Thoughts On Ethnographic Case Study

I enjoyed conducting my ethnographic case study based on classroom observation. This method of research allows the researcher to have an in depth look at one student and how that student interacts with their learning environment. I think that this method of research allows the researcher to better view students not as a collective group, but as individuals. I view observation based ethnographic studies as a very useful tool in understanding the needs of students.

I think that as teachers we often forget this key fact about our students, that being, they are all unique and have unique needs. I think that our forgetting this simple fact causes us to take the “good” students for granted, and think the “bad” students are just torturing us. We don’t take the time to evaluate why a student acts the way that they act, and because of this we often don’t cater to the individual needs of each student. I think that this is the main thing that I learned from conducting these observations and writing the ethnographic narrative. When I start teaching I must understand that students act the way that they act for a reason. Every student needs encouragement and needs to have their individual needs addressed by their teacher (to the best of that teacher’s ability).

I think that acting as merely an observer in the class is a great benefit. It allowed me to focus all of my attention on one particular student. It allowed me to see when that student became focused on the lesson and when that student began to lose focus. I think that this method would be much easier than trying to observe student behavior while, at the same time, conducting a lesson. I believe that it is a direct result of this difficulty that teachers often fail to recognize the needs of individual students that I discussed above. That is why I think that teachers should try to find time to observe their students while they are not teaching.

The language learner that I observed was a very bright student, but he often lost focus within the class. This language learner is very outgoing and this causes him to frequently be a disruption to the class. He never misses an opportunity to make his fellow students laugh (in fact, he had me cracking up on multiple occasions). These frequent interruptions often force the teacher to scold both the student and those that laugh at his antics. While I was observing, I think that I may have noticed a potential cause for his actions. I believe that there are two problems: first, he is too advanced for the class and second, he craves the attention of his teacher. I noticed that this student seldom misses a question; in fact, he can even be in the middle of a joke and stop and correctly answer. The student also finishes his work before all the other students in the class. This gives him an abundance of extra time to goof around, and, being the extrovert that he is, he regularly draws his peers away from their work. I also noticed that this student was much more on task when the teacher was directly interacting with him. This occurred whether the teacher was telling him that he was doing good work or if the teacher scolded him for bad behavior. I thought that the latter was much more telling. Through his actions he seemed that he was almost trying to get the teachers attention. The student didn’t seem to care that he was getting in trouble he only seemed to care that the teacher was paying attention to him because after a scolding he would happily go right back to work, at least until the teacher began paying more attention to other students.

I think that his future teachers need to be aware that he is a very intelligent student and needs to be challenged, possibly, beyond that of his peers. I think that an increase in the workload for this student would solve much of his problems with class. I also think that the “special” extra work that he would be doing would make him feel that he is receiving special attention from his teacher. Those are the two main classroom issues that I believe affect this student’s behavior, but I would also want to tell his future teacher that he is a great kid. He’s funny, interested, and concerned for his fellow classmates, and although he does become off task sometimes he only needs to be pointed in the right direction to succeed.

I don’t think that I would have ever noticed the causes of this student’s behavior if I had not conducted this research. I think that I would have simply given him the class clown moniker and moved on. This ethnographic study allowed me to see the individual needs of this student. I strongly believe that this type of research will help teachers be more effective, thereby allowing students to gain more from lessons.

Action Research

To begin with, I believe that action research is a great method for teachers to employ to determine problems and possible solutions within their classrooms. My favorite aspect of action research is its convenience. Within the teaching environment, action research allows the teacher to make changes and reflect on those changes, or to inquire and reflect on changes that need to be made. If, as a result of reflection, there is something that the teacher believes needs to be changed about their class then they can make the change, or if this change is beyond their control then they have data to present to the higher ups. Every teacher should constantly evaluate their practice and their general teaching situation. This evaluation allows for changes to be made, improving their craft, and helping students learn.

The action research that I conducted focused on the resources available to ESL students at an elementary school. I am not currently a teacher, but while observing a practicing teacher I noticed two interesting things. First, the ESL class was held in a shared classroom, and second, technology wasn’t readily available to students and teachers. My research consisted of observation, interviews, comparing writing samples and informal focus groups. I had originally intended to include questionnaires, but I quickly realized that the reading level of many of the students was too low to really gain anything from them. To combat this I simply asked the questions I had from the questionnaire.

I learned that students and teachers have mixed feelings about shared and push-in classrooms. At times other students not in their class were definitely a distraction to students. This caused the teachers to waste valuable time getting their students back on task. It also caused students to occasionally miss important things from their lesson. On the other hand, teachers of the shared class were able to share some resources. From my research I saw that the benefit of this sharing was far less than the time lost because of the negative factors of a shared classroom. The solution to this problem is tricky. Teachers are forced into shared classrooms because of the lack of space within the school. In order to remedy this issue the school would have to be made larger, or rezoning would need to occur. These are both difficult things to accomplish, but action research offers a starting point to present the case.

While researching my second issue, lack of technology, I saw some interesting things. The classroom only has half as many computers as students. This is no great epiphany, but students enjoy using computers to learn. I think that learning games are a great tool for students, but I also think that if all lessons were centered around these games students would quickly become bored. I also compared writing samples, done on the computer and done by hand to try and determine if students saw improvement on one medium over the other, and aside from legibility saw very little difference. This small test showed me that although students enjoyed having the opportunity to be on the computer the learning taking place wasn’t changed by the presence of the computer. Within the classroom I did see places were technology would have made life much easier. During my observations I saw students gathered around a table all trying to look at a single transcription that the teacher was doing. This would have been a great time to have a smart-board or an overhead. This would allow students to remain in their seats and still observe the writing. Remedying this issue would require something schools are struggling for…MONEY! It may be difficult at this point to get additional funds, but being able to see through action research that these upgrades could help students gives you a chance to see needs and plan for the future.

I enjoyed doing the action research. I think that this will be a tool that I regularly use in my teaching, both to assess my needs and to assess myself as a teacher. Knowing your faults is crucial to improving.

Observation Two

The second observation that I conducted was the day after my first observation. It was nice to see the continuation of the previous day’s lesson. This class did start out a little strange. The school was nearing the end of its first quarter and students who had good behavior were given a reward party. This meant that for the first twenty minutes of class only half (four) of the normal nine students were present. The teacher was undeterred by this and continued with the lesson as if all students were present. When the students from the reward party returned, class continued after a small explanation of the class project.

The lesson began with the teacher opening her notebook to the section with the recorded sentences, about walruses, from the previous day. The sentences offered by students were in a random order, written down as they were given. The teacher wanted the students to eventually write a paragraph using these sentences. So, the teacher began by asking students which sentences went together. The students were seated around a semicircular table and each student was asked, in clockwise order, to find matching ideas in a pair of sentences. If a student answered incorrectly the teacher moved on to the next student. This created a friendly competition between students to find the most and/or right matching sentences. Students seemed very pleased with themselves when they answered correctly, and their disappointment with answering incorrectly was minimal. Each sentence pair was highlighted in a different color to denote which student had made the correct response. By the end of class all of the sentences had been paired together and students were ready to begin writing their paragraphs about walruses.

There are some issues that I observed with this class that may prove to be a hindrance for second language learners. First, as I mentioned in my previous entry, the ESL classroom is shared with a resource class. The class is divided into two by a series of bookshelves. This division does nothing to stop noise from the other side of the class. The noise is likely a distraction for students, and it is also possible that the excess noise lessens the impact of auditory input. If a student can’t hear the teacher clearly this will likely slow down the rate at which the student acquires the language. This noise was more apparent in my second observation because students from the resource class who were not allowed to attend the reward party were acting out.

Another problem that I noticed was the lack of an overhead or smart-board. In my observation of the lesson I noticed students crowding around the teacher to see the notebook where she had recorded their sentences. The students across the table from her had more difficulty reading from the notebook than the students seated at her side. This was likely because they were further away and forced to read upside down.

One more potential issue is both a positive and a negative. Students in this class are a very tight knit group. The negative aspect of this is that students try to entertain each other. This causes some interruptions and forces the teacher to have to remind students to stay on task. I don’t think that this is a problem that can ever be remedied; it is essentially kids being kids. This trait is also the greatest strength to the class. Students consistently encourage each other, are kind and respectful, and try to help each other out in solving language problems. This makes the class a very low pressure environment for students. My observations lead me to believe that students do not fear reprimand for wrong answers, in fact it appears that they understand that wrong answers are just as important to learning as right answers are. This low pressure learning environment is a key to language learning.

Another positive within this class were the number of books. Each student had their own copy of the walrus book that they were studying. This allowed students to read and review at their own pace, and associate the teacher’s pronunciation with the written words. Speaking of pronunciation I never once heard the teacher stop to correct student pronunciation. If a student made a mistake the teacher simply repeated the word so the student could hear it and moved on. I believe the auditory input is much more important than stopping class and having the student repeat the word over and over until they get it right.

Some ethnographic information that I believe crucial is learning the students’ home situation. A teacher shouldn’t pry into the students’ lives, but they should be aware that often student behavior is a direct result of their home life. This doesn’t mean that certain students should get special treatment, but certain situations may need further explanation of consequences to students.

In the lessons I observed the only culture that I saw was the youth culture. Were students are upset because they didn’t get the Hannah Montana pencil. Ethnicity was never brought up.

I find this class very interesting to observe and I am looking forward to working with this class more.

Observation One

My first observation took place at a Murfreesboro elementary school. This elementary school is one of the more urban schools in the Murfreesboro City School system. The school has a large population of students who speak a language other than English at home. The class that I observed had nine students, five boys and four girls, and was a second grade level two class. Students are placed in this class as a result of their scores on an English proficiency exam. Level two students are those that are starting to gain a solid grasp of English, but still need some additional instruction. The teacher I observed informed me that she believed a good percentage of these students would test out of ESL the following year.

The lesson began with students entering the class and sitting in a circle around a table. This class is a pullout, meaning that students leave their normal class to come and have ESL class. The lesson was a reflection on a book about walruses they read the day before. Once the students were seated the teacher passed out journals. All the journals were spiral notebooks with student names on the covers. The students then opened to a blank page and the teacher asked, “What can you tell me about walruses?” The students instantly became excited remembering everything they had learned from the reading the day before. Each student offered facts from the book while the teacher recorded. It was interesting to see students jumping up and down and raising their hands as high as possible hoping they would be next to give a fact. With all the excitement of recounted walrus facts, it was not uncommon for students to forget what they were going to say once they got called on. The teacher handled this problem by coaching them through, by asking simple questions like, “what the most interesting thing you can think of?” The students never seemed to feel any pressure; they seemed to understand that making mistakes was a part of learning. The class continued on like this for about forty-five minutes until the students were out of facts. It was amazing how much they remembered from the day before. The teacher later told me that she had intended for them to write a paragraph in their journals using all the walrus facts, but the students had remembered so much that they ran out of time and would have to do it the next day. Since the students wouldn’t have time to write the teacher asked them to read aloud short poems that they had written earlier in the week. The poems all followed a similar format but students inserted descriptive words about themselves. The lesson ended with the students cleaning up then lining up at the door.

The lesson gave students the opportunity to reflect on what they had learned. It was almost deceptive. Students thought that they were merely learning about walruses, but they were also learning all the language associated with walruses. Communicating with one another and the teacher was the main focus of the lesson, where students debated what facts were true and what facts needed to be amended to make them true (students would occasionally sort of embellish a fact to make it a little more interesting). The students were their own group each offering advice and adding to the conversation. The class on the whole was very informal it was essentially a forty-five minute conversation about walruses. I also found the poems that the students read at the end of class to be very interesting. Though there was predetermined format for the poems the each student, with a few exceptions, had something completely original. These poems gave students the opportunity to learn to shape language to meet their needs, and this is an essential skill for a literate person.

As a side note, the students cared about my presence only at the very beginning and the very end of class. In the beginning they simply asked who I was and what I was doing, and at the end they only wanted to know what I thought about their class. It is interesting that the students were more interested in the lesson than the new guy watching them and taking notes.

I greatly enjoyed my first observation, these kids are hilarious and their joy of learning really had me at a loss. I’m looking forward to going back.

Introduction

Hello all!! Guess I should start by telling you a little bit about myself. Well, I am a graduate student at Middle Tennessee State University working on getting my MEd in curriculum and instruction with a concentration in teaching ESL. I received my undergraduate degree from Georgia Southern University in Writing and Linguistics. I am currently acting as a graduate assistant at MTSU, where I get the chance to see how the university works and get the opportunity to work with a number of school districts.
I have created this blog to record and keep field notes for my practicum courses. I hope that the insights from my observations will be helpful and interesting. I am very excited about getting out there and seeing what it takes to be a successful ESL teacher. More to come soon!!