Phase 1
Implementation:
For the first phase my goal was to encourage kindergarten students to try to start using and orally producing the language they have been learning in school, Spanish. They had already been learning in Spanish for eight months when I started this first phase. As the goal of dual language immersion programs is to teach language through content, I wanted student’s to start using the language when discussing content, in this case mathematics.
To begin implementation of this first phase, I began by using the CGI approach to mathematics on a daily basis for math instruction. The students had been exposed to this method before, as the school had adopted it, but they were not using it daily. I provided students with questions such as, “Hay 4 mariposas sentadas en una flor. 3 más se sientan con ellas. ¿Cuántas mariposas están sentadas en la flor?” This translates to “There are 4 butterflies sitting on a flower. 3 more join them. How many butterflies are sitting on the flower?” Since this is a CGI problem, students were not given instruction on how to solve it, rather they were provided with manipulatives as well as paper and pencils/crayons to solve for the problem in any way they so chose.
As they began to solve the problems, I moved around the room and observed what students were doing and how they were choosing to solve the problems. I, then, asked the students to explain what they were doing and why. Since this is CGI, I did not give students feedback on what they were explaining, rather listened to their rationale and kept moving. When it seemed that students were about finished solving the problem, I called on a few students to explain their thinking processes to the class and myself. I also asked them to use as much Spanish as they could. Students would begin their explanation. If they used some Spanish words I would thank them, note it, and move on to the next. If the student only used English, I would ask him or her, if they could try to explain it in Spanish. At times they said yes and used what words they knew, and at other times they would say no, so I would move on. The point was to try to make students comfortable with using the Spanish that they do know, so I did not push them so as not to raise the affective filter. However, many students did try to say things like “I counted,” “I used my fingers,” or “I drew a picture” in Spanish. Sometimes they only got one word in these phrases but the important part was to get them to be thinking about how they could say it in Spanish so that they could practice finding and using the words that they need.
As time progressed in Phase 1, students began to get used to the routine. They would be faced with a question, they would try to solve it, and they would present their explanation to the class. They knew that I would ask them to use as much Spanish as they could when giving their explanation. This prompted some students to begin with using their Spanish words right away and others would go through their explanation in English and then I would ask them if there was any way they could repeat that in Spanish. Many of the students who first gave their explanation in English would shrug and say no, or would give short answers that translated to “I counted,” or “I used my fingers.”
I did have some students who were able to give complete answers in Spanish. Their grammar was not always correct, but I counted that as using the language since the focus in kindergarten is not Spanish, it is learning vocabulary. They were able to produce sentences like “Yo contaste en mis dedos. Contaste cuatro y tres. Siete.” The word “contaste” is conjugated as “you counted” but that is okay as the student was able to produce the verb “contar,” or count, independently. They also did not produce an entire number sentence but I am able to infer that by “four and three. Seven” they were trying to say 4+3=7. What is notable is that they were able to produce their explanation in Spanish using what they could.
Students practiced explaining their answers out loud in front of the class on a daily basis. At the end of each week I would pull aside each of the 10 students that I included in my study and ask them to solve a problem and explain how they did it. As usual they were given manipulatives and tools that they could use to write or draw. I then asked them to explain their process using Spanish. During these individual conferences is when I recorded the number of words that each student could produce independently.
One of my main objectives was to allow students to solve the problem before I asked them to present their rationale. This is because it is difficult for students to produce oral language when the have not yet formed a complete idea. I thought it best to allow them to focus on one task at a time. The following are samples of student work:
For the first phase my goal was to encourage kindergarten students to try to start using and orally producing the language they have been learning in school, Spanish. They had already been learning in Spanish for eight months when I started this first phase. As the goal of dual language immersion programs is to teach language through content, I wanted student’s to start using the language when discussing content, in this case mathematics.
To begin implementation of this first phase, I began by using the CGI approach to mathematics on a daily basis for math instruction. The students had been exposed to this method before, as the school had adopted it, but they were not using it daily. I provided students with questions such as, “Hay 4 mariposas sentadas en una flor. 3 más se sientan con ellas. ¿Cuántas mariposas están sentadas en la flor?” This translates to “There are 4 butterflies sitting on a flower. 3 more join them. How many butterflies are sitting on the flower?” Since this is a CGI problem, students were not given instruction on how to solve it, rather they were provided with manipulatives as well as paper and pencils/crayons to solve for the problem in any way they so chose.
As they began to solve the problems, I moved around the room and observed what students were doing and how they were choosing to solve the problems. I, then, asked the students to explain what they were doing and why. Since this is CGI, I did not give students feedback on what they were explaining, rather listened to their rationale and kept moving. When it seemed that students were about finished solving the problem, I called on a few students to explain their thinking processes to the class and myself. I also asked them to use as much Spanish as they could. Students would begin their explanation. If they used some Spanish words I would thank them, note it, and move on to the next. If the student only used English, I would ask him or her, if they could try to explain it in Spanish. At times they said yes and used what words they knew, and at other times they would say no, so I would move on. The point was to try to make students comfortable with using the Spanish that they do know, so I did not push them so as not to raise the affective filter. However, many students did try to say things like “I counted,” “I used my fingers,” or “I drew a picture” in Spanish. Sometimes they only got one word in these phrases but the important part was to get them to be thinking about how they could say it in Spanish so that they could practice finding and using the words that they need.
As time progressed in Phase 1, students began to get used to the routine. They would be faced with a question, they would try to solve it, and they would present their explanation to the class. They knew that I would ask them to use as much Spanish as they could when giving their explanation. This prompted some students to begin with using their Spanish words right away and others would go through their explanation in English and then I would ask them if there was any way they could repeat that in Spanish. Many of the students who first gave their explanation in English would shrug and say no, or would give short answers that translated to “I counted,” or “I used my fingers.”
I did have some students who were able to give complete answers in Spanish. Their grammar was not always correct, but I counted that as using the language since the focus in kindergarten is not Spanish, it is learning vocabulary. They were able to produce sentences like “Yo contaste en mis dedos. Contaste cuatro y tres. Siete.” The word “contaste” is conjugated as “you counted” but that is okay as the student was able to produce the verb “contar,” or count, independently. They also did not produce an entire number sentence but I am able to infer that by “four and three. Seven” they were trying to say 4+3=7. What is notable is that they were able to produce their explanation in Spanish using what they could.
Students practiced explaining their answers out loud in front of the class on a daily basis. At the end of each week I would pull aside each of the 10 students that I included in my study and ask them to solve a problem and explain how they did it. As usual they were given manipulatives and tools that they could use to write or draw. I then asked them to explain their process using Spanish. During these individual conferences is when I recorded the number of words that each student could produce independently.
One of my main objectives was to allow students to solve the problem before I asked them to present their rationale. This is because it is difficult for students to produce oral language when the have not yet formed a complete idea. I thought it best to allow them to focus on one task at a time. The following are samples of student work:
This question states, "Adrian has 10 balls. He gives 4 to Geidy. How many balls does Adrian have left?" This particular student chose to draw to solve this problem. He stated that he knew that the answer was 6, so I asked him how he knew that. He said that he was just "good at math." However, I prompted him to show me he knew that was the answer. He drew the 6 balls because he knew that was the correct answer. Then he drew 4 additional balls and drew an "x" over them to show that they no longer belonged to the boy in the problem. When asked to explain his answer he said that he used his "cabeza," or "head," to solve the problem. This is an example of a student who was able to solve the problem but was not able to produce very much language in Spanish when asked to explain his process.
This is an example of a student who was not only able to solve the problem and explain her reasoning in Spanish, she was also able to write out the answer in Spanish as the class had been practicing before I fully implemented the CGI approach to mathematics instruction. She was not able to conjugate the verb "quedar" correctly, but she was able to produce it independently, which is important. In her explanation she said that she "dibujaste diez (10) lineas" and "crossed out cuatro (4)." When asked why, she said "porque he gave them to Geidy." This is the kind of response that I was looking to get from students. I wanted them to pull from the vocabulary that they had and utilize it to the best of their abilities. Is it conjugated perfectly? No, but that wasn't the point. This student was able to produce language on her own after 8 months of learning in a language that she does not speak at home.
Students may not have all been able to produce a great deal of language, which is normal when learning any language, but they were all able to try to practice their oral language skills. Some students found success and others are not quite at that point of learning a new language yet.
This graph depicts students’ language production over the three weeks of Phase 1. Before I began, I predicted that their progress as being a much more linear process. This graph demonstrates just how wrong I was. Students had some really great days and some very off days. Each colored line represents the progress of one student. Many students had a very up and down experience. Many of the lines in the graph have great spikes up and then a very low point down. However, what the data does demonstrate, is that just about every child improved at some point during the process. They may have decreased their production on another day, but almost every child did experience some success and improvement. It is also important to keep in mind that this only depicts the individual conferences with students. Students were also participating in whole class discussions where they were able to hear and practice oral Spanish.