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.

First day of class (May 18)

Retrieved from Google images on May 30, 2010

Today I met my new group. At the beginning of the class I felt dissapointed and nervous when I only saw 2 students and I thought that my class might be cancelled again to my misfortune. Luckily, 6 more students arrived later and I felt more relieved. However, I have to wait until tomorrow to see if I got more students (hopefully). After I welcomed the student, we talked a little bit about ourselves, the course's objectives, rules and regulations and finally, we created our learners' profiles and action plans for the three month course. Later, I explained what the project is going to be about, I handed out the invitation letters and after they finished reading them they filled out the consent letter. I was happy because everybody agreed to be in the project.

At about 7:15 am we all went to the AVM lab to do the online survey and the initial test. Some people did not have any problems filling out the survey, but there were some that had trouble with the connection, but most of them managed to do the survey before the bell rang. After they had finished, they were going to do the initial test but time ran out. Students managed to sign up to Voxopop on time so they will be able to do the test tomorrow morning. I have already requested a spot at the AVM lab for this. I expect a couple of more people to show up to the course so I will have to tell them to sign up to the discussion board first so they will be able to do the test and then for homework they will do the survey.

Drawbacks and Progress

Retrieved from Google images on May 30, 2010

I have good and bad news. The good one is that my boss approved the invitation and consent letters for students and parents. The bad one is that my Skills 1 course, in which I'm going to be implementing; was cancelled due to lack of students. My boss told me that she would be helping me get a course at 6 am which is the best time to implement. I'm not so concerned because I still have one last chance to implement on time. Fortunately, Valeriya (my project tutor) understood my situation an she told me to make sure to implement no later than next month otherwise...... I'm working on my paper for the time being.

Pedagogical intervention action plan

Retrieved from Google images on May 30, 2010

This is my updated version of my action plan for the implementation and data collection stages:

• Needs Analysis through Voxopop (test) (May 18, 2010)

• Initial survey through Survey Monkey (May 18, 2010)

• Artifacts (Voxopop) (May 18 until August 11, 2010 -six interventions in total)


• Transcripts (July, August 2010)

• Mid term and final surveys (June 28 and August 10, 2010)

• Research journal through Blogger (March 26, 2010- starting date)

Data Collection Tools

Retrieved from Google images on May 30, 2010

These are the data collection tools I chose to employ during the intervention stage of my Action Research Project:

• Needs Analysis through Voxopop (pre and post test): This test will help me detect the problems students have when they use the past tenses and it will also help me to see the final results in terms of students' improvement in the use of the past tenses.

• Initial, mid and final surveys through Encuesta facil:  It will help me determine the population that I am going to intervene as well as to know what are their beliefs in their use of English, their opinions about their progress and the implementation in general. At the end of the process they will draw a final conclusion if they felt that the approach actually helped them to improve their accuracy and up to what extent.

• Artifacts (Voxopop): These are all the speaking activities where students get to peer and self monitor their accuracy of past tenses. This will be also used as the means where learners do six speaking tasks with the purpose of implementing the strategies and progress will be shown.

• Students' reflection log (Nabble): This application has the specific objective of getting students to reflect upon their partners' problems and progresses in the use of past tenses.

• Transcripts: These will show the progress students have made in using the past tenses as well as the use of the monitoring strategies (peer and self-correction).

• Research journal through Blogger: Here is where I write about my impressions about the implementation process. It is also a tool for reflection and planning the next steps.

• Rubrics: This tool will give me (and my students as well ) a more concrete idea from my students' real progress in terms of the improvement of accuracy and the implementation of the self and peer correction strategies.