Improving Students’ performance in Dictation and Composition by Using Action Research

Promoting the quality of teaching is made possible through teacher-initiated research and the improvement of educational factors. “Teacher” as a reflective agent can’t properly react to the educational problems merely through academic research. Some of these problems can be solved through teachers’ research which can be of use to resolve real problems of education and classroom. The action researcher as a third grade teacher in the 92-93 educational year in Hazrate Roqieh (R) elementary school of Sarpol Zohab ( a town in Kermanshah province) encountered students’ weakness in dictation. The weakness in the skills of reading and writing caused disappointment, hopelessness, impatience and, finally, retrogradation of education. Therefore the researcher collected information by studying, investigating documents, observing and doing interviews to treat this weakness. Afterwards, the correct forms of the students’ spelling mistakes were used as a solution. To this end, the teacher taught the letters of alphabet, the correct letter clusters, the convey of messages by sentences, meanings, synonyms and opposites. It was followed by the teacher’s request from the students to construct a meaningful text from the correct forms of spelling mistakes and to draw pictures on the basis of the relevant topics in order to create a funny and amusing atmosphere. The results showed that the students’ spelling and composing abilities were improved by resorting to appropriate solutions.