Free Voluntary Reading
RATIONALE
History
During this study, I taught at a high school with around 2,500 students. We hosted the EL site for the district and 2.27% of the school’s population were English learners. Gifted or high ability learners accounted for 48% of students, 31.14% received free and reduced lunch, and 70% continued with higher education. Honors languages were offered, which represented 28% of students taking Spanish.
I taught 4 sections of Spanish 2 and 2 sections of Spanish 1. We followed block scheduling, so I only saw my students 2-3 times a week for an hour and a half at a time. My Spanish 2 class sizes were about 20-28 students. My Spanish 1 class sizes were 20-26 students. Spanish 1 was offered at the middle schools, so students were able to take Spanish 2 as a freshman. Due to this scheduling, students came with varying backgrounds of experience in world language classrooms. My classes were mostly freshmen and sophomores, with some juniors and seniors.
Need
Many students in my classes had retaken Spanish 1 or 2. Twenty-nine percent of my students maintained a D or F throughout quarter 1 in the fall of 2019. Twenty-five percent of students scored below a 75% on the last reading test. During class I often saw several types of behavior unfold: difficulty focusing during class, use of cell phones, blurting out, and lack of participation. Many of my students had a negative mindset about Spanish. Such attitudes resulted in frequent comments such as, “I can’t do this. I don’t speak Spanish. This makes no sense.” These comments led to my frustration as I was trying to help them in any way that I could, but they would shut down and refuse to work. Many of my students were not able to comprehend and answer questions in Spanish and tried to use google translate as a way around that.
Importance
The information gained from this study was important because it informed me that students were progressing in their proficiency of the target language. As a foreign language teacher, I understood the importance of comprehensible input (CI) in relation to foreign language acquisition. Comprehensible input is language input that can be understood by a listener despite them not understanding all words. For example, if I were to read a story in Spanish, I would use pictures, non-verbal clues, and movements to help my listeners understand the context. While they might not know that the word 'contento' means happy, they would better understand if I pointed to my mouth and smiled. My district was also moving in the direction of implementing a world language curriculum with comprehensible input. I had access to some comprehensible input materials and professionals within my district that I used as a resource to help me more effectively use CI in my classroom. During my teaching, I struggled staying in the target language during instruction and also gaining students’ attention during instruction and transitions. I believe this study helped me grow in my confidence of instruction in Spanish and my classroom management skills. I hope to see improvement in their engagement during class as a result of more direct and engaging instruction in Spanish.
Literature Review
Introduction:
Foreign Language education has grown tremendously in the last fifty years. It has slowly shifted from focusing solely on grammar and vocabulary instruction, to a more immersion-based approach. This change is due mostly in part to Dr. Stephen Krashen, a linguist who established a theory of second language education. This theory is composed of five major hypotheses. The most important and relevant of those being the acquisition-learning hypothesis. Comprehensible Input (CI) is described as language input that is understandable by learners despite their fluency level in that language. While this concept has been around since the 70’s and 80’s when Dr. Krashen conducted his research, it was not until recently that a movement away from the ‘traditional’ way to teach a foreign language began.
Currently, world language teachers across the United States are joining in the movement to learn and implement CI methods with their students. There are many different components of this method of instruction that may look wildly different depending on the teacher. However, each strategy intends to provide students with real, meaningful exposure to the target language. This literature review will touch on what comprehensible input means, the importance of the acquisition-learning hypothesis, the movement of CI, and the strategies that teachers can use to implement CI in the classroom.