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