Action research is a very powerful tool for teachers since we are able to develop a research inside the classroom and that can greatly contribute to the improvement of students’ learning. Usually, action research is done on the basis of problems and situations teachers identify as a distracter for learning.
I am currently working at Liceo Miguel de Cervantes in Santiago, located in Agustinas which is a public institution that depends on Municipalidad de Santiago. My students are high school students who do present some sort of poverty difficulties. They come from all over the Metropolitan Region and I can see a lack of interest in their educational process. I have been lately perplexed by the inability of my students in 11th grade to provide their opinion in any given topic. My students are 16 to 18 years old and they are 19 girls and 7 boys. I have always been very interested in the power of literature as a teaching and learning tool. Therefore, my question for this action research project is: How can I include reading activities in my lessons so as to give my students the space for giving their opinion?
Something I think would really make a difference is the development of thinking skills which would allow the students to express their opinion. It is worth mentioning that these students do not have a place or space to say what they think about different topics such as: Politics, relationships, envy or any other topic which may be included in the Ministry textbooks: English 3° Medio, Richmond Publishing. The idea is that I can give them that space in the English class. However, we would be working in English class; the importance is not English but all the indirect learning and skills development that will take place. The reason behind the inclusion of literature in this project is because I think literature is a great learning tool and by using the reader response approach I will be able to guide my students in the ability to think and give their opinion. The reader response approach can be understood as “A text is re-created every time someone new reads it, and it becomes, in the process, increasingly richer. The text is a stimulus that elicits responses from us based on our past experiences, our previous reading, our thoughts, and our feelings” (Chen).
Plan of Action
The methodology to be used in this research will be as follows: Students will read a literary piece (either a short story or poem) and later different activities will be implemented in order to give the students the space for giving their opinion. This methodology is strictly related to the reader response approach because these activities are: Response journals book discussions, role play and book reports (Chen). The other strategies I will use in this research are: Readers’ theater[1] and quick write. Readers’ theater is an excellent opportunity to help students build their own opinion about certain topics. As they will get involved in the story they will be able to have a deep understanding of the story and the characters. The Readers’ Theaters (“Monkey Lives! A Superhero Tale of China”, “Resthaven”, “The Baker’s Dozen A Saint Nicholas Tale” and “The Borrower and the Boy”) were taken from Aaron Shepard’s webpage: http://www.aaronshep.com. Quick write is also an excellent strategy when you want the students to give their opinion about a certain topic. Therefore, students will be allowed to write in Spanish since the importance is not the development of the writing skill, but the development of thinking skills.
This research will take place during three weeks. The readers’ theater is already in action and after students have performed the script they will be able to use the quick write strategy for answering different open questions. Another activity I will use is the discussion group based on a song which can be considered as literature because every song is a poem.
Data Collection
The collection of data will be done by the use of books, articles, interviews with students and videos. Also, students will provide different pieces of paper where they will have given their opinion about a specific topic during class. All of these will be attached at the end of this document.
The first book I used in this research was “50 Literacy Strategies” by Gail E. Tompkins. These strategies can be very helpful when students are trying to mingle with emotions and getting to know the human view. This book presents several instructional strategies that can be used in the lessons. Some of these are: Reading boxes, readers’ theatre, quick write, alphabet books, anticipation guides, interactive read-alouds, open-mind portraits and many others.
The second book I used was “Teaching Reading with Literature: Case Studies to Action Plans” by Gail E Tompkins and Lea M. McGee. This book explains what the reader response approach is and the different steps that need to be taken into consideration in order to apply this approach in the lesson: Preparing step, reading step, exploring step and extending step. The authors support my idea of the benefits of including literature in the classroom by stating: “Literature encourages children’s cognitive development as they view problems from different viewpoints and grapple with abstract concepts, issues, and motivations. Reading and talking about literature often engage students in a higher level of thinking than might actually be expected” (Tompkins and McGee, 1993)
The articles I used are the following:
“The Benefits of Using Drama in the ESL/EFL Classroom” by Chris Boudreault in which the author clarifies all the benefits that students obtain when using drama and literature in the classroom. Some of the benefits are:
· The acquisition of meaningful, fluent interaction in the target language;
· The assimilation of a whole range of pronunciation and prosodic features in a fully contextualized and interactional manner;
· The fully contextualized acquisition of new vocabulary and structure;
· An improved sense of confidence in the student in his or her ability to learn the target language” (Boudreault, 2010).
The author also mentions the human or social benefits of using drama in the classroom. The list of benefits for including drama in the language classroom grow as follows: Leadership, team work, compromise, authentic listening skills, practice with real life savior-faire, cooperation, empathy, development of decision making skills, promotion of the exchange of knowledge, building of confidence and self-esteem, refinement of presentation skills, encouragement of self-acceptance and acceptance of others, features of empowerment, pride in work, responsibility, problem solving, management and organizational skills, begets creativity and imagination (Boudreault, 2010).
“Learning English through Children's Literature” by Gail Ellis. This article is a bit more focused in learning English, but the author also thinks that “Storybooks address universal themes and allow children to play with ideas and feelings and think about important issues” (Ellis, 2002).Therefore, she also supports the idea of using literature for giving students the space to think, reflect, ponder and comment about certain universal issues that are present especially in well-known stories.
“Teaching English through Literature” by Murat Hişmanoğlu is an article where the author recognizes the value of literature for social development. Hişmanoğlu mentions the importance of:
· Personal involvement and the relation between any text and the reader
· Universality and the fact that most stories deal with universal topics that most humans have experienced or will experience
· Personal relevance and how readers relate the story to their own lives
· Group activities such as class discussion or debates where students take responsibility of their thoughts and share with their classmates their ideas and reactions on the given text (2005).
I used one interview to students[2]. The interview was taken on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 in class time. The interview was given to students in a piece of paper were students had the space to share their answers. The questions were very simple and straightforward because I needed everybody to understand what I was asking them. However, they were in English, I translated them into Spanish. The answers could have been yes/no, but I encourage the students to give reasons explaining their answers.
The videos were used to check whether these activities worked or not in other countries or contexts. It is also important to notice that the focus of the videos was on how these activities worked.
In “Class Discussion -- Anticipation Guide” the teacher shows how to facilitate a discussion among her students after using an anticipation guide. The activity previous to the discussion was to complete the anticipation guide. Then, the teacher gave them some time to discuss in groups some of the concepts and later she guided the discussion by asking direct questions to certain students. Other students were also participating in the discussion.
In “How to Facilitate a Classroom Discussion” different tips are shown on how to facilitate a classroom discussion. Some of these tips are: Maintaining control, making discussion meaningful, seating arrangements, knowing students’ names and creating a classroom community. All of these are very important when wanting to have classroom discussions. Unfortunately, most of the times teachers overlook these tips and fail in accomplishing the purpose of class discussion.
In “Class Discussion after the Protest” a teacher leads her students to discuss about previous situations. The focus of this discussion is to make students reflect on and about their actions. This is also very helpful when teachers try to understand how their students act and which the reasons behind those behaviors are.
Data Analysis
In the interview, I was able to notice that students are willing to state what they think as long as they feel they are being heard. The answers to the questions in the interview were somewhat varied[3]. Some students answered in number one that they were given the space for providing their opinion. Others answered that they were allowed to give their opinion only when they were asked. Some others bluntly said that they have not had the chance of giving their opinion ever. In number 2, most students agreed that the school should give them the space because they think and they have opinion about certain topics. In the third question the common answers were: Class discussion, group work and they also thought about learning more vocabulary so that they can speak in English.
After reading and doing research on the topic, I was able to understand that many activities can be used so as to provide students the space for thinking and giving their opinion. As Boudreault affirms “Drama for second language learners can provide an opportunity to develop the imagination of the students. The students can go beyond the here and now and even 'walk in the shoes' of another. It provides an opportunity for independent thinking. Students are encouraged to express their own ideas and contribute to the whole. Creative drama will offer exercises in critical thinking and the chance for the students to be creative” (2010), I think drama and literature can take a predominant role in the classroom when the number 1 goal is to encourage our students to think and express what they think. The books and articles provided strong grounded evidence that Literature is one of the best elements to include when you want to have class discussions, group work or simply to offer students the time to give their opinion on universal topics which are meaningful for them. Hişmanoğlu agrees by saying “One benefit of having literature as the reading content of a composition course is that the readings become the subject matter for compositions. In a composition course whose reading content is literature, students make inferences, formulate their own ideas, and look closely at a text for evidence to support generalizations. Thus, they learn how to think creatively, freely and critically” (2005). In the book “50 Literacy Strategies” by Gail E. Tompkins there are many instructional strategies that you can use which can be beneficial to the students in the process of learning how to give their opinion. Giving opinion is a process and most students need to learn how to do it and also consider themselves important enough so as to give their opinion. In this book, you can learn how to use different strategies such as: Quick Writes, open-mind portraits, anticipation guides, gallery walks, interactive writing and writing groups. Another important thing I learnt is that teachers must become good facilitators for using class discussion. As it can be observed in the video “How to Facilitate a Classroom Discussion”, guiding a group into a discussion activity is not a piece of cake. Different elements need to be considered if you want to have classroom discussions. Otherwise, things can get a bit complex if you are not able to monitor the situations that can occur inside the classroom.
Conclusion and Recommendations
After doing this research, I was able to learn about how to include reading activities in the lesson so that the students can have a space to give their opinion. Activities such as quick writes, open-minded portrait, class/group discussion, debates, journals and many others can help you assist your students in the process of giving opinion. Anyhow, giving opinion is the means I would like to use for helping my students learn to appreciate themselves, increase their self-esteem and to start knowing who they are: Finding their identity. By using these some of these activities in the classroom with my students, I was able to realize that students do have opinion and that they do think: All they need is the space and someone who listens to them.
However, I think that one part of this research did not turn out to be successful as I might have wanted mainly because I did not include it: Selecting appropriate input materials. These input materials should be poems, novels, short stories, biographies and others such as news and songs. It is worth mentioning that not every single piece of literary text is appropriate for this type of activities. Therefore, another research should be completed so as to choose and select the best materials to accomplish the purpose and goals of this research. It is highly recommendable to continue working on this research in order to increase the knowledge of the topic and find even more appropriate activities. My next step is to find appropriate input materials to modify and perfect this research. After doing so, I will be able to apply this research in any other context and with any type of students.
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