Over the course of six weeks, four written assignments charted the students' progress throughout the use of the cubing technique. A series of in-class essays was also originally planned to be included, but had to be scrubbed because circumstances made it impossible to gather a steady stream of data. Therefore, the limited amount of quantitative data makes it difficult to draw any conclusions.
However, I did notice a few things: Carlos demonstrated steady improvement in both organizational and grammatical skills. Sarah's organizational skills remained consistent, and showed improvement when it came to homework, although her in-class essays (PT 1 and PT2) showed a sharp drop in grammatical skills. Carolina showed level organizational skills throughout the study, and a slight increase in grammar since PT1. Paula started off strongly in both categories, but quickly dropped off in grammar, and suffered her lowest scores towards the end of the study, in PT2.
Carlos showed himself to be a success story throughout the study. His first practice test (PT1) showed serious issues in both organizational skills and in grammar. His thesis was vague and poorly supported – while he was able to state an opinion that teachers should not be prohibited from virtually “friending” students on sites such as Facebook, the bulk of his essay discussed the usefulness of Facebook, without specifically applying it to teachers and students. He mentioned vague facts about the site, such as how it “had millions of members around the world,” but nothing specifically on topic.
His grammar and vocabulary skills were similarly weak. He tended to omit several words, particularly articles and some prepositions; I've noticed phrases such as “talk important things,” instead of “talk about important things.” He also had a severe problem writing in the past tense – most of his verbs were present tense, even when discussing the past incident discussed in the article.
Formal Essay #4 (FE4), the first essay since the cubing process was introduced, showed an improvement in organization. Discussing an embarrassing moment from his past, Carlos managed to relate the story in a clear and organized fashion, keeping a simple chronological order to move from one event to the next. His grammar also improved; although he was still chronically stuck in the present tense, he was omitting fewer words than before. He had, however, apparantly picked up a new habit which wasn't readily apparent in PT1 – using the wrong, but similar, occasionally homophonic, words, or incorrect forms of the right words: “pass” instead of past, “tiers” instead of tears, “field” instead of filled.
Formal Essay #5 (FE5) showed a major improvement in thesis and supporting facts. When asked about a hero of his, Carlos began with a rhetorical question, defined the term “hero,” offered his mother as an example, and proceeded to contrast her with figures such as George Washington or Abraham Lincoln: Those heroes were famous; his mother' heroism is unsung.
The same grammar mistakes appeared as before, but there was a marked decrease: Some of his sentence structures were more complex, with more advances constructions such as “it could be said. . .” which marked a departure from the simple present tense, although a few missed past tenses were still present. Only a few words were omitted, and there were fewer wrong forms of words than in PT1 or FE4 – “Been” instead of being; “went” instead of when. There were clear signs of progress.
Practice Test #2 (PT2), showed that not only had Carlos' skills improved, but that he was adept at putting them into practice under pressure. The introduction to his response to the test's question, “should we be criminalizing bullies?” gave a solid introduction and piqued the reader's attention, while using his own personal experience (calling himself a former bully) to defend his position that a bully is a coward, not a criminal. Most of his grammar mistakes were self-corrected, as indicated by the number of cross-outs on his paper, and the only signs of his former issues were rare enough to be common to any student (ELL or native-born) operating under pressure – I saw “principle” instead of principal, and “look” instead of looking. There were one or two sentences or phrases which were hard to decipher, but I saw the same kinds of issues in my native speaking students.
In class, Carlos became more and more talkative as the weeks went on, and even became something of a class clown for a brief period – I remember one week when I was trying to identify a journal page where the student had forgotten to include her name. Asking about it in class, I mention that the topic was giving birth, and Carlos jokingly raised his hand to take credit. His newfound sense of humor, and his mistakes in word forms, would seem to indicate an increasing confidence in his own abilities and desire to experiment, although his proficiencies haven't quite caught up with his desires.
From the beginning, Sarah showed organizational skills – she was well-prepared and organized for every class, and once showed me her notebook where she kept meticulous notes: everything I had put on the board was copied, and my lessons were summarized in English, with a few Spanish phrases scrawled here and there. This organization carried over to her written work, as she always had strong theses and wrote essays in which were logical and easy to follow. What I noticed, however, was that her grammar and vocabulary skills varied depending on her familiarity with the topic
Sarah's PT1 had a strong thesis, was well organized, and supported her point of view. Her grammar and vocabulary, while acceptable, was unremarkable. I didn't notice any particular patterns of errors worthy of note. Her FE4 was a well-told story concerning her first job, and aside from what I considered at the time to be a relatively weak introduction (I always encourage my students to grab a reader's attention in the opening paragraph, and present a strong and explicit thesis, was well formed. She seemed comfortable with complex words and transitions in English, I saw sentences begin with words such as “thus,” or “consequently,” which indicated to me a growing confidence in expressing more complex trains of thought. There were a few occasional omissions of words similar to what I saw in Carlos' papers, but nowhere to the same extent. I wonder if this is a common error for Spanish speaking students, as the campus does have a large Hispanic population, and I've noticed such errors of omission frequently. There were too few words missing to detect any pattern, “thanks God” instead of thanks to God, or omitting the word “job” in “...part time job at a dentists' office.” The errors I did spot seemed less due to any language difficulty and more due to simple carelessness.
Sarah's FE5 was nearly flawless. The thesis was stronger and more explicit, the story was told in a sensible pattern with supporting details, and while the grammar errors were only sporadic in FE4, here they were nearly nonexistent. I spotted only two word errors in the entire essay: “leason,” in place of lesson, and she used the word “get” when she needed “go.” Her essay, a description of Jhon Frank Pinchaos, a Columbian police officer kidnapped for over a year by guerillas, was on par with anything I'd expect from a native English student.
I was surprised, therefore, at the sharp drop in her grammar skills for PT2. As in PT1. Sarah had a clear thesis and was organized, but her grammar and vocabulary had fallen sharply compared to her formal essays. She didn't seem to know the word “bullies,” even though it was mentioned several times in the article to be read, and instead referred to them as “bully people.” There were also problems with her subject-verb agreement which hadn't appeared in her previous works: “...bullying have been a big problem,” or even problems with word order, such as “school has always a group of bully people.”
Sarah used personal experiences to support her ideas, so her sudden drop in quality cannot reasonably be attributed to lack of knowledge on the subject. It's far more possible that someone as organized as her was not comfortable with the time limits involved for PT1 or PT2, and that her previous exceptional results on the formal essays was due to extensive revision, which she did not see as an option within the 90 minute window. I have seen many students who choked under pressure, but I am not ready to attribute Sarah's performance to this, as the data are inconclusive.
Caroline's PT1 was average all around – her thesis was well expressed, although she didn't include quite enough information to support it. Her grammar and vocabulary were average, with no clear patterns of mistakes apparent at that point. When it came time for her FE4, her essay about her decision to come to America showed a similar organizational pattern – a strong thesis, but she tended to stray off topic when it came time to support it. She mentioned Castro as a cause for Cuba's woes, and while she mentioned them in detail, she didn't make the connection as to why he was responsible for them.
Her grammar skills showed an interesting anomaly – she had a tendency to use gerunds and gerund phrases when infinitives would be grammatically correct. Phrases such as “the right of taking all your belongings” and “having the opportunity of living both in Cuba and the United States” would've led me to wonder if this was particular to Spanish, although none of the other Spanish students showed this. For FE5, Caroline chose her grandfather as her hero, wrote a compelling introduction supported on several levels. Grammatically, Caroline did occasionally misuse a word – “waive” instead of wave – and and the most notable omissions I notice were the word “to” towards the end of the essay. At first, I wondered if this was a holdover from her infinitive confusion in FE4, but it was only “to” as a proposition which was omitted.
PT2 showed a strong introduction and thesis, and,with the exception of a confusing title: “Bullying: Facing a Suicide Monster,” was well organized and easy to follow. I didn't notice any of her previous issues with grammar and infinitives, and she showed strong vocabulary skills with no noticeable patterns in mistakes – in fact, not many mistakes at all.
In class, Caroline was quiet and reserved, preferring to sit near the back of the classroom. She answered questions when asked, but rarely volunteered anything unless specifically called on. Her reluctance doesn't seem to be related to her language skills; it's far more likely that she was simply shy.
Paula's case was unusual. After a PT1 with a strong thesis but riddled with grammar and spelling mistakes, she showed considerable improvement for her formal essays. I noticed that her FE4 gave her some prepositional troubles, particularly with her tendency to use “of” instead of “to,” in phrases such as “a way of cut expenses,” or “take the time of hire someone.” there were some of the same omissions I had seen earlier, but pronouns and articles seemed to get the worst of it – more than once she'd forget a “the” or “it.”
FE 5 showed improvement, but I noticed her “of/to” error was replaced by another, more familiar one: using gerunds in place of infinitives. I found it interesting that I had only noticed this pattern of mistakes in Caroline's work, but not in the others. Why this patten seems common in some Spanish speakers writing in English but not in others is a mystery.
Paula's PT2 was a puzzling disappointment, in that it was the exact opposite of her PT1 – her grammar and vocabulary skills had improved, but her essay was disorganized, with very little direction or structure. What she said, she said well, but she spoke so much about the subject of bullying without ever getting around to answering the question posed about criminalization.
In summary, the results, due to the small group of students involved, are inconclusive. The only thing consistent among the study participants (as well as the rest of the class) was a sharp drop in motivation as soon as the cubing techniques were discontinued, and the textbook used in a more traditional sense – but whether that was due to the effectiveness of cubing, or student distractions due to the impending end of the semester, cannot be determined.
It is my belief that the first step of the “cubing” study led to a positive change in the students, but more importantly, in my own method of teaching. After the timeline exercise, I made a concentrated effort to make the assignments, discussions, and exercises as relevant as possible for the students, and the students reacted enthusiastically. The portion of the cubing technique that was the original focus of the study – the six points of organization – quickly decreased to secondary importance, and later to near irrelevancy, as what was originally perceived as a minor part of the exercise – having the students use their own life experiences as a basis for their writing – came to be the driving force behind the students increased energy and enthusiasm for the course.
As previously discussed, Jacobs' cubing technique did lead to better organizational skills, but grammar and mechanical skills showed no noticable pattern of imrpovement. This differs with Jacobs' own results, although given the sporadic nature of the data collection process, all such results are inconclusive. It is possible, however, that Jacobs cubing technique may not be effective on recent immigrant students who have not yet had enough exposure to English in a non-academic setting to be able to accurately reflect the nuances of the language. While they had the confidence to try, they lacked the skill to succeed. “Kim,” the subject of the previous case study, had noted the importance of English culture and media in her own quest to learn English:
Even though you don't understand, just watch TV. . . It is beyond grammar and vocabulary. Beyond that there are special rhythms, waves, and the tone. So when you watch TV, you can learn, understand. So you speak more natural. (Bifuh-Ambe, 2009)
It may be that long term English learners' increased exposure to English in non-academic settings such as the media, increased their confidence and familiarity with English, even if comprehension was lacking.
My findings reflected Lee and Krashen's in several key areas. First, students engaged in more “voluntary” writing (that is to say, writing in which they, and not I, chose the topic) showed a significant improvement in organization and overall coherence. The students were far more comfortable and at ease telling their own stories than trying to re-tell or react to someone else's, and could automatically make connections with their own experiences, instead of trying to force a connection with the unfamiliar.
Lee and Krashen's other important finding, about the negative relationship between writing anxiety and performance, was also confirmed, but with an addendum. It is not just the students' anxiety which negatively affects a classroom environment, but a teacher's. Looking back on my own research notes, I've come to realize that in the early weeks of the class (the weeks predating the study), I had reacted to my own inexperience with perhaps an overanxious desire for the strictest organization. This year marks the first time I had ever taught on a college level, after nine years of high school teaching, and while I had taught writing and composition skills before as sections of my literature courses, this had been the first time I had taught an entire course dedicated to the topic. I believe my earlier style was too rigid and inflexible – I was determined to follow my syllabus (which was only a cursory rewrite of the sample syllabus which had been provided to me) at all costs, and to keep the students “on track” as much as possible, I had refuse to deviate from the textbook assignments and essays, believing them to be a sign of stability.
During the course of the study, I noticed that many of the classroom activities I engaged in were variations (some with very little variation to speak of) of topics and activities I had used as teaching aids during my high school days. No longer was I concerned with being my own ideal of a “professor,” I instead focused on making the subjects discussed as relevant as possible – for myself as well as for the students. Familiarity helped assuage my own anxiety, and I believe that this, in turn, helped the students overcome their own. The text was used sparingly, if at all, and only to supplement those topics which were of interest to the students. If a concept from the textbook was needed, I would paraphrase it and incorporate it into the week's activities – for example, methods of classification and division used during the mythology lecture earlier in the semester. It is a relaxed attitude from both students and faculty that appeared to be most conducive to learning.
There is much that would need to be done differently if this study were to be performed as originally designed. Although the two practice writing tests would appear to make ideal pre- and post-tests, the short period of time in between, combined with the limited number of class session, provide far too few opportunities to gather quantitative data. Such a study is far better being conducted throughout an entire semester, perhaps using the weeks before and after the practice tests to arrange an pattern. A better qualitative study could have been planned in advance, with specific students observed for certain criteria, and not formed on the fly in response to unforeseen circumstances which necessitated changes in the entire format of the study. Furthermore, as a qualitative or quantitative study, the research is best done in an actual ESL-based course, where the entire class can be used as study participants, as opposed to the current suboptimal scenario of a standard English class with only a small selection of eligible students, either recently mainstreamed, from other ESL courses, or with no previous ESL experience at all.
What began as one study quickly changed into a completely different type of research, and while this did result in unexpected potential findings, the unexpected change in both methodology and findings left nearly all of the original research questions unanswered. What has come from this experience are two potential avenues of future research – if the study could be completed as originally designed, or if what the study eventually became could be properly prepared from the beginning, either or both of these research projects could potentially yield conclusive results.
This is not to say that this experience has been a total loss – it has become clear that perhaps the single most important factor in encouraging enthusiasm and participation in oral and written work is the interest of the student, and the connection of subject matter to topics which fit the students' own knowledge and interests. In this, Language Arts teachers have a distinct advantage, as course curriculum is based on form, function, and organization or written work, and the instructor has a great deal of latitude in choosing actual topics for assignments.
Regardless of the subject matter, a teacher should endeavor to learn as much about their students' lives and interests as they can as soon as possible, and encourage them to make connections between their own knowledge and interests and the subject matter. Furthermore, a teacher should not be afraid to incorporate their own ideas and interests (within reason) into the content; an optimal learning environment exists when both students and teacher find the content relevant and motivating. Finally, no teacher should ever feel “locked in” to a certain curriculum, personal preference, or teaching style. An educator must be willing to adapt and improvise, remembering that the material must be adapted to the students, and not vice versa – this is often a given in matters concerning academic ability, but it can (and should) also be applied whenever possible based on students' backgrounds and interests.
These ideas are difficult to apply in a quantifiable manner – WIDA has very few rules or specific guidelines for post-secondary education. What is important to always remember is that our educators, particularly new ones, can integrate their own knowledge and familiarity with curriculum content, and are most effective when they do so. In addition, students must be made to realize that they have something worth contributing to their own education. They are not empty vessels which need to be filled up with core curriculum standards, and must never be treated or made to feel as such.
No comments:
Post a Comment