Starting Skills 2

I started the new course today and there were few changes in terms of population. Three students who started the course had left because they had problems with their schedules (Leina, Marcela and Javier). However, there is a new student in the group and she signed the consent letter (Victoria). She will take the initial test this week.

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.

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.