Maintaining the Efficacy of Warm-up Activities in EFL Classrooms: An Exploratory Action Research

Abstract

The current study is an Exploratory Action Research and was carried out for the purpose of enhancing the efficacy of warm-up activities used in EFL classrooms. The participants of the study were A2 (pre-intermediate) level English preparatory students at a foundation university in Turkey, and their ages ranged from 18 to 21. The data were gathered through two different questionnaires in the form of students’ reports in order to provide answers to two research questions. First, an Exploratory Practice (EP) was carried out with the participation of 32 students from two skill-based listening and speaking classes by using the first questionnaire as the data collection tool. The aim was to understand what warm-up activities/practices meant to students and to investigate students’ perceptions on the use of warm-up activities as tools to increase participation in classes. Following the findings of EP, an Action Research (AR) was carried out in one of the classes with the participation of 21 students for a four-weeks period. The AR study was the implementation of the emerged themes from the EP in the form of redesigned warm-up activities. Following the classroom implementations, the second data collection tool, which was the second questionnaire, was distributed to the students. The findings of the second questionnaire provided the reflections of the students on the AR study. The collected data were content analyzed and the teacher researcher provided reflections on the overall process.