ECI 523: Teacher as Researcher

Name: ____Ke Kang__________

Action Research Plan

Purpose/ Learning Outcomes
Why is this topic important? What are the benefits of this inquiry for your position or school?
What specific learning will occur?
Having been working as an English teacher for nearly 20 years in a high middle school in China, I always felt
stunned every time I found my students couldn’t recognize English words when hearing them until they were
shown in print as well as the great trouble they had in expressing their opinions in English. What’s worse, a
new English man-machine dialogue examination is now a required part of the entrance examination from
primary to junior and junior to senior schools all over the country. What I wonder most is how to improve
their listening and speaking skills in English on condition of the large number of students in a Chinese
classroom. In the article, “Exploring the efficacy of cooperative /collaborative learning: The experience of
college ESL teachers”, Idell Wade Adams states that, “cooperative learning will be defined as a teaching
methodology that relies on the social nature of learning by organizing students into small groups where
mutual dependency and individual accountability are required with a group grade.” (p.5) “Students
organized in mixed-proficiency pairs were able to collaborate in order to create a list of questions in Spanish.
” (Donato 1994; Ohta 2000, 2001). I would love to create an atmosphere where my students can be offered
more opportunities to practise their speaking and listening skills in varieties of ways and help them enjoy the
collaborative activities with their peers in mixed-ability small groups so as to learn and benefit from each
other. Traditional methods combined with new technology and tools based on advanced pedagogical
theories will become new and powerful motivation for their development in listening and oral English. I hope
my study can shed light on their way to become a smart listener and fluent speaker, preparing them for the
upcoming challenges in their future life.
Action Research Question/Problem Statement:
What question will lead your inquiry? Pose a question that will focus your study.
What are the affordance of mixed-ability small groups strategy in terms of improving my 9th grade ESL
students’ speaking and listening skills?
Instructional Focus/ Intervention:
Describe the specific instructional practice(s)/strategy that will be implemented and studied.
I’ll employ some listening and speaking activities as well as technology and digital tools to assist their mixed-
ability small group collaborative work in and after class. Pronunciation practice, small talks, peer interviews,
harkness discussions, mirroring practices will be employed during the entire semester as more options for
them to do face to face practice in class. Students will be required to work with their group members to
correct their pronunciation, make dialog or discussion around a given topic, each member with his specific
task based on his capacity. Blogs, vlogs, tablets and some useful apps serve as supporters for their group
work in recording, posting, sharing, giving feedback in and after class. I’ll observe their group works and
scaffold their feedback.
Sample:
Identify the population being researched.
This study will be conducted with a group of fifty 9 grade students with different English proficiency in my
school, half and half boys and girls, who come from middle-class families.
Data Collection Techniques:
Specify the data sources you will collect that are aligned to the problem. How often will you collect the data?
(Add more boxes as needed)
Data Source 1
What is it? Survey
How will you collect it? A pre and post survey will be conducted for each student individually.
Why are you using it? I’ll use the first survey at the beginning of the semester to get basic information
of students with different English proficiency as well as to minimize the impacts
of factors on the results of the study, such as gender, personality and other
differences to ensure the reliability and comprehensiveness of data collection.
The one to be conducted at the end will provide qualitative and quantitative
data to compare their performance and improvements throughout the entire
semester and help me figure out the impact of group work strategy on my
students.
Data Source 2
What is it? Audio /Video
How will you collect it? Audio/Video will be taken during the small talks,interviews and discussion with
group members.
Why are you using it? Audio/video can provide sufficient data of students’ problems in
communications and changes occurring during the entire research.
Data Source 3
What is it? Critical Friends Group(CFG) feedback
How will you collect it? I’ll have a regular discussion per week with my colleagues and take notes of their
opinions on what they’ve observed and found during the research process.
Why are you using it? Feedback from colleagues can provide multiple sources of data in my inquiry.
They can remind me to rethink the problems from a different angle and refine
my plans and strategies in class.
Support:
What support will you need from your colleagues? Are there things you will need from others in order to
successful complete this project?
In order to get more comprehensive data, not only from just a single class of 50 students, I need help from
my colleagues to not only record or film the teaching process when I’m employing a certain strategy, but
also carry out similar research at the same time, analyze the data with me after class regularly, and find more
deficiencies in the process and offer advice for me to improve.
Materials:
List specific materials that will be needed to implement this action research.
*Audios and videos for students to watch, discuss, and imitate
*Brief introductions in print concerning types of class activities and apps used in group work
*Student survey chart
*CFG feedback chart
Limitations:
Identify any limitations to this study. What challenges to you foresee?
The biggest challenge I foresee is: the lack of support from parents and school leaders who might regard
using digital tools as an addiction to video games and be more likely to disapprove of these tools as a way
to improve academic performance. The second challenge is : It’ll be a tough task to collect so large amount
of data concerning all the students because of the large enrollment in each class.
Timeline:
When will each phase of the plan and piece of data be collected? What will you do each day or week?
(explain what you will do each day or week in order to complete this project on time)
This action research will take place over the course of the Fall Semester in 2020, beginning from September,
2020 to January, 2021:

Beginning of the semester:

* Conduct a pre survey on students opinions about their difficulties and expectations in speaking and
listening class as well as strengths, personalities, gender, etc., then divide the students into small groups
with members of different English proficiency, considering their answers in the survey
* Introduce to the students the speaking and listening activities to be employed in class, their group work
 required to complete every week as well as rules & rubric when they cooperate with peers
* Introduce to them the technology and digital tools that are useful to their collaborative work
* Invite my colleagues who share the same interest to conduct similar survey in their own classes, and
introduce the strategies and plans to them, showing them what to do to help each other in this research
* Collect and share with my colleagues the specific materials needed to implement the research
* Make good communication with parents and school leaders seeking for support through face to face talks,
emails, and any possible ways.

September, 2020:
1st week Begin student pronunciation practice and small talks
Audio record student group work when practicing
2nd week Share the records with group members and make peer feedback
3rd week Collect the audio records and feedback
4th week Review and continue students group work
### Have a regular seminar with colleagues every Friday afternoon.

October, 2020:
1st week Collect CFG feedback on pronunciation practice and small talk
2nd week Begin peer interviews with group members
Audio record student group work when practicing
3 week Collect the audio records and share within groups
rd

4th week Review and continue students group work

### Have a regular seminar with colleagues every Friday afternoon.

November, 2020:
1st week Collect CFG feedback on peer interview
2nd week Begin Harkness discussion with group members
Video record the student group work when discussing
3rd week Collect the video records and share within groups
4th week Review and continue students group work
### Have a regular seminar with colleagues every Friday afternoon.

December, 2020:
1st week Collect CFG feedback on Harkness discussion
2nd week Begin student Mirroring practice with group members
Video record the student group work when discussing
3rd week Collect the video records and share within groups
4th week Review and continue students group work
### Have a regular seminar with colleagues every Friday afternoon.

January, 2021:
1st week Collect CFG feedback on Mirroring practice
2nd week Administer student post survey
3rd week Analyse the data collected
4th week Draw a conclusion for this research on group work strategy
### Have a regular seminar with colleagues every Friday afternoon.