Action Plan
Culturally Responsive Practices
Using children’s literature in second-language learning provides a basis for meaningful, familiar content that allows for comprehension. Ensuring students have a solid foundation of commonly-used vocabulary is essential to their language learning in Spanish. By learning the multiple perspectives of researchers as well as those personal perspectives of my students, I was better able to adapt my instruction to meet the needs of my students within this study. For example, data suggested low levels of engagement when students were presented with rote, traditional language-learning approaches such as vocabulary matching worksheets. Conversely, video evidence depicted high levels of engagement when children’s literature was used to reinforce high-frequency vocabulary terms. Therefore, I adapted instruction to include multiple exposures to children's literature.
A difficult part of world language classes is supporting students who may be absent. Students do not experience the same input from a worksheet that they get from participating in a 50-minute class period with a teacher who uses visuals, non-linguistic representations, repetition, and actions to display the meaning of words. To foster accessibility for all students during the study, students received individualized instruction after an absence and accessed video footage of me reading the story and lesson activities. Using Google Classroom as a communication and instructional tool provided students with access to authentic input so they could create output with the target structures.
Collaboration within the Learning Community
To be certain that I made decisions that best benefited my students, I engaged with internal and external stakeholders to seek advice, assistance, and expertise. I collaborated daily with the other Spanish teachers at my school as well as with the 8th grade French and German teachers to obtain additional activities for learning vocabulary from a children’s story. Furthermore, I engaged in structured peer observations at other middle schools and elementary schools within and outside of my district to observe Spanish teachers. Observing others provided instructional practices, assessment strategies, and behavior management supports that I implemented in my own classroom. I also sought input from the technology specialists at my school to learn more about online resources that would help my students practice vocabulary. Throughout my study, I solicited the support of my CADRE Associate. She captured anecdotal data and video evidence of student engagement and participation. I also utilized my Associate as an expert teacher, who pushed me to reflect upon various data sources to propel my action research forward. In short, my professional network for this study included many stakeholders to support the study and student learning.
Differentiation and Individualization to Support Goals
Students at my school generally come from higher-income homes (10.05% received Free and Reduced Price School Meals in the 2017/2018 school year); however, that was not the case for each and every student who participated in my action research. Some students had not had access to popular children’s stories during their childhood. To ensure that all students had equity in the classroom, I thoroughly introduced each story before it was read to the class. I discussed the author and his/her background, asked students about important themes to build background knowledge, and utilized short video clips and pictures to generate connections and familiarity with the literature. Each student was then able to make a connection with the story, even if the level or type of connection differed with those who were already familiar.
I also addressed diverse learning needs by providing instruction with novelty and variety. I carefully planned lessons into content chunks. Students used a variety of skills and knowledge to complete the varied tasks, which allowed for higher engagement and retention of vocabulary. In addition, I was able to closely monitor each activity and formatively assess students, providing additional, individualized support when needed.
Language Acquisition Approach
The purpose of my study was to determine if the use of children’s literature would increase student retention of high-frequency vocabulary words in sixth grade Spanish. I used a three-phase approach.
Phase 1-Input Phase: I began by reading a children’s literature book to students as a whole group. As I read, I utilized the illustrations to connect meaning, asked questions in the target language, and provided repetition. I used different voices, actions, and visuals to help students make connections between the Spanish vocabulary words that I was teaching with the English vocabulary words. Students repeated the target words multiple times during the story. Students had Spanish every other day, so reviewing at the beginning of each class was critical. This process took four class periods to complete.
Phase 2-Comprehension Check: I asked students yes/no questions, encouraged them to ask questions to others, and to complete simple tasks with the vocabulary. Some other activities included ordering pictures of the story to sequence important events, labeling vocabulary words, unscrambling vocabulary words, and ordering sentences from the story to reinforce specific vocabulary terms. The Comprehension Check Phase took three class periods to complete.
Phase 3-Comprehension and Context: After assessing initial comprehension, I reread the selected text with less support. At this stage, students engaged in additional learning tasks with the goal of using targeted vocabulary in sentences to communicate. These advanced communication tasks included: writing a sentence to describe a picture from the story, rewriting the story in their own words, and creating a different story using the learned vocabulary. In sum, the goal was to connect the vocabulary with a familiar context so students would retain the vocabulary over time. The Comprehension and Context Phase took five days to complete.