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Inquiry 1 : The Community and School Context Part I: Critical Information About the School District*
i. PSSA, Math: scaled = 1230 1. at advanced level 6.3% 2. proficient level 28.1% 3. basic level 25% 4. below 40.6% ii. PSSA, Reading: scaled = 1280 1. at advanced level 5.2% 2. proficient level 44.8% 3. basic level 31% 4. below 18.8%
i. White = 99% ii. Low income = 30% iii. High School graduate rate: 87.2% iv. Total number of graduating seniors last year: 74 1. 15 of which intended to obtain a job 2. 6 to pursue a non-degree education 3. 6 to join military 4. 47 intend to go to degree-granting school v. School Mission Statement: “to provide each student the opportunity to acquire the knowledge, skills, and values to become life long learners” 1. The full attainment of this mission requires the shared responsibility in: administration, business community, community, parents, students, support staff, teachers, and volunteers. 2. The involvement of this community will enable students to demonstrate an application of technology, an appreciation for cultural heritage and diversity, critical thinking, effective communication, productive citizenry, respect for human dignity, and result in students who are world citizens.
i. French I: students are introduced to the French and francophone cultures. Although all four skills – reading, writing, listening, and speaking are included, basic communication skills are emphasized. Topics of discussion include likes/dislikes, school, purchasing school supplies, sports and activities, and ordering a light meal in a café. ii. French II: designed to continue the student’s introduction to French and francophone culture and further develop the student’s communication skills. Topics of discussion include family, shopping for food, sports and activities, purchasing clothing, planning a vacation, and giving demands. Discussing what the student did in the past is introduced.
Part II: Reflection on the gathered information For my community mapping project, I worked with a group studying the neighboring community of Phillipsburg. As a result, I will be using my experiences from the Houtzdale classroom observations and my experiences within the Phillipsburg community for my reflections. My original thoughts regarding my school placement was how different the classes were than the French classes I had when I was in high school. It seemed that the students and the teacher were much more laid back than classroom that I am used to. During the lesson, the students talk among themselves or make jokes about the teachers in the school, and not much is done to prevent this. It also did not appear that they had a tremendous focus on grammar or really covering a substantial amount of material during the class time. The teacher rarely corrected pronunciation or grammar mistakes while the students practiced speaking during class. In talking with my mentor teacher, she shared with me that the focus of the classroom was really on communicating ideas. She explained that she felt she could not really take points for spelling mistakes, since most of the students are not spelling very well in English. When correcting tests or homework assignments, she focused more on whether or not she could understand what the student was trying to say, as opposed to how or what they used to say it. As part of the CI295 class, I observed an English middle school classroom near Huntington. My group members and I did a similar project, in which we interviewed the guidance counselor and teachers. What we learned there, was that the school in general does not force concepts on the students. They are very glad when the students come to class, and they prefer to keep a focus on socialization instead of the course material since most of the students do not go on to further schooling. As we can see from the above data, only half of these students in the Houtzdale school do have intentions to go to a degree granting school, so it may be similar situation here. Also, something that was interesting was one of the members of the community that we interviewed expressed her concern that teachers often are trying to teach students more than what is necessary in the community. She felt that some teachers have expectations that are too high for the students. Putting this together, it seems that regardless of how different and “undemanding” the schools seems to me, I do have to keep in mind that the goals of this school and the goals of the students are much different in this district than where I am from. The school serves a different purpose here, and it appears that members of the community even think that the schools are demanding too much of the students. Although the school was not able to provide me with an exact figure for the per pupil expenditure, I would imagine that it is quite low in comparison with other districts. In talking to the Phillipsburg community members, I learned that since the schools are funded by property taxes (and since property values are not very high at all), the schools are not given very much money to work with. The community is hoping that since Pennsylvania is now using money from the state casinos to help fund schools that they will see an increase in their funding but they do not seem very hopeful. Many of the community members commented on the lack of technology in their classrooms. From my observations in the classroom, it does seem like there is definitely room for the amount of technology to improve. The teacher does have one computer in the classroom; however there is no TV/VCR/DVD and even the overhead projector is very old. Particularly in a language classroom, a teacher could very easily benefit from additional technology in the classroom. Yet as a result of the limited funding, the students are not able to take advantage of these possibilities and the teacher is forced to come up with creative alternatives that will be at the same time effective. As one of the community members said, “compared to State College, there is a night and day difference”. As we discussed in class, the State College school district provides their students with treadmills and many other benefits that one would typically expect at a college or university. It is quite amazing to see how all public schools are “supposed” to be very similar and be able to provide similar services, and yet one can easily see the drastic differences between schools. In addition the Phillipsburg school district is “on warning” due to their failing scores from the PSSA testing the past two years. The school may end up having to shut down as a result. In the mean time, of course, their funding will continue to decrease and yet their scores will be expected to increase. Seeing the lack of resources both in the school district and within the community, it’s very difficult to comprehend how that is a very realistic expectation. We learned that 80% of the students have some sort of connection to drugs, and there is a very limited police service within the community, which means there is limited personnel (let alone financial resources) to even begin to attempt to change this situation. One of the teachers wanted to take action, yet the administration told the teacher that unless it is with additional people, it is forbidden to do such a thing. We’ve also learned that there is a very small amount of parental involvement in the school. Some attribute it to lack of time, others to apathy. Many schools face this dilemma, yet at a school where test scores are not meeting expectations of the state, and drug problems cause anywhere from 1-3 deaths each school year, it would seem that parental involvement is more than a necessity for the area. As I mentioned, the course material and teaching methods differ significantly from the classes that I had become accustomed to seeing in a high school environment. Yet what perhaps surprised me the most is the condition of the schools and the problems that exist within the community. It is certainly difficult to build a strong future when there are underlying issues in the foundation, both in the school and in the community. This certainly has implications on what teaching methods a teacher can incorporate into lesson, but also the types of roles a teacher must play in the classroom. *http://www.schools-data.com/schools/Moshannon-Valley-JSHS-Houtzdale.html Mapping the Community October 8, 2004 When I went into the community of Phillipsburg, I was a little unsure of how successful these interviews would go. I know for myself, that I had never really stopped to think about my hometown school district or whether or not I was very pleased with it. Fortunately, there were members of the community who have spent time thinking about their school district situation and felt comfortable in voicing their opinions. Perhaps what struck me the most in talking to the different people of the community, were the varying ways in which they saw their school districts. In speaking with them, I primarily focused on their opinions of the teachers within the district, funding, standardized tests (PSSA), drugs in the school, and parent involvement within the community. Surprisingly these people had very different opinions on these topics. Regarding the teachers of the district, the general consensus was that these teachers were doing a fairly good job. One woman who was working in a bakery believed that the teachers were helpful in keeping her informed and she was pleased with the amount of assigned homework and what the students were learning. A bank associate also felt that the teachers were doing a good job with the funding they had, but he felt that there was room for improvement. Finally, a secretary from a state representative believed that the teachers were very competent however she often times feels that the teachers have expectations that are too high for the particular grade levels. She said that "some teach above what is necessary". In general, she believed that there are good teachers, but that some "have to go". Funding for the school district generally brought the same response from all the interviewed members – there is not enough. The bank associate believed that the main problem was that the schools were relying solely on property taxes to fund the schools. Since property values are not very high in the community, this leaves the schools with very little money to spread around the district. He is hoping that with the slot machines coming into the state that will be providing funding to the schools, the lack of funding may start to see improvement. He also commented that he would like to see more technology used in the classrooms by saying that compared to the State College district, the difference is "night and day". The secretary believed the schools were "doing what they can with what the have". She felt the elementary schools were doing "extremely well" under the circumstances and doing "well" at the high school level. She felt the students had "enough technology in the classroom" but that she would definitely agree that the students could use more. Standardized tests seemed to receive a negative opinion from the members. The bakery worker said that her daughter was an honors student in the school however she failed the Math PSSA test two times. The worker feels that the PSSA tests cause a lot of unnecessary stress and anxiety for the students. The bank associate also did not seem very convinced that the PSSA was the best testing method. As for the secretary, she sited the example of her son, who was very smart and was on the honors list in school. He did score well on the PSSA but then he did not do very well at all on the SAT. She does not believe that the PSSA is a good indicator of how well the students will do on other standardized tests or in college. Finally, drugs and parental involvement seemed to also elicit different opinions. The baker felt that drugs will always be in schools, yet he did not believe that this was a problem for his school district at all. He said that it is "much less here than in State College". On the other hand, we have learned that nearly 80% of the high school students have used drugs at some point and that between one and three students die each school year as a result of this problem. The secretary felt that there was a "big drug issue". However she was not sure if the school knows the severity of the problem, or does, and is just not sure what to do about it. She did mention however that the school is starting to bring police dogs into the schools a couple times a year to try to find drugs in the school. She felt that this was an acceptable way of handing the situation and she does not mind because she knows that her son will not be found with drugs. As for parent involvement, the bakery worker expressed frustration that too many parents use the "excuse" that they do not have enough time to be involved in the schools and that it is always the same small number of parents who show up for events. The secretary, on the other hand, said that there is just not enough time to be very involved in the school, but she did agree that there is not a lot of parent involvement. Overall, the members of the community were generally willing to express their opinions on the school district. It was interesting to see the different reasoning behind their different opinions. What I take away from this experience is that this situation will be generally found in almost any school district. Some parents will not agree with what the teachers are doing in the schools, funding will almost always be an issue for both parents and teachers, and that parental involvement will always be a debatable issue. This experience gave me time to reflect on these situations and alerted me to things that I will have to think about as I begin a teaching career in any community. Inquiry 2: Inquiry into the Curriculum October 22, 2004 As mentioned in Inquiry 1, I believe that an academic focus in the classroom is crucial to maintaining respect from the students, as well as preventing classroom management predicaments. As a pre-service teacher, I have noticed that this is becoming more and more of my teaching philosophy for classroom management, and I feel that both students and teachers play a crucial role in making this dynamic successful. My general expectations for student behavior are that students be considerate, respectful, interested, and willing to put forth a strong effort. I also hope that they are motivated and willing to open their minds to different ideas – both linguistically and culturally. I think that in particular, this last idea is essential, since a World Language classroom revolves and relies so heavily on new perspectives and ideas. Students who chose to close doors on different ways of saying ideas or having an open minded to cultural differences will not only decrease what they will be able to take away from the classroom, but they will also serve as a negative influence to the other students. That being said, it is clear that a teacher must have a positive influence in the classroom and encourage students to keep an open mind during not only this class, but in all the other disciplines as well. Ten years after leaving my classroom, the majority of students will not remember how to say, for example, "the house is red", in French. However, there is a good chance that this idea of being open minded, accepting differences, and being interested and curious in others and their ways of live will still affect the students’ lifestyles. For this reason, it is crucial that as I teacher I will be able to provide an atmosphere which will encourage patience and respect. In addition, my role as a teacher includes things such as having "with-it-ness" in order to provide a learning environment which is free from distraction and disruption. I will also focus my energies on creating lessons that will cater to a variety of learning styles and a range of student personalities. I must also provide a positive environment in which students will be comfortable with their own experimenting of the target language, and that they will be encouraging to their classmates. I will have high expectations but there will be room for mistakes, growth, and improvement. Since student comfort will be a key component to a successful foreign language classroom, I will need to structure a classroom environment that will encourage student participation. In order to achieve this, I plan to include activities that require students to speak with me and with one another in the target language to stress the improvement of communication skills. Also, I hope that through the use of interesting prompts, students will be able to express their interests and beliefs that are meaningful to them. I believe that students will be more encouraged to participate when they can find a personal connection to the target language, as opposed to traditional textbook exercises that focus solely on grammar and vocabulary words. Again, this environment will only work if students are comfortable with each other and with using the target language. Students who do not participate in a positive manner will bring down the energy of the entire class and will change the dynamics of the classroom dramatically. There is no time, nor need, for inappropriate behavior in the classroom. I believe the main reasons that students misbehave or cause problems are because they are either not engaged in the content, or there is the freedom in the classroom which allows these behaviors. Therefore, it is my responsibility to maintain an academic focus to the classroom as well as to have a great deal of "with-it-ness". I feel that students will be greatly deterred from misbehaving if they know that a certain amount of work with a certain amount of quality will be expected from them, and that the teacher is watching them at all times. This combination should help to eliminate the majority of behavior problems that could occur in the classroom. However, should a situation arise, it must be dealt with immediately. This may require simply separating students who are causing a disruption. Should disruptions continue, restructuring the seating arrangement may also serve as a solution. Pursuing stronger means of discipline (as prescribed by the administration) may also be necessary to enforce the idea that students will need to remain focused and well behaved. I had expected to find a fairly well behaved classroom in my pre-service experience. For the most part, this expectation seems to be realistic, however I am concerned that students do not feel that they are proficient in the target language, and are not always comfortable with their abilities. I also have found that particularly in the larger class that the students tend to be very talkative, even while the teacher is conducting a lesson. From an observer’s standpoint, this comes across as a lack of respect from the students. Since the teacher does not enforce courteous behavior from the students (such as paying attention, not talking during lessons, etc) the students are able to continue these behaviors without consequence. It’s possible that I have slightly different expectations for the students, and since I am young and lack experience in the classroom. As a result, I feel that I would place a lot of energy and focus on avoiding disruptions and misbehavior from the students. Yet my mentor teacher does not seem very effected by this behavior from the students. In observing the class, I feel that the students’ behavior is a reflection of how they view the teacher’s expectations for behavior, but also for the quality of work they turn in, and the effort they put into their work during lessons. When I taught for a few minutes in the classroom recently, I was surprised that the students were very attentive for the first few minutes. I think this came from curiosity and the idea that they wanted to see how I would fair as a teacher. However, once they became used to someone else being in front of the classroom, they returned to talking amongst themselves. As motioned before, I feel as a new teacher, it is very important that I keep control of the classroom at all times, since I lack the experience and since I do not come across as a very strict person. Because of this, as I continued on with my lesson, I immediately walked towards the students who were talking in hopes that this "with-it-ness" would prove to be successful. Fortunately, it did, and the students stopped their conversation and paid attention for the remainder of the lesson. I am hoping that in the future, this method will continue to be effective in preventing disruptions and larger scale classroom management disturbances. I feel that the pre-service experience in general, although very valuable, does not completely reflect the situation that I will find myself in as a future teacher. I find that I am somewhat restricted in keeping the same types of expectations that my mentor teacher has portrayed to the students, which would include acceptable behavior, types of speech, and academic work quality. Since the students have been established in the classroom and are familiar with the ways my mentor teacher is running the classroom, I find it is neither acceptable nor fair to come into the classroom and enforce different ideas and expectations on the students. However, the experience has aided me in seeing ways in which I would do things differently, as well giving me the opportunity to see how the mentor teacher uses different ideas, how they work, and their effectiveness with the students. As I spend more time in the classroom as a guest, I notice that I feel stronger about gaining respect from the students. I feel that their level of respect will be a reflection of my expectations for them, both behaviorally and academically. I think that through "with-it-ness", and keeping students interested and engaged will hopefully aide me in having both high expectations for the students and a high level of respect from the students. Certainly I hope that the students will be able to have a community atmosphere in the classroom, feel comfortable, and possibly even enjoy the class time, however the above mentioned ideas will remain a large focus of my energy until I can gain a more controlling presence in the classroom and until I gain more classroom experience. Inquiry 3: Inquiry into Student Learning Click here to see Inquiry 3 (with graphs) Title of Lesson used– Class Vocabulary and Agreeing/Disagreeing Implemented – November 8th 2004 The criteria I used to evaluate student work and how I know that these are important and relevant criteria: For this lesson, originally, I had planned to have the students only ask their partner or tell their partner the required things, and have their partner respond. However, I wanted students to gain practice writing out the vocabulary and the expressions for agreeing/disagreeing. In addition, I wanted something tangible I could look at in order to judge the effectiveness of the lesson today. Therefore, I decided to have the students write down the questions and comments and then ask/tell their partner, and then write down what their partner says back. This worked well, because it also added additional structure to the activities and again, it allowed me to assess how the students did with these activities during class today. a) The papers that the students turned in were important and relevant criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the lesson, because they showed what the students had understood from the lesson. I was able to see if they were able to choose an appropriate expression for each of the activities, and if they were grasping the concept that these expressions were used to replace “j’aime ___” and “je n’aime pas___”. b) In addition, I walked around the room while the students were working in partners to see that they were on task, but also because then I was able to correct mistakes before the students had practiced them too much. For the most part, the students worked well with the activities and did understand the use of the expressions. I felt that observing what the students were saying during the activity was important because I was able to see how they were working together to figure out an appropriate answer. I found that it was a very good idea to have the students work with a partner, because they were able to talk each other through the steps and come up with a correct answer together. This was important to see, because I had set up an activity that allowed students to analyze the situation and think about what an appropriate answer would be. c) Finally, I also used class participation as a way to evaluate the students and the effectiveness of the lesson. I feel that the number of students who are volunteering answers is (sometimes, but not always) a good reflection of how well the students are grasping the material. Also, the amount of confidence/doubt in the way that a student answers also helps me to know if the students still need more practice with the expressions.
For each class period, the charts show how many papers were collected after three in-class activities took place. These charts reflect the number of answers the students answered incorrectly. Students had to a) write down three questions and write the appropriate response given from their partner b) write down three classes they like and write down the appropriate response given from their partner and c) write down three classes they did not like and write an appropriate response given from their partner. The students did well with writing questions and writing what classes they did and did not like. This part of the activity was a review. Therefore, I graded and focused on the appropriateness of the written responses to the questions/comments. Since the students were writing down the answers their partner gave, this sort of graded activity would not be used to grade individual students. It would not be fair to penalize a student for writing down their partner’s incorrect answer. Instead, this activity served as an introduction and practice to these expressions, and allows me to see how well the students (as a whole) were able to use these expressions. Analysis of Overall Student Achievement – Comparing the Two Sections: In comparing the two sections, I immediately notice that the 7th period class had double the amount of students with zero mistakes than the 1st period class had. According to the graphs, it is fair to assume that the 7th period class did much better with the activities than the 1st period class. There are changes that I made for the 7th period class which added more structure and eliminated some of the guess work for the students. For example, in the 1st period class, I left the entire chart for them to use – forcing them to have to think and choose which choices they had to use to answer a question/respond to a comment. In looking at the papers after 1st period, I noticed that some of the students had some difficulties realizing which expressions to choose from. During the 7th period class, I covered the extra expressions and they were only able to see the expressions that were useful for that particular activity (ie. Asking a question ---- they were only able to see the expressions “oui beaucoup”, “moi non” and “non, pas trop”, instead of the entire chart). Since mainly the mistakes that 1st period made were just not picking the right expressions, I believe this adjustment that I made for 7th period may have had a lot to do with the fact that these 7th period students had a larger amount of students without mistakes. Are the results what I expected? Since I did make adjustments for the 7th period class, I was hoping that these students would have less mistakes than the 1st period class. I must say though, that I was very pleased with how well the students did with this activity. I had really tried to have a highly structured, yet effective activity for the students. Yet since this was the first time they were being introduced to these expressions, I had not expected the students to do so well with using these expressions. I was very happy to see that only a very few students (a total of 3 students from both the 1st and 7th period classes) had not completed all three activities (and they are shown as having 4+ mistakes on the graphs). I wanted the students to gain practice in writing the vocabulary words and these expressions – but I also was hoping that in having them write the activities out, that this would increase the amount of participation from the students. This seemed to work well and I was pleased with the way they wrote out the activities, and also how they worked together with their partners. What patterns of performance are evident in the assessment? As mentioned above, the only patterns that I noticed were that the students had used the wrong part of the chart to choose answer from, and also, there were a very small amount of answers that still contained “j’aime” or “je n’aime pas” and the expressions they were learning are used instead of that. It was helpful to notice these two patterns and I made a point to stress to the 7th period class that these expressions we are learning today are used to replace “j’aime or “je n’aime pas”. For the 7th period class, I no longer saw that students were still using these expressions – instead they were using the correct expressions from the chart. And also, since I had covered the extra expressions and they were only able to see those that were relevant to the activity they were working on, students in the 7th period class had less students using the wrong expressions. In what areas did the students perform best/worst? This is a difficult thing to determine, since there were so few mistakes on the activities. However, it seems that the 1st period class had the most difficulty with the second activity – responding to a “j’aime” comment. Those who had answered this incorrectly did so because they treated it as a question – and so they answered “non, pas moi” (instead of “moi, non”). Since the majority of 7th period did very well, there is not a clear section from the activities that they had difficulties with. This was most likely due to the fact that they had less “guess work” for responding to the questions/comments. What student or teacher misconceptions are revealed by the assessments? There were a few students from the 1st period class that continued to answer with “j’aime” or “je n’aime pas” – I believe I should have stressed more that the expressions we were learning today are used to replace “j’aime” and “je n’aime pas”. This seemed to be the case based on looking at the papers collected from the 7th period class – they did not have this same misconception. How would I modify this lesson for a special needs student in my class? This is not the case currently in either of my classes. However, if I had a student that had difficulties, for example, with hearing, I would be sure to talk louder, and be sure that I was near the student when I was explaining or presenting material/directions. I would also give them a modified copy of my lesson plan, so that they would be able to follow along and know what was going on, without having to solely rely on what they could hear from me. As for the activities that were done today, I feel that a student who had difficulty hearing could still participate in these activities. The modification would be to have the partners complete this task by passing their paper back and forth to read/answer through writing, instead of solely through listening to what the partner said. Three actions that students should undertake to improve their learning and performance: 1. I notice, from observing the students and their work on previous quizzes, that the students could definitely benefit from having additional practice in writing the vocabulary words or grammatical structures they are learning. This may require time outside of class – but it would definitely benefit the students to assign additional homework or studying. 2. The mentor teacher has allowed them to talk amongst themselves or not focus on the material without negative consequences. I would like the students to pay more attention in class and to be respectful and not talk – particularly while the teacher is presenting material or going over an activity. 3. I would also like to believe that if the students were not rewarded for incorrect answers, that they may have more incentive to put forth more effort –for in-class assignments, homework, and quizzes and tests. The students have found out what they need to do in order to “get by” in this class and I believe they are rewarded without putting forth a fair amount of effort. From teaching the class this week, I have come to find that the students are capable of much more than what has been expected of them – and I think that they would be very surprised of what they are capable of if they would put forth more effort in their studies. Changes I should make in my assessment instruments: Something that I could do at the beginning of classes is to give them a very short quiz that would review the material from the previous class – this way the students would be able to practice this material and see exactly what they need to study. It is important for the students to know where they are making mistakes, and how to fix them! In addition, at the end of a lesson where I presented material, for example in this lesson, I could give them a very short quiz to see if they learned any of the expressions and were able to use them without relying on the overhead chart they used for the activities. This would help me to see what they retained, and also how much additional practice may be necessary. Inquiry 4: Inquiry into My Teaching Lesson 1: « Classroom Vocabulary and Agreeing/Disagreeing » Implemented: November 8, 2004 Breif summary of lesson: students reviewed the school subjects (vocabulary) and then were introduced to expressions for agreeing/disagreeing (ie. Yes, very much. No, not too much. Me too, me neither…etc). Students did three in-class partner activities to practice the expressions (one activity for each section of the chart that I created). 1. What did you learn through the process of planning and implementing this lesson? While I was planning this activity, I made an effort to make the in-class activities similar to one another, as far as instructions and procedures are concerned. I felt that this would add more structure to the activities, less confusion, and then I would spend less time explaining directions – and more time having the students able to practice the vocabulary and expressions. As for implementing the lesson, in comparison to the previous lesson I taught, I found it to be so much easier to teach a lesson when the students were better behaved, as they were for this lesson. It was distracting to have the students talking and competing for my attention. Today, it seemed that the students were much better with paying attention, staying on-task, and listening to directions. As a result, it was much easier to stay focused on our academic work, instead of wondering how I can get the students to be quiet. J 2. What did your students learn? HOW do you know they learned? It is fair to assume that they gained practice in using the expressions they learned today. This was seen in the papers that I collected after class. They had done the activities and most of them had done extremely well. The majority of the students were in fact able to differentiate between the expressions. Through both practicing as a class, and also through the pair activities, they were able to practice the pronunciation of the expressions as well. In walking around the room, I was pleased to see that the students had learned how to go step-by-step in trying to choose the right expression. So at the very least, I feel that the students were thinking about the expressions and also seeing a connection to these expressions in English. 3. Did you meet the needs of all of your learners? How do you know you have? I would say that for the most part, I did this fairly well, based on the papers that I collected. However, I did find a couple papers where the students did not realize that these expressions were to be used to replace “j’aime___”. So they were using the expressions in addition to “j’aime”. While walking around the room during the lesson, I had not noticed this problem, otherwise I would have talked to the students and explained the purpose of these expressions – or possibly made a comment to the entire class. Yet I apparently missed these students while I was checking their papers during the lesson. This leads me to believe that I could improve on that for the next time. 4. What did you learn in regard to language teaching? Today I learned that even though I previously thought that it was best to avoid translation at all costs, I am starting to think that students (particularly at the beginning level) sometimes do need that connection to their native language in order to understand what’s going on in the target language. In today’s lesson, I asked them to think about what they do in English. Sometimes it seems that the students get overwhelmed with the expressions. However, I found that it was very helpful if they realize that they do the exact same things in English, and they already know the rules – they just have to learn new words to use the rules! 5. What did your students learn in regards to language teaching? Students learned that they can in fact rely on their knowledge of English in order to understand the rules behind the French expressions they are learning today. They can draw connections and parallels between the two languages. 6. What did you learn about managing the learning environment during this lesson? Compared to the previous lesson I did with these students, I realized that simply asking them to be quiet, or calling attention to the fact that they are being disrespectful/too loud, was often times enough to stop the little side conversations during the lesson. I also learned that calling on students who were talking with their partner, or not paying attention usually helped to bring them back on-task. Today we were in a different classroom, and so I had much more room than normal – this made it so much easier to walk around and monitor the students! J 7. What did you really like about this lesson? I really liked the chart that I had made. I felt that this really helped the students and it organized the expressions. I think it simplified the list of expressions and helped the students differentiate between them. I also liked how I asked them how they would respond to a question/comment in English, so that they were thinking about the uses of these expressions and could understand their proper uses. In addition, I felt that the students respected me and were polite and well behaved. Most of all, I think I liked reading their papers afterward, and seeing that they did in fact do much better than I expected them to do! 8. What disappointed you about this lesson? I was disappointed by the fact that students did talk to each other any chance they got – even though they did quickly stop when I called attention to it, they still would start again a few minutes later. As for the lesson, I was not disappointed too much – I thought the lesson went well – the students were productive and attentive. 9. What alternative instructional and assessment strategies could you have used? After I had taught both classes, I thought that I could have perhaps given them a little “quiz” to see what they had actually retained. The papers I collected reflect what they were able to do while using the chart, their book, or their partner. Even though it was new material (this was the first time they saw these expressions), it could have been helpful to have a sort of “quiz” to see how well they could do without assistance – and this would help to determine how much practice is still necessary. 10. If you were going to implement this lesson again in your future classrooms, what would you revise to improve it? As mentioned in #7, a quiz might be helpful. As for the lesson itself, I was very happy with how that worked out. I think that a homework assignment to accompany the lesson would be helpful as well, so that students could gain some additional practice before the next class. Lesson 2: “Introducing ‘si’ and Reviewing” Implemented: November 11, 2004 Brief summary of lesson: I handed back the papers from the previous lesson (which was the presentation of the expressions for agreeing/disagreeing) and asked students to correct their mistakes. I presented “si” which is used to answer a negative question (instead of “oui”) and we practiced that. Then the students reviewed the expressions again and practiced by answering questions that I had prepared. Then we did a “scavenger hunt” game to find people who liked certain classes, and did not like certain classes. 1. What did you learn through the process of planning and implementing this lesson? I felt that I had prepared a good lesson for the students to review the expressions and practice them, along with practicing the new expression of “si”. However, I had a challenge while implementing the lesson. I really believe that these students need to have practice writing out these expressions. Since the students are not typically assigned homework, this practice needs to be done as in-class activities. Not surprisingly, the students don’t exactly like to sit there and write out answers to questions individually. I felt conflicted, because as much as I would like to have “fun” activities (ie, having a “conversation” with a partner, or a “game”) planned for the entire lesson, I know that these activities will not provide them the opportunity to gain practice in writing out the vocabulary and expressions. Granted, it was not very much writing the students were asked to do, yet they are not accustomed to this sort of work, and it was very difficult to have the students work individually. Many of the students would not write down answers unless I was watching over their shoulder – and even then, some did not. I had this challenge, especially with the 7th period class, and so I had to modify this writing activity. I did try to balance the “boring” writing activity with the scavenger hunt, so that they did have something more conversational and something where they could get up out of their seats and do an activity with their friends. 2. What did your students learn? HOW do you know they learned? They made the correct changes to the paper that I handed back to them from Tuesday’s lesson. They got exposure and some practice in using “si” vs. “oui”. They also learned how to “think through” how to answer the questions we worked on in class. I liked how I allowed them to find the rule for “si” and “oui” instead of just telling them. I wanted to make them think and infer the rule. 7th period did very well with this. 1st period took a little longer, yet it was effective all the same. Based on the class participation for the “si/oui” activities, I think that the majority of the students understood the difference – I think they had some difficulties applying the rule, but since this was their first time seeing the expression, I was glad to see them understanding the rule. The application will come with time. I was pleased with how well they remembered the expressions they learned on Tuesday – my thoughts on this come from the great participation from the class when we were reviewing these expressions. 3. Did you meet the needs of all your learners? How do you know you have? This was challenging today – there were several students that told me that they were unable to do the activities because they “weren’t here last class”. In a way, I took this as a compliment, since the students realized they did miss important material from last class. (I had not heard this before while observing the class). Yet in another way, I found it to be an excuse, because most of the activities could have been done without being in class last time, since we were practicing the “si” that was introduced today! However, for the students that insisted that they were unable to complete the activities, I had extra copies of the notes from last class, and I gave them a copy. Then I made sure to keep an eye on them to see if they would do the activity, now that they did not have an excuse not to! 4. What did you learn in regard to language teaching? As I mentioned from Tuesday’s lesson – it is easy to teach students expressions in French when they already know the rules in English and the rules are the same. However, today when I was presenting the “si” expression – it was very confusing to the students since this doesn’t exactly exist in English. My only explanation for the expression is “because” or “it is the rule” and I feel that students can get frustrated by this. It is difficult for students to see the logic behind this. 5. What did your students learn in regard to language teaching? Today, students learned that there are going to be new expressions in French that they cannot relate to/translate into English. This is part of the culture and ways of expression, and so they have to learn a new rule, instead of just learning a new word for a rule they already know in English. Unfortunately, sometimes writing practices are the only way to learn these! 6. What did you learn about managing the learning environment during this lesson? I learned, especially in the 7th period class, that sometimes in order to manage the learning environment and have an effective lesson, that sometimes it is necessary to modify the lesson plan during the lesson. I need to be flexible and creative in order to find a solution – If the students were not paying attention or unable at that time to complete the activity on their own – then a more guided class practice seemed to work well and as long as I was getting a decent amount of participation from several of the students, I could safely assume that it was still being. 7. What did you really like about this lesson? I liked that the students inferred the rule for “si” on their own. I like having students find things on their own sometimes instead of always giving them rules to be memorized. It is very beneficial for students to infer these things on their own sometimes! 8. What disappointed you about this lesson, if anything? I think that I was a little disappointed that during the scavenger hunt, the students did not use as much French as I would have hoped. I walked around the room and listened in on different questions and made sure the students asked and answered in French, but I know that when I was not right over their shoulder, that many times they just spoke in English. This is to be expected to a certain extent – students are going to go with what is easier, that is natural. However, I was hoping that through this activity, they would realize that they were capable of obtaining information and completing an activity with the French they knew! 9. What alternative instructional and assessment strategies could you have used? Some of the students had written down their French response to the questions during the scavenger hunt. I think this is because they were using the same directions from the activities from the previous class. This was good, because it forced them to come up with a French answer – I had not asked the students to do this however. So I think, that actually it would have been a good idea if that was a requirement for the activity, so that I could be sure that even if they were not asking or answering the questions in French, that they were still thinking about and writing an appropriate answer in French. 10. If you were going to implement this lesson again in the future, what would you do to improve it? I would have prepared slips of paper with the scavenger hunt already on it – instead of taking time in class to have them copy down the list. And again, I would have had the students write down their responses to the questions, to be sure that they were at least writing French and applying the expressions to the activity. I had originally planned to have a prize the next day if the scavenger hunt answers matched the answers they gave during the writing practice (since they were the same questions). This would eliminate people just “saying that they liked a class” in order to complete someone else’s scavenger hunt. It would also provide incentive. Also, my mentor teacher told me that sometimes this type of activity could be used with coupons, and students could be given coupons during the activity (from the teacher) to be rewarded for speaking French. The person with the most coupons at the end of class would get a prize as well. Lesson 3: “French II – Comment dit-on – requests, demands, accept/decline” Implemented: Monday, November 22, 2004 Students were introduced to the comment dit-on expressions. Then we practiced these as a class of how to ask someone to do something, how to demand that someone to do something (using the food vocabulary) and then how to accept/decline these requests. Then the students did the card activity that I created where they were able to create dialogues to practice the vocabulary with the new expressions. Then we did a listening activity from the book and then learned Pouvoir and they watched a few minutes of French News. 1. What did you learn through the process of planning and implementing this lesson? I learned that it is really important to take advantage of extra time – and having the French tape really came in handy and was a really great activity for the students to have and to listen to with a few extra minutes at the end of class once in awhile. J 2. What did your students learn? How do you know they learned? I liked how they worked with the card activity that I made for them. They got to see how the expressions that were introduced today really play into actual situations. The students did very well with this activity and they each presented one of the dialogues at the end of the activity. Also, based on the way the class reacted to the review of partitive articles, I feel that they are comfortable with knowing them – they still could use some work with choosing the right one for different words. 3. Did you meet the needs of all your learners? How do you know? I believe so. All of the students were engaged throughout the lesson and students were asking questions when something was unclear. 4. What did you learn in regard to language teaching? I especially made an effort to use a little more of the target language today and I notice that they really responded to this. If I started speaking in French, they immediately started paying more attention and it was like a game to see who could figure out what I was trying to say. 5. What did your students learn in regard to language teaching? With the expressions they learned today for accepting/refusing and through the card activity, I believe they realized that they already know how the language works; we do the same things in English. Now it is just learning new words for these structures. The students were also able, through watching the French tape, to see how French actually sounds from native speakers in the “real world”. 6. What did you learn about managing the learning environment during this lesson? I learned that students seem to become much more interested in the material when I “come down to their level”, particularly the 8th period class. With the 5th period class, I noticed I was a little bit more of a “teacher figure” and that worked really well. I think that the 8th period class really loves to aggravate teachers and get to them, and so by working with them and allowing them that little bit of freedom to have fun and joke around worked well and actually surprisingly encouraged them to focus more and become more engaged in the material! J 7. What did you really like about this lesson? I took what the mentor teacher would have had planned for the day and I liked how I made it into an effective, interactive, and productive class. I liked how the students were engaged from beginning of class to the time the bell rang, I liked how we all worked together and had a good time, and I loved that they were all enjoying the French tape also! 8. What disappointed you about this lesson if anything? I thought the lesson went well. Previously in observing the French II classes I was glad that I did not have to teach these classes because they had been rude and very talkative during the classes. However, after my experiences with the students, I am only disappointed now that I was not able to work with the French II students more often during my time there! 9. What alternative instructional and assessment strategies could you have used? Perhaps I could have done more of a “wrap up” for a post-asssessment, although the dialogues that they presented after doing the card activity served this purpose as well. 10. If you were going to implement this lesson again in your future classrooms, what would you revise to improve it? I could design activities that cater more to the individual personalities of these classes. In the past, I thought that the 5th period class also seemed a little talkative, but since I’ve started teaching them, it seems that they work very well under a lot of structure and a more firm environment, whereas the 8th period class needs a little bit more freedom – otherwise their main focus becomes trying to get attention, or disrupt the class. Lesson 4 : . “French I – Review of Les Jours de la Semaine, L’emploi du temps, and Introduce #21-59” Implemented: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 Students reviewed the days of the week – I was very happy to see how much they remembered from last class! Then we analyzed a French student’s schedule and talked about the days of the week and the differences between the American schedule and the French school day. Then they did an activity with a partner to say what classes they had on different days of the week, and then they were introduced to numbers 21-59. With the few minutes remaining, we watched a little bit of the French News tape and then reviewed numbers. 1. What did you learn through the process of planning and implementing this lesson? I learned that writing out things in advance on the chalkboard was extremely helpful today – it helps to keep me and the students focused – and I also learned that having a prepared overhead written out can really help students for note taking and can save time – instead of writing that all on the board! (especially since we do not have a lot of chalkboard space in the classroom!) 2. What did your students learn? How do you know the learned? I feel that the students did very well with the days of the week, this was based on class participation from the review. We said the days of the week several times as a class and they also did well on this section of the ‘mini quiz’. And also, I really feel they did well with learning the numbers today. They understood the formation and did very well on the ‘mini quiz’ at the end of class. 3. Did you meet the needs of all your learners? How do you know they learned? I feel that there are a few students in this particular class (perhaps one or two) that I have not reached today in class. They typically do not participate in class, do not write down notes, and do not do the activities. I admit that sometimes I get caught up in the rest of the class and the excitement of everyone else learning, that sometimes I do forget that these students need attention. 4. What did you learn in regards to language teaching? Again, the use of the target language can be so helpful and motivating for the students. I particularly noticed this today – their response and reactions to me using the target language today in class were very positive and encouraging for me as well! 5. What did your students learn in regard to language teaching? I think through the use of the “mini quiz” the students were able to realize just how much in fact they had learned in the past two days and also how much they were able to understand of the target language – even though they did not understand every word I said to them, they were able to know what I was saying. 6. What did you learn about managing the learning environment during this lesson? I noticed that when the students were so well behaved, that I felt I could focus so much more on the content material – but also I could let my guard down a little bit and be more relaxed and have more fun with the students. I also learned that having a quiz at the end of class really helped the students, and me, to know how effective today was! And I also liked how I really took advantage of every minute of the class time – and when the students were losing interest in the French tape, that I turned it off and reviewed the numbers a little bit more –and then gave them the last minute of class to talk. 7. What did you really like about this lesson? Definitely their behavior!! Luz Marina commented that they seem like a completely different class today than the last time she observed them – and I agree! The students were attentive, engaged in the material, and were really well behaved. What I liked best about the class today, is that I really feel that we worked well together and that they learned today. I did a mini-quiz at the end of class and 10/12 students had less than 2 wrong on the numbers quiz!! And 11/12 students had a 7/7 for the days of the week! J 8. What disappointed you about this lesson, if anything? I was slightly disappointed that they were not more interested in the French video and hearing “real French” – however I think that it was a little advanced for this level, and they are not used to having a lot of French or authentic French materials in the classroom. 9. What alternative instructional and assessment strategies could you have used? As I was collecting the quiz papers, I realized I should have had them correct their own papers and we should have gone over it as a class so they would have had immediate feedback. 10. If you were going to implement this lesson again, what would you do to revise it? As mentioned above, I would have them correct their papers immediately – this quiz was supposed to be an assessment but it could have very easily been instructional as well. Also, I would have brought in a different type of authentic material for the students – even though they were able to hear the numbers they had just learned on the weather report they listened to in French, I could have brought something maybe written instead of spoken – so they would not have been so intimidated?
Inquiry 5: Analysis of Teaching of World Languages December 3, 2004 The middle field teaching experience has come to an end and there are so many things that this experience has taught me about myself and also about my teaching. Some of my strengths have been developed, while others have surfaced during this experience. In addition, limitations that concerned me before the experience have now developed into strengths. Yet there were other limitations that I have become aware of, that I had anticipated. These strengths and limitations that have come from this experience have helped to modify my view on teaching and to construct new goals that I can work on during my upcoming student teaching experience in the World Languages classroom. Based on my previous experiences in working with children, one of my concerns as I headed into a teaching environment was classroom management. I genuinely enjoy being around children, however I sometimes had a difficult time being "mean" to them or demanding control. I find that the middle field experience provided me with the ideal context to improve on this. These students were used to little to no control in the classroom, they were allowed to talk during lessons, and it was not uncommon to hear negative comments during lessons as well. I found that this environment was extremely distracting to my teaching and I made a very conscious effort to change this while I was teaching. Through the use of verbal and non-verbal gestures, I was very pleased with my progress in this area of teaching. This growth can be seen through my journals/reflections: "After being frustrated with the class’s behavior last week during my lesson, I decided that today my goal and main focus for this lesson would be classroom management…I was very pleased with how well the students responded when I asked them nicely to be quiet…My favorite part is when I stopped talking when it got a little loud, and certain students in the class told them to "shut up". I was very glad to see that the students were capable of monitoring themselves." -Journal, November 8th) I was very proud when my mentor teacher commented that I did well with classroom management as part of her evaluation of an observation of a lesson in which I placed this as one of my top priorities for the day. As time went on, I found myself feeling more comfortable with the students, and I also realized that in allowing myself to let my guard down, as well as through letting the personalities of the students come through, I found I was able to let the students see more of my personality and I could "play off" of their personalities, and this seemed to really change the dynamics of the classroom. The students seemed much more engaged, focused, and motivated. This is something that I will definitely remember for my student teaching experience! Other limitations that I faced during my experience was how to keep every student engaged in the lesson. Certainly there were some students who were very motivated and focused on the material, yet in each of my classes there were a select few who were very difficult to motivate or engage in the material. I found this, along with being able to reach every student every day, to be very difficult situations to address. How can I increase a student’s motivation to learn French? In this particular community, the students were in a very rural setting and it is difficult for them to find a real true "need" to know French. These are things that I hope to improve upon in the future. One of the ideas I would like to try in the future is not so much focusing on how to order a croissant at a café, but showing students how learning another language can open their minds in other more personal ways that can be relevant to their daily lives. I also found my high expectations for the students were somewhat of a limitation in the environment I was placed in, mainly because it seemed that neither the teacher nor the students had very high expectations in place. I had to remind myself that I should not reduce my expectations and I was very surprised with how much the students were capable of when the bar was raised. This is a statement taken from my last reflections: "These students do what they have to do to get by and they know that not much effort or accuracy is expected of them. I’ve noticed that most of the times that I have pushed the bar a little for them, they have risen to the occasion and they are capable of working under more serious and demanding situations. That is not to say that I don’t want the students to enjoy the class – but I really think that they are capable of much more than what the teacher is currently expecting from them." Through my teaching, I’ve also learned the importance of prerequisite skills and that French relies so heavily on the foundations that were previously built. Activities that are very well structured seemed to work much better than open-ended activities in the classes that I worked with and so I’ve also improved a great deal on adding structure to the activities I planned. Finally, two other things that I feel I have improved upon during this experience have been showing interest in the students and also my skills for evaluating assessments and the effectiveness of my lessons. Especially through Inquiry 3, I’ve learned that there are so many ways to assess how students are doing before, during, and after a lesson, yet all of these serve a vital role in determining how effective my lessons have been but also in planning future lessons. Something else surprised me during my experience in regards to classroom management is how the students react to my approaches. By this I mean that I had thought that if I walk into the classroom being very serious and with high expectations, then the students would work well and behave. However, it almost seemed that the more I let my guard down, worked with the students and allowed the students’ personalities to influence the dynamics of my planning and teaching, the more the students were receptive, willing to work with me, and fun. I also noticed that students that typically did not participate in the past were starting to volunteer more often and play more of a role in the classroom dynamics. I noticed this works differently for different classes. The following is a quote also taken from my last reflections: "I learned that students seem to become much more interested in the material when I "come down to their level", particularly the 8th period class. With the 5th period class, I noticed I was a little bit more of a "teacher figure" and that worked really well. I think that the 8th period class really loves to aggravate teachers and get to them, and so by working with them and allowing them that little bit of freedom to have fun and joke around worked well and actually surprisingly encouraged them to focus more and become more engaged in the material! J " However, there are some issues that I have yet to resolve. I remain conflicted on what the focus of the classroom should be. As previously mentioned in my teaching philosophy and Inquiry 2, I thought that misbehavior would be impossible if there was an academic focus. Yet I have found that having an academic focus is nearly impossible if students are misbehaving. I have mentioned some of these frustrations in journal entries, and it’s possible that this challenge may have been partially due to the situation that I walked into, yet I think there is something more here. It appears that perhaps classroom behavior cannot be ignored and bad behavior will not just "go away" if academic expectations are set high. The two must work together, however, perhaps it is necessary to establish a level of acceptable behavior and then enforce academic expectations after that. As I said, I am still very conflicted on this particularly issue of teaching, and I look forward to experimenting more with a new group of students! Other goals that I have for my student teaching experience include establishing an efficient and productive daily routine, and incorporating more of the target language and culture into the classroom. I would also like to improve on having more students engaged and increasing the level of motivation for the students to learn French. It is also my hope that they feel that they are truly learning something of personal importance and relevance. In other words, I hope that students find ways to apply what they learn somehow into their "real world" and they are able to see some kind of connection from the classroom to their daily lives. These are all things that I am looking forward to working on next semester and I am confident that I will continue to grow both personally and professionally.
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