REFLEXIVITY PAPER IN SERVICE LEARNING IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

EDUCATION

Maglalang, Leslie H.

December 2019

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Abstract

Piloting research, more so, fieldwork, changes every researcher in many

ways. This paper shares the various reflexivities through service learning – the

journeys of learning in giving reading intervention to non-readers – that we

underwent as field researchers. Here, we share the changes brought about to

ourselves, as a result of the research process, and how these changes have

affected the research process. It highlights the journey of discovering how we, as

researchers, molded and how we were molded by the research process and

outputs. All these efforts were prepared in our attempts to discover and

understand the cognitive, behavior and disposition of our clienteles –the non-

readers. The seven (7) participants in this study came from a public secondary

school that was assessed as non-reader.

This article includes the challenges encountered in our epistemological

standpoint/s and personal and methodological concerns shown in our reflexivity

notes/insights. Indeed, it is when researchers recognize these changes, that

reflexivity in research establishes part of the research findings. It is through this

realization and mindfulness of the interpersonal and reflective nature of being

aware of personal and methodological concerns that we honor ourselves, my co-

researcher and all others involved with the research project. As researchers, we

need to be acquainted of our influences to the construction of meanings and of

lived experiences throughout the research process. We need to acknowledge

that indeed it is impossible to remain “outside of” one's study topic while

conducting research.

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 Introduction

Reflexivity as a process is introspection on the role of subjectivity in the

research process. It is a continuous process of reflection by researchers on their

values (Parahoo, 2006) and of recognizing, examining, and understanding how

their “social background, location and assumptions affect their research practice”

(Hesse-Biber, 2007, p. 17). The key to reflexivity is “to make the relationship

between and the influence of the researcher and the participants explicit”

(Jootun, McGhee, & Marland, 2009, p. 45). This process determines the filters

through which researchers are working (Lather, 2004) including the “specific

ways in which our own agenda affect the research at all points in the research

process” (Hesse-Biber, 2007, p. 17). However, this does not mean limiting what

one can know about social realities. The researcher’s positionality/ies does not

exist independently of the research process nor does it completely determine the

latter. Instead, this must be seen as a dialogue – challenging perspectives and

assumptions both about the social world and of the researcher him/herself. This

enriches the research process and its outcomes.

Reflexivity entails several challenges. For instance, van der Riet (2012)

identifies the challenge of how to manage the emotions of our research

participants. She argues that total detachment is unrealistic and can hinder the

research process. Further, she posits that researchers should be mindful of their

behaviors and actions and should be aware of the “Hollywood plot” that makes

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the research findings seem more positive than they actually are (van der Riet,

2012, p. 31). Jootun et al. (2009, p. 45) also acknowledges that it is difficult not

to influence and be influenced by the research participants. Nevertheless, the

reflexive research recognizes that any finding is the product of the researcher’s

interpretation (Jootun et al., 2009, p. 45).

It is through the understanding and appreciation of the inter-relationship of

personal and methodological concerns that we honor all those involved in the

research project. Through reflexivity, we become aware of our contribution to the

construction of meanings and of lived experiences throughout the research

process (Ackerly & True, 2010; DelgadoGaitan, 2003; Denzin & Lincoln, 2011;

Hesse-Biber, 2007; Pillow, 2003; Reay, 2007). Our reflexivity notes/insights

reveal how we explored the ways in which our involvement in the various

researches influenced, acted upon, and informed the very studies we engaged

at. Fieldwork is intensely personal; our positionality (i.e., position based on class,

sex, ethnicity, race, etc.) and who we are as persons (shaped by the socio-

economic and political environment) play a fundamental role in the research

process, in the field as well as in the final text. Reflexivity must then be a part of

our commitment. It must become a duty of every researcher to reveal and share

these reflexivities, not only for learning purposes but towards enhancing theory

building.

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 Methodology and Researcher’s Positionality

This paper touches on personal, epistemological, critical, and emotional

reflexivity gained from the seven (7) non-readers who underwent intervention

program in reading.

The article makes use of my reflections to seven (7) non-readers. As

researcher, I came from various reflections – and bounded by my common

experience as English teacher dealing with ESL learners. The students were

enrolled in a secondary public school.

Findings include the common elements of the diverse service

experiences, including the creation service learning design, struggles

encountered during the process of implementation and how to address these

problems. Participants also indicated notable personal transformations,

especially in terms of conquering high filter of language anxiety.

Leslie H. Maglalang. I am a Senior High School teacher, teaching English

and research subject and a Part- time College Instructor. This is my first

encounter to render service learning among students of Grade 7 non-readers. My

exposure in public school for almost seven years made me more inspired to

participate in various school activities pertaining to improving the academic

performance of the students. Also, I am part of administrative staff and handled

different ancillary positions like Senior High School Partnership Focal Person,

Continuous and Improvement Facilitator, and Academic Group Head. I had a

very limited acquaintance on community engagement but with this service

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learning journey with Grade 7 non-readers molded me as a researcher, teacher

and remedial teacher that I am today in dealing people’s lives and struggles both

in academic and socio-economic development of learners. It is where my

reflexivities are coming from.

In this service learning project, our essential objective was not merely the

generation of data but the analysis how the service learning the journey of

discovery, challenges encountered and the possible contribution that this service

learning could bring to the community and target clienteles.

According to Dowling (2006), reflexivity in the research process can take

on several forms: “epistemological reflexivity,” where the researcher reflects and

examines upon various theoretical assumptions and perspectives on cognitive,

behavior and socio-cultural background of the learners. I adopted these three

forms in organizing the themes in our reflection sessions. Consequent

discussions among ourselves and the review of our session documentations and

available literature led us to the development of four general types of reflexivity:

personal, epistemological, critical, and emotional. These types are discussed

more thoroughly in the succeeding sections. This article is thus a record of our

learning and unlearning process and an open narrative of our pains and gains

from “conscientisized qualitative practice.” This is our contribution in

mainstreaming reflexivity as a critical component of qualitative research.

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 The Journey: Towards a Process of Learning, Re-Learning and

Unlearning

Researcher reviews into the experiences of the participants and try to

abstract and theorize inductively to reveal appreciated insights that can be

construed and applied to other cases. This process also influences not only the

research participants but the researcher herself. Qualitative researches are rich

sources for experiences in reflexivity.

In the case of non-readers, during the remedial class out of the seven

non-readers two of them consistently attend the reading intervention as I

witnessed from the first encounter of identifying their knowledge, skills and

disposition they are really hesitant to talk but because of the motivation I secure

to them I was able to create and build rapport and make them realize the

significance of this program to develop their reading skills.

Learner #1, who possessed the following; Slow reader, Cannot

pronounce all the letters in the alphabet, Once a week (reading practice at

home), Provided with enough financial resources, Failed in three subjects during

first quarter, impatient in reading but willing to undergo remediation/ tutorial and

responsible in doing assignments. Learner #2, Encountered difficulty in reading

Filipino words and cannot recognize words in English but can identify initial

letters of the words. Learner #3, Can’t read difficult words which pertained to 3-4

syllables, Struggled on family problems, both parents are working and no time for

reading at home. Learner #4, can’t read 3-4 syllable word but willing to undergo

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tutorial, Learner #5 can’t recognize words in English, Only child and both parents

are working. Learner # 6, can’t recognize words in English and Learner #7, can’t

recognize words and has language anxiety.

It was revealed that despite of being humiliated and bullied by their

classmates, this group of non-readers realized the importance of service learning

in such a way that they are still intrinsically motivated to learn and be educated

by their remedial teacher. I can feel their sincerity every time they smile positively

while I trying to please them to attend because it is for their own benefit and they

should not mind their classmates, everything must be learned gradually and with

appropriate process.

Personal reflexivity: Shaping and being shaped

In line with the implementation of the research process through service

learning, I often find myself reflecting on the ways in which my own hopes,

characters, values, philosophies, experiences, belief systems, teaching

commitments, and socio-cultural considerations have shaped the research. I also

contemplated about how the research may have heartened, affected and

possibly transformed us, as professional teacher, as researchers and as

persons. After all, Reay (2007, p. 611) contends that reflexivity is “about giving as

full and honest an account of the research process as possible, in particular

elucidating the position of the researcher in relation to the research.”

My most significant learning is to acknowledge that conducting service

learning and putting it into reflexivity research paper made this journey more

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meaningful and full of realizations as a service provider and professional teacher

in extending my open arms to the learners who need academic affections and

affective support since our clienteles are non-readers and it is not genuinely easy

for them to battle this kind of academic disgrace that they encountered as part of

painful learning process.

Children are always in the process of becoming literate, probably, since,

they are just a few months old (Teale, 1987). Sulzby (1991) defines literacy as

the reading and writing behaviors of young children that precede and develop

into conversational literacy. I saw its importance in conveying ideas from those

who have direct experiences during the remedial class and in giving reading

intervention to the learners. However, there were a number of times during the

execution of remediation when I felt and began to wonder that despite of these

reading deficiencies the identified non-readers could not actually make an extra

effort to help themselves because during the course of monitoring their presence

some of them choose not to attend the remedial session. Gradually, I questioned

my own expectations if I am really an effective motivator of learning since I

cannot really convince them to attend consistently.

While in the implementation stage of engaging with the non-readers

through reading intervention, I realized I was not only challenged to develop my

skills in remediating and tutoring as a researcher but even my basic qualities as

an individual. I had to find the correct frame and flow of questions, and make

sense of responses from the participants in order to draw the essential

responses comprising and supporting the research and service learning

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objectives. “If the task, in addition to learning content, is to excite and motivate

students to learn during the course and after, to learn new ways of learning, and

to develop a set of overall values in the field of study, then we know that the

information-dissemination model is woefully lacking” (Howard, p. 61). Moreover,

our enthusiasm entering the service-learning seminar mirrored our goals for the

learners. In this experience, our initial enthusiasm was replaced by self-doubt

and fear as I began to realize that the ideal project that we had carefully thought

out for our application might not be as easy to put into practice as we had

believed.

Although I feel exasperated sometimes, the benefits that my students will

receive from the project keep me going though as I analyzed the result of this SL

I realized that time is not enough and the situations in different angles of

possessing a multi-faceted role of being a teacher did not match the full

commitment need in project.

The experience gained from the service-learning project will be

exceptional but sort of similar in the big pool. In addition, through my own

service-learning project, I have come to appreciate myself better. This

experience combined with class knowledge will become real in the students life

in a similar way to what service learning has become to mine.

Remedial/intervention class will be part of their life regardless of where they are.

Since I have received so much from my own experience with the service-

learning project and seminar, I would love for my students to benefit from this

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and I want to apply a service-learning learning component in my classes. I totally

believe that service-learning is a powerful teaching tool to teach more than class

subject matter to students.

One of the challenges encountered as a tutor to these non-readers was

my busy schedule. I realized the importance of full commitment in service

learning but because of other related works in a form of ancillary services I can’t

really manage my time to extend my help in tutoring the non-readers. Also, due

to school events learners opt not to attend despite the schedule assigned to

them, there was one time that the school will be utilized as billeting quarters for

Regional Press Conference and classes were suspended for almost a week

students did not take any efforts and eagerness to attend.

Emotional reflexivity: Transformed and Reunited

One of the scenarios that melted my heart was during the time that I am

about to monitor the attendance in their respective classes, some of them were

bullied by their classmates because upon calling their surnames in class to get

their attention, their classmates were conditioned that they are non-readers and

someone frankly voice out that they were called because they don’t know how to

read in a sarcastic manner. Still, these group of non-readers never mind their

classmates and positively take it as a challenge to battle these two learners who

consistently attend the remedial class made me more inspired and eager to

continue this service learning. Surprisingly, they became my source of courage,

motivation and strength. It supported with this study on social learning theory

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posits that learning can occur simply by observing the actions of others. Further,

it suggests that intrinsic reinforcement in the form of internal rewards such as

pride, satisfaction, and a sense of accomplishment can positively affect learning

(Cherry, 2016). In the structure of service-learning, such factors are manifest in

the action-reflection process where students attempt to make meaning from their

interactions within the communities in which they are engaged (Chambers,

2009). There is an increasing body of evidence which suggests that service-

learning experiences can have a significant impact on the development of

students.

Despite of busy schedule as I performed the role of being a research

teacher handling four sections as I managed their research papers composed of

45 groups and about to defend their papers on the same month of service

learning implementation, observing classes of teacher in different course

subjects, attending facilitation seminar and supervising senior high school

immersionist as I functioned as SHS focal person in our school I still monitor the

attendance and reasons for not attending the remedial class. I learned how to

manage my time firmly and practically since I need to attend to my part-time

teaching class. One advantage of service learning is the impact it gave to me

because I am very much willing and sincere to make time for it the fact that I

witness and recognized the needs of these non-readers. Unfortunately, time is

still an indicator for not meeting all the activities in intervention plan in reading but

looking at the brighter side in just short span of dealing with these non-readers I

was able to feel the real essence of conducting service learning as it transformed

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and increased my deep understanding to students/ needs and how I adjust with

the unwanted situations wherein Service-learning is also a teaching pedagogy

that requires a deep involvement and commitment to the scholarship of teaching.

Epistemological reflexivity: Reconsidering expectations and implications

Ackerly and True (2010) posits that researchers have to take seriously this

commitment to reflexivity: constant reflections and review of theoretical

approaches and perspectives. But it should be noted that objectivity, as the

concept is used in this paper, pertains to adopting appropriate methodological

tools and techniques in doing qualitative research.

Dealing with non-readers and addressing their needs in terms of providing

appropriate reading intervention is really a challenging task, it requires patience

in letting the students to improve and enhance their grapheme and phonological

awareness. Since they have different personalities and study habit in reading

considering also their socio-economic status which truly contributes to their

reading interest, as a researcher it is quite challenging for me to balance all these

considerations on how to motivate them to improve. Also, even for myself I admit

that I don’t really have enough time to extend my effort but I’ll make sure that

every encounter with these non-readers is genuinely full of learning and

motivations.

A methodological predicament that I would like to pose has something to

do with the process of giving intervention and remediation through appropriate

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reading instrument since being a classroom teacher is different from a remedial

teacher in reading.

While I recognize the value of expertise in giving intervention and

remediation, going through this research process have made me more aware of

the difficulties of executing intervention and remediation in reading. Students

coming from different socio- cultural background, behavior and cognitive aptitude

could also be very challenging that I sometimes felt that perhaps we were making

the implementation research process demanding. We were confronted in

adjusting with the behavior of the learners in terms of motivating them to attend

in the remedial session, inferior attitude on how to accept that they are non-

reader and part of intervention program, which in turn, provided us with deeper

and broader understandings and insights.

This research through service learning also gave me the chance to work

with numerous positionalities of researchers and research participants. I realize

that our positionalities are continuously conveyed in creating motivational and

cognitive relations, which we invigorated, and encompassed in undertaking the

perplexing but recompensing service learning. The several perspectives and

expressions generated stretched understanding and deep concern with the battle

that non-readers encountered.

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 Conclusions:

The experience of conducting this service learning through reflexive

qualitative research is a manifestation of fulfilling our role not just a classroom

teacher but extending help to these not academically competent learners who

experience academic disgrace dealing with non-readers exhibit the realistic

landscape that the educational institution is battling. I learn how to give emphasis

on giving full commitment and time to support the needs of the learners that

despite of highly voluminous task of fulfilling the duties of a classroom teacher

still providing remediation and intervention were highly satisfying and rewarding.

Also, I learn how to value the unique behavior, personality holistic and dynamic

aspects of learners that despite of academic reading deficiency they

encountered; motivating them intrinsically could change their lives and upholding

the presence of multiple realities, which we elicit using multiple ways of

understanding most especially in dealing with their socio-cultural background.

My partner and continue to look at the impact of our studies at all points during

the research process-including its impact on us. We were reformed by many

aspects of the research process: through what we learned in the course of

dealing with non-readers, through providing them intervention and motivating

them to improve their reading skill, and through our own reflexivities. I am

reminded with the different maxims I learned in servicel earning pedagogy and

principle which summarized my experience with the learners; Maxim of

empowerment – the goal of giving learners a sense of possibility and agency,

make them realize they have this potential. Maxim of appropriateness – ensure

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that support is provided in the way which best suits the learner’s need. When

there is a problem try to find out what it is, it’s not always obvious. Maxim of

honesty- advocating an honest supportive relationship, ensure that you give an

honest account, if this is delivered in an encouraging and supportive way the

student will feel reassured, respected and valued. Maxim of openness – focuses

on being approachable to students- Always use a light touch. Maxim of humility –

essential for a respectful and productive teacher –student relationship Listen to

the student, be prepared to learn from them in some ways. As researchers, it

was really a great and meaningful journey to create and participate in various

service learning projects if given the chance to continue and spread in our

respective schools the value of service learning. Reflexivity is indeed a journey of

being transformed in unexpected way which contributes in the personal,

emotional and professional development of being a researcher and service

learning advocate.

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