Aaron Backlin FL694 - Fall 2013 Analysis C Writeup

1a.

This lesson is an introduction to a concept that students have already been using

without any theoretical/conceptual background. We will be introducing impersonal expressions as a unique grammar concept and then working with these expressions further to explore the reasons for their use and the situations in which one might expect to find their usage. This is a Spanish 3A class, and the class is taking place approximately one week ahead of midterm for the trimester. These students are largely juniors with a few seniors and even fewer sophomores. All have had at least two previous years' experience with the Spanish language in a scholastic setting (though, as I have lamented in previous coursework, two of three trimesters equal a full year, so having two "years" doesn't really tell us anything about the student's knowledge base). At this stage of the FL coursework at GHS, most students looking to get two years knocked out for college entrance requirements have dropped out of the classes and the remnant reflect both a group of college-bound career-minded students and a group genuinely interested in foreign language. As such, they are generally intelligent and attentive to the subject. b. The goal of this class is to add some conceptual grammar to previously learned

and used structures, namely impersonal expressions. We are studying these in relation to passing judgment on a general state of affairs as a lens into Hispanic culture at large. Students will be encouraged to reflect on their own cultural perspectives as we consider

how and when these phrases might be used. Students will work individually and/or in pairs to ensure conceptual awareness and begin work toward mastery. c. For this lesson, we will begin by conducting a brief survey from ACTFL to help

students plan on using their language skills toward college admissions. We will then have a ten minute chat to discuss the question "Qu representa lo bueno y lo malo de la escuela?" Following this discussion, we will have a brief conceptual presentation/lecture followed by individual/group work and then a final "door check" forum posting on the identity of and reasons for using impersonal expressions. d. Toward the effort of observing feedback and correction in class, I have selected

this lesson as the one most likely to result in questions and answers due to the way it is presented and the way in which it exists in our curriculum. I have placed a camera to the side of the room, mounted on an obscure ledge. My hope is that the students are less likely to notice the camera here and that they will ignore it as they interact with me. This vantage point allows for a good view of the class without being overly prominent (in past observations, I have placed the camera in an open area on a tripod).

2. (See Attached)

3. (See Attached) Comparing my original recollections against the evaluation of the tape, it seems that there was coincidence. As this is a lesson that I've been working on and refining for several years now, I am fairly confident in the outcomes as well as in identifying potential areas of difficulty/confusion. I accomplished all that I had planned initially

(Step 1), although the ACTFL survey took a bit more time than I had anticipated, and I spent a bit more time in reality during the individual/group work session due to the volume of questions and help requests. All in all, timing aside, I felt that there was very little difference between Steps 1 and 2. As has been the case this year, I am continuing to monitor closely my treatment of students male versus female in terms of time spent, and now with this particular observation, the quality and type of response I am giving to students as corrective feedback. In terms of what I might do differently, at this point I am not entirely sure, but this has given me a good idea for my Action Research Project later on. I do think that I can clearly see differences in my treatment between male and female students (though this is not strictly related to the topic at hand for Observation 3) in terms of my interactions with them. The question is, then, whether or not this is an isolated incident or something else. Regarding my methodologies for corrective interactions with students, I think that a hybrid methodology between Socratic questioning and repetitive modeling accomplishes the desired effect in class. Students by and large react positively to this more non-confrontational tactic that provides them the opportunity to rectify themselves without feeling put on the spot. As I look at student facial reactions in the video, I do not detect any crestfallen or upset reactions. This is, undoubtedly, due in part to the classroom dynamic and culture that I have fostered in my students (this will be the second year that I've had most of them), but I do believe that the strategies I use coupled with student awareness of my real concern for their learning achieve a very positive result in terms of error correction. There are, still, times in which I simply corrected a

statement or pronunciation, and I found myself curious as to why I did so in those scenarios and if I did so to any particular subgroup of the students in particular.

4.

As has previously been the case, watching recordings of my classroom and this

odd fellow who seems to be conducting it has proven to be a very useful resource for introspection. In regards to my questioning and response strategies - the "on the spot" version of feedback, I feel that I am actually fairly strong in this regard. To be honest, it was not something I had considered in any intentional way since my undergraduate days. I knew that I gave feedback to students, and I felt that it was generally mediocre at best. What I saw in the video proved to be an interesting mix. While on the one hand, I feel that my performance (for lack of a better word) in corrective feedback during conversation, during lecture, and during guided practice was actually quite good, I am also bogged down by the realization that my feedback on homework is in dire need of attention - I simply don't give it the time and consideration that it deserves, and the reason for this escapes me at the moment. In looking into the tape, then, I found myself coming to several revelations: 1) that my feedback, in terms of style and quantity, varied greatly depending on the activity at hand. I seemed to provide the most corrective feedback to my students during the conversational "10 minute chat" and the least amount during the lecture/presentation. Perhaps it is simply the way of things - I imagine that some activities and components simply lend themselves better to feedback and teacher-student (and student-teacher!) interaction. Perhaps, though, the difference might be the result of my own biases and attitudes toward the validity and practical utility of the activity at hand (and maybe even

whether I personally find it boring or not). As noted previously, I do also wonder, based on viewing the film of the lesson, if some of the disparities in my treatment of male and female students, as well as that of high- and low-achieving students, plays a part in the quality of feedback that I give. I'd like to think that I give equally valid and useful feedback to all students regardless of gender and/or ability, but in viewing the tape that would seem not to be the case. Of course, this is all quite unconscious - I harbor no intentional procedural malevolence toward any particular group or subgroup of my students and in fact considered myself an even dealer in terms of my interactions with students until I began to look into error correction and feedback. As I mentioned above, I would like to approach this topic for my action research project. I have already re-watched the video several times to try to begin to plot out the questions that I might ask to guide the research. In terms of the lesson itself, I found that it did what it set out to do: it provided an unknown context for a concept that students had been using previously and provided an opportunity for me to observe some higher-order questioning and correction in the classroom. The students were well behaved and attentive (which is of course the expectation, but as we all know expectations have a habit of showing up late on Fridays) and seemed to ingest the material well. During one portion of the day, I did need to get after a couple of girls for excessive chatting on the side of the assigned task, but they were arguing about Spanish, which makes my language nerd heart beat a little happier. The ACTFL survey we took at the beginning of the class wound up being less about ACTFL and more about generating a database of college-bound students for

another entity, which disappointed me greatly - something I believe I will take up with ACTFL in the near future. In the past, these surveys had included a great deal of language information and future plans of students that we used as a department to help decision making. This is, however, no longer the case. Very disappointing.

C.

As I noted in my pre-reflection, I have always felt that the quality of the feedback

that I provide for my students is lacking. This is not necessarily due to any particular observation from class or assignments and tests, but rather just a gut feeling that I could and should be doing better. In viewing my live feedback in the video, however, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw myself doing, and I realized the various forms that feedback and error correction can take in the classroom. That realization sent me back to some texts and I found, quite unsurprisingly, that I was not the first to realize such things. Brown (2007) outlines several types of feedback: Recast - in which the teacher paraphrases a comment with corrections embedded, Clarification Request - in which the teacher asks for clarification/repetition, Metalinguistic Feedback - in which the teacher asks students to remember previously learned materials, Elicitation - in which the teacher prompts the learner to self-correct, Explicit Correction - in which the teacher simply corrects the learner's speech, Repetition - in which the teacher restates the learner's speech with emphasis on the correction being given. (pp. 277-278)

As I looked over this list and viewed the video a second time, I noticed that in one way or another, I used each of these forms of feedback on multiple occasions. My strongest tendencies were toward metalinguistic feedback, elicitation, and repetition. I think that this reveals a lot about my attitude toward the value of a whole-language approach in my classroom, pulling many elements into my instruction. As to whether or not this is appropriate, I suppose I would reply that propriety should hinge on the effectiveness of function, and my students seem to respond well to this sort of feedback; both short-term at the time of the feedback and long-term as students remember corrections. Another positive scene witnessed during the viewing of the lesson was seeing students to whom I had given corrective feedback adapting and paraphrasing that feedback to their peers to assist them with their work. To me, of somewhat greater interest in this was the background dynamic of feedback: what causes me to use one type of feedback in one situation with one particular student and another type of feedback in another situation with that same student? What reasons do I have for using different feedback between students? In short, I don't know that I have the answers that I feel I should, but that I'm also in good company in my confusion. Omaggio Hadley (2001) in her discussion on five hypotheses of methodology and proficiency comments that: "The role of formal instruction and feedback in langauge acquisition has been the subject of debate... with some scholars arguing that "grammar instruction" and "error correction" do very little to encourage lasting positive change in learners' production... [while others] argue that both instruciton and feedback can have a positive impact on second langauge acquisition. (p. 99)

Such scholarly discontinuity would seem to be in accordance with much of the classwork I've done in the MATL program. There seems to be legitimate and robust debate on almost every part of second language acquisition - so why should there be any difference in the area of error correction? Ultimately, while I do still consider my feedback on daily homework and out-ofclass work to be poor and in need of additional effort, my in-class feedback strikes a nice balance between the oft-referenced Initiate Respond Evaluate (IRE) and Initiate Respond Feedback (IRF) dichotomy (Shrum and Glisan, 2010; Cazden, 2001). I seem to provide a great deal of IRF and very little IRE (depending on the day I assume - exam days would have a higher amount of IRE) and the feedback that I provide yields very positive results. I would like to continue to build on the amount of questioning I do in my classroom in response to questions in addition to its use in corrective feedback. I would like to get away from explicit feedback and recast as much as possible, as they seem to be abrasive and dismissive, respectively, as they play out in reality. In conclusion, then, I find myself grateful for this observational activity as it has opened a door on some aspects of my classroom dynamic that I had not actively been considering. As to how these aspects will eventually materialize and by what names, there is much to consider. As Gass and Selinker (2008) state: "Beyond mere focus on form or explicitness of input, there are numberous other vaiables that need to be considered when trying to understand the effectiveness of instruciton... What is clear is that instruction does make a difference, but how precisely it makes a difference and what the contributing factors are to effectiveness continue to be issues that need to be resolved." (p. 392)

It looks to be a challenge in ascertaining what the factors are in how I provide feedback as part of my instructional practice, but I look forward to it!

References Brown, H. (2007). Principles of language learning and teaching. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education, Inc. Cazden, C. (2001). Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Gass, S., and Selinker, L. (2008). Second language acquisition (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Omagio Hadley, A. (2001). Teaching language in context (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Shrum, J, & Glisan, E. (2010) Teachers handbook: Contextualized language instruction (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Thomson Heinle.