2 de SEPTIEMBRE
OK, now that I’ve transcribed Au’s individual interviews, I feel that her way of being may offer more insights because she’s more talkative, more of sharing her reflections with me without the need to be pulling teeth. I hope this doesn’t affect my future data analysis and discussion stages as I now fear I may see Anahí under a poor light.
I’m also thinking that Au has the right to go thru a second cycle even if that won’t be part of my thesis. I’ll see what we can do about it.
viernes, 2 de septiembre de 2011
viernes, 5 de agosto de 2011
Mmmm ethics ethics
5 AUGUST
Now that I’ve made the transcription I noticed two things: 1. I took over entirely for I had to explain everything to Au in a nutshell, what we had done, what we were intending to do and how.
2. I didn’t actually hear Sandra say that she didn’t like the topic of abortion and she felt that the lesson wouldn’t be quite as good. T’s demotivation? Motivation clashes again?, which made me think whether she should be open to the stu, tell them that she doesn’t feel comfortable with it and whether it’d be a good idea to deal with drugs/decriminalisation which was the second most voted topic. I’ll ask her today what she thinks.
This has made me wonder to what extent we need to accept what stu say and want and to what extent we need to negotiate and compromise so that one’s wishes/interests whatever are not carried out at the expense of others’, in this case the teacher’s. If she already feels the lesson will be crappy, do we still have to go on? Who am I to still push her to do sthg she doesn’t really want to do? Wouldn’t it be fair to discuss this with the stu and say ‘ok, we can still debate/discuss/exchange opinions and watch videos and all that but with another topic? FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Now that I’ve made the transcription I noticed two things: 1. I took over entirely for I had to explain everything to Au in a nutshell, what we had done, what we were intending to do and how.
2. I didn’t actually hear Sandra say that she didn’t like the topic of abortion and she felt that the lesson wouldn’t be quite as good. T’s demotivation? Motivation clashes again?, which made me think whether she should be open to the stu, tell them that she doesn’t feel comfortable with it and whether it’d be a good idea to deal with drugs/decriminalisation which was the second most voted topic. I’ll ask her today what she thinks.
This has made me wonder to what extent we need to accept what stu say and want and to what extent we need to negotiate and compromise so that one’s wishes/interests whatever are not carried out at the expense of others’, in this case the teacher’s. If she already feels the lesson will be crappy, do we still have to go on? Who am I to still push her to do sthg she doesn’t really want to do? Wouldn’t it be fair to discuss this with the stu and say ‘ok, we can still debate/discuss/exchange opinions and watch videos and all that but with another topic? FOOD FOR THOUGHT
jueves, 4 de agosto de 2011
title here
4 AUGUST 2011
Today we had our first teacher meeting. Change? Due to health reasons, A is leaving Year 2, her replacement, Au, was happy to continue with the project. Needless to say this will change some things during this second cycle.
I handed them copies of the survey results stressing that their exercises and input should reflect what the students wanted. We can still do some reading and writing, but listening and speaking need to be exploited.
I gave Au Sandra’s sources as she has now to teach about the Nazis. We said that again we’ll work alone but we can share and exchange our ongoing work next Thu.
We agreed that all of us would teach 2 lessons only for there are many school things coming our way :S
All our lessons will take place between 5-7 Sept. In that month I’ll do the interviews, surveys etc etc etc, we will then see whether we can start a third cycle but we’re not very sure about that.
Now, transcription time again!
Today we had our first teacher meeting. Change? Due to health reasons, A is leaving Year 2, her replacement, Au, was happy to continue with the project. Needless to say this will change some things during this second cycle.
I handed them copies of the survey results stressing that their exercises and input should reflect what the students wanted. We can still do some reading and writing, but listening and speaking need to be exploited.
I gave Au Sandra’s sources as she has now to teach about the Nazis. We said that again we’ll work alone but we can share and exchange our ongoing work next Thu.
We agreed that all of us would teach 2 lessons only for there are many school things coming our way :S
All our lessons will take place between 5-7 Sept. In that month I’ll do the interviews, surveys etc etc etc, we will then see whether we can start a third cycle but we’re not very sure about that.
Now, transcription time again!
lunes, 1 de agosto de 2011
CYCLE 2
Action Stage
01 August
I'm in Buenos Aires. I can sense some time issues cropping up in the near future as I’ll be travelling around the country :S…that’s why I’ve been collecting sources for my lessons on Drugs for Year 1. First I downloaded pdfs from Wikipedia about cannabis and drug legalisation. Later I went for YouTube: I got trailers, some news reports about drug decriminalisation in Europe, and USA-LatAm. Then I remembered Amy Winehouse’s Rehab song. It fits perfectly for in their evaluation they said they wanted songs and documentaries. I went back to the results from Year 1 Evaluation Survey and I searched for more short vids about marihuana effects and all that.
As I was beginning to select my sources and think of activities I decided to keep Year 1 feedback at all times as a reminder of what they had said. I thought of adding more reading input but it wasn’t ranked. But because they suggested activities such as ‘summarise and comment orally’ I did include reading extracts from one of the articles.
OK, I decided to start with the song. Reason? To have a cheerful start. I did the usual brainstorming and use her drug/alcohol to introduce the topic. Because they had previously liked the ‘listen and complete the lyrics’, I did the same here. Then, rather than doing the ‘answer these questions’ I gave that a tweak and turned it into a group discussion to report later orally as they also demanded more speaking opportunities.
From there I went to some vocab work. I reread the Wikipedia articles and I decided not to use them because of their appalling quality. I only used one picture which I could link to one vid about a doctor talking about short-term effects. The vid was better than the articles and I could still develop the listening activities they had chosen in the survey. Because the vid is also flawed content-wise, I designed a simple exercise to encourage critical thinking.
For each of the three videos I selected, I did activities like they wanted. I disregarded some of the other news reports and trailers because their English was a little too high and were quite European in treating the topic. I also selected only one bit of a video for it specifically deals with marihuana as a gateway drug.
I ended with a debate-type of activity.
I think that experience, feedback and observations from the first cycle have allowed me to be more selective. Rather than preparing a 9-page handout, now this one has 4 pages. They’re not as crammed as the others. This will take 2 lessons only so that I am fair with A and S.
Nice first attempt! Let’s see what I can get or change during August J
01 August
I'm in Buenos Aires. I can sense some time issues cropping up in the near future as I’ll be travelling around the country :S…that’s why I’ve been collecting sources for my lessons on Drugs for Year 1. First I downloaded pdfs from Wikipedia about cannabis and drug legalisation. Later I went for YouTube: I got trailers, some news reports about drug decriminalisation in Europe, and USA-LatAm. Then I remembered Amy Winehouse’s Rehab song. It fits perfectly for in their evaluation they said they wanted songs and documentaries. I went back to the results from Year 1 Evaluation Survey and I searched for more short vids about marihuana effects and all that.
As I was beginning to select my sources and think of activities I decided to keep Year 1 feedback at all times as a reminder of what they had said. I thought of adding more reading input but it wasn’t ranked. But because they suggested activities such as ‘summarise and comment orally’ I did include reading extracts from one of the articles.
OK, I decided to start with the song. Reason? To have a cheerful start. I did the usual brainstorming and use her drug/alcohol to introduce the topic. Because they had previously liked the ‘listen and complete the lyrics’, I did the same here. Then, rather than doing the ‘answer these questions’ I gave that a tweak and turned it into a group discussion to report later orally as they also demanded more speaking opportunities.
From there I went to some vocab work. I reread the Wikipedia articles and I decided not to use them because of their appalling quality. I only used one picture which I could link to one vid about a doctor talking about short-term effects. The vid was better than the articles and I could still develop the listening activities they had chosen in the survey. Because the vid is also flawed content-wise, I designed a simple exercise to encourage critical thinking.
For each of the three videos I selected, I did activities like they wanted. I disregarded some of the other news reports and trailers because their English was a little too high and were quite European in treating the topic. I also selected only one bit of a video for it specifically deals with marihuana as a gateway drug.
I ended with a debate-type of activity.
I think that experience, feedback and observations from the first cycle have allowed me to be more selective. Rather than preparing a 9-page handout, now this one has 4 pages. They’re not as crammed as the others. This will take 2 lessons only so that I am fair with A and S.
Nice first attempt! Let’s see what I can get or change during August J
viernes, 17 de junio de 2011
And suddenly, Cycle 1 finishes...
DAY 27 6 DE JUNIO
My first intervention stage lesson. It was OK, nothing special, quite regular. While I thought they’d be interested in Elvis Presley, it turned out they became interested in Diana Ross and the Supremes. Stoooop in the name of love before you break my heart. The song theme and my simple questions generated a lot of debate. I should have taken advantage of that opportunity to ask them to discuss in pairs, but oh well, for some reason I let it pass. Shame on me
The table exercise wasn’t wow. What was positively challenging was the writing task: transforming the table into a text. I skipped an entire page of exercises for they didn’t seem to care much about Elvis The Pelvis.
Tomorrow we have the groupwork activity. Let’s see how that goes. I’ll try to finish everything next Mon, even the feedback session.
I’m changing my own planning at the very last minute, just like we said in the last meeting of the action stage. (see my printed planning and my own penned comments)
DAY 28 13 JUNE
Today’s mistake: entered the classroom with my teacher’s mind rather than my researcher’s mind and I forgot to switch on the recorder. I missed the recap section of my lesson where the stu provided a summary of the main things we had done previously.
I’d say it was a profitable lesson, it was way way less T-centred than the two others as this time they had to summarise, come up with a mindmap and present it to provide a brief account of each decade (50’s to 80’s) of rock music.
After the lesson I asked them to vote for topics for the second cycle:
Winning topic: Drugs (meh) took a photo of it.
DAY 29 14 JUNE
S delivered her first lesson on the Nazis. Stu were more asleep than usual so she had to provide scaffold all along. It was as t-centred as my first lessons. I don’t think she managed to make the stu interpret and analyse the sources as she was expecting though with reservations. It was a good thing that the sources activity was grouped into themes so that everybody had the chance to summarise and somehow offer an interpretation of the extract given.
They seemed to be interested in the two videos shown. The listening activities were achieved successfully. During the lesson S asked the stu to be quiet or pay attention and a couple of times she reminded them that she was doing this because they had wanted it. I don’t think they ever took up this ‘accusation’ (recording: 00.7-00.16, 00.24, )
On the minus side, A’s second lesson had to be cancelled for she called in sick. I don’t know whether she can wrap this up tomorrow and immediately after I can do the feedback session with the students.
On the plus side, I carried out the evaluation session with my stu. It was rich though as I had suspected only the leaders spoke. I’ll definitely do the survey to collect everybody’s opinions.
DAYS (it can’t be true, I don’t not how to count) 15-16 JUNE 2011
Mentalllllll, Intervention and Evaluation stages are overlapping because while I’m doing the evaluation with my stu, A is still at the intervention stage. The problem is not them of course, the problem is me because I want to have everything transcribed, coded and written up before God knows what.
Topics:
Year 1: Drugs
Year 2: Nazis
Year 3: TBC
DAY 17 JUNE 2011
Skype tutorial with Ema but…previously in my life I designed two slightly different surveys as I tailored them according to the group interviews. I then piloted them. Good. Ema said they were OK so now I’ve just made copies. Wait and see.
I told Ema, and this is an issue I’ll need to raise later, that my presence in a class which is not mine, I mean, where I don’t teach regularly is causing tension with the regular teacher. She uses the mainstream coursebook and follows the syllabus. I teach with my own materials now and then and now the students think I’m great and that their teacher is not great. She’s being criticised. It’s not her fault, it’s just that I have the time and it’s part of the CAR. This is a problem that may arise when a teacher re-.enters the site partially. Unless she begins to change her own practices even when she’s not one of my teacher-participants. Hmmm.
My first intervention stage lesson. It was OK, nothing special, quite regular. While I thought they’d be interested in Elvis Presley, it turned out they became interested in Diana Ross and the Supremes. Stoooop in the name of love before you break my heart. The song theme and my simple questions generated a lot of debate. I should have taken advantage of that opportunity to ask them to discuss in pairs, but oh well, for some reason I let it pass. Shame on me
The table exercise wasn’t wow. What was positively challenging was the writing task: transforming the table into a text. I skipped an entire page of exercises for they didn’t seem to care much about Elvis The Pelvis.
Tomorrow we have the groupwork activity. Let’s see how that goes. I’ll try to finish everything next Mon, even the feedback session.
I’m changing my own planning at the very last minute, just like we said in the last meeting of the action stage. (see my printed planning and my own penned comments)
DAY 28 13 JUNE
Today’s mistake: entered the classroom with my teacher’s mind rather than my researcher’s mind and I forgot to switch on the recorder. I missed the recap section of my lesson where the stu provided a summary of the main things we had done previously.
I’d say it was a profitable lesson, it was way way less T-centred than the two others as this time they had to summarise, come up with a mindmap and present it to provide a brief account of each decade (50’s to 80’s) of rock music.
After the lesson I asked them to vote for topics for the second cycle:
Winning topic: Drugs (meh) took a photo of it.
DAY 29 14 JUNE
S delivered her first lesson on the Nazis. Stu were more asleep than usual so she had to provide scaffold all along. It was as t-centred as my first lessons. I don’t think she managed to make the stu interpret and analyse the sources as she was expecting though with reservations. It was a good thing that the sources activity was grouped into themes so that everybody had the chance to summarise and somehow offer an interpretation of the extract given.
They seemed to be interested in the two videos shown. The listening activities were achieved successfully. During the lesson S asked the stu to be quiet or pay attention and a couple of times she reminded them that she was doing this because they had wanted it. I don’t think they ever took up this ‘accusation’ (recording: 00.7-00.16, 00.24, )
On the minus side, A’s second lesson had to be cancelled for she called in sick. I don’t know whether she can wrap this up tomorrow and immediately after I can do the feedback session with the students.
On the plus side, I carried out the evaluation session with my stu. It was rich though as I had suspected only the leaders spoke. I’ll definitely do the survey to collect everybody’s opinions.
DAYS (it can’t be true, I don’t not how to count) 15-16 JUNE 2011
Mentalllllll, Intervention and Evaluation stages are overlapping because while I’m doing the evaluation with my stu, A is still at the intervention stage. The problem is not them of course, the problem is me because I want to have everything transcribed, coded and written up before God knows what.
Topics:
Year 1: Drugs
Year 2: Nazis
Year 3: TBC
DAY 17 JUNE 2011
Skype tutorial with Ema but…previously in my life I designed two slightly different surveys as I tailored them according to the group interviews. I then piloted them. Good. Ema said they were OK so now I’ve just made copies. Wait and see.
I told Ema, and this is an issue I’ll need to raise later, that my presence in a class which is not mine, I mean, where I don’t teach regularly is causing tension with the regular teacher. She uses the mainstream coursebook and follows the syllabus. I teach with my own materials now and then and now the students think I’m great and that their teacher is not great. She’s being criticised. It’s not her fault, it’s just that I have the time and it’s part of the CAR. This is a problem that may arise when a teacher re-.enters the site partially. Unless she begins to change her own practices even when she’s not one of my teacher-participants. Hmmm.
jueves, 2 de junio de 2011
End of action stage
DAY 26 2 de Junio 2011
Today we carried out our last planning materials meeting. It was short, why? Because one of the teachers couldn’t develop anything and the other has preferred to wait until the last minute. In her words ‘my best lessons are the ones I don’t plan much in advance’. I’ve got to say she’s right. I made photocopies for her and for me about some source texts that we will use, we don’t know how but at least we already have them copied.
I shared my own reflections about my developing materials style, S did her part and I forgot or I don’t remember now about A. Thank goodness I have my iPod to record everything. If she didn’t say anything, I’ll ask her in the one-to-one post-observ interviews.
The intervention stages starts next Monday :)) which means I become a teacher again :))
Today we carried out our last planning materials meeting. It was short, why? Because one of the teachers couldn’t develop anything and the other has preferred to wait until the last minute. In her words ‘my best lessons are the ones I don’t plan much in advance’. I’ve got to say she’s right. I made photocopies for her and for me about some source texts that we will use, we don’t know how but at least we already have them copied.
I shared my own reflections about my developing materials style, S did her part and I forgot or I don’t remember now about A. Thank goodness I have my iPod to record everything. If she didn’t say anything, I’ll ask her in the one-to-one post-observ interviews.
The intervention stages starts next Monday :)) which means I become a teacher again :))
viernes, 27 de mayo de 2011
More planning
DAY 24-25 26-27 MAY 2011
It’s been almost a week since I last was in my PhD mode. The reason? The action stage in its planning materials stage suffered some complication due to national holidays which made it impossible for us to meet.
Yesterday we finally met again. Because I’ve got time at my disposal I was the only one with every thing ready so to speak. A ans S spent their limited time collecting, selecting sources and planning how they’d structure their lessons without any concrete activities to share. They said, however, that they’d bring sthg the following meeting. Working at home seems more beneficial for all of us. Although we shared what we had been doing, I did not receive much feedback about my activities. I didn’t encourage them to say much either. It was like I showed them what I’d do and that’s all.
What I feel is that because content is the key aspect here, A and don’t want to produce activities that become the usual language-oriented exercises. Perhaps they don’t want to plan anything in this sense or don’t want to feel in a straitjacket as a consequence of teaching following a coursebook for so long. Now that they have freedom, they want to have it all and do nothing so to speak.
As I was going through the transcription, I noticed that our lessons will be very different and maybe mine will be the most traditional. Then we’ll see what our students think and what feedback each of us gets.
It’s been almost a week since I last was in my PhD mode. The reason? The action stage in its planning materials stage suffered some complication due to national holidays which made it impossible for us to meet.
Yesterday we finally met again. Because I’ve got time at my disposal I was the only one with every thing ready so to speak. A ans S spent their limited time collecting, selecting sources and planning how they’d structure their lessons without any concrete activities to share. They said, however, that they’d bring sthg the following meeting. Working at home seems more beneficial for all of us. Although we shared what we had been doing, I did not receive much feedback about my activities. I didn’t encourage them to say much either. It was like I showed them what I’d do and that’s all.
What I feel is that because content is the key aspect here, A and don’t want to produce activities that become the usual language-oriented exercises. Perhaps they don’t want to plan anything in this sense or don’t want to feel in a straitjacket as a consequence of teaching following a coursebook for so long. Now that they have freedom, they want to have it all and do nothing so to speak.
As I was going through the transcription, I noticed that our lessons will be very different and maybe mine will be the most traditional. Then we’ll see what our students think and what feedback each of us gets.
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