Webb, Evelyn Doman, amp; Kerry Pusey, 79)

There is a plethora of literature building up the concept of the flipped classroom, whereas relatively spares literature – esp. empirical studies – concerning the application of the “flipped” model in real classroom setting. Given the complication involved in the application process, especially the contextual variables that are not covered in western-based literature, this study hones in the application of “flipped classroom” on EFL classrooms in China to complement the research.

Therefore, research along these lines is of the utmost importance. The present study seeks to use experimental data to the English majors on flipping in Chinese universities, while also exploring the feedbacks of teachers and students.

The concrete research questions are as follow.

1. What the current application of “flipped classroom” is in Southeast University?

(1) How often do teachers reverse the traditional teaching process?

(2) How do teachers re-allocate the class time and what do students think?

(3) What innovative teaching strategies do teachers use in class?

(4) What do students get from the reversing roles of teachers and students?

2. What is students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards the “flipped classroom” method?

3. What suggestions do students and teachers put forward?

Chapter Three Methods

3.1 Research Design

I designed the study to investigate the actual usage of elements of flipped classroom at Southeast University in recent years. And it was divided into three parts. The first part was the participants’ experiences with different elements of the “flipped classroom”. The second part was to investigate the students’ and teachers’ attitudes, and the third part was the students’ and teachers’ suggestions towards the application of the flipped classroom.

I adopted anonymous questionnaire survey to collect the participants’ experiences, attitudes and suggestions about the flipped classroom used in the specific university. I sent two types of questionnaires with SOJUMP software, to two groups of participants – teachers and students. And both of these questionnaires had consent forms at the beginning of the questionnaire for participants to know the general information and accept the privacy policy.

The student’s version of questionnaire had included three parts (21 questions) (Appendix Ⅰ). Similarly, the teacher’s version of questionnaire also had included three parts (19 questions) (Appendix Ⅱ).

3.2 Instrument

In students’ version of questionnaire, the first part was the general information of students, gender, grade and GPA respectively. The second part had 16 questions about the current use of flipped classroom in Southeast University via multiple choices and matrix scale problems. The third part of this questionnaire had two questions about the attitudes and suggestions towards the application of flipped classroom.

Similarly, in teachers’ version of questionnaire, the first part was the general information of teachers, gender, seniority and academic title respectively. The second part had 14 questions about the current use of flipped classroom in Southeast University via multiple choices and matrix scale problems. The third part of this questionnaire was the same as students’ version.

3.3 Participants

The participants of this study were randomly recruited from university students cutting across all four years, and teachers from English Department at Southeast University.

From the student’s version of questionnaire, 102 students responded to the questionnaire (45.95% response rate). The number of female respondents was 89, about 87.25%. Only 13 male students responded, at the percentage of 12.75%. Due to the gender imbalance in English Department at Southeast University, the number female participants was seven times that of male participants. The distribution of students’ years (Table 1) and the GPA distribution (Table 2) were showed in Table 1 and Table 2 respectively.

Table The Distribution of Students’ Years

Table The GPA Distribution of Student Participants

From the teacher’s version of questionnaire, only six teachers answered all the questions, including three male and three female teachers. Due to the small sample size, this survey of teachers had limited reference value. The years of service varied from 6 to 26 years. Fifty percent of them had 26-year teaching experience, and only one teacher has taught for 6 years. The rest two were in the middle, 10 years and 20 years respectively. As for the academic titles, four of them were associate professors, and two of them were professors.

3.4 Procedure

As illustrated above, this survey was carried out in a period of one week from April 11, 2017 to April 18, 2017 through SOJUMP website online and divided into two major phases, students’ group and teachers’ group from April 22, 2017 to April 28, 2017.

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