1 / 26

Needs of High School Heritage Spanish Students

Needs of High School Heritage Spanish Students. Beth Hennes. What do heritage learners actually need from a Spanish language course (that can be used to drive instruction)?. Research Question. A case study, using student questionnaires and behavior observation. Research Strategy.

golda
Download Presentation

Needs of High School Heritage Spanish Students

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Needs of High School Heritage Spanish Students Beth Hennes

  2. What do heritage learners actually need from a Spanish language course (that can be used to drive instruction)? Research Question

  3. A case study, using student questionnaires and behavior observation Research Strategy

  4. Rural high school of 1000 students, of which 7% are Latino and 3% are English Language Learner (with definite overlap) • 16 students enrolled (initially 19) in Heritage-Speaker section of Spanish for the 2013-2014 school year • Co-teaching arrangement between AP/Level 3-5 Spanish teacher and ELL teacher (myself) • Pilot year before official course approval with School Board: currently no “official” materials The situation

  5. Behavior problems! (off-task behavior, vulgar language, disrespect, extraneous talking) • Lack of motivation, low assignment completion • 50/50 success rate of planned activities (could go well, could flop—who knows?) • Growing teacher frustration Need for study

  6. Behavior problems are due to inappropriate materials/activity selection • If we know what students need/want and plan instruction around that, behavior will improve. Assumptions

  7. Tools • Placement Test Results Conference and Goals Worksheet • Learning Expectations and Needs Survey • Nonnative-speakers Learning Expectations and Needs Survey (given to 5 students in AP/Level 5 Spanish, just for basic comparison purposes) Collection of data

  8. Follow these links to see survey results for: • Heritage Spanish Speakers • Advanced Nonnative Spanish Speakers Summary of Data (Google Forms)

  9. Nonnative Speakers compared to Heritage Learners: • Our high school nonnatives rated themselves higher in literacy domains (reading and writing) • Heritage learners rated themselves higher in oral language (speaking and listening) Findings

  10. Heritage Learners valued: • the work they had done with writing (7 mentioned this) • learning about accents (4 mentioned this) Heritage Learners were frustrated by: • poor behaviors of other students, such as not working or too much talking (5 mentioned this) Findings

  11. Generalizations: • Heritage learners want to improve writing and reading. • They need help with accents and spelling. • They were also frustrated by discipline problems. Analysis of Findings

  12. Heritage Learner honesty and candidness was heart-warming! They seemed to want to learn and were frustrated by similar things as the teachers. • Is this a confirmation of our assumption? (That if we give them what they want, behaviors will improve…) My reaction to survey data

  13. For Unit 2: • Changed from Level 4 World Language Spanish textbook-centered lessons to Project-Based Learning • Included drop-in mini-lessons on accents and spelling Epilogue: We made changes

  14. Some improvement in behaviors (definitely less discipline referrals during this unit) • Still encountered some “I-can’t/I-won’t/I’m-too-lazy/This-is-dumb-because-I-already-know-everything” attitudes Result of changes?

  15. More talk than walk • Perhaps we were asking the wrong question—maybe it wasn’t supposed to be “What do they need?” Conclusion

  16. Consider motivation (intrinsic/extrinsic) as a cause for instructional difficulties • Look for and experiment with appropriate Heritage Spanish course materials/textbooks • Use this study as a basis to REALLY compare Heritage and Nonnative Learners • Consult more literature from the “experts” Suggestions for future research

  17. I chose the Big6 because I had heard of school librarians in several local districts using it too. I thought I should get some experience. • I used Barbara Jensen’s “Research Project Organizer (7-12),” which I found here. Research Model: Big6

  18. Step 1: Task Definition • EASY! My information problem came from a real-life problem I was having. • The information I needed seemed to be right in front of me (in the students) Research Model: Big6

  19. Step 2: Information Seeking Strategies • Students, experts, literature • For the scope of this research, I should have stuck to the kids. (I wasted some time on the “experts.”) Research Model: Big6

  20. Step 3: Location and Access • Again, EASY! I saw the kids everyday from 1:25 to 2:10pm. • Gave them surveys Research Model: Big6

  21. Step 4: Use of Information • Used Google Forms to compile data. The summary graphs helped me analyze and see patterns quickly. • Discussed with my co-teacher to confirm my thoughts Research Model: Big6

  22. Step 5: Synthesis • The hard part for me: I tried to do too much and got really bogged down. • My solution was to use this presentation to boil down my findings and re-write my paper. Research Model: Big6

  23. Step 6: Evaluation • Big6 got me where I needed to be, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I spun my wheels, re-examining Steps 4-5. • Probably just didn’t have my focus refined enough Research Model: Big6

  24. I didn’t even realize that I got lost in the model until I had reached my frustration point. • I just assumed I was spending a lot of time on Step 5, but was actually stuck. • No stop-gap for that: watch out! Critique of the Big6

  25. Sure! But I don’t think it’s much different from other models—I’m sure others do just fine. • I liked that it helps learners make a plan, which novice researchers really need. Using the Big6?

  26. FIN ¡Gracias!

More Related