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.

First Session's Students Assessment Report

After having heard each of my students' conversations these were my reflections from each one of my students' performances:

Johana was not aware of the use of the irregular verbs but she was able to improve construction of affirmative statements compared with her initial test performance. This happened because she started to implement the accuracy strategies immediately and she also started to study more irregular verbs in her free time. Johanna was also more careful constructing predicates since she had problems such as confusion in the possessive adjectives, object pronouns and adjective + noun agreement. She is a committed student because she turned in her homework on time and she did some independent work at home by means of some web sites that I recommended the whole class.


Johanna admits that she still needs to work more on learning more irregular verbs, pronouncing the ED endings and using auxiliary verbs in simple past when she uses negative statements and questions. She is also aware that she needs to improve the use of articles.

Examples:

• Is far to Rodadero (Subject + Verb agreement)/ wrong preposition

• I try sierra fish. (ED ending)

Fabiola has some prior knowledge about constructing accurate affirmative utterances, but she lacked of accuracy in the use of negative statements and question forms. In the first conversation she managed to correct some of the problems she had concerning these issues. She also controlled the use of the past tenses (both regular and irregular). She informed me that she devoted some time everyday to study these verbs and to write some sentences using them. She has very few problems with the Subject + Verb agreement and she knows how to construct complements accurately.


Examples:

• I don’t have a lot of time. (Past tense)

• I eat fish and rice with coco. (Past tense)

Andres: This student in particular showed problems structuring Subject + Verb + Complement patterns from the very beginning of the course. He tended to not complete his ideas; he mainly used single words or incomplete utterances to convey meaning.


The student had poor background knowledge in the use of the irregular verbs in past tense and he mainly used verbs in present to express finished actions in the past tense. Another of his weaknesses was that he did not organize the parts of speech at the predicate level and this also affected his overall performance in the first conversation.The student in his reflection note admits not studying at home to improve his performance.

Diana is a high-risk taker. She usually expands her conversations without caring about accuracy. She does not know many verbs in the past tense and she barely conjugates the subjects with the verbs especially with the subject pronoun IT. She also uses a lot of verbs in present tense first person to express actions that happened in the past.


She was also somewhat inaccurate when she asked questions and when she constructed negative statements. Diana had also problems organizing predicates.

Johanna and Fabiola noticed that Diana was combining WAS + DID in the question forms. However, I noticed that this happened a few times.

Claudia did not do so badly in her interaction. She has some background knowledge of some irregular verbs. Just as like her other classmates, she does not know many irregular verbs, she does not pronounce the ED endings, there are problems conjugating the Subjects and the Verbs and she has problems organizing predicates. She tends to translate too much (L1 interference) while she is speaking.

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.