Sixth Implementation Session Feedback

Based on what I agreed with my Action Research teacher (Liubava) and my Thesis Director (Valeriya), I will only focus on the five students who lasted the entire implementation stage. This means that I will mention about Johanna, Fabiola, Andres, Diana and Claudia's performances in the last recording session. I have seen that there has been a positive and negative performance patter depending o the students' believes and attitudes towards the system and their autonomy I employed to help them overcome their problems in terms of accuracy using the simple past and the past continuous. Curiously, the three students who were new at the Colombo at the beginning of the process did better than the ones who had taken other courses with other teachers before they started taking the Skills 1-3 courses with me. That means that only Johanna, Claudia and Fabiola were the ones who had faith on the system and learning from their partners' comments in the online forum plus they did a lot more than the others outside the classroom such as doing all their home work assignments and doing some independent work in the online community I set up at the beginning of Skills 3. However, Diana and Andres who started taking the English course three or six months before felt that the system was not too reliable in terms of learning from their peers' comments in the online forum. They thought that it was better that the teacher to intervene in the error correction stage rather than peers. However, it seems they have forgotten that I provided them with rubrics and feedback on their general performances not just during the implementation sessions, but with the regular classes on a weekly basis.

When I asked these students to whatever happened to their learning autonomy which is part of the Centro Colombo Americano's principles, they answered back with the same excuse as always: they did not have any free time to complete all their homework assignments, check their partners' comments in the online forum, do extra work in the learning platform I had set up for them four weeks ago and so on. When I also asked them if they devoted enough time to study during the weekend, the three of them said that they hardly did any independent work because they had other plans with their friends and family members. It is my opinion, that learners' believes about traditional methods on how to teach and learn a second language hindered their progress.

Sixth Intervention and Final Test

Retrieved from Google images on August 11, 2010

Today was the last day I implemented. At the beginning of the lesson, I instructed the students to take some notes of the vocabulary they needed to use during their conversations as well as writing the verbs in past tense. When we got to the multi-media lab, students automatically paired up with their usual partner and they rehearsed what they were going to say for a few minutes. Later, they recorded their conversations and saved them; there were no setbacks since I prepared the computers, the platform and the microphones 10 minutes before the class started.

While they were interacting, I noticed that they were enjoying the conversation (it was about a personal dilemma). Some of them actually used the grammar models without me telling them to see them. After they had finished, they saved the conversations in the discussion board and I instructed them to fill out the final survey.  When I told them to work with their partners to talk about their childhood memories, they said that they had already made that chat before, but I reminded them that the first one was the initial one. As homework, I assigned them to listen to their two test in order to compare their performances so they could assess themselves.

Fifth Implementation Session Feedback

In this session, I noticed that some of the students (the ones I feel believe in the system) showed great improvement in terms of accuracy in both affirmative and negative statements as well in formulating questions whereas the ones who are still skeptical on having their classmates correct their own errors instead of the teacher are the ones who are falling behind especially in learning the irregular verbs in past. I think that it does not matter what system is used to learn a foreign language, but if a student does not believe in it I think that he or she will not progress. Not all the methods and approaches are made to fit every sigle student. I also believe that adult learners should be the ones who should take charge of their own learning processes and not the teacher. Most of them haven't taken the time to study new verbs or have taken risk to use new ones during the different conversations or to prepare their conversations beforehand to see how to include new vocabulary or tenses for their upcoming interactions. That's my conclusion.

Fifth implementation

Image retrieved from Glogle images on July 23, 2010

Before going to the multi-media lab I wrote some grammar models in the simple past and past continuous in affirmative, negative and question forms so they could follow them during their interactions using the voice message board. During this implementation the students who had been in my group did not have many problems engaging into the activity. As usual, they got together with their activity partner and they reheased what they were going to say. It took some time for the new learners to get into the activities because first I needed to explain them how the implementation, the voice message board and the wiki worked. Then they had to sign in to the Voxopop web site and do the initial test. Finally, they worked on the conversation assigned for the day which was about a very important person in their lives. Some students had problems recording their conversations because they had some problems with their microphones. They did not check if they were on or plugged in the CPU. When most of the students finished, they wrote their comments in Nabble. I noticed that they were still too superficial and they do not really help their peers to improve the target structures.

Fourth Implementation Session Feedback

In this recording session, I noticed that Fabiola suffered a great backdrift. When I asked her what had happend, she told me that she did not have enough time to prepare her topic the day before because she had a lot of duties at her work. Fabiola had a slight improvement but she has been experimenting with new verbs and the use of the past continuous more than before. This also happened with Diana. Andres was another student who suffered greatly in terms of using the irregular verbs, but he told me that he does not have enough time to study at home. This shows that learner autonomy is an essential variable in terms of learning and implementing new concepts. I observed that most of them went back to the Subject + Verb Agreement problem but they have advanced in learning new irregular verbs and they are more aware on pronouncing the ED endings in the regular ones.

Fourth Implementation

Image retrieved from Google images on July 12, 2010

Today's conversation topic for the implementation was about a life experience. These were either positive or negative. As usual at the beginning of the lesson, I instructed my learners to write down the verbs in past they needed for the conversation as well as the words they did not know, so they looked up the words in their dictionaries or the gadgets they carry with them. Later, we went to the multi-media lab and they followed the instructions in the wiki. The students know how to do the entire procedure without getting me involved and this really makes me happy. Some of the students felt that they are not advancing as the way they should and I asked them why. They said that even though they knew some verbs in past, they usually forget to implement them during a spontaneous conversation. I told them that they needed to keep insisting in peer and self- correcting each other in order to raise awareness of their mistakes so they could avoid them in future conversations. When I asked them if they were reading their partners comments in the Nabble forum, some of them told me they had and others said that they either forget to do it or they think that my comments are more valid than a fellow classmate. In the next few classes, I will work on more controlled practice in order for students to produce utterances in simple past and to follow language models that they will write down in their notebooks so they could follow them in the susequent conversations. I also feel that they need to support each other in giving more feedback to their partners because most of them are still more concerned in getting their message across without paying attention to their performances. But not everything is dark as it seems, I am quite happy that they know how to use the wiki without depending on me and I have noticed that particularly Johana and Fabiola are improving their accuracy and they are self-correcting more than they used to! At the end, students filled up the mid-term survey and went home. Claudia missed this session.

Third Implementation Session Feedback

In this session, I was surprised that most of the students had improved in the use of the verbs in past tense, although I also noticed some stagnation and backdrift in other ones. For instance, Johanna, Claudia, Andres, Maritza, Adriana and Michael have considerably improved in constructing affirmative sentences in past tenses. However, I observed a significant backdrift with Fabiola and stagnation in the cases of Diana, Leonardo and Juan. Johanna, Andres and Claudia told me that they have made an effort in studying for the daily quizzes. Whereas for the rest, they have informed me that they do not have time to study since they have other responsibilities during the day. The majority of the students are still having trouble using the auxiliary verbs in simple past when they are constructing negative statements and questions. Most of the students have become more aware of conjugating the subjects and verbs since they have confessed they tend to translate a lot so there is an overgenerlization of not using IT when referring to objects or abstract nouns. I will train students to use the finger correction technique to keep track of of each part of speech when they are employing negative statements and questions.

Worries and concerns

Image retrieved from Google images in June 25,2010

I have had problems with this group in terms of autonomy. For most of them it is really difficult to do their basic homework assignments from their workbooks and even coming to class early. They argued that they do not have enough time to do their homework assignments even on weekends (which I consider a big excuse). I have constantly talked to them about autonomy and its implications in adult learning (andragogy). It is quite difficult for them to set up their own learning goals and to take action in order to improve their skills. This issue also affects my research project because most of them are not using the disscussion board to listen to their partners and to leave comments there. I even changed the system by allowing students write their comments in Nabble, which is an embeddable forum, but some of them do not post their comments, or if they do, they tend to be too broad as they do not especifically point out what their partners' problems are. Since they are too teacher dependent, they expect me to do this type of feedback through the forums or by telling them something about their progress during the weekly assessment (that is the time when I turn in the rubrics). I have had some issues with a couple of my students (Michael and Maritza) because their expectations regarding progress is too high and their committment towards autonomony and in implementing the strategies has been too low.

I have been reading about fossilization lately and there is one author (Han, 2004) who says that there are two linguistic phenomenons in the SLA process called "learning plateau" and "backsliding". The first one refers to the slowing down their learning processes due to some determining factors such as brain plasticity, learning styles, pedagogical beliefs, autonomy and the implementation of more sophisticated learning strategies which help them upgrade their linguistic skills. "Backsliding" means the "reemergence of deviant forms that seemed to have been eradicated" so it is only natural that learners are going through an acquisition stage that demands more from them than the teacher himself. As it is only obvious, these students are not taking these considerations for granted and in my opinion they are trying to take the easy way out by blaming me that there has not been a "dramatical" progress in their learning process.

Another problem I had this week is that Adriana, one of my best students, had to drop out because she has had some family issues that prevent her from continuing the course. This was a sensible loss since she has been making real progress and she believed in my approach to help her improve speaking accuracy.

Third Implementation

Image retrieved from Google Images on June 23, 2010

Today I implemented for the third time. It was smoother than the other two times because students are familiar with the exercise's procedures. As the other two previous times, students worked with their usual speaking partner because this way is easier to code each student. The only difference was that I insisted students to record their comments in Voxopop, but students did not have time to listen to their classmates' comments nor they did not have time to write their comments in the forum. I have noticed that not all the students have been disciplined writing their reflections so I guess that I will have to start giving them face-to-face feedback when I turn in their rubric right after each recording so they know exactly how they have progressed or to inform them what extra work they need in order to improve the usage of the verbs in simple past and past continuous.

A couple of my students helped the new student (Vicky) to open her Voxopop account and to inform her how the activity works.

Second Implementation Session Feedback

There was a major participation in the second forum. Students maily focused on their partners' errors while they interacted with their classmates. They noticed errors in some irregular verbs and in the construction of negative statements and questions. I have noticed that they all have problems pronouncing the ED ending in regular verbs and they hardly ever use the past continuous to tell their stories. I noticed that Fabiola, Maritza and Michael master many irregular verbs they still has problems pronouncing the ED endings. Although some students are still struggling retrieving the verbs in past participle, most of them have succesfully managed to experimenting with new ones, but they still forget to use some of them or sometimes they implement them correctly and other times not. Most of them have problems in terms of conjugating the subject + verb agreement especially with the pronoun IT. For the next upcoming sessions I will have to quiz students in the use of the verbs they are supposed to know by now but they are not using properly during the recorded interactions as well as the new verbs they have been exposed to during each lesson in order to compare the levels of learning and acquisition (Krashen, 1983).

Skills 1 implementation conclusions and action plan

Image retrieved from Google images on June 16, 2010

During this first implementation stage, I learned that it is important to tell students what to expect from the project that they are being involved in. Although they have told me that the approach to help them improve their accuracy in the simple past and past continuous tenses, they still have problems giving that feedback to their partners because they are not used to correct others actively while their conversation partners speak and even worse when it is an asynchronous activity.

Another lesson I learned was to get students to prepare the vocabulary and language they need before they get on with the speaking activities even for virtual tasks, this way, they know what to use during their interactions having less probability to make mistakes in the tenses I am expecting them to improve.

Students told me that even though the system is quite creative, they have problems identifying the people they have to peer-correct and to find the comments in the discussion board. They also stated that they cannot find the time to do all the process at their homes and they suggested me to do it during classtime.

Second Implementation

Image retrieved on June 15, 2010 from Google images

Last Friday I implemented for the second time. After checking homework, I told students to prepare their conversation so they looked up their dictionaries to find the vocabulary they needed for the conversation and the pronunciation of each word. They also looked up their notebooks to find the verbs in past tenses they needed for the communicative event. This time, I considered the timing so we went to the audio-visual multi-media room for over an hour in order to have plenty of time to go over the entire procedure. At the multi-media room, I paired student with the partner they had the previous time.

I instructed the students to check the microphones and to do a sound check so they would not have any surprises after they spoke. Students were able to speak for the entire ten minutes and they also saved the recording without any problems, something a couple of groups had problems with during the last implementation. After the recording, students were assigned to listen to other conversations from other pairs and to take notes on their mistakes using the simple past and past continuous.

I had noticed during the last intervention that students did not record any comments on their partners' mistakes nor listened to the few that were recorded by some students so I decided to let them write their findings in the forum. For the next time, students will listen to their own recordings and to comment comment in Voxopop about their partners' mistakes. Another aspect I also need to consider is for students to write more comments regarding the usage of simple past and past continuous. There were some comments that were aimed at vocabulary or they were too vague.

Lastest tutoring decisions

During the last tutoring, Valeriya suggested me not to include the "monitoring strategies" construct because it was quite difficult to find previous research studies as well as state of the art. She advised me to focus on peer and self correction instead because these were more specific monitoring strategies and they were easier to find in online journals and in books.

Training process report

Image retrieved from Google images on June 7,2010

The students in the Skills 1 course have been working on the strategies I mentioned in my previous entry before they engage in a communicative event. Before the speaking activities, I trained students on how to use one strategy before they start speaking. The procedure has been the following: first, I elicited from them expressions that would be useful for the conversation and I wrote them on the board; if one of the students made a mistake, partners would correct one another or they would go to the board and correct the expressions. They also resorted to the conversation models in their textbooks, they opened their notebooks or they reviewed their notes and the substitution tables for the lesson's target grammar. This way, they would verify the grammar models before they began their conversations. Finally, I did a demonstration with a more skilled student so the rest would follow the model. As they were speaking, I noticed that some students were looking at their notes or at the board in order to monitor their own language production (Fabiola, Johana, Diana, Adriana, Juan Pablo, Claudia). The rest of the students did not follow the instruction and they just spoke disregarding the models or the previous preparation for the communicative event. I noticed that the students who were aware of looking at the models were more accurate than the other students in spite that both types of students managed to convey meaning clearly.

When we did a reflection about the use of the models, the ones who used them felt more confidence and at the same time they felt that they were using the language properly. The other students said that they were not used to follow models because they were more concerned about getting the message across, but they admitted that following them would make their English more accurate. As an action plan, they promised to follow them for the next speaking task and they also suggested me to give them a sign (such as a post it) to remind them to look at their notes or at the board.

I know that it has been three weeks since I started the course, but I feel that most of them are becoming aware of preparing the speaking activities beforehand as well as following models in order to improve their accuracy in the past tenses.

Feedback on First Implementation Session

It was unfortunate that not all my students posted their comments in the forum. Most of them argued that they did not have any time to do so due to lack of time. I think I took too much time doing the pre-activity stage and I believe it is better to let them prepare the conversations beforehand in the classroom. I also think that they need to publish their comments once they have already finished listening to their partners. This actions will take place during the following sessions. As far as the comments go, I am pleased with reflections made by Adriana, Fabiola and Johanna. They seemed to have seriously reflected upon their perfomance. On the other hand, it is my opinion that Andres's comment was a bit too shallow although I must admit that he is really aware of his weaknesses using the language and his attitude towards spending more time studying the verbs in past.

After having listened to all the conversations, I noticed that all the students had problems implementing the regular and irregular verbs in past tense except for Fabiola who seems to have a strong background knowledge on the topic especially in the construction of affirmative and negative statements. Johanna also showed some understanding on how to construct accurate questions in simple past. As for the rest, they all showed difficulties remembering the verbs in past and remembering the forms for constructing accurate questions and negative statements in the past tense. I believe that the next step is for the students to follow grammatical models and to use them during controlled practice and less controlled practice exercises in order to internalize these patterns.

Training students how to use basic monitoring strategies

Retrieved from Google images on May 30, 2010

I have been training my students to use certain monitoring strategies in order to raise awareness of their most frequent mistakes when they use the past tenses. I believe that it is necessary to train students to use some of our teaching techniques, so they can apply them according to their needs, in both inside as well as outside the classroom settings and they will also have to become familiar with the procedures, starting from noticing a new concept (Scrivener, 2005) to actively using the language accurately. To do this, learners need to correct themselves and their classmates when they are negotiating meaning. The more they do it during controlled practice activities and from time to time in free conversations; they will raise awareness of becoming more accurate (Chamot, 1999). Here are some techniques I've been using to train my learners to monitor accuracy in the past tenses:

• Substitution tables

• The book’s grammar charts

• How to use their fingers to monitor accuracy

Substitution tables:

These tables or charts are very useful especially when it comes to notice and understand grammar patterns (Scrivener, 2005). Students are to write a short sentence, it could be affirmative or negative statements or Yes/No or WH questions. It has to be written out from left to right and the sentence has to be divided into smaller parts and each part has to be labeled according to part of speech it corresponds.

The rationale behind the substitution tables like any other learning strategy has to be explained to the learners beforehand so they will know how to use them and most importantly, how they will link later on with future strategies. I suggest that once the students record the information in their notebooks, they write their own examples following the models that they wrote down before. Another variation of this strategy is to leave part of the information blank so the students can figure out what the missing part is.

Grammar charts:

Once the students familiarize themselves with the substitution tables, they have to know how to transfer that information into their book’s grammar charts. Students will have to breakdown the information given in their charts into smaller bits of information. They will have to subdivide the information, for instance, in any book’s grammar chart; students can draw a horizontal line between the subject and the main verbs. They will also have to draw another line between the main verb, and the complement. It would be ideal if they label the parts of the sentence by using their own conventions such as abbreviations. They can also draw a vertical line if there are differences in the structures. They can draw a line between the affirmative and negative statements in the first or third person and so on. It is likely for the students to remember the information more if they have a visual reference of the concept they are learning. Another advantage of subdividing the grammar charts will come from class preparation. If the students work on their grammar tables on their own before class, they will be ready to produce the target structure during class time much faster than without doing this procedure in advance and they will also be ready to understand the concept in class more rapidly or they will be able clarify a doubt on their own as the teacher is guiding them through the concept.

Finger correction:

Initially used as a correction technique, finger correction is quite useful once the students become aware that there is a grammatical pattern to follow when they are speaking. This technique originated from the “silent way” methodology back in the 70’s, its distinctive trademark is the Cuisenaire rods. Among its many uses, the rods show how the grammar structures are formed. Each rod comes in a different sizes and colors and they represent a part of speech. These patterns can be transferred to the student’s fingers. Each finger represents a part of speech. They already know the grammar patterns because they have used them before in the substitution tables and their grammar charts. This is the way it works: you have to put one hand in front of you, make sure that your palm is facing you because the students will read the sentence from left to right on the other side of your hand, then use your other hand to indicate each word in each finger in turn as you or the student say the sentence. The students will get a clear visual indication of the form of the sentence. Of course, the students will have to be trained in this technique, but you have to make clear that it has the same rationale as the substitution tables and the grammar charts. They can use this technique whenever they are doing controlled or freer practice activities.

I assume that these techniques will initially raise awareness of how my students are employing the verbs in past tenses. However, I still need to see to what extent they will use them in order to improve past tense accuracy during the regular lesson before we do the second implementation task.

First Intervention (Video Recording)

Retrieved from Google images on May 30, 2010

Today I implemented for the very first time and I had a lot of mixed feelings about today's session. I will describe the lesson from different prespectives: first, I will compare the their performance of the initial test with today's activity, then I will reflect about the lesson per se and finally, I will reflect upon the video recording experience.

After checking homework, we went to the AVM lab and I prepared my students for the discussion board activity (see first lesson plan). During the pre-speaking task activity, I was surprised to see that my students actually understood the concept of the present perfect using "yet, already, ever and before" without any problems. They also understood that the past tenses were used to ask specific questions. According to Brown (2007) competence is the first step in order to acquire a concept; in other words that the learner has to understand the morphological aspect of a language such as lexis and grammar and understand how it works. The evidence of their understanding of the use of a present perfect and a simple past is shown in their workbooks and when they do controled practice exercises. They are really quite accurate in this type of activities. However, during the initial test, I noticed that they have difficulties performing the concepts in spontaneous conversations even though they are aware how the grammar works and how the structures are formed. This shows that learners' performance level is hindered by lack of monitoring strategies especially when they are constructing full-length utterances (Krashen, 2007).

In terms of how the lesson was set up, I think that I made the correct transitions between activities. According to Nunan (1989), task design should be dependent on one another. For instance, the initial activity, which was the vocabulary game, led to the grammar review of constructing questions in present perfect and asking follow-up questions by using the simple past. Then students rehearsed the actual exercise engaging into the main task. After they finished doing  the pre-speaking task they were ready to start using the voice message board in pairs (there was one group of three girls). I observed that they were not monitoring the use of the past tense just as I expected because I read that people do not monitor nor self-correct their own production mistakes while they are involved in a communicative event (Krashen, 2007). 

During the same activity using the discussion board, I detected that a few students were actually self and peer correcting each other, but not most of them. I suppose that they need more training on the use of these strategies until they raise awareness on how and when to implement them. I still need to listen to them carefully in order to detect the most constant patterns. I also need to give them more practice on the strategies I have taught them so far in order to raise more awareness. I only regret not having enough time for students to post their comments in their classmates' boards, but I will instruct them tomorrow how to do it in case they have not done it for homework and I will also check their reflections.

During the video recording, I did not run into great unexpected problems like not having Internet connection or students having trouble using Voxopop. The only problems I encountered were that one pair's microphone did not work (Diana and Juan Pablo) and the other one was that one group decided to pause the recording because "they did not have much to say" (Maritza and Michael), but I told them to to expand their conversation by talking about a memorable trip they made when they were children. Fortunately, they did not lose their first recording.

In terms of writing comments in the Nabble forum, none of the students did not do them due to time constraints so I instructed the rest to do this at home. Let's wait and see what happens.

I would like to thank my fellow co-worker Leandro for his great help during the video recording.

Initial test (May 19)

Retrieved from Google images on May 30, 2010

Today's recording experience was both sweet and sour. I am happy with the fact that now I have 12 students in my class and the group is now officially opened (their names are Maritza, Michael, Diana, Juan Pablo, Johana, Fabiola, Claudia, Javier, Marcela, Adriana and Leina). There is a student named Andres and he did not show up today so I guess I have to start with him during the first recording session. The other good news is that everybody in the group managed to record their conversations, but on the other hand, a couple of groups forgot to save their recordings and there was one group that forgot to plug in the microphone and they talked during 10 minutes without realizing it. At the end, this group just talked for about 2 minutes before the bell rang. There were a couple of students who did not take the activity seriously (Maritza and Michael) because they were giggling all the time and they would stop the recording at least every 2 minutes to listen to what they were saying. This group did not manage to save anything at the end of the task. If I had the chance of piloting the test last week or so this wouldn't have had happened. Too bad I couldn't find anybody from any skills courses to help me.

When I heard all the conversations the first thing I noticed was that they all had serious mistakes in using the past tenses such as not knowing the past tenses of many verbs, confusion between "was/were", omission of "did" in question forms, incorrect pronunciation of regular "ed" endings and shifting aspect between simple and continuous. Another relevant factor I noticed was that most of the students barely self and peer corrected their mistakes while they were speaking.