Reflective Fieldnote Blog Entry # 3

Section 1: Thoughts about action research-in general- as a tool to improve practice.

I view the action research plan as a beneficial tool to improve teaching practice for the ESL classroom or regular classroom. It helped me look at problems that ESL students struggle with and determine a way to fix the issues. I have what seems such a short time with my ESL students throughout the week, and I get so caught up in my daily routine that I sometimes forget to look at what my students are really having trouble with, and what I can do to help them. The action research process showed me how to study student issues, put them down on paper, and determine a solution to aid student learning.

Section 2: Ideas generated as a result of your project.

While conducting the action research plan, I thought of another way to help students space their words apart. I can not take the credit. I actually got the idea from another student taking this course. Not only could the students use a paper clip to space out their words, but a craft stick or popsicle stick to put between each word. If the teacher is on a low budget, students could use a pen, pencil, or crayon.

Section 3: Suggestions to other ESL professionals based on your findings.

In order to aid reading comprehension, I would suggest utilizing a tangible item such as question dice. This proved successful with my students while implementing this project. I would also recommend having students write three sentences and draw three pictures of what happened at the beginning, middle, and end of the story. I did not actually use this for my action research plan, but another fun strategy for students that also helps with comprehension is for the teacher to read a story and the students draw a picture of what they think is happening in the story.

Entry #2 Observation, Problem Identification, and Reflective Fieldnotes

Teaching Issues:

I conducted a phonics lesson on the sound tion with one of my students. We used a correlating story book to read the sounds in context. We also had work sheets to practice reading and writing the words with the tion sound. This particular student I was working with could not properly pronounce the sound. She would continually say nation, and not simply tion. She also had a difficult time decoding the vocabulary words with the tion sound.

Second language Acquisition:

One thing I tried to help this student decode the words was break them up into syllables. If I wrote the words on the board with them separated in their syllables, she was able to sound out the words. I also had her write the words, so she understood what the words really looked like. In order to help her learn to say tion, and not nation, I frequently repeated what she needed to say, and have her practice saying the sound. Although, she still was not perfect saying the sound, she started to get the hang of it.

The materials that worked the best for this student to learn the tion sound, was a song, worksheets, and a story book for her to read the words in context. Repetition is a great tool for this student. If we go over a concept consistently she will eventually grasp the lesson.

Ethnographic perspective:

Information that would be helpful for me as an ESL professional would be to find more ways for me to incorporate their culture into the lessons. I admit that I sometimes get so caught up in getting my lesson accomplished, and for the student to learn the targeted content, that I forget to incorporate cultural perspectives in their learning environment. One strategy that I do use is prior knowledge of their foreign country. For example, if we are trying to learn new vocabulary words, I will sometimes refer to their foreign country to try to help them understand the meaning of the word.
However, I do try to use a variety of activities to learn a particular lesson. For example, I will use songs, games, puzzles, kinesthetic activities, vocabulary, reading, and more. When I use these activities, I find that the students are more engaged and take ownership of their learning.