Virginia F. DohertyEducational Leadership/Multicultural Education |
Academic Progress Portfolio |
Home |
George Mason University |
Graduate School of Education |
Fall 2002 |
David's comments follow the paper. |
These research findings were then used to implement change in their classes. In action research the teacher/researcher reflects on an event or a situation in the classroom and then investigates it through data collection and analysis. This process fosters a greater awareness of classroom processes and the reasons behind them (Walsh, p. 5). This awareness leads to professional growth and development. The individual teachers formed their own research questions and used only their own classes as their research population.
In the next article, Nancy Mae Antrim examines the attitudes of the students
growing up along the Texas-Mexican border towards Spanish. She looks
at Spanish/English language preferences at home, at school, with friends
and in their preference for music and TV. She wants to see whether,
in a border town where Spanish and English are used interchangeable, Spanish
fluency carried a stigma of foreignness or whether it was used with pride.
She also wanted to see if having been in a bilingual class had a negative
or positive effect on their attitudes. In her study, she interviews
132 fourth and sixth grade students from the same elementary school in
El Paso, Texas. She asks them to rank their level of proficiency
in both English and Spanish. She also asks them whether they have
been in bilingual classes. Her sample ranged from completely bilingual
to monolingual in either spanish or English. Based on their level
of Spanish proficiency and their academic background, Antrim compiled statistics
for each group of students.
Antrim concludes that the children's attitudes towards speaking Spanish
were determined by their perceived competency in understanding Spanish.
Those who believed that they understood Spanish well felt that it was important
to speak it. Most students who spoke Spanish described the language
as "beautiful and colorful" (Antrim, p. 11). She concluded that as
students perceived their ability in Spanish improve, their attitude became
more positive.
In the last article, Barbara Hruska examines programs which were established for a small group of non-English speakers in a predominantly monolingual K-6 school. In a school of 380 students, 30-40 received ESL instruction. Twenty of these students were Hispanic and participated in Spanish Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE). Both of these programs were 'pull-out' models. In her study, she tries to determine whether the pull-out program is the best model for the students. She considers their social adjustment as well as their language learning.
This study takes place over two years. Sources for information include
but are not limited to field notes, videotaped observations, audio taped
teacher interviews, student interviews, notes from parent conferences,
faculty meetings, and personal correspondence. In the end,
880 pages of handwritten notes, 40 hours of videotape and 30 documents
were used to compile the results of the research (Hruska)
These articles start to show the variety of bilingual programs and the
myriad of ways of looking at research issues in bilingual education.
The questions still remain, "What is the best program for English language
learners? and "How do they maintain their first language?"
Add to that, "If we find the answers, will the administration either at
the school site (Hruska) or at the state level (Martinez) give us the leeway
to implement them?"
|
|
1. Very nice introduction. Even though the assignment does not require a thesis, you have provided a clear structure for your paper. That is very helpful to the reader. Way to go! |
2. You need a better transition here. I thought the next paragraph was going to be about how teacher attitudes influence the effectiveness of bilingual education. |
3. There is something odd here. The emphasis in the beginning is on teacher attitudes, but it shifts at the end to state policy and local resources. You mention teacher attitudes, but they seem to have receded in importance. You need to check the article to see if that's the case, or figure ot how to explain the findings more clearly. As it stands, I'm somewhat confused about the findings. |
4. Page numbers are used only in citations for material directly quoted from the text. |
5. Your comment about small sample size seems to indicate some skepticism on your part regarding the quality of the article. I'm wondering what justification there is for advocating the use of action research. You haven't said anything (and the article may not either) about what gains were made as a result of engaging in action research. |
6. It is generally best to use present tense as much as possible. You started out that way, then switched to past tense. Although the article was written in the past, we can write about it in the present. |
7. You have a tendency to overuse pronouns and not give the reader names frequently enough to prevent getting confused. Try to watch out for that in your next paper. |
8. I'd like to know more about how Hruska arrived at this
conclusion. You describe the general method, but you don't link them
to the conclusions. (I realize that I may be asking for more here
than I put into the assignment, but it is an important point to keep in
mind.
You did a good job with this paper overall. Your articles are appropriate and they seem as though they will fit together nicely in the next paper. Your writing is generally clear, but you have this nagging problem with using pronouns when your reader would benefit from having names. I think that in future papers, you may want to pay close attention to your making explicit connections among questions, methods, and conclusions. |
|
|