Findings & Comments

Findings bubble. [Online Image]. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.thoughtleader.org.uk/images/findings_bubble.gif.

• Expectations on involvement were too high and response showed only Participant A took the study seriously, but when he found out Participant B was not cooperative, he slowed down, too. This shows levels of interdependence are important in the 8LEM and this kind of mismatches or string personalities can spoil the entire strategy and require a different approach.
• There is a direct relationship between involvement in the 8LEM and the quality of reflection an production.
• Readability formulas should be seen with less prevention, as they might offer further research opportunities in our L2 teaching contexts. 
• Both participants, however, used all the technological tools suggested in the self-access activities and showed very positive attitudes towards them.
• Participant A acknowledged increased awareness on what learning the language entails and the acquisition of better autonomous language learning strategies.
• The implementation of the 8LEM model in itself did not carry significant changes in one of the participants’ involvement and, rather, his negative attitude weakened the active role adopted by the other participant. This was evident in the data shown in the positive 8LEM role match chart where the initial roles, which depend mostly on guidance and exemplification, were carried out entirely, yet as the level of independent demand increased, their degree of autonomous active participation decreased.

In fact, the implementation was really optimistic in its foundations and the initial discussion held with the two participants mainly sought to modulate the negative attitudes previously shown by Participant B, since the 8LEM model requires permanent interaction amongst the members of the educational unit and a close and attentive relationship to monitor self- and peer-progress. In order to grant this desired degree of involvement, the study itself was presented as an innovative perspective to the lessons, and the results show it was working very well at the first stage. In the first lessons, the use of self-access activities which allowed them to browse different sources of information as well as different media (videos, reading texts, avatar-creating software, etc.) promoted highly positive involvement and interaction –though Participant B did not show enough seriousness in his comments and this attitude started to hinder the academic nature of the tasks and by the third module, the self-access guide was the only task they did. This lack of commitment was further worsened by the fact the course was suddenly cancelled two weeks before and the additional strategy of carrying out an exit test, in similar conditions to the ones provided for the entry test, and which aimed to provide internal validity, was impossible.

Limitations and problems

The sky is the limit. [Online Image]. (n.d.) Retrieved from https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ1tUvzTItrMhWbsEZedITEBO9n7-DN45lnhzouusuTcSrq6zB8p6lUBnf0iRLUbgl4b74ZhZbnkEJb8Bto-ll9iINdkF8YKkggacvAVVqwRnbZr30c_H2jAxgZFePtuInF1bjg5NCM6k/s320/SkysTheLimit.jpg.

• Though the roles Participant B did not play could not have been replaced by the teacher because the results would have been manipulated, Participant A suffered the consequences of his lack of commitment.
• There were also some time limitations which affected implementation, like the abrupt cancellation of the semester, before closing the final module and doing the planned “exit test”, an impromptu essay writing essay in class, like the entry essay done at the early stage of the implementation.
• They were given a copy of the timeline, but it would have been more useful another strategy to control their participation, e.g. a checklist.
• If all the data expected had been collected, the internal validity of the study through triangulation would have been more reliable. For instance, participants had done some PowerPoint presentations but never handed them in for inclusion.
• For further implementation cycles, other data collection instruments should be used so that the analysis is both reliable and plausible.

One of the conclusions which follow from this is the fact that an implementation strategy which relies so heavily on active participation certainly needs monitoring mechanisms which allow peer-assessment and active demand for fulfilment of expectations; on this occasion, they were given a soft copy of the timeline for the implementation process, but it could have been more effective to provide each of them with a printed checklist showing expected roles and dates so that they could have been much more critical of their own roles and on the other participant’s role. It is also worth noting that the role expected from the peer could possibly have been taken by the teacher, but it was a conscious decision to neglect it since, in the end, it was not his role, and the participant should be aware of the negative effect the lack of commitment from the other learner had on his own process and, consequently, they would individually realise their importance as active participants of the model.


Another aspect to consider for future implementation instances is the need to establish constant collection of the participant’s artifacts since these participants refused to provide all the additional tasks they had done (e.g. they both had done analytically interesting PowerPoint presentations which they promised to hand in later, but never actually did), so the data available was limited in the end.

The expected outcome of further implementation of strategies similar to the one reported here can be increased motivation for teachers to carry out more cognitively challenging and interesting tasks for the learners. Consequently, professional skills will have to be permanently fine-tuned to keep up with the challenges posed by more and more critical students and national and international professional guidelines. An immediate result of individual research efforts in educational settings like the one undertaken here –especially if they bring about positive outcomes, is awareness from the other members of the community of the possibilities available to engage in more reflective and professionally developing teaching practices, and the subsequent creation of research groups. In this specific case, the implementation of strategies aimed at promoting better writing skills will lead to an overall increase in the quality of teaching practices, especially based on the demand from learners and the need to keep up with them: as part of the 8LEM, their level of active participation will make teaching more challenging because learners will demand coherence in the guidelines set, better quality in the materials, engagement with their educational community and with society in general as social roles will become stronger.