Reflective Fieldnote Blog # 3    SPSE 6712

October 27, 2011

      Section 1: Thoughts about Action Research as a Tool to Improve Practice

   Action research is a “reflective process that allows for inquiry and discussion” (Ferrance, 2000).  It is a great way to get an even closer look behind the scenes at what is really happening in the classroom.  Action research is a systematic process where one should study and plan, take action, collect and analyze, and reflect (Riel, 2010). This process should repeated several times for best results. I really enjoyed the collaborative aspect of the action research process, as the teacher whose class I was observing was able to give me a different reflective analysis of what was going on than I came up with originally. In the end though, both of our speculations were proven incorrect in some cases and reconfirmed in other cases through the student interview process. I found the entire process amazingly helpful as a step by step approach to dissecting future issues that may arise in the ESL classroom or any classroom for that matter.

      Section 2: Ideas Generated as a Result of My Project

   The best part about the Action Research project was that it really got me thinking about possible issues to further explore in upcoming research.  I am fascinated by the environmental, socio-cultural, and self-perceptions related problems that surround ELLs as they often face multiple hardships or may have had some pretty shocking experiences in their lives.  It would be interesting to look at student attitudes caused by resentment, necessity, failure, or peer attitudes. The project made me want to look more closely at some of the social affective filters that are heightened in some students and how to create the right environment and relationship with those students to help them lower these filters. I would love to find a way to measure the power of encouragement and confidence building amongst students in relation to their academic progress.  Finally, I thought that a study that could determine which strategies can be used to successfully cope with language anxiety, might be a good research question to later expand upon.

      Section 3: Suggestions for Other ESL Professionals Based on My Findings

   ESL teachers that are having a difficult time getting students to behave need to try to build a relationship with their students to better understand what factors are affecting them or causing anxiety.  This genuine trust allows students to lower their affective filters and relax more in your classroom. Always give positive feedback and encouragement to a student to build confidence, Make corrections or suggestions for improvement with a student when working individually with him or her, not in front of the whole class.  If a student in the classroom has a bad attitude, move him or her out of the limelight and to the back of the room.  Change seating arrangements often for different working tasks. Find out what kinds of learning styles your students have and try to incorporate strategies that target their learning styles for improved performance. Have students work in groups or in pairs to get them communicating in English. All of these proved to be great strategies through my action research project.

References:

Ferrance, E. (2000). Action research. Retrieved from:

     http://www.lab.brown.edu/pubs/themes_ed/act_research.pdf.

Riel, M. (2010). Understanding action research. Retrieved from:

     http://cadres.pepperdine.edu/ccar/define.html.

Observation #2 : Problems That May Arise In The ESL Classroom

October 4, 2011                                                                                                                      SPSE 6712

For this observation, I chose to observe the same 7^th grade class that is taught by my mentor, the other ESL teacher during my planning.  The 8 students are all students that were in my class last year so I know them all very well.

Section 1: Teaching Issues

                The lesson was well planned and involved a reflection of the pre-reading activity that was conducted the previous day.  The teacher engaged the students into a discussion comparing three bubble maps that had been filled out by an 8^th grade class, a 6^th grade class, and their own class.  Unfortunately, many of the students are resistant to speaking aloud in the class.  There is also a big difference in the proficiency levels of the students represented in the class.  These same students wouldn’t stop speaking in my class last year.  Maybe, the teacher has not built a deep enough relationship with the students yet.  The questions she posed seemed simple enough; “What do you see that is the same as yours?” “What things do you see that are different?”  One boy says, “I need glasses.”  (I sent a letter home to his parents about this last year.) The grouping of the desks may have been an issue this time.  The desks were arranged into a semi-circle with the teacher in the middle.  All the students could see each other’s’ faces.  One girl kept looking totally disinterested and would make dramatically deep sighs of disgust and roll her eyes.  Many of the other students would look often to her for approval to speak.  The others would look at her with a blank look. One girl, who e=was absent the day before, was pointing out the differences and was the only one who would speak.  I recommended to the teacher to rearrange the desks the way she had them the day before for the next lesson into a staggered arrangement and put the bad attitude girl at the back so the other students couldn’t see her face as easily. I came back and observed her class the next day and it worked.  The other students participated because they couldn’t look to her for disapproval.  I gave the girl in the back individual attention and assistance with the lesson the next day and she was happier.

Section 2: Second Language Acquisition

                The teacher’s use of the bubble map graphic organizer was a huge help to the students in simplifying the concepts of comparing and contrasting, especially to the Japanese boy, who has only been here one year and is still practically non-English speaking.  Without the native language words, it is hard to describe abstract concepts such as comparing and contrasting but the graphic organizers made those more comprehensible concepts for the non-proficient students.  The teacher chose to switch to a different activity after getting a little frustrated at the  students lack of participation.  The new activity was one where the students would have to get to know each other better by asking questions to each other in small groups to find out what each other’s’ bedrooms looked like.  The small groups worked better because the students were less shy in speaking to each other.   The teacher helped the Japanese boy form sentences with his broken English to encourage second language acquisition.  She also modeled correct structure and pronunciation with him.  The best strategies implemented in the lesson to encourage second language acquisition were that the teacher allowed extra time for the students to form their answers, she modeled the directions and she had the students read the directions aloud as well.  All of these strategies helped improve second language acquisition.

Section 3: Ethnographic Perspective

                The information that the teacher needs to meet the needs of these learners is to gain their trust.  Once she is able to do that, I’m sure they will talk non-stop in her class and open up as well.  The pre reading activity focused on a story that is about a Hispanic girl and the discussion of comparing and contrasting the different grade levels concerns turned to a question of how these concerns might have been different in their own countries.  The only concern that differed from the American perspective in this class was the concern from 2 Mexican students over recent gang activity that had taken place in their homeland.   This could be a huge step toward the students opening up in an effort to build a relationship with the teacher and the rest of the class.

MTSU Honor Statement

This assignment/assessment was solely written by me.  In no way have I plagiarized (represented the work of another as my own) or otherwise violated the copyright laws and academic conventions of fair use.  I know that violations of this policy may result in my being dismissed from Middle Tennessee State University and/or appropriate legal action being taken against me.

Signed:   Erin B. Cathey