لخّصلي

Research Proposal

1. General Introduction

Teaching English as a foreign language sets out endless hurdles and challenges to create a safe, productive and engaging learning environment for learners. One of these boundless challenges is learners’ lack of engagement in classroom activities, especially tasks that are challenging and demanding such as communicative tasks, in which learners’ presence is accentuated as they are required to use the target language to interact and communicate their ideas.
There are a variety of reasons as why such lack of participation in language classes would occur, one we ought to explore is learners’ personality. Using Costa & Mc Care’s Big Five personality model we sought to investigate how personality can have an impact on learners’ participation patterns in classroom communicative tasks. Accordingly, we will be conducting an experiment among second year middle school pupils at Ahmed Boutebkh Middle School. Correspondingly, we seek to know the correlation and its nature between The Big Five personality traits and classroom communicative tasks.
This research intends to uncover insightful results and findings concerning the correlation between language learners’ personality traits and their classroom engagement in communicative tasks in order to generate useful solutions to improve both teachers’ task instruction design and learners’ experience learning a second language for the first time.

2. Statement of the problem

Teaching foreign languages necessitates the incorporation of communicative tasks in classroom activities in order to ensure that language learners master both listening and speaking skills in the target language. Nonetheless, many teachers face difficulties with learners’ participation in such activities that requires students’ usage of the target language to convey their thoughts and ideas among an audience. The latter occurs, especially, in language classes with beginner level learners where they feel overwhelmed by the unfamiliar language and often feel startled when asked to step up and be part of a certain communicative task.

In a beginner classroom setting, such as second year middle school, such absence in engagement can be due to multiple reasons one we sought to explore is personality using Costa & Mc Care’s Big Five personality model.
Subsequently, the incentive behind this research study is to investigate the correlation between The Big Five personality traits and second year middle school learner’s participation in classroom communication tasks. Furthermore, we seek to know how the different dimensions of The Big Five personality model effects middle school students’ levels and patterns of participation in communicative tasks.

3. Background of the study
   It is necessary for teachers to understand their students from all aspects, most importantly their psychology and how they feel and see the world. The latter is crucial for creating welcoming and involving language classes. However, many teachers in the field seem to ignore these psychological barriers that may prevent learners from growing and developing. One of these different psychological factors is personality. This study tries to shed light on how personality (using the big five personality traits) correlates with students' engagement in classroom communication tasks.

The Big Five personality traits (FFM; Digman, 1990; McCrae & John, 1992) are an explanation of the organization of individual differences in personality. Also known as "the five-factor model of personality" or "OCEAN model," It is called The Big Five because it encompasses five major components: openness to experience, agreeableness, extroversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. Openness is a characteristic that includes creativity, imagination, and a willingness to engage in new experiences. Conscientiousness is the degree of self-discipline, organization, and good-directed behaviour. Extraversion, sometimes called extroversion, refers to the level of sociability, which includes talkativeness, assertiveness, and high amounts of emotional expressiveness. Agreeableness is characterized by trust, kindness, and affection. Neuroticism refers to the degree of emotional instability, anxiety, and reactivity to stress. These five characteristics cover a wide range of human behaviour and explain variations in decision-making and personality.
The original and quite ingenious idea behind the theory goes back to research conducted in the 1930s and 1940s by Allport, Odbert, and Cattell (Dornyei. Z, P. 14).which was later developed by D. W. Fiske (1949), Norman (1967), Goldberg (1981), and McCrae & Costa (1992).
In the context of classroom communication tasks, several studies have explored the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and students' engagement in classroom communicative tasks. For example, a study conducted by Zeraat Pishe, M. (2023), found that extraversion and openness were positively related to willingness to communicate, while neuroticism and conscientiousness had negative correlations. Another study by Baruth, O. Cohen A. (2023) explored significant correlations between the Big Five personality traits and student satisfaction with various Techno-Pedagogical Learning Solutions (TPLS) in online courses. Furthermore, a study by Safranji, J. (2017) investigated significant positive correlations between WTC and all Big Five dimensions in English language teaching.
Getting students involved in communicative activities is one of the hardest things teachers have to deal with due to the learners’ centeredness in the classroom. As a result, we attempted to explore potential causes such as personal differences, specifically personality, through the Big 5 model.
So, understanding the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and learner participation in classroom communication activities is critical for improving educational outcomes by exploring how individual differences in personality traits influence learners’ participation levels during classroom interactions.
4. Aims of the Study

The aims of this study are:

1. 
   

   To investigate the correlation between personality using The Big Five personality dimensions and middle school pupils’ engagement in language classroom communication tasks.

   
   


2. 
   

   To explore at what extent The Big Five personality traits effects classroom participation in tasks that are communicative based among second year middle school pupils.

   
   


3. 
   

   To identify specific behaviours associated with each big five personality dimension that may impact participation in classroom communicative tasks.

   
   


4. 
   

   To explore how individual differences in personality traits influence learners’ participation levels during classroom interactions.

   
   


5. 
   

   To show the importance of understanding the big factors of personality traits to the improvement of the classroom atmosphere.

   
   


6. 
   

   Research Questions

   
   

This research questions are as follows:

1. 
   

   What is the correlation between middle school pupils’ Big Five personality traits and their participation in language classroom communicative tasks?

   
   


2. 
   

   How do the different dimensions of the big five personality model effects the engagement of middle school pupils in classroom communicative tasks?

   
   


3. 
   

   How do the big five personality traits influence the communication patterns and participation levels of second-year pupils in middle school classroom communication tasks?

   
   


4. 
   

   Research Hypothesis
   Based on the formulated research questions, we hypothesize that there is a
   
   significant correlation between middle school pupils’ Big Five personality traits and their participation in classroom communication tasks; furthermore we assume that The Big Five personality dimensions affect middle school pupils’ communication patterns and tendency to engage in classroom communicative tasks.

   
   


5. 
   

   Significance of the Study

   
   

   From a teacher’s perspective; there is a constant struggle among middle school pupils to engage in classroom communicative tasks. The latter is an issue stemming from many factors some of which is personality. It is often observed amid middle school learners that they shy away or attempt to avoid participating in tasks that are based on communication and direct usage of the target language due to their personality tendencies. As a reaction to these observations, this research study hopes to understand the relationship, if there is any, between the acronym OCEAN and the participation of middle school pupils in classroom tasks that are based on communication and interactions with an interlocutor in the target language. The understanding and depiction of this relation and how one variable effects the other will help us as teachers to be mindful as well as generate possible solutions as a means to include all learners with all their personality dimensions in learning and engaging in classroom tasks that are demanding and challenging for a better learning experience and outcome.

   
   


6. 
   

   Research Methodology

   
   

In this research we opted for a qualitative associational research. The latter is decided for the reason that this research attempts to explore the correlation between the acronym OCEAN and classroom communicative tasks. Accordingly, we will be attempting to conduct an experiment among second year middle school pupils’.

9. Research structure

This research is structured in two main sections. Section one, is designated to the research proposal with its different elements. Section two includes three major chapters. Chapter one and two are dedicated to literature review; the first entitled “The Big Five Personality Traits” and the second is entitled “Classroom Communicative Tasks”. Subsequently, chapter Three is devoted for the field work which will be an experiment done among second year middle school student. Furthermore, it will include an analysis of the findings of the experiment and conclusions to the study as well as possible solutions and recommendations.