Semester Long Cohort Action Research Spring 2016 by Erika Whalen

Topic

ewhalen1 — 2016-01-27 01:20:45 UTC

My research topic is the effect of word wall use on ELLs' acquisition of academic language.

Problem Statement

ewhalen1 — 2016-01-31 23:15:45 UTC

English Language Learners struggle academically in United States classrooms. They have lower access to materials than students whose first language is English. A key area of struggle is academic language, or very context-specific vocabulary that is used in academic studies and materials but is not used in everyday conversation. In my classroom placement for my internship, over half of the students are English Language Learners. The class in general struggles with literacy and all academic areas. The students have difficulty comprehending written worksheet questions, written test questions, and mathematics word problems. An increase of academic vocabulary might help the students understand materials and test items. In order to accomplish wider academic vocabulary, a word wall and related exercises will be used. If no intervention directly aimed at academic vocabulary is implemented, then the students will likely follow trends of ELLs across the United States by experiencing an exponential increase in knowledge gaps between themselves and non-ELL peers, failing state assessments, increasing their risk of retention, lowering chances of high school graduation, and losing appeal to potential college recruiters. This is an unacceptable outcome for our students.

Academic language is context-specific vocabulary that is used in particular subjects and is not part of everyday language. Examples are "precipitation," which is specific to the context of science, particularly weather studies; "Articles of Confederation," which is the name of a document and system of government in the early United States that is studied in history; and "greatest common factor," which is a specific mathematical concept that is used to make complicated mathematical calculations easier.

A word wall is a collection of academic vocabulary posted in a classroom, usually on a bulletin board or in another prominent location so that all students can view it at any time. The posted words often have pictures and/or written definitions displayed with them. The goal of a word wall is to provide a quick reference for academic vocabulary during independent work and to give the class opportunities to analyze and learn academic language.

This study will investigate the effect of word wall use and word wall activities on the academic language development of our English Language Learners. Although improving our English Language Learners' academic performance and test scores is the goal of improved academic langauge, that topic is broad and thus will not be explored or evaluated directly in this study. Instead, the effect of word wall use will be measured by comprehension and correct use of academic language.

Context of Research

ewhalen1 — 2016-02-07 21:53:01 UTC

The target school is a Title 1 school in a suburban area. The surrounding suburban and urban areas have a diverse population: immigrants and people of both low and high socioeconomic backgrounds are prominent. The most common ethnic backgrounds for residents are Caucasian, African-American or African, Hispanic, Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian, and Middle Eastern.

English Language Services were provided to 33.25 percent of the school’s students in the 2014 to 2015 school year. Special Education Services were given to 15.57 percent of the students in the same year. 24.65 percent of them received Advanced Academic Services. The gender ratio has been even, with 48.82 percent female and 51.18 percent male last year.

The ethnic demographics of the school in the 2014 to 2015 school year totaled to 24.29 percent Asian or Pacific, 12.15 percent Black or African American, 37.85 percent Hispanic, 20.87 percent White or Caucasian, and 4.83 percent Other.

60.26 percent were proficient in English, and 39.74 percent were considered to have Limited English Proficiency.

The percentage of the school population that received free or reduced school lunches was 55.66.

The number of English Language Learners in the classroom is 18, which comprises 80 percent of the 23 students in the class. Not all who speak English as a second language require ESOL services. Four of the 18 students are very fluent in English and have comparable English literacy with their English-native peers. Five ELL students have read-aloud accommodations for tests in mathematics, and one ELL student has an on-request read-aloud test accommodation.

Native languages of the students in the classroom include English, Spanish, Korean, Filipino, Indian dialects, and Middle Eastern dialects.

Two students immigrated to the United States during the school year. One has achieved significant gains in acquisition of English while the most recent addition has very limited English. Both require more aid in acquiring English. Not all ELL students in the class are literate in their native language.

Only two students in the class have an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and receive special education services. Both have speech impediments and are occasionally pulled out for speech therapy sessions. No students have been identified with learning disabilities, medical conditions such as ADHD, Autism, or any other protected category besides speech and language impairment, although one has been referred for investigation of attention problems.

The number of students who receive discounted or free lunch service in the class is not disclosed.

Context of Research Feedback

2016-02-09 13:13:19 UTC

This looks good! The facts and figures are very specific and paint a detailed picture of the school you're interning at. I wonder if there is some redundancy in discussing the common ethnic backgrounds in the first paragraph, and then again in the ethnic demographics paragraph. Perhaps pick the top 3 most common? Or lump all people who hail from the continent of Asia as Asian?

I think this section is also supposed to include the proposed change you want to implement in classroom instruction, in addition to the context of the classroom. So you would talk about your proposed word wall idea. Remind me during class tonight-- I have a really interesting article on interactive word walls that might be beneficial for your research/implementation.

Context - Dr. Sprague

debbiersprague — 2016-02-09 20:08:11 UTC

Very detailed context. It provides a clear sense of the make-up of the school and classroom. I suggest you remove the last sentence in the first paragraph, move the ethnic breakdown so it is the second paragraph and then the services as third.

You need to define acronyms even if they are common knowledge. You do this for IEP but not for ESOL or ELL.

You need to write up your Intervention section. What are you going to do? For how long? What preparation is needed for the students to use the word wall? Adding in these details helps your reader know what is happening and helps you as you plan everything out.