Teacher Action Research Project
Motivating French Level 4 Students to Speak French in Class
Mary Bea Bouchet
EDCI 560 - Methods of Teaching Foreign/World Languages
Professor: Dr. Marjorie Hall Haley
December 5, 2007
Motivating French Level 4 Students to Speak French in Class
I have taught French as a part-time teacher at ChantillyHigh School since September 2005. I taught levels 1 and 2 my first year, levels 2 and 3 my second year and this year I teach levels 1 and 4. My level 4 classes have 21 and 23 students in them. They meet for first period (7:25 am) and ninth period (12:40 pm). There are more girls than boys in my classes. The students are all juniors or seniors except one who is a sophomore. Many know each other well and have been in French classes together for several years now. Each class has a different tone or personality due to the time of day it meets and the students in that class. My first period is all girls except four boys. Due to the early hour they have difficulty starting the class with much enthusiasm. The ninth period class meets for the last class period of the day and there are nine boys in this class. Several tend to be agitated and like to joke around. While they can often give a fun atmosphere to the class, things can easily spin out of control if I am not careful.
I have told the students that I expect them to speak French unless otherwise specified in the class. I try to speak French almost always. Exceptions are when I am explaining complicated grammar structures or when I am explaining an assignment and I want to make sure students understand what is expected of them. My challenge is how to motivate them to speak to one another in French instead of English in the class and to be motivated to do well on the often assigned 2-3 minute paired discussion activities.
Puzzlement
How can I motivate my students to want to speak only French when they walk through the doors of my classroom? I feel that speaking French during the class is vital to their making progress in the language. Other related challenges are how to help students overcome self-consciousness about making mistakes when they speak, how to continually come up with topics of interest to them and how to reward them in such a way as to inspire real desire to speak the language and not just French conversation when the teacher is nearby to hear.
Methodology and Data Collection
I conducted my research by first administering an information survey sheet to students at the beginning of the year to determine their personal interests and the courses they are currently taking at Chantilly. I also administered the Multiple Intelligences Survey found at the end of Dr. Haley’s article “Learner Centered Instruction and The Theory of Multiple Intelligences With Second Language Learners” distributed in class.
I kept a written log of what was done in class and what worked well and what didn’t. I also spoke with a number of other teachers both in our EDCI 560 class on Wednesday nights and other teachers at Chantilly about what they were doing or had tried in order to motivate students to speak the language. Finally, I gave students a pulse check similar to the one administered by Dr. Haley in our class to gather feedback from them.
Data Analysis
The Student Information questionnaire (Appendix A) showed me, among other things, which subjects they were are taking this year. Most are taking some form of history and many are taking AP U.S. History. Many have also taken World History in the past. This information was helpful for two reasons. First, it showed the possibilities for how I could link the subject matter in my course to things they were already discussing in English in other courses providing opportunities for more content-based lessons and, secondly, it revealed to me that many of my students are taking 3-5 (and in one case, 6!!) AP classes. So, they are almost all carrying a very heavy workload this year. This explains the level of stress I feel from them most of the time. Since French is not an AP course and an elective, it is the subject that receives the least attention when time is short. They want to learn but they want it to be fun, interesting and not have the same pressures they feel in their AP classes.
The second research tool was the Gardner Multiple Intelligences Survey (Appendix C). The categories of intelligence found most often in my students are the bodily/kinesthetic, musical/rhythmic and interpersonal/social. The one found least is the naturalistic intelligence.
The third instrument I used was the Pulse Check (Appendix B). Results revealed that the classes have different reactions to the books we are using. I also discovered that the activities they enjoy most are not necessarily the ones they feel help them learn French the best. Most were favorable to the partner work we do in class and many cited it as the thing that helped them learn most. Surprisingly, to the statement “I think it is reasonable to expect students to speak French most of the time during the class”, 11 of my 43 students responded either strongly disagree, disagree or no opinion. This was an important finding considering my puzzlement. I will explore this further in the discussion of “results” in this paper.
The logs I kept were useful for seeing that when topics related to subjects about which students felt strongly were used as prompts for pair discussion, students were more motivated to speak. Also, when I prepared students more with the vocabulary they could use in the discussion, they felt more confident and responded better to the assignment.
Results and Discussion
My goal is to motivate students to speak French more in the classroom. Given the already high level of stress that my students are under with their other classes, the first thing I realized in thinking about how to reach my goal is that students need to feel “safe” in the classroom environment. In other words, I must, as much as possible, limit any feelings of embarrassment or discomfort students may feel as they try to understand and speak French in class. A 1973 NECTFLWorking Committee Report on Interaction in the Foreign Language classroom points out that learning a foreign language is like going back to grade school and that mistakes seem to be of a simple nature and are humiliating to the learner. This creates fear which in turn may block comprehension.Additionally, anxiety increases as students worry about understanding what is expected of them since they may have not understood some instruction given in the foreign language. I cannot entirely eliminate the uneasiness students may feel at trying to speak and learn the language but I can be as encouraging as possible and prepare students well for assignments so that they feel as confident as possible in doing the work. This involves making sure students possess the tools (vocabulary and grammar structures) necessary to say what they need to in an oral assignment. The more they feel successful, the more they will be motivated to speak.
Shrum and Glisan in their book Teacher’s Handbook write that research on multipleintelligencesimplies that teachers need to tailor instructional activities to the learning styles of students if we want them to more easily grasp language learning concepts. I counted that any student who responded positively to at least four of the six statements regarding any one of the intelligences possessed this intelligence to a highly developed degree. Appendix D shows my findings with both classes combined. As stated earlier, the three most highly developed intelligences among my students are bodily/kinesthetic, musical/rhythmic and interpersonal/social. I currently use music in my classes and there are numerous activities done in pairs. However, I need to have more variety and I should include more kinesthetic types of activities. To be sure, the boys in my 9th period class would be ecstatic about that! In addition, I need to be sure that the paired discussion questions are motivating to students. I also need to spot check the quality of their discussions by calling on different pairs to illustrate their discussions if I feel some people are slacking off and not making the necessary effort to do the assignment.
In analyzing the pulse check, another important finding was that many students (25%) felt that requiring students to speak French in a level 4 class was not necessarily reasonable. This surprised me. However, it just showed thatsome students severely lack confidence and, as discussed above, may simply be feeling embarrassed by their lack of ability to converse meaningfully in the language at this level. Any student who takes a level 4 language class, when it is not required, is motivated at some level at least to learn the language. This group needs additional help and encouragement in my view. This lack of desire to speak is an important finding for my puzzlement since it shows resistance at the outset to speaking the language in class. I may need to find a way to further explore the attitudes and feeling of this group of students in order to address the issue effectively. It is important for students to feel that this is a reasonable expectation on my part in order to be motivated to speak.
I have also begun giving students “tickets” when I hear them speaking French either during an assignment or not. Every two weeks students tally up the number of tickets they have and are given participation points for each one. In addition, we have a drawing and two students receive a prize when their names are drawn from among the tickets in the bowl. I have not been consistent enough with this and I am not sure it is truly helping motivate students.
In this regard, I feel that I can overall improve my planning of class times. I have many ideas but too often I start them and do not follow through with them on a consistent basis in the classroom. I do them once or twice but then forget them or discard them before giving them a chance to really impact learning. I may abandon them because I sense students don’t like them or that they are not helping students really learn. In some cases I think I may not have given the new ideas a fair chance by doing them over a more sustained period of time. The pulse check was very useful because it showed me that some of these forgotten ideas were well liked by students and it is time to bring them back or at least use them from time to time for variety’s sake. Another challenge I have is planning too much for one class period. I feel I am still on a very steep learning curve with the level 4 class. Fortunately I have a great teacher/mentor who is helping me with this class. I think I need to be patient and forgiving with myself as I try to find the right blend of activities involving difficult topics and fun.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I feel that this project was very helpful in getting me to know my students more closely in ways that will help me tailor my instruction to their needs. Motivating students to speak in the target language is a topic of discussion often agonized over by foreign language teachers. No one has yet found the perfect solution. I sensed that just by asking my students for their feedback about different things, they felt listened to and respected. This in and of itself will only help them to be more favorable to the class and make more effort. I shared the findings of the pulse check with them and talked about one or two things we can do differently. I know they are watching me and by making some concrete adjustments to the class which will ease their stress level and help them to learn more effectively, this will help us to progress toward an atmosphere of “safety” and hopefully produce more speaking in the classroom.
I have experimented with some more interesting topics for paired discussion and have seen improvement in the quality of the speaking. Dr. Haley encouraged us in class to use motivating topics to draw them out and this definitely works. I think it would be a good idea to have them submit topics or questions they’d like to talk about. To make sure they hand in something serious, perhaps I could give them extra credit for the ones I choose to use in class.
Most importantly, as a teacher I believe we need to care about the students and to love teaching them. A good sense of humor is also vital in my opinion. There isn’t much we can’t laugh about in the end. In addition, we must know the subject well that we are teaching so that students respect us and are excited to learn from us. When there are difficult days and things to not go as we had hoped (how many of those have we all had as teachers??), we just need to chalk it up to a “learning day” ourselves and not lose confidence. Good teachers are life-long learners themselves.
References
Interaction in the foreign language classroom. (1973) NECTFL Reports of Working Committee, (James W. Dodge, ed.)
Hall Haley, M., Learner centered instruction and the theory of multiple intelligences with second language learners. (Working paper handed out in EDCI 560 class).
Shrum, J. and Glisan, E. (2005), Teacher’s Handbook, (3rd ed.). Boston: Thomas Heinle.
Appendix A
Student Information Sheet (2007-8) French 4
Name ______Age _____ Grade______
Last, first
Circle one : Male Female ID#______Birthday ______
Counselor ______Sub school ______
Parent (s) /Guardian 1.______2. ______
Work Phone # 1.______2. ______
Home Phone # 1.______2. ______
Language(s) you speak at home other than English ______
SCHEDULE
A Day
CLASSTEACHER / ROOM
1 ______
7 ______
9 ______
B Day
2 ______
4 ______
6 ______
8 ______
Appendix B
PULSE CHECK
Books and classroom instruction / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5I find the Trésor textbook interesting and useful.
I find the Amsco book exercises helpful.
I think the tests are reasonable.
I believe the quizzes are helpful for learning French.
I like the pace of the class.
I think it is reasonable to expect students to speak French most
of the time during the class.
(1 = strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=no opinion, 4=agree, 5=strongly agree)
The class activities I enjoy most are:
The activities I find the most useful for improving my French are:
The activities I find the least helpful are:
The topics I most enjoy discussing are:
Topics I least like to discuss are:
Is there something you would like to see changed about the class?
What is working well for you so far?
As a student, I think I need to do better with…
Any additional comments?
Appendix C
Multiple Intelligences Survey Instrument (Armstrong, 1993)
Multiple Intelligences Research Project
“Your Seven Kinds of Smart” (+1)
Adapted from Thomas Armstrong, PhD
Check (x) each statement that applies to you.
Verbal/Linguistic IntelligenceTotal = ______
___Books are very important to me.
___I hear words in my head, before I read, speak, or write them down.
___I am good at word games, like Scrabble or Password.
___I enjoy entertaining others or myself with tongue twisters, rhymes, or puns.
___English, social studies, and history are easier for me tha math and science.
___I have recently written something that I am especially proud of.
Logical/Mathematical Intelligence Total = ______
___I can easily compute numbers in my head.
___Math and /or science are among my favorite subjects in school
___I enjoy brainteasers or games that require logical thinking.
___My mind searches for patterns and regularities in things.
___I am interested in new developments in science.
___I believe that almost everything has a logical explanation.
Visual/Spacial IntelligenceTotal = ______
___I often see clear visual images when I close my eyes.
___I am sensitive to color.
___I enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles.
___I like to draw or doodle.
___I can easily imagine how something might look from a bird’s eye view.
___I prefer looking at reading material with lots of illustrations
Bodily/Kinesthetic IntelligenceTotal = ______
___I participate in at least one sport or physical activity on a regular basis.
___I like working with my hands on concrete activities.
(like carpentry, weaving, model building, sewing)
___I like to spend my free time outdoors.
___I enjoy amusement rides and other thrilling experiences.
___I would describe myself as well coordinated.
___I need to practice a new skill, not just read about it or see a video about it.
Musical/Rhythmic IntelligenceTotal = ______
___I have a pleasant singing voice.
___I play a musical instrument.
___My life would not be so great without music.
___I can easily keep time to music with a simple percussion instrument.
___I know the tunes to many different songs and musical pieces.
___If I hear a musical selection a couple of times, I can usually sing it fairly accurately.
Interpersonal IntelligenceTotal = ______
___I am the sort of person that others come to for advice.
___I prefer group sports (like softball) rather than individual sports (like swimming)
___I like group games like Monopoly better than individual entertainment.
___I enjoy the challenge of teaching others how to do something.
___I consider myself a leader, and others have called me a leader.
___I like to get involved in social activities at my school, church, or community.
Intrapersonal IntelligenceTotal = ______
___I regularly spend time alone, reflecting or thinking about important questions.
___I have opinions that set me apart from the crowd.
___I have a special hobby or interest that I like to do alone.
___I have some important goals for my life that I regularly think about.
___I consider myself to be independent minded or strong willed.
___I keep a personal diary or journal to write down my thoughts or feeling about life.
NaturalistTotal = ______
___I have a garden and/or like to work outdoors.
___I really like to go backpacking and hiking.
___I enjoy having different animals around the house (in addition to a cat or dog).
___I have a hobby that involves nature.
___I like to visit zoos, nature centers, or places with displays about the natural world.