Conclusions
At the beginning of my action research, I drew inspiration from the apparent lack of classroom community and seemingly high levels of anxiety during class. I wanted to better understand why such a united body of students outside of class seemed like strangers once class was in session, and I wanted to learn how this was affecting their ability to connect with Spanish. Through researching various articles and journals in relation to language-learning classrooms of the 21st century, I found recurring themes in designing lessons and activities based on a more collaborative- and student-centered learning approach and how this affects my role as the teacher, students’ sense of classroom community and their levels of anxiety, and finally their attitudes towards learning a foreign language. I also found studies that speak to how shifting away from the traditional style of teaching and allowing students to apply what they are learning to real-life applications affects levels of engagement. Based on my research findings and the needs of my students, I laid forth a Phase 1 action plan designed to address these issues.
Once I had analyzed my Phase 1 findings, as well as made connections back to what I learned from Stepp-Greany’s research, I discovered that allowing my students to use technology while working collaboratively helped them to “learn faster . . . write more creatively”, enhance their sense of classroom community and their levels of engagement (2002). With respect to my students’ attitudes, however, I discovered a correlation between sharing and connecting with other students and how this affects students’ attitudes towards learning in general, but not necessarily towards Spanish. Based on these findings, I decided to research further into how I might help my students experience a positive change in attitude towards Spanish. Ultimately, I created a Phase 2 action plan in which I provided my students with an opportunity to share and connect with my former native Spanish-speaking students. Through my own observations, my students’ feedback, and through researching various articles and journals, I found that sharing and connecting with native speakers of the target language can have a tremendous influence on my students attitudes towards Spanish.
Once I had analyzed my Phase 1 findings, as well as made connections back to what I learned from Stepp-Greany’s research, I discovered that allowing my students to use technology while working collaboratively helped them to “learn faster . . . write more creatively”, enhance their sense of classroom community and their levels of engagement (2002). With respect to my students’ attitudes, however, I discovered a correlation between sharing and connecting with other students and how this affects students’ attitudes towards learning in general, but not necessarily towards Spanish. Based on these findings, I decided to research further into how I might help my students experience a positive change in attitude towards Spanish. Ultimately, I created a Phase 2 action plan in which I provided my students with an opportunity to share and connect with my former native Spanish-speaking students. Through my own observations, my students’ feedback, and through researching various articles and journals, I found that sharing and connecting with native speakers of the target language can have a tremendous influence on my students attitudes towards Spanish.
Implications and Significance
Sharing and Connecting are Key to Building Community
Interestingly, while I have had success with reaching my students through technology in ways that I otherwise might not have, I have found that that using technology for collaborative purposes has not necessarily been the key to lowering levels of anxiety and building classroom community, rather I have found that it is more about allowing my students to learn in ways that they want to learn and then providing them with the opportunity to share and connect. This is also in line with what I learned from Dornyei in that collaborative learning is “not so much about the positive effects that collaborative learning can have on students’ sense of classroom community dependent on the actual target of learning (i.e., mastery of Language 2) as on more basic components of the learning process, such as the relationships and interactions among learners” (1997).
In terms of technology, I found that students who had previously chosen to use technology for their performance tasks during Phase 1 later seemed to be just as content to use a poster board for their performance task during Phase 2. Furthermore, when we finished reading a short novel as a class during our time between Phase 1 and Phase 2, I decided to give my students the option of demonstrating their understanding of the short novel in the form a collaborative presentation or in the form of an individual test. While the majority of students still chose to complete the collaborative performance task, a number of students who had previously indicated on my Phase 1 feedback form that they wanted to see more use of technology and collaboration in our class moving forward ended up deciding to take the test in lieu of the project. And during Phase 2, while the majority of my students (65%) chose to use technology, a number of students who had previously chosen not to use technology ended up using technology for their Phase 2 timeline projects. The following graph demonstrates the percentage of students who used technology during their Phase 2 timeline projects as well as shows the variety of tools that students used to present their projects:
Interestingly, while I have had success with reaching my students through technology in ways that I otherwise might not have, I have found that that using technology for collaborative purposes has not necessarily been the key to lowering levels of anxiety and building classroom community, rather I have found that it is more about allowing my students to learn in ways that they want to learn and then providing them with the opportunity to share and connect. This is also in line with what I learned from Dornyei in that collaborative learning is “not so much about the positive effects that collaborative learning can have on students’ sense of classroom community dependent on the actual target of learning (i.e., mastery of Language 2) as on more basic components of the learning process, such as the relationships and interactions among learners” (1997).
In terms of technology, I found that students who had previously chosen to use technology for their performance tasks during Phase 1 later seemed to be just as content to use a poster board for their performance task during Phase 2. Furthermore, when we finished reading a short novel as a class during our time between Phase 1 and Phase 2, I decided to give my students the option of demonstrating their understanding of the short novel in the form a collaborative presentation or in the form of an individual test. While the majority of students still chose to complete the collaborative performance task, a number of students who had previously indicated on my Phase 1 feedback form that they wanted to see more use of technology and collaboration in our class moving forward ended up deciding to take the test in lieu of the project. And during Phase 2, while the majority of my students (65%) chose to use technology, a number of students who had previously chosen not to use technology ended up using technology for their Phase 2 timeline projects. The following graph demonstrates the percentage of students who used technology during their Phase 2 timeline projects as well as shows the variety of tools that students used to present their projects:
Learning in Context Improves Learning Outcomes
As I have previously mentioned, prior to Phase 1, my students were used to a more traditional style of learning Spanish; i.e., they were generally required to practice what they were learning in class by writing and speaking isolated sentences that were disconnected from a greater context. However, as my students progressed through Phase 1 and Phase 2 with opportunities to work collaboratively and apply their learning to a greater context, they deeply impressed me with their ability to produce very cohesive and in-depth writing. This was in line with what I learned from Beauvois in that students who are allowed to connect and collaborate with other language learners via technology tend to use more complex sentence structures and display more fluidity in conversation (2002).
During Phase 1, I allowed my students to work autonomously in a collaborative-learning environment to write complex scripts for their Cooking Shows and then present them to their peers. During Phase 2, I allowed my students to continue working autonomously while they to wrote about a variety of personal experiences and then shared what they wrote with each other and finally with Spanish-speaking peers. In addition to the writing component of the project, many of my students also chose to create voiceovers to improve their speaking skills and so that their Spanish-speaking peers could hear their voices as they read about their lives. This was in line with what I learned from Dornyei in that allowing my students to work in a student-centered, autonomous learning environment and then providing them with choice allowed my students to give their “personal endorsement”, which according to Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory, is a “prerequisite for any behavior to be intrinsically rewarding” (1997).
In addition to the performance tasks and applications that my students completed during Phase 1 and Phase 2, I continued to give summative assessments to my students in the form of tests as per their regular curriculum. After I completed Phase 2, I decided to analyze their test scores from the beginning of Phase 1 up through Phase 2. And what I found was that the overall class average of test scores had actually been increasing from unit to unit. The interesting piece of these tests results is that my students took the tests only after they had completed each project. The following graphs represent my students’ class average of test scores for Units 1, 2, and 3 (we completed Unit 2 as a class during our time between Phase 1 and Phase 2):
Sharing and Connecting Improve Attitudes and Perceptions
When I analyzed my Phase 1 findings, I found that my students’ attitudes and perceptions towards learning in general had improved because they discovered a platform of learning that engaged them, facilitated their learning, and enabled them to connect and share with each other. Furthermore, through tech-tools like Google Docs, I found that I was able to shift my role to “guide on the side” and connect with my students on a deeper level; and through this tool, my students felt comfortable approaching both me and each other with questions that they normally would not ask due to their higher levels of anxiety. This finding is interesting because it applies not only to foreign language teachers but to teachers of all subjects. When students are provided with a learning platform that enables them to share and connect throughout the learning experience, their perception of learning improves. This is in line with what I have learned from Stepp-Greany in terms of how students who are given opportunities to connect with other language learners feel “empowered, less isolated” and “less afraid to contact others” (2002).
With respect to sharing and connecting during my Phase 2, the variable that changed was the audience with whom my students shared and connected. For me, my findings from Phase 2 have great implications and significance to foreign-language teachers. I found that when I provided my students with the opportunity to share and connect with Spanish-speaking peers, their attitudes and perceptions significantly improved. Not only did this put learning Spanish into a greater context, but it brought learning Spanish to life for them. Additionally, having an authentic audience of Spanish-speaking peers not only motivated my students to increase their effort and quality of writing, but it also strengthened their confidence to express themselves in Spanish and deepened their commitment to continue on with Spanish after our class finished. And perhaps most importantly, connecting and sharing with foreign peers resulted in an increased sense of global awareness because it helped them bridge their commonalities and similarities in spite of their different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. These findings are in line with the positive effects of the student-centered and cooperative-learning approaches as outlined in Dornyei’s research in terms of being a “highly effective classroom intervention, superior to most traditional forms of instruction” in terms of "higher-order thinking, positive attitudes towards learning, increased motivation, better teacher-student and student-student relationships, and finally higher levels of self-esteem on the part of the students" (Dornyei, 1997).