The Centro Boliviano Americano (or CBA) is an EFL school in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Students enroll in before- or after-school classes that meet for 1.5 hours each day Monday through Friday. The English program is designed to complement the students’ regular schooling. The regular program is designed to take 3 years to complete and students are expected to be at an advanced level of English when they graduate from the program. Exceptional students have the opportunity to earn scholarships to study at universities in the United States.
Because Bolivia is a Spanish-speaking country, one problem is that the students have little or no exposure to anything in English outside of regular class time. While students have textbooks and workbooks, there is little opportunity for building fluency outside of the limited time in class. Classes are often large and teachers do not necessarily have the time to meet with and evaluate each student one-on-one. Thus students need a way to have more effective encounters with the English language that can be evaluated without creating more work for the teachers.
How
you plan to address this educational issue with technology?
I will use the website Quia.com to create a space for the students to access timed reading and writing materials. Students will be able to log in, access the materials specific to their level of fluency, and complete the activities. As the students complete the activities, the activities will be evaluated automatically and the results will be available for the teachers to access in the Quia gradebook. This will allow the teachers to see which students have completed which activities. It will also allow the teachers to determine each student's strengths and weaknesses based on the quiz results. This solution will create the needed exposure to English outside of class time, it will not create a great deal of extra work for the teachers, and it is cost effective (subscription cost between $29 and $49 per teacher per year).
Logistics
of solution:
After talking to the
administration at CBA, we decided that we will start with a trial run, or Phase
1, beginning in April 2012 and ending in June 2012. This will be done with one teacher and one of
his/her intermediate English classes. Only
timed reading activities will be made available during Phase 1. During Phase 1, we want to determine the
following:
- Ease of use of website for students
- Ease of use of website for teacher
- Frequency of website access by students
- Effectiveness of evaluation of activities (in terms of students receiving feedback and teachers receiving the results)
Phase 2 will begin in June 2012 and
will last until December 2012. The
purpose of Phase 2 will be to assess improvement of the fluency of the
students. In addition to the timed
reading activities, timed writing activities will also be added to the
website. At the end of the 6-month
period of Phase 2, we hope to see an increased fluency in the students who have
used the website in comparison to those who did not use the website.
Phase 3 (dependent on results of
Phase 2) will begin in January 2013.
Phase 3 will make the website accessible to all students working at the
Intermediate level of English at CBA.
Phase 4 will begin in June
2013. Phase 4 will maintain the website
for the intermediate students and make the website available to all students
working at the advanced level of English at CBA.
Relevant
research and resources:
And yet, studies have shown that extensive reading (ER) and repeated reading (RR) are an effective way to develop reading fluency and comprehension for students learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in settings where there are limited sources for L2 input. ER is an approach in which readers choose from a collection of leveled materials with the goal of reaching specified target times of silent sustained reading (Taguchi, Takayasu-Maass, and Gorsuch, 2004).
Timed readings are especially beneficial for increasing comprehension. “If a reader reads too slowly (below 200 wpm), they may be reading word by word and forget what is being read, and the result is poor comprehension. To minimize the functional limitations of short-term memory in the reading process, a variety of strategies have been suggested, one of them being timed reading. Timed reading involves having students read under time pressure, the purpose of which is to improve reading speed to an optimal rate that supports comprehension rather than developing speedy readers.” (Chang and College, 2010).
There seems to be a number of platforms that would allow me to accomplish my goal. Blackboard, Angel, etc. have excellent platforms for doing online class work. However, these platforms are more complex than what I would like for the trial run of this project. Quia.com has the resources in place to create timed activities/quizzes for the students that are graded automatically, and the results sent to the teacher. It has everything we are looking for at this point.
When researching the website, I needed technical assistance. Tutorials were easy to find and helpful to use. The tech support team also responded to my inquiry within 24 hours. This is the kind of support that a teacher using Quia.com will appreciate.
I will have to measure my success at each step along the way. For this class, I will evaluate the responses of the student surveys/interviews. This will help me revise my plan and determine what changes need to be made for the rest of Phase 1 and the following phases.
Sources:
Taguchi, E., Takayasu-Maass, M.,
Gorsuch, G. (2004). Developing Reading
Fluency in EFL: How assisted repeated reading and extensive reading affect
fluency development. Reading in a
Foreign Language [Online]. Available: http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/October2004/taguchi/taguchi.html
Chang,
A., College, H. (2010). The effect of a timed reading activity on EFL Learners:
Speed, comprehension, and perceptions. Reading in a Foreign Language [Online].
Available: http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/October2010/articles/chang.pdf
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario