Pre-stage data collection: Placement test and survey

April 14, 2009

PLACEMENT TEST

Description
The placement test has two parts: grammar and vocabulary and writing. The first one was adapted by me from a MM placement test designed by H.Q. Mitchell and J. Scott (2004). The aim was to evaluate students English proficiency level, and the second one was a free practice to identify what previous knowledge students have about short story writing.

Conditions
The participants were in the classroom and they were briefly introduced to the research project. Then they received and developed the placement test knowing that the available time was 45 minutes. The whole group attended to the class.

Preliminary observation
The students began solving the test and no questions were answered by the teacher. Although the test was designed for 45 minutes the first student delivered the test after 25 minutes. Seven students took the 45 minutes and the rest of the students spent from 30 to 40 minutes.
After finishing the test student did peer-correction with the teacher’s guidance. Every question was analyzed in group and they had to check each other answers. The written part was checked by me using the rubrics that are going to be used to correct the stories during the project.

Reflection
Students understood the questions and they answered them without any problem. The stories were written following the instructions and most of the students were allowed to write words in Spanish when they did not know or remember the correspondent word in English.. The objective was not centered on English knowledge but in short story writing competence. Obviously, this production is going to be very useful to identify students’ language strengths and weaknesses.


April 15, 2009

ONLINE SURVEY

Description

The survey was designed electronically by usign encuestafacil.com. The open-cloze questions formulated were focused on writing process, different types of texts, technical skills, facilities and communication channel.

Conditions

The survey's style was revised and corrected by two colleagues before applying. It was not piloted by students and the group had not had the opportunity to deal with this type of instruments before. The survey's link was e-mailed to each one of the students and it was opened by eight days. It was not applied yesterday since we did not have access to the computer room. it was necesary to devote an extra hour for taking students to the computer lab for answering the survey.

Preliminary observation

Students began following the instructions and answering the questions but I consider the conditions in which the survey was applied influenced a little bit their answers. Some of them ( 5) were not sure about the question if they wanted to participate in the research or not, so they asked me what could happen if they were not interested on being part of the research. I observed that this fear could have influenced their answer. Moreover, more than 1o students needed extra explanation to answer the question 9 because they did not understand it.

Reflection

The use of an oline survey was a great idea since it is a very useful tool for both researcher and learners. It was a fast, easy and effective way to design instruments and collect data. Students could access to the questions easily and they did not have any trouble to hand the tool. The possibility to answer the questions in Spanish made them feel more comfortable and the answers were more reliable since they were sure about their answers.

I believe that my presence in the classroom was helpful but also could influence some students' answers.

While-stage data collection: classes

April 16, 2009

Description
The class aim was to identify the parts of a story and its mains characteristics in a written version of the King Arthur's story by using the short story writing rubrics designed for the project. The lesson was was planned for a period of 90 minutes. They perfomed a brainstorming to activate schemata by completing a T chart on the board. Then some key words were taught by a relay race. students also used the pictures to predict what the text was about and finally read the story, did the exercises and evaluate it taking into account the short story writng rubrics designed for the project.

Conditions
The class was developed in normal conditions. All the activities planned were developed.

Preliminay observation
Students enjoyed the relay race done at the beginning of the class and it was really helful to provide them with the key words used in the reading. They understood the story and could evaluate it following the rubrics.

Reflection
This lesson was successful since the aim was achieved. The reading was appropriate for the students, they could develop the activities. Now, they are aware of the story elements and also know the instrument and the aspects that are going to be taken into account to assess the stories during the process.


April 21

Description
The class was devoted to identify written text and short story genres. Students analyze a fairy tale based on the short story elements. Finally, they chose the type of story they would like to create.

Conditions
The class was developed in normal conditions, the lesson was carried out following the plan and students could work without any problems.

Preliminary observation
Ss. had some problems during the warming up to categorize the written text during the warm up. It was necessary to help them with an extra explanation. Students could identify easily the short story elements in the Three little pig story.
Ss. enjoyed listening the audio clips and identifying the different short story genres .
The final product could be collected with the general information about students’ stories.

Reflection
The genre- based approach allowed students to learn about different written patterns and specifically they reviewed the elements of short stories and began to think about the story they are going to write. The whole class was devoted to give a general idea of the complete process and students started to travel around their thoughts.

April 23 and 24

There was not class in the school.

April 28

Description

Today the class was planned to be developed in the computer room since students had to create their e-portfolios In their own web page.

Conditions
The class couldn’t be taught as it was planned since the computer room was in maintenance so I had to take the students to another computer room where only a computer had internet connection. They received the tutorial in small groups and jut one student per group had the possibility to create their portfolios. They also received a handout with the directions to create the web page to do it at home.

Preliminary observation
Some students were worried because they are not sure they can create the e-portfolios by themselves but some others were exciting about having their own web page and they expressed their desire of continuing with the project in spite of the technical issues. They also compromised to help each other to have all the web pages ready for next class.

Reflection
The AR was thought to be developed in the LRC taking into account this project was approved last year and it was promised that the center will be ready for April, 2009. Unfortunately, it has not been possible due to administrative issues so I have had to look for other computer rooms in the school to carry out my research but it has not been easy due to not all of them have internet connection or are available.

Class today was not taught as I planned it since technical issues are very common to happen in my school. The computer room that I had booked was not available today because it was in maintenance and nobody told me in advance. I had to apply Plan B but the class could not be developed as I planned and the final product could not be collected. Students received a general tutorial in a computer and the directions to create the web page and upload the e-portfolio sections were sent by e-mail. They had to do the activity at home and e-mail me back.

April 30

Description

Today the class was developed following the lesson planned. The aim was that students applied the stages to write a descriptive paragraph. The final product was to describe the main character of their own stories. For next class they have to fill out the same form for each one of their characters.

Condition
The class began 10 minutes later, students spent more time doing the activities so the final activity could not be done. The class was developed in normal conditions, four students were absent.

Preliminary observation
At the beginning of the class, student, in general, did not know too many words to describe people so the workshop provided them with the necessary vocabulary to describe their characters. The time was not enough to develop all the planned activities. It was not possible to assess their paragraphs so it is going to be the first activity next class.

Reflection

The activities following the writing stages were useful to prepare them to write. They had the opportunity to deal with different pre-writing strategies such as brainstorming and clustering ideas (physical characteristics, personality, likes/dislikes), word mapping, drawing pictures. Then the information and the models given were used to write the first draft of their main character’s description. They produced their text without paying attention for the correctness. The results are going to be assessed next class.

Post-stage data collection

After collecting all the data, it was necessary to develeop the following process to to analyze the information in order to answer the research question: How will the use of the genre process approach and e-portfolio dossier help eleventh graders improve their short story writing skills?

Intially, I used the trend analysis approach (Sagor, 2005, p.110), since it is a useful strategy for tracing all the changes in performance occurred during the process to answer the research question. The collected data was filtered, ranked, and examined to get a better understanding of the phenomenon under investigation, and to produce a grounded theory regarding what might be done to improve the situation ( Sagor, 2000, p. 6.

This stage of the research process was very meanigful since I found the concurrences that constructed the categories that emerged from this study.