2. Purpose of Education Plan
The main question I am trying to
answer with this plan is…
What technological tools are most
beneficial in helping to teach
students speaking skills when learning
a foreign language?
3. How Long?
This educational plan will last for a quarter
(10 weeks). This will allow for plenty of time
with the pre and post-tests as well as four
topics.
4. Why are speaking skills important?
It’s plain and simple; speaking is one of the two main standards of
Foreign Language in New York State and often times, it is the most
ignored and hardest to practice and measure improvement. After
all, how can one teacher assess a students speaking ability when
there are often times up to 29 other students in the room? With
this educational plan, I hope to figure out what is the most
effective tool when it comes to communication in a foreign language
so an educator can focus and include it in their classroom lessons
and have every child work on their speaking abilities.
5. New York State Learning
Standards for Foreign Language
Standard 1: Students will be able to use a
language other than English for
communication. (This is the standard that
will be addressed.)
Standard 2: Students will develop cross-
cultural skills and understandings.
6. How do I plan to get my initial feedback?
The main way I hope to get my feedback from other educators
is through a GoogleDocs survey (click here) which will be sent
to all the world language teachers in the district. On the
survey, I include questions that will provide information as to
what teachers feel are the most beneficial when working on the
speaking standard with their students as well as what they feel
does not help them. This connects to my main question because
I can get input from other teachers as to what tools they find
the most helpful and least helpful in terms of speaking skills
and try to focus on what devices a majority of the teachers say
helps their students learn.
7. Format of Pre and Post-Tests
Part 1: Answering 5 basic questions in the target
language (ex: Do you like horror movies?, Do you
have a pet?, Does your mother cook often?, etc.)
Part 2: Guided Dialogue: Dialogue will have 5 lines
and will take turns conversing with the teacher.
Part 3: Picture: Student will tell a mini-story verbally
of at least 5 sentences about the picture given.
8. Pre and Post-Tests
To get my initial data and the data after my trial is over, I plan
on giving pre and post-tests that encompass four topics; family,
clothing, town and school objects. Both the pre and post-tests
will have the same material and format to see student growth
and development.
These tests will be given in a week time span. A substitute will
be in the room with the rest of the class while the teacher is
out in the hallway giving the test to each student individually.
With these tests, the teacher will be able to see concrete data
of the percentage of the students who improved as well as how
well the students do with speaking tasks.
9. What will I be looking for on these
pre and post-tests?
With this exam, the teacher will look for the following
characteristics (the same rubric class exercises, so students
will already be familiar with it):
Task completion
Comprehensibility
Fluency
Vocabulary
Level of Discourse
Grammar
10. Topics on Pre and Post-Tests
Each of the four topics on the pre and post-test will have
been learned with a corresponding technology device, so the
teacher can see which tool was most efficient. All topics
have the same difficulty and amount of vocabulary.
Family – voice recognition software
Clothing – video camera
Town – voice recorders
School objects – interactive computer games and programs
11. Methods of Measurements In Between Pre and Post-Tests
The teacher will use the following methods to evaluate device
effectiveness and students speaking skills through the following activities:
voice recorders
voice recognition
software
interactive computer
games and programs
video cameras
12. Other Ways of Data Collection
After each days lesson with the technology, I plan on doing various mini-
assessments to see what tools worked in terms of improvement of language
skills.
For example, if the students main task with the voice recorders were to
invite to a friend to three different locations and provide a reason why,
after reviewing the tapes, the next day I would have each student “invite”
another student in class to somewhere they practiced the day before. This
is good for a couple of reasons. The first is I can see the students’ speaking
abilities and if this exercise and tool was beneficial. The second is it allows
the students to reinforce the information and practice their speaking skills.
Students will also receive a grade for each day’s technology lesson the day
before. Teacher will review each student’s videotape, voice tape, recorded
practice session on the computer, etc. and use the following rubric to grade
each task (see next slide)
14. Data Analysis
Since I would have a lot of different activities and assessments, data analysis would
be more accurate and reliable. I could consult other world language teachers who did
the same trial as me to get their opinions on what worked and what did not.
My main data would come from my pre and post-tests. This would give me the overall
information on if the use of technology was beneficial or not for the students as well
as how much the students improved, or if they did not.
Other data that would need to be analyzed would be my grades for each individual
tasks assessment. I would be interested to know in which tool the students scored the
highest in. Did students score higher using Rosetta Stone or video cameras? Voice
recorders or computer recognition software? Then I would need to figure out why the
students did better or worse on each individual task. Were the assessments more
difficult? Were the devices too complicated to use? Were the students repeating the
information more with the voice recorders so it helped them retain the information?
All this data would be beneficial in evaluating which tools were most successful for the
students.
15. Objective Map
Necessities: voice recorders, video cameras, computers,
microphones, headphones, computer software, teacher-created
lessons
Outcomes: Increased fluency, stronger knowledge of vocabulary
and grammar, higher student confidence in speaking abilities
How will my main objective link to performing objectives?: Because
my main goal is to figure out what technological tools are more
helpful in getting students to increase their speaking skills, the
modes of assessment are crucial. Through my lessons and
reflections, I will be able to see which devices were most beneficial
in helping students to increase their oral proficiency and skills.
Which tools did the students work best with and why? Which were
the lowest and how could I change it to be more helpful?
16. Sample Student Data: Pre and Post Tests
Pre-Test Score Post-Test Score
Adams, Jalan 51% 74%
Bowen, John 90% 92%
Brown, Jacob 77% 86%
Castillo, Esteban 89% 85%
Figuroa, Maria 73% 91%
Jackson, Daikiah 44% 60%
Johnson, Sarah 56% 73%
Marks, Joseph 80% 88%
Patillo, Mark 63% 81%
Patterson, Stephanie 84% 98%
17. Sample Student Data Interpretation:
Pre and Post Tests
After looking at this chart, this is a Spanish I class that has
not had any previous Spanish knowledge. The class consists of
ten students, all ranging from 9th to 12th grade. The data
shown is good news for our trial. It shows that almost all of the
students have improved their speaking skills by using
technology throughout the duration of the quarter; most of
them by 10 to 20 points. Only one student had their score
decrease from their original pre-test, so it would be important
for the teacher to figure out why that happened and see if
there is a different way to help this child succeed with this
standard.
18. Sample Student Data: Mini-Assessments
Voice
Recognition
Software
Video
Camera
Voice
Recorders
Interactive
Computer
Games and
Programs
Adams, Jalan 70% 65% 92% 80%
Bowen, John 79% 77% 88% 56%
Brown, Jacob 100% 82% 94% 69%
Castillo, Esteban 62% 40% 74% 62%
Figuroa, Maria 90% 100% 100% 70%
Jackson, Daikiah 69% 80% 97% 100%
Johnson, Sarah 76% 64% 82% 30%
Marks, Joseph 88% 71% 75% 72%
Patillo, Mark 75% 83% 100% 65%
Patterson, Stephanie 74% 60% 93% 50%
AVERAGE FOR TASK 78% 72% 90% 65%
19. Sample Student Data Interpretation:
Mini-Assessments
I found looking at this data to be very interesting.
From the information provided in the chart, it
looks like the students did the best when using
the voice recorder device and the poorest with
the interactive computer games and programs.
Based on the following data, I would try to include
more assessments that included the voice
recorder and less that involved computer
programs.
