Methodology
Out of the three sections of regular level Spanish II that I teach, I chose my B1 section with nine students as the participants for my inquiry for their range of perceived language abilities. There are five female-identifying and four male-identifying students, the most equally distributed section I have compared to the other sections which only have two female-identifying students against eight to ten male-identifying. However, this is also the least racially and ethnically diverse as there is only one student of color who is also international. It is important to also note students’ grade levels: five sophomores – one of whom is a third-year sophomore – and four freshmen. With eight boarding and only one day student, this meant half of my class was not only new to my class but new to the school, to high school, and to boarding school life. Equally important to note is the fact that our graduation requirement asks to fulfill three years of study in the language of their choice (Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, and Latin) which makes my course the penultimate course for many, unlike those in the advanced levels who can and do proceed with their studies beyond the requirement.
Plan & Set Goals
Use strategies & Monitor Performance
Reflect & Adapt
SRL
This sets up the importance of teaching self-regulation: to teach skills students may never have encountered before and, realistically for quite a few students, to motivate them beyond fulfilling a graduation requirement. Because self-regulated learning is a cyclical process best summarized in three main steps: 1) goal-setting; 2) self-monitoring; and 3) self-evaluation; I focused on implementing strategies that would help students stay organized and accountable with their on-going reflections. These interventions were: in-class portfolios, online journals, and self-evaluative rubrics.
INTERVENTIONS
In-Class Portfolios
I gave each student a folder to include bellringers, exit-tickets, quizzes, rubrics, worksheets, and other relevant handouts from class. The portfolios were kept in a pile on my desk, and students could take them whenever they liked or needed, as long as they returned them. Asking for them back kept them accountable on storing essential handouts and not throwing them out as soon as we were done with that unit or topic. Once a week I asked students to either bring them back from home with all handouts returned, or to bring from home all the handouts and add them to their folders in class. I handed them back before bellringers, quizzes, and projects so students could use them for review, study, and reference. Especially coming back from breaks where I had students go through their portfolios and see their progress for themselves, students got the opportunity to self-reflect in their journals and it also served as an effective retrieval practice strategy.
Online journals
Particularly for the goal-setting and goal-monitoring processes, I wanted to create a space for us all that was easily accessible and effective for offering quick feedback. This led me to Google Docs. Students created a “running online journal” they titled as their name and then would subsequently date each entry they wrote, all in one same document. They then shared it with me and I kept them under a bookmarked folder on my browser, where I could quickly check if they had responded to the latest prompt and could offer feedback as sidebar comments.
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On the first day of school, after making the in-class portfolios, students set personal goals for themselves at the beginning of the year for what they wanted to achieve in our class by the end of the year. Setting their goals and reflecting on why these were important to them was the first entry in their journals. Then, students periodically reflected throughout the year if they: 1) had the same goals or if their goals had shifted; 2) believed they were making progress towards their goals and how so (what strategies were working for them); and 3) were not reaching their goals and why not (what strategies were not working and which would they try next).
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The other entries in their reflective journals came as responses to prompts I assigned as part of the homework a class after an assessment. The prompt was: How did you approach studying for the last quiz? What strategies did you use? Did you find them helpful/unhelpful? How so? What will you try next time? I also had them reflect before, during, and after our project-based unit we did in the fall.
Self-Evaluative rubrics
These rubrics were inspired by current departmental rubrics shared by colleagues, those provided by the Mindset Works Network and Carol Dweck, as well as those created by ACTFL (The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages). They are ungraded and given at midterm and end-of-term seasons to help students better understand their progress and form expectations on what those finalizing grades and comments will look like.
Data Collection
I conducted two online surveys using Google Forms, one in September and one in February before our winter final exam. As I previously mentioned, I kept my own teacher journal throughout the experience where I also noted my observations after classes when I found time. I made sure to remark student’s visible behavioral reactions to certain activities and assessments which tend to cause the most anxiety in language learners (listening, reading, and speaking).
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In addition to my journal and the surveys, I have both photo and video footage I took throughout the year for various Penn assignments and to also serve as additional evidence of reactions to those anxiety-inducing tasks and assessments. Finally, their in-class portfolios which showcase their language-learning process were also part of my data collection process. Because all of my data either comes from students’ self-reporting progress and my own observations from my teacher journal, the data in the following “Findings” section should be considered with a grain of salt. That being said, that is the nature of a qualitative research study.