Reflective Fieldnote Blog Entry #3

Section #1 / Thoughts about action research – in general – as a tool to improve practice.

This project is really what teachers do every day without documentation.  We see what works and what doesn’t based on a variety of formal and informal data (ie. student activities, assessments, projects, interactions, etc.) and then adjust as needed.  Obviously that is an oversimplified way to describe it, but I think the action research project is a way to document exactly what you are doing or need to do and why.  It is also a good tool to use for the problems that, no matter what you try, don’t seem to have an easy fix.  A systematic, unbiased approach, such as action research, can expose areas in need of improvement and provoke thoughts on ways to improve, as well as give prompting for action necessary.

Section #2 / Ideas generated as a result of your project.

In my action research project I discovered that, because my area of endorsement is currently secondary education, I needed to become familiar with ways to encourage fluency in pre-reading/writing Kindergarten classes.  I have a “feel” for what might work, but after talking with my mentor teacher, I was equipped with several great writing activities that helped students connect to the lesson.  The first is a “four square” writing and drawing activity, in which students fold a paper into four squares and use the first square to write a specified letter that we practiced.  They would then draw pictures that started with that letter in the other three squares. The next activity is a “fill in the blank” sentence task using picture/word cards for the blanks.

 I found that when the students had enough time to share what they drew or wrote, they were generally excited to share, gained verbal practice in English, and proved that they connected to the lesson through their writing.  I learned that sharing at the end of their group time together was crucial in determining whether or not the students connected the written language to the spoken words they used.  Many times, however, this sharing time gets cut short or cut out altogether because of time constraints. 

Section #3 / Suggestions to other ESL professionals based on your findings.
       
         I suggest setting aside time for “share time” in collaborative Kindergarten groups because it is such an integral part of students learning to read and write.  Students are excited to show off their work to their classmates, and ELLs especially need to practice reading what they have written out loud.  In this way they are using all four language domains in the lesson (read, write, speak, and listen).  Making writing connections to the lesson/story and sharing this practice work, also gives students a purpose in doing the activity.  Tapping into students’ interests, giving them a purpose for their writing, and allowing students to share their work out loud can make for a very successful lesson.             

Observation, Problem Identification, and Reflective Fieldnote Blog Entry #2

Section #1 – Teaching Issues

            At the beginning, during carpet time, the teacher talked to the students about hat day (Spirit week at school).  She asked them where they wear their hats.  Do they wear them on their toes, finger, etc.?  She was reviewing body parts and pointing to each one.  Then she read the book From Head to Toe by Eric Carle.  While she read it in small group the students did some of the movements that the animals did in the book but not all of them.  She asked for volunteers to raise their hand if they recognized the animal.  After she read the story, she went back through and she pronounced the animal name, then the students pronounced it.  While she prepared the next activity at the desks, the other teacher did Total Physical Response with the students while reading the story.  The students all found their own place in the room, and they repeated the words she read and did all of the actions the animals did. 

            Next students worked on a Humpty Dumpty puzzle at their seats, gluing it together and coloring it.  This was an individual activity with teacher help when needed. 

            Last, the students reviewed instruments and watched a video about a hippopotamus who played an instrument.  They were told by the teacher to identify the character in the video and the instruments they saw.   

            There was very little student-to-student interaction during the class, and this may be due to the age (Kindergarten) and the pattern of off-task behavior of a few students.  However, the students were prompted to speak English, just not to each other. The other concern is that this group did not write anything for the lesson.  I overheard the teachers talking and wondering how they would work writing into the lesson and the difficulty with this task because of the proficiency level of the students and their ages.

Section #2 – Second Language Acquisition

            Using hats at the beginning to demonstrate what a hat is and where it is worn helped students see and experience this word and its function.  From Head to Toe was a good book for students to review body parts and names of animals because of the pictures of animals and movements they were doing.  It also depicted a human boy doing the movements and then exclaiming “I can do it too!” (Carle, 1997).  The TPR also promoted these skills by involving kinesthetic movement, while repeating and speaking the words for their actions.   The interaction was mainly with the teachers during the class.  The teacher to students ration was 2:14, which helped keep the students on-task and focused on English most of the time.  There were a few students interacting with each other during the puzzle activity, and I noticed they were speaking Spanish to each other, however I am not sure if they were helping each other with the activity or not.  The video was a good way to end the lesson by bringing the students back to the carpet and orally reviewing instruments using visual pictures.

Section #3 – Ethnographic Perspective

            I need to gain an understanding of the reading and writing capabilities of this group of Kindergarteners so that they will be able to use all four areas of language: speaking, listening, reading, and writing.  I have observed them speak and listen in this lesson.  Because most of the students are not reading yet, I need to find the best way/strategies to work in reading and writing.  I also need to find out how they will react to interactive group or paired work.  There is the possibility that the students (who are mostly Spanish-speaking) will revert back to Spanish to interact and communicate, as I observed during the puzzle activity.  This would make constant monitoring necessary so that they will also communicate in English.

            The culture of England was present in the lesson of the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme puzzle, and the teacher had the students change the words of the first version (after saying it the right way) to “…all the boys and girls could put Humpty together again!” so they would understand why they were putting together a puzzle of Humpty Dumpty.     

Reference

Carle, Eric. (1997).  From Head to Toe.  New York:  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.