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and coded is provided in the data present in the English language classes
analysis and interpretation section. to get acquainted with the students
and the teacher. The researcher even
Participants assisted the teacher in the transaction
of a prose lesson in Term III. In the third
The participants in the study were sixth
grade students from the government class (in the absence of the English
higher secondary school in Tamil Nadu, language teacher) the researcher
India. The number of participants was individually developed conversations
15 and the medium of instruction is with the students to obtain a general
Tamil. In conversation with the students idea of their proficiency level. The casual
it was observed that the students conversation was staged to also break
understood what was being said to the ice in order to create a favorable
some extent when communicated environment for language production
slowly and with repetitions. When in the latter classes.
the students were involved in general In the next class the students were
everyday conversations they were asked to assemble in the verandah
hesitant to reply and communicated where some of their classes usually
certain messages only through the happen and were asked to sit together.
utterance of words with no grammatical The change of setting was carried out to
structure. The learners’ vocabulary bring down their effective filter levels.
size was observed to be very limited The researcher sat along with them and
and there were severe punctuation introduced herself to the learners. To
problems where groups of sentences provide the students a little of content
were uttered without any pauses by clarity and fluency they were guided
the end of each sentence. Errors were with what topics can be covered in their
committed in areas of subject-verb self- introduction. The students were
agreement and tense usage. asked to talk about their city, family,
friends, favourite food, favourite stars
Procedure and hobbies. The students were asked
to talk in random order and the entire
The pilot study was conducted in a
Government Higher Secondary Tamil class was recorded.
Medium School in Coimbatore with
the permission of the City Educational Procedure for CALF Analysis
Officer. The researcher got the consent The complexity, accuracy, lexis and
of both the teacher and the students to fluency of the spoken data were
record the class and informed them how measured using the CALF tool through
it would be used for research purposes. the following four stages.
The pilot study happened over three i) Recording
weeks’ time and the researcher got to
interact with the students during the The researcher recorded the entire
English language classes. Each period class sessions and the participants’
was for duration of 40 minutes. In the oral speech. The students were given
first two classes the researcher was identification numbers and their audio
Indian Journal of Educational Technology 243
Volume 3, Issue 2, July 2021