Thinking about my article....

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The first aspect that came to my mind in the moment to write an article regarded to the audience that I would like to reach. In this sense, I would like to write for my peers, the academic community. That is why I would like that my article was read from Profile Journal (Universidad Nacional de Colombia) and/or Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal (Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas), so I am going to look for information about their requirements to write a journal and the deadline of the call for submissions. Anyway, I will ask to my project director, Professor Liliana Cuesta in order to receive guidance in this issue.

Based on Peat (2002) and Radu and Thaler (2009), in addition to getting this information at hand, my plan is as follows:

Now, the steps that I am going to write the first draft is as follows, based on Peat (2002), and adapted to my interest (publishing at Profile Journal).

References

Peat, J. et al. (2002). Getting started. Scientific writing: Easy when you know how. London, GRB: Publishing group. 12 – 47

Radu, A. & Thaler, I (2009). How to write and Academic Paper: Some suggestions [pdf document] Retrieved March 23, 2010.

Naming Patterns

Dear all
I decided to group the patterns in the following categories:

Category 1: Pronunciation awareness
Category 2: Confidence Intonation
Category 3: Fluency (I decided not to change this name)

I have found another relevant element. I noticed that peer feedback is received more positively than teachers feedack. They used the native language to explain, but the model that they provided was in the target language. They worked a lot together before the recording. My role was in this case as a person to confirm if their pronunciation was correct.

Where can I include this pattern? Could it be another category?
I will wait until next Liliana's tutorial.

Analyzing data I: Looking for patterns

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I started with the stage in the project that I hope to enjoy. After dealing with some difficulties in the implemantation stage, I started transcribing the video recordings about students opinions about the activities. Additionally, I revised my notes about the recordings of the sections and I contrasted with the audio recordings again. Those are the aspects that I have found in common:

1. During the recordings, there is the tendency to be aware of the pronunciation. Evidence of this is that planning the section of the show and before recording it, students used to ask me how to say something. ("Teacher, how do yo say...?"). It is evidenced also, since 42% of the interviewed expressed an improvement in pronunciation as one of the reasons why they feel more confident when speaking.

2. Step by step, the participants upgraded their intonation, from one where students just repeat what they had planned to say in the recording without any expression to one more confident, where they no only say but also express (happiness, surprise...)

3. Fluency: After the first recording, I realized the need to divide the recording in short chunks. Students noticed that by trying many times (repeating, the next repetition with a more accurate intonation) they could be less anxious when they have to be recorder. They confirm it in the final survey:

"Teacher: ¿Y cómo creen que se logra? ¿Qué creen que se necesita? (talking about feeling less anxious when recording)

Student: Práctica"

This is what I have looked at as patterns by now.

IMPLEMENTATION STAGE IS FINISHED.... FINALLY!

Dear all

After dealing with some problems at school, I finally was able to finish the implementation stage of the action research.

I had to figure out some strategies to continue with the process.

Variables....

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This note corresponds to the week after the end of the implementation:

As I continued with the implementation process after solving my difficulties at school, I noticed that things have changed in the group: Some students have left it and a lot of new students have enroled. Consequently, the groups must be conformed again, and perhaps this circumstances could make changes in my research. Why? Basically, because some of the new students are reluctant to participate in the activties, I do not have the permisions to record them, but on the other hand, I did not know what to do with them, so I decided to integrate them in the different groups. Three groups stayed as they used to do at the beginning of the implementation, so I continued collecting data from them.

Some of the new students were enthusiastic participating in the activities, but unfortunately they did not be taken into account for the study. They did not start.

Another Issue: Cooperative learning. Since most of the groups were conformed again, some of their members, did not fit with the style of the others... I took so much time for them planning and recording...

Activities at school could be the enemy.... again.

Dear all

I have had some problems to continue with the project. First, the target group is participating in another project called "Hermes", and there are a lot of activities, and additionally to the fact that in the school some activities are not announced timely, I have had to postpone those that I had prepared for the ARP.

Well... the students have created scripts for other shows, but recordings are missing, and the software necessary for the recording has not been installed yet.

On the other hand, I got a deep migraine and the doctor have given me six days of sick leave. Consequently I have not gotten in touch with the school.

I am really worried. My plan B is the moodle platform that I designed for 8th graders. Anyway I need to talk to them.

Meanwhile, I am adjusting theoretical framework, according to the comments that I received from my project director, professor Liliana Cuesta. She has let me think a lot.

Constructs-- After the first tutorial session.

I thought that I have included in my journal, but I have not done. In my opinion, what I am going to say is important because this is something that commonly happen when conducting a research study.

After my first tutorial with professor Liliana Cuesta, I found that I had to reconsider some constructs. I did not have a clear idea about including Cooperative or Collaborative learning, or perhaps both. After reading Gillies (2007) and Barkley, Cross and Major (2005), I found more appropriate to include only cooperative learning because the participants made decisions on some aspects, but not all of them. In this study, I kept some "traditional roles" (if I can say that).

I also had to clarify which aspects of radio the participants worked, and be concrete in the terminology.