Phase 2
Findings:
During this phase, I found that the type of problem that students are asked, and a student’s understanding of how to solve such problem will be a determining factor in their being able to articulate their thinking. Since CGI is based on the thought that students will use their background knowledge to figure out how to solve a problem, it is important that students actually have an understanding of how to solve the problem. If they are confused or do not understand, they will not be able to transfer knowledge into Spanish to give an explanation using Spanish words. They cannot find the words in English because they do not understand the concept and therefore will not be able to come up with the words in Spanish either. I believe this is why students had a difficult time during the second individual conference in Phase 2. Many students did not fully understand how to solve the problem so they did not have knowledge of how to say it and English, and therefore could not transfer that thought process into Spanish. I had taught the normal math lessons, not taking into account how student understanding of these lessons would affect language production.
Phase 2 reaffirmed what I found during the first phase, the process of language production is not a linear process. Students continued to experience increased and decreased language production during Phase 2. Many students progress did produce an upward trend but not in a neat and tidy way. The following graph demonstrates student progress starting from the baseline assessment through the end of Phase 2:
During this phase, I found that the type of problem that students are asked, and a student’s understanding of how to solve such problem will be a determining factor in their being able to articulate their thinking. Since CGI is based on the thought that students will use their background knowledge to figure out how to solve a problem, it is important that students actually have an understanding of how to solve the problem. If they are confused or do not understand, they will not be able to transfer knowledge into Spanish to give an explanation using Spanish words. They cannot find the words in English because they do not understand the concept and therefore will not be able to come up with the words in Spanish either. I believe this is why students had a difficult time during the second individual conference in Phase 2. Many students did not fully understand how to solve the problem so they did not have knowledge of how to say it and English, and therefore could not transfer that thought process into Spanish. I had taught the normal math lessons, not taking into account how student understanding of these lessons would affect language production.
Phase 2 reaffirmed what I found during the first phase, the process of language production is not a linear process. Students continued to experience increased and decreased language production during Phase 2. Many students progress did produce an upward trend but not in a neat and tidy way. The following graph demonstrates student progress starting from the baseline assessment through the end of Phase 2:
Student exploration with language will take a long time. Students will experience success as well as challenges because learning a language is difficult, especially when learning that language through content areas, as is true in a dual immersion program. I think that a reasonable explanation for this progress not being linear is that there are other factors to take into account when measuring student’s language production, such as understanding of content area. Students don’t just learn language functions and get tested in Spanish. They learn content through Spanish and are assessed with by the teacher asking them questions in Spanish and them having to figure out the Spanish portion and the content area knowledge. It would be interesting to track their language production progress throughout the years, as related to mathematics, and see where it takes them.