Action Research in the South Asian Language Classroom

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Action Research in the South Asian Language
Classroom

• Sally Sieloff Magnan
• University of Wisconsin-Madison
• ssmagnan_at_wisc.edu

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Goals of the workshop

• To introduce you to the concept of action
  research
• To give you notions about how to do action
  research
• To work closely on what makes a researchable
  question and show you data from several research
  projects
• To talk about disseminating results (reports,
  publication)
• To talk about getting funding to further research
  and teaching innovation
• To brainstorm with you areas you might research
  to inform your teaching or other efforts in
  language learning

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Private reflection 2 minutes

• 1. What language learning matters do you want to
  know more about?
• 2. What problems with your teaching might you
  like to investigate?

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What is Action Research?

• Method of investigating problems in their
  naturally occurring contexts. Its process is
• Progressive
• Iterative
• Reflective

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What are the goals of Action Research?

• It attempts to understand problems in real-life
  situations, i.e. non-laboratory settings
• It aims to improve how people address issues and
  to solve problems.

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How does Action Research differ from Empirical
Research?

• Empirical research tests theories
• Action research balances problem-solving actions
  with data-driven research to inform future action

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Who participates in action research?

• Researchers
• Instructors
• Students or other learners
• Administrators
• Observers or others who interact in the learning
  community

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Human Subjects approval needed for use beyond
instructional situation

• Review aims to
• foresee how findings might be used and limit
  their use appropriately
• ensure understanding by participants
• protect against power status relationships
• provide anonymity

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Human subjects review committees

• You will need to specify how you will conduct the
  research, including all questionnaires, etc.
• This review takes time and generally requires
  revisions. Leave a couple of months, ideally.
• If more than one institution is involved, need to
  go through review by each institution
• If participants are under 18, need to clear with
  parents.

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Outline of Workshop

• Consider a series of researchable questions
  involving
• Student goals for studying South Asian languages
• Relationship of student goals for South Asian
  languages to National Standards
• Language learning during study abroad (French)
• A communicative Hindi language lesson
• An online Urdu lesson
• Chat interaction in class (Italian)
• Talk about writing research notes, articles and
  grants
• Brainstorm your ideas for action research

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Researchable Questions

• Why do students take this language?
• What do they want from the class?

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More specifically

• What are their language learning goals?
• OR
• What reasons do students give for foreign
  language study?

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Student survey from the Language Institute, UW
Madison

• RQ What reasons do students give for foreign
  language study?

Written survey done in class early in
semester 1821 students, all languages UW Madison
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Questionnaire

• 7. What are your motivations for taking this
  beginning language course? (Mark ALL that apply)
• 0. degree requirement
• 1. personal interest and enjoyment
• 2 curiosity
• 3. small classes and making friends
• 4. societal responsibility
• 5. family background
• 6. use in my future career
• 7. to strengthen application for graduate or
  professional school
• 8. future travel
• 8. What is your primary motivation for taking
  this beginning language course? (Mark only ONE)
• 0. degree requirement
• 1. personal interest and enjoyment
• 2 curiosity
• 3. small classes and making friends
• 4. societal responsibility
• 5. family background
• 6. use in my future career

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n1,821
Language Institute, UW Madison
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Secondary question

• Is there a difference between the reasons
  students study LCTLs and CTLs?

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N1,710, nLCTL1,166, nCTL544
chi-square Pr . 000
Language Institute, UW Madison
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In groups by language

• 1. Review what the data says
• 2. What researchable question would you ask of
  the data?
• 3. Find a way to present the data for your
  language only to the whole group (chart, table,
  oral report, etc.)
• 4. Select a group member to do the presentation

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Keeping track of data

• Limit amount of data you collect to what is most
  important
• Spread sheets, use hide column liberally to
  juxtapose data sets
• Consider labels very carefully. Keep key for any
  code names
• Be consistent between instruments (survey) and
  data displays words and numbers
• Binder with dated entries
• Back it all up !

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Researchable Question

• What do students want to learn?
• Do the National Standards reflect this?

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National Standards for Foreign Language Education
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Student survey from Language Institute, UW Madison

• Do students have language learning goals that are
  represented in the National Standards for
  Language Learning?
• How do students goals correspond with each of
  the 5 Cs?

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Sorting data

• How might we look at the data to answer the
  question How do student goals correspond with
  each of the 5 Cs?
• How might we use the data to compare across
  languages?
• In language groups, work with the data and
  prepare to present it to the whole group.

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• How could you organize this data for analysis?
• Work in groups of three to make
• 2 suggestions.

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Researchable Question

• What factors are related to students improvement
  in speaking when studying abroad?
• What background information might you need from
  students?
• What might you do with students to answer this
  research question?

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Participants (n24)
Program Paris n13 Montpellier n11
GPA 3.5-4.0 n7 3.0-3.4 n11 2.5-2.9 n4 Not reported n2
Prior Courses To fourth semester n8 To fifth semester n4 To sixth semester n3 Major level n9
Living arrangements Family n11 Apartment, French n2 Apartment, non-French n4 Dormitory n7
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Pre and Post OPI scores
Wilcoxon signed ranks test 136 Z
-3.624 p-value (2-tailed) .002 (significant at
a.05)
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Can-Do Scale
Increase in means

• Students felt more confident in their
  interactions with native French speakers
• Can-Do Category Interacting in French
  (sustaining everyday casual and polite
  interactions)

• ANOVA F 2.54, p-value p-value .023

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Doing the analysis

• Which factors might you compare with which other
  factors?

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Prior Coursework and Improvement

• Increase in means

Major level Sixth semester Fifth
semester Fourth semester
Mann Whitney U Test 35 Z -2.268 p-value .038
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Living arrangements and improvement on OPI

• Increase in means

but no statistical significance. Mann Whitney U
Test 58.5 Z -.80 p-value .295 ns
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Researchable Question

• What is really most important for students in
  study abroad, in their opinions?
• When students look back, what do they think study
  abroad did for them?

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Email Letter of request

• Dear Former Participant on UW Madison Study in
  France, You will remember that during your
  study abroad in Paris and Montpellier in 2003,
  Professor Sally Magnan gave you an oral interview
  and asked you to fill out some questionnaires. 
  She and I are doing a follow up on that
  information. Could you please answer the 5
  questions below, as briefly or in as much detail
  as you wish?  It is better to do the
  questionnaire now and quickly than to put it off
  and not get back to it. We truly appreciate
  your time.  Your reflections will assist us
  greatly.
• If you have any questions, feel free to email me,
  or contact

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Questions to participants

• 1.   Looking back on your time in France, what
  "encounters" with French do you think were the
  most helpful in developing your speaking ability
  (e.g., meeting French speakers in stores, having
  French friends, living with a French family or
  roommates, reading novels, watching TV, etc.)
  2.  After finishing your study abroad program,
  did you continue to use French and to have
  contact with native French speakers (either while
  you were outside or inside the United States)? 
  In what ways? 3.  If you could redo your study
  abroad experience, what would you change? What
  would you keep the same? 4. Today, nearly two
  years after your study abroad experience, what is
  France and its culture for you? How did your
  time in France influence these perceptions? 5.
  How did your study abroad experience help shape
  who you are today?

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Finding themes

• Work in groups of 4.
• For your assigned question (1-5), study the
  answers to deduce themes for the analysis.
• Be prepared to report your theme(s) to the group.

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Keeping track of data 2

• Color coding
• Numerical coding for themes, with KEY
• Store in shelf or file cabinet ?
• Back it all up on web space, USB hard drive, CD
  or DVD, send yourself data attachment in email
  (if you have a lot of storage!)

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Documenting Teaching Innovation

• Purpose
• To improve teaching
• To build teaching dossier
• To offer as teacher training materials
• As data for grants and future projects
• For publication
• Textbooks
• Newsletters
• Journals

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Lesson plan Hindi
Mingling activity Students will be provided a
sheet, using this they will need to collect the
information from their classmates. WHO WANTS TO
DO WHAT?
Places Activities Persons name Yes/ No Why
Madison Hindi movie on this Saturday
Madison Farmers market when?
New York Art-Museum when?
Chicago Aquarium when?
India Dinner with Shahrukh Khan when?
After collecting the information they will be
asked randomly (5 minutes) (2-3 people about
their findings)
Brajesh Samarth, UW Madison
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Hindi class Consider research possibilities

• What might we like to know about this lesson?
• What research questions could we ask to get at
  this information?
• How might we know when we have answered these
  research questions or not?

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Hindi class slide 1

• Video to be played during the workshop

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Hindi class slide 2

• Video to be played during the workshop

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Hindi class Consider the lesson

• What type of activity is being done?
• How is the room set up?
• How does the instructor interact with students?
• What standards are students practicing? What
  modes?

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National Standards for Foreign Language Education
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COMMUNICATION

• INTERPERSONAL. Students engage in conversations,
  provide and obtain information, express feelings
  and emotions, and exchange opinions.
• INTERPRETIVE. Students understand and interpret
  written and spoken language on a variety of
  topics.
• PRESENTATIONAL. Students present information,
  concepts, and ideas to an audience of listeners
  or readers on a variety of topics

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• What research questions might we ask now?

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What questions? What data? How to organize it
for analysis?

• In pairs, list 3 types of data you find in this
  clip.
• What research questions could you answer with
  this data?
• How would you organize and store the data?

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Online Urdu

• What skills can online instruction work with
  well?
• What are some issues about language processing
  with online lessons that you might want to
  investigate?

Language Institute, UW Madison
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Worth Chat Data

• What are students doing in this activity?
• What pedagogical issues do you see?
• What research questions could you ask?
• How might you analyze them?

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Keeping track of data 3

• Use tables with line numbers, student talk, and
  codings
• Make pseudonyms meaningful and appropriate to
  tell the story
• Keep list of participant names and pseudonyms.
  Always use SAME pseudonym
• Date each version of your work

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Where to publish

• 1. Organization newsletters or magazine
• Foreign Language Educator (ACTFL)
• 2. Conference proceedings
• 3. Refereed journals
• NCOLCTL journal or language society journal
• Foreign Language Annals (ACTFL)
• Modern Language Journal
• 4. Book chapters
• 5. Online sources, refereed (LLT) or not

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The publication process

• 1. Send to editor following submission
  guidelines
• 2. Editor reads abstract references maybe
  full manuscript and selects referees
• 3. Referees read carefully and write report to
  editor and author
• 4. Editor makes publication decision

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What reviewers look for

• 1. Something new to offer to the profession
• 2. Title and abstract that serves as an advance
  organizer
• 3. Review of literature to situate this newness
  in the field
• 4. Clear presentation of data and not
  overstating results
• 5. Clear writing and engaging conclusion that
  reinforces what article gives readers that is new

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Writing a good abstract

• Which abstract best fits these criteria?
• Tells why study is important
• Tells where and how the study was done
• Summarizes the findings
• Is concise and clear
• Uses key words often for search endings
• Fits well with the title of the manuscript

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Publication decision

• Accept as is
• Accept with revision
• Reject but encourage resubmission
• Reject

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For Grant Proposals

• Letters of support, individuals and organizations
• Statement of why research is needed through
  review of the literature. Also quote from
  letters.
• Clear methods of research that are doable
• Convincing information on how research will be
  disseminated and used. Quotes from letters.
• Realistic budget that can expect to have to cut
  down.
• A dynamic title and a one-page summary with all
  these elements

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Final Activity

• What researchable question might you now think of
  addressing?
• Tell one action research project that you would
  like to do and why
• How would you use/disseminate what you learned