Reflections Blog # 3

I was a little apprehensive about the phrase or term action research when I first came across it in the content area of our field study class. I remember thinking to myself at the time, What is this all about and will I gain anything from it? (Please forgive me Dr. Craig! Just being honest! HAHAHAHA) My questions were quickly answered as I delved further into this course and into the action plan itself. I believe for the most part, many of us take time to carefully plan lessons, activities, etc, but often do not always take the same amount of time to fully evaluate our teaching practices. Through this process, I have learned that by identifying a particular problem or problems, providing strategies to improve my practice, and by taking a harder look at data, can greatly enhance the success rate of my lessons and the successes of my little ones.

My action reasearch centered around vocabulary development as many of my students this year, prior to entering kindergarten, had little exposure to English. Their lack of vocabulary, has had an impact on many of the lessons that I have planned and presented this year thus resulting my decision to conduct my action research in the area of vocabulary development. As I reflect, through the action research process, I have learned a great deal about what practices work best for my students and those that are not as effective. The following is a list of key ideas or strategies that stood out as I conducted my research. Each of the following key points impacted my lesson as well as student success.

• Make vocabulary relevent to students
• Show meaning through visuals and graphics
• Teacher and student drawings are great ways to convey vocabulary words and their meaning.
• Games such as vocabulary bingo (graphics) enhance vocabulary
• Student made vocabulary flash cards
• Vocabulary Journal

It has become more apparent that as ELL teachers we must take the time to focus on the issues that are problematic in our classrooms. We must develop and stagtegize ways in which we can best solve problems to meet the needs of the students in order to ensure a greater amount of success. Action research in my opinion is a very helpful tool to use when evaluating teaching practices as it forces us to take a closer look at our methods of teaching and how they relate to our students and their success.

MTSU Honor Statement:

This assignment/assessment was solely written by me. In no way have I plagiarized (represented the work of another as my own) or otherwise violated the copyright laws and academic conventions of fair use. I know that violations of this policy may result in my being dismissed from Middle Tennessee State University and/ or appropraite legal action being taken against me.

Signed(submitting this statement to Teaching Faculty with student's name typed below constitutes signing):

Cindy Mann

February 17, 2010

Fieldnote Blog Entry #2 Problem Identification

On October 15, 2010, I presented a lesson on the recognition of the alphabet letter Ff and the sound of Ff. In kindergarten we are responsible for teaching letters and sounds to our students. As one can imagine this can be quiet difficult. Below are the reflections of this lesson and the problems that I have identified that ELL students face when learning, practicing and acquiring the skills of letter and sound recognition.
As I often do, I opened my lesson with a book. The particular book for this lesson was Fidgety Fish. As I was planning, I remember thinking and laughing to myself that this book was just perfect as my students had been quiet fidgety since returning from Fall Break. I also remember thinking most of my students do know something about fish or could at least identify one. After reading the book, I recall that my students appeared to have enjoyed it as they clapped when I finished and also asked for me to read it again. Of course I was delighted and I read Fidgety Fish once more. I then went on to tell the students that fish began with the letter and sound that we were to study today. At that point, to foster language and to connect with prior experiences, I asked them to tell me anything they knew about fish or to share about a time that they had gone fishing. As I reflect, sharing is very difficult for beginner ELL students as they often times do not have the vocabulary to express their thoughts and ideas. After a few shared something they knew about fish, I presented the Ff picture cards and asked the student to repeat the word that went along with the picture. We discussed the pictures and repeated the word several times. I also opened the phonics tub with letter Ff objects inside. The students seemed to really like the small objects as they appeared to better connect with them. After reviewing the picture cards and the Ff objects I then showed the children a fishing pole and told them that we were going to fish for letter Ff words. The children seemed excited as they hurried to get into a circle in order to start fishing. I remember thinking, that this was going to be a great lesson as they were so attentive and eager. Boy was I in for a surprise! Next I put the fish face down on a blue sheet of paper and the students fished one by one for letter Ff pictures. The students had difficulty with this lesson as they could not identify many of the pictures. Many of the students appeared not to be bothered by the lack of their vocabulary as they wanted to keep fishing. Others were affected as I recalled one student dropping their head in dismay. I remember thinking to myself that I need to refocus the lesson and go in a different direction so that my students will not feel defeated.
As I look back on this lesson, I realize how the lack of vocabulary and language can hinder one's ability to perform task such as identifying and classifying. My students so eagerly wanted to fish but when it came down to identifying the picture in order to classify it as one that began with the letter Ff, most of my students did not have the English vocabulary to do so. This apparently frustrated many of my students as they would shrug their shoulders or simply just look to me for help. I decided then we would do this activity as a group where one would fish and we would all say the name of the picture and classify it as one with or one without the letter and sound Ff. I found by saying the picture word the students were more able to successfully perform the task.
As I now reflect on this lesson, it is very apparent that the acquisition of vocabulary is a big problem that ELL student's face. I realize that I must provide an environment that centers around language and the aquistion of vocabulary. I must provide each of my students a stress free environment so that every student feels safe even when mistakes occur.

MTSU Honor Statement:
This assignment/assessment was solely written by me. In no way have I plagiarized (represented the work of another as my own) or otherwise violated the copyright laws and academic conventions of fair use. I know that violations of this policy may result in my being dismissed from Middle Tennessee State University and/ or appropriate legal action being taken against me.

Signed (submitting this statement to Teaching Faculty with student's name typed below constitutes signing):

Cindy Mann
February 3, 2010