OUR RADIO STATION

IN CONCLUSION...

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The project allowed me—as teacher-researcher—to be more reflective about a topic that I particularly feel passion of. In general it was encouraging despite some school problems that I faced on. Students were motivated to participate, and parents were somehow involved, especially at the beginning.

It was possible to observe in students an awareness that they really needed and—because of their age—is not easy recognized. Age was one of the factors that influenced in the accomplishment of the project. They followed a model of radio that they liked listening to in their productions. In so doing, they recognized strengths in themselves and their peers and worked on self and peer weaknesses. The sense of commitment in the students that finished the study (12, because of external reasons) was general. Consequently, the participation of new members in the group was immediate and motivated. The change in the group (in term of population) was another factor that influenced the achievement of the project goals.

Being autonomous in editing and deciding about including chunks or pieces of scripts, repeating, using music and other effects let students recognize their abilities and how to use them in a need that they have. In this aspect, using technology—despite technological constrains at school—was attractive and motivating for the participants.

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LIMITATIONS

During the development of the study I had to face on some unexpected situation that influenced the results:

1. Changes in the groups: At the beginning of the project, thirty-eight students were the number of participants; given that many students were moved to another school, I finished the project with twelve. It implied a new re-distribution of the groups, a forced-inclusion of new members (without using their material for the project because of consent issues). This situation made students more tolerant because they had to start again getting to know each other, and they practically had to start again with the process of cooperative learning. On the other hand, a sense of commitment arose and the former students were in charge of immersing the new ones.

2. Time: Some school activities impeded conducting the implementation in the time that I have planned. At the beginning of the school year, I expected to continue with this stage, but I was assigned to a different group. Consequently I had to wait until the group was re-assigned. As a result of this, I reduced the activities, and the technical workshops were not done as I planned. I encouraged students to work at home on this issue, but unfortunately not all of them have computers or internet services.

3. Technical: At the beginning of the project I have included “Shoutcast” as the tool to display the participants’ final product. During the implementation, my students and I found that this tool does not run with Windows Vista and Windows 7. As mentioned above, students did some technical activities at home, and most of them have computers with one of these operative systems. This fact demanded me to look for other online tools. Another limitation in this aspect is that students edited using different applications and in the moment of keeping the recordings some of them did not follow instructions to save files as mp3. When uploading, they were not able to listen to, so by now, there are only two recordings online, but students are working on re-editing .

FURTHER RESEARCH

I will continue this study with the target group and finish with what I have planned. I would like also to join a specific group of students from different levels that share the taste for radio participation and also the interest to improve their speaking confidence. Both aspects usually come together. I will focus on three aspects: radio production, speaking confidence activities and technical issues. In so doing, I will present my proposal to IDEP (Instituto para la Investigación Educativa y Desarrollo pedagógico), not only to present the proposal for the current study but also to ask for support and financing.

I found that such project could be useful for some La Sabana University students since most of them have to deal with speaking confidence and that impede them have a good performance in their sessions and the partials. I would like to present my proposal to the Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures and the Unisabana radio.

REPORTING RESULTS

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Dear all

I had already decided to follow Sagor’s Trend Analysis to analyze the data.

According to Sagor (2005), the specific areas of development that are relevant to identify regards the change in performance, based on the research question and the general and specific goals. When analyzing data, researchers find a connection of the goal with two aspects: Identifying changes occurred, and understanding the factors that contributed to these changes. That is why I also complemented it with Inductive analysis, taking into account that all the elements identified (patterns, categories and themes of analysis) emerge from the data, instead of imposing before data collection. (Quinn, 2002)

In Trend Analysis, there are three questions that must be answered to make an accurate analysis:

ACR Question 1: WHAT DID WE DO?

It consists on evidencing if what I have planned to do was effectively done, considering four aspects: If the theory of action was followed as written, what the fashion that the theory implemented was, elements of the theory omitted or changed and significant actions taken from the original theory. (Sagor, 2005: 113)

ACR Question 2: WHAT CHANGES OCCURRED REGARDING THE ACHIEVEMENT TARGETS?

It refers to the comparison and contrast of trends in and the influence received by external factors. It needs to be built within at least one or two paragraphs

ACR Question 3: WHAT WAS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ACTIONS TAKEN AND ANY CHANGES IN PERFORMANCE ON THE TARGETS?

In this phase, I used the findings in order to answer the previous questions. Then, I go went and looked for changes (positive or negative) and saw if there were any particular actions or activities that corresponded to those changes. With these elements, identifying pattern or patterns that can explain these changes was necessary.

RESULTS - FINDINGS

Based on the data collected and my intuition as researcher about the actions taken, the results of my study is as follows:

Looking for reasons why students do not feel confident when speaking in the target language, I found a close relationship between students’ feelings (in the survey) and what they experienced in the recordings. One of the strongest reasons that they have expressed regards the awareness in pronunciation. It was evident when participating in the recordings: the self and the peer corrections pointed out to the concerns of pronouncing accurately. Likewise, in the final survey, they found that pronunciation was an aspect that they improved more. On the other hand, students demanded more interaction among themselves; in other words, they recognized the need of practice.

During the lessons, students took advantage of their peer feedback, that instead of laughing and feeling anxious because their peers’ laugh, they started helping each. In this way, students improved their interaction, as was expressed in the final survey.

Furthermore, fluency and intonation were other aspects that evidenced an improvement in their speaking confidence. At the beginning, they limited their participation to read (in the first recordings), but after establishing as strategy to divide their scripts in small chunks in such a way they repeat many times, they experimented several ways to say them. It is something that learners saw too, according to what they expressed in the final survey. They called it “La forma de hablar”, which means that they moved to a mechanic speech to a more spontaneous one.

Finally, participation in a radio show was recognized a appealing strategy to face on students’ needs expressed before the implementation (need of practice). Students found it as the perfect way to practice with their peers, expanding the vocabulary, not only in terms of the meaning, but also in terms of the pronunciation. They had the opportunity to work together and achieve the common goal (a successful radio show).

The research question “To what extent can cooperative learning-based activities—participating in an online radio show—foster speaking confidence in 8th graders from La Chucua School?” can be answered as follows:

Cooperative learning-based activities allowed students to identify not only the reasons that explain lack of speaking confidence, but also the needs that they require to increase it. The activities planned helped teams to change their attitudes and assist each other to achieve the immediate goal (to do a good radio show). Radio show was the appealing opportunity of practice that students demanded previous to the implementation. They were also able to work on their pronunciation concerns expressed at the beginning. Summarizing, awareness, practice opportunities and self and peer recognition are elements that permitted to foster confidence in speaking.

REFERENCES
 
Quinn, M. (2002). Conceptual Issues in qualitative inquiry. Qualitative research and evaluation methods. U.K: SAGE, 55.

Sagor, R. (2005). Analyzing the data. The Action Research guidebook. U.K: SAGE, 109 - 128

MATRIX...RELOADED! IDENTIFYING THE SECOND CATEGORY

Designed by Lemos, C. (2010)

Dear all

I have found the way to include the other category. Having a careful look at it, I redesigned my matrix and I identified the other category:

CATEGORY 2 “PRONUNCIATION AWARENESS”: Referred to the acknowledgment that the participants give to this skill in order to feel more confident. In the pre-intervention stage, students recognized that their pronunciation is an impediment to feel confident because they need to work on; during the intervention, they saw that one of the aspects that cooperative learning enhanced regards the way that they listen each other to identify their mistakes in pronunciation and help them, and in the post intervention, they highlighted an improvement in terms of pronunciation and how it eased to achieve this confidence.

Now…. Time to write my analysis with these categories.

FOCUSSED ON THE CONTRUCTS.....PRACTICE AGAIN!

Designed by Lemos, C. (2010)

Dear all

Analyzing the collected data from the constructs, I found the same. Practice is evidenced in all of them. In second place, there is pronunciation awareness. So, I have my categories, but I need to rename and define them:

CATEGORY 1 “PRACTICE AWARENESS”: It is the recognition of the participants about the practice as a need, as an opportunity, and as a strategy in order to achieve the goal (feeling more confident when speaking). In all stages (pre-intervention, pedagogical intervention, post-intervention) practice was an issue to consider.

I am thinking about the other category... Pronunciation awareness, but as I see in the graphic that I designed it is not so strong, but I see it different, perhaps I change the graphic...

PRACTICE.... PRACTICE AGAIN...

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Dear all

Participants’ self and peer assessment was an opportunity to recognize again the need of practice and the pronunciation awareness. Analyzing the instruments (video recording, final survey) that were designed for the 4^th specific objective, the participants have expressed that by means of practicing they have the opportunity to control their ANXIETY (control nervousness, in their own words).

I have finished the analysis of data, focusing on each specific objective. I have seen that NEED OF PRACTICE and PRONUNCIATION AWARENESS are the core categories… I am thinking about the subcategories in order to strengthen and validate the answer for the research question.

THIRD OBJECTIVE: IS VOCABULARY A NEW CATEGORY?

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DEAR ALL

The instruments (initial and final survey) connected with the third objective (to identify advantages of participating in a radio show in the school to face on students’ needs) have brought another phenomenon that could become a category: VOCABULARY.

The participants have expressed a need of expanding vocabulary to improve their speaking confidence through the participation in a radio show. Similarly, one of the strong points that they have found as reason for being more confident now is an improvement in vocabulary. It was an implication of participating, because they used these new words. Consequently, PRACTICE appears again. Pronunciation appears too.

What happened with the instruments for the 4^th specific objective?