Language learners envision an "ideal L2 self" desiring to reach native-like proficiency in their target language yet are uncertain of how to reach their goals (Dörnyei, 2014). Often as learners reach upper intermediate to advanced levels, the pace of their language learning drastically slows and sometimes plateaus because of fossilized errors (Richards, 2008). Purpura (2014) suggests that one way educators can aid students in overcoming their individual plateaus and achieving their goals is by helping them develop increased self-awareness of their learning and as a result develop independent learning strategies. Ash and Clayton (2009) suggest that critical reflection is one such method to aid students in developing awareness of their learning. Critical reflection "generates learning … deepens learning …. and … documents learning" (p. 27).
Methodology
Faculty at the International English Center (IEC) often recognize the difficulty our students encounter at the upper levels in achieving high degrees of language sophistication in both their oral and written skills. In light of this, in our Intermediate 3 and Advanced 2 Listen-Speak courses, we developed a critical reflection framework based on the principles laid out by Ash and Clayton (2009). They suggest that critical reflection should be: 1) rooted in the student learning outcomes, 2) on-going, 3) both written and oral, and 4) both formal and informal. They also present a three-step reflective process in which students are asked to "describe … examine … and articulate their learning."
Following this three-step reflective process, we made surveys, critical reflections, peer evaluations and self-evaluations that guide students in analyzing their speaking skills. We created a general speaking skills survey and reflection that students fill out at the start, middle and end of a session. The survey prompts are linked to the student learning outcomes and categories of the IEC speaking rubrics: content & organization, grammar & vocabulary, pronunciation & fluency, public speaking, and discussion & pragmatics. In addition to this general survey, students complete on-going self and peer evaluations for group discussions and presentations in addition to receiving teacher feedback. Specific course activities are used to help students practice these different learning outcomes, find their own learning strategies and further develop their self-awareness. They use this self-discovery to define goals they want to accomplish during the session and beyond. Below is a brief description and an example of each tool used with two example student reflections.
First of all, we provide examples of the pre-, mid-, and end-of-session reflections used as a framework for self-assessment and goal making.
Pre-session Reflection
Students begin the session with a GoogleDoc reflection survey in which they self-assess their ability to perform speaking skills and write three specific goals for the session. The example in the chart below focuses on the student learning outcome of pronunciation and fluency. Students read an “I can…” statement about each skill and select whether they “strongly agree,” “agree,” “disagree,” or “strongly disagree” with their ability to perform the skill.
Mid-session Reflection
Students review their goals and assess their progress from the start of the session, and then develop a plan for continued skill improvement. The charts below provide the prompt for the mid-session reflection and an excerpt from a student's reflection on a vocabulary and pronunciation goal.
Directions: Review your goals from the beginning of the session. Answer the following questions about your progress.
Step 1: Identify a goal that you have been successful in improving. Explain how you have achieved or improved on that goal giving specific examples. List two class activities that have been beneficial in helping you achieve this goal.
Step 2: Identify a goal that you have not progressed in achieving yet and analyze why you might not have seen progress. Develop a plan with 3-4 specific steps for how to improve that skill.
Excerpt from Student Mid-Session Reflection
... I thought of making a plan to improve my vocabulary and to pronounce them better. First step, I will write a list of new vocabularies every week. Second, I will re-write them over and over again till I’m able of spelling them without any spelling mistakes. Thirdly, I will stay pronouncing them till I pronounce them correct. At last, I will star using them in my classes for the week after I know them and I think that it will help me to use more vocabulary words.
End-of-session Reflection
Students evaluate their perceived improvement during the session and rank if they noticed a range from no improvement to dramatic improvement. Then they discuss what speaking strategies were most helpful and whether their ability to self-monitor has improved. The example in the chart below focuses on student improvement in pronunciation and fluency with students selecting whether they “stayed the same,” “improved minimally,” improved moderately,” or “improved dramatically” in the skills.
Next, we give examples of self-evaluations, a targeted speaking fluency activity and a peer observation.
Self-evaluation of Speeches and Group Discussions
Students watch a video recording of their own performance and evaluate their skills. In parts 1 and 2 of their evaluation, students observe their performance, write an evaluation of the improvement they are making and identify the difficulties on which they still need to focus. Part 3 asks them to transcribe and analyze a clip from their speech. The chart below provides the prompt for Part 3 and a student example.
Step 3: Re-watch your video. Choose 60 seconds of your speech that you would like to analyze. Transcribe those 60 seconds and analyze them using the prompts below. Write down exactly what you said as in the example below.
- Here is an example of a transcription:
Hi guys, uhh I want to talk about the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. Umm, first of all, I will to talk about the history of the legalization and then will explain the its positive and negative umm economic, social, and political impacts that have like, like affected Colorado (3 second pause) the past few years.
- Analyze your speech, grammar and vocabulary.
- Underline the filler language and pauses.
- Highlight transitions or signal words that you used to organize your ideas. How helpful were your signals in helping the audience follow your speech?
- Analyze your grammar. Did you make any mistakes? Bold the mistakes. Write the corrections here in a complete sentence:
Ex: I will talk about the history of legalization and then will explain its positive and negative economic, social, and political impacts.
- Is there anything you said that you would change in your speech? Write specifically what you would say differently here:
Ex: I would not say "hey guys" because that is too informal. I would say "hello everyone."
Student Example
60-second transcription:
Hello everyone. Today, I’m going to talk about (2s P) about my role and opinions of my role, which is very similar to my, personal opinion to GMO. So, here’s five vocabularies. Yield, this is ah umm, total amount of crops. Nutrition, I think you may know, how much, uh, beneficial substances they have, uh the food have. Botany, a science of plants. Botanist, the person who study botany. And USDA, it is the United State Department of Agriculture. I, Um, most of data from, for this, umm presentation is from USDA. Based on USDA. (5s P) Ok, so, the first thing I’m gonna talk about is, who am I.
How helpful were your signals in helping the audience follow your speech?
- My 5second pause was effective, it showed change of topic.
Analyze your grammar. Bold the mistakes. Write the corrections here in a complete sentence:
- I’m going to talk about my role and its opinion, which is very similar to my personal opinion about GMOs.
- Botanist, a person who studies botany.
- The first thing I’m gonna talk about is, who I am.
Is there anything you said that you would change in your speech?
- I would not use contraction, “I’m gonna”. It is not formal. Instead, I would use “I am going to”
- I should not to say, “I think you may know” in vocabulary section.
Targeted Speaking Skill Activity
As a warm-up before a presentation or group discussion, students complete the following activity provided in the chart below on avoiding filler words and increasing fluency.
Warm-Up Fluency Lesson Plan:
- Have students each tell a story to the class about what they did over the weekend. Each person should speak for 1 minute. Record the fillers heard and the number of times these fillers were used. Do not tell students the purpose of the exercise. Instead, report back on the findings after each student speaks.
- Have students watch the video: How to Avoid Filler Words.
(Teacher Note: How to Avoid Filler Words – silence is ok; develop a new habit to replace the bad habit [become aware of habit]; say "period" or "pause"; breath)
- Have the students work in groups and retell the story for as long as they can without using filler words. Time to see who can tell the story the longest.
- Have the students work in groups and retell the story a third time but this time they should say "pause" at the end of each thought.
Peer Observation Forms
As a follow to the fluency activity, students fill out short and simple observation forms to provide quick peer feedback during a student-led discussion or speech. The chart below is an example of a peer-observation form students use for noting their classmates' fluency.
Peer Observation (Focus on Fluency)
Name of speaker ________________________
Name of observer _______________________
Directions: As you watch your classmate join a discussion, record the following:
Write down the filler language used (umm, uhhh, err, basically, like).
Tally the number of long pauses.
Results
Early results from the pre-session reflection and end-of-session reflection gathered in five listening/speaking classes provided some important insights into the usefulness of these tools to promote student learning. There were 61 respondents for the pre-session reflection and 48 for the end-of-session reflection due to early course completion.
The pre-session reflection showed over 50% of the students reported challenges with speaking without hesitating or pausing. Reports showed that 40% of students struggled to speak fluently during presentations without reading off a PowerPoint or their notes and 25% were not able to speak confidently during presentations. Finally, 25% of students reported struggling with the use of academic vocabulary and over 40% reported that this struggle related to the pronunciation of these words.
Based on the end-of-session reflection results from students, the biggest areas of perceived improvement were in content and organization and fluency, as shown in the chart below.
Results from the end-of-session reflection show that approximately 30% of students noticed dramatic improvement in the following areas: using research to support their ideas in speaking and politely agreeing and disagreeing. Approximately 25% of the students observed dramatic improvement in speaking confidently when presenting, effectively responding when being asked a question, and most importantly self-correcting their grammar and pronunciation.
When asked the most helpful activity from the semester, approximately 30% of students chose group discussions and presentation practice. Students noted that the most important skills to continue working on were avoiding filler language (uh, umm, err), using notes in their speaking, practicing their presentations, and using interaction language in discussions.
Students were also asked in the end-of-session reflection about the effectiveness of both the teacher and peer feedback they had received. Over 50% reported that teacher feedback was extremely effective and 30% reported that it was moderately effective. While around 50% reported that peer feedback was moderately effective, only 25% reported that it was extremely effective.
After applying Ash and Clayton's model of critical reflection (2009) to lead students through reflection, self-evaluation and goal-setting exercises, student response data suggested we were indeed helping students become more self-aware of their language skills and themselves as independent learners. Students had increased their awareness of their own learning and were using strategies from class to find their own methods for improving their speaking skills. With different focused activities, students became more independent, learned ways to take more control of their learning and achieve their desired progress. By having students view and evaluate their own progress through the video-recording of speeches and discussions, students had concrete evidence of their abilities and could notice what progress they were making and adjust their goals accordingly. Students' self-evaluations suggested that they were able to overcome some plateaus in their speaking skills and move closer to their vision of what Dörnyei calls their "ideal L2 self" (2014).
We continually provided feedback to students in class and helped guide students on what skills to focus on through the use of rubrics. This feedback, along with the students’ reflections, became a dialogue between the students and us. As teachers, we discovered an increased awareness of our students’ needs and had a closer connection to the students. We were better able to help them reach their goals because we knew what specific skills they were working on and what was inhibiting them.
Conclusion
As we look toward future classes, we are continuing to expand our use of this approach in our listening/speaking classes by refining our surveys and adding reflective tools that target not only students' speaking but also their listening skills. In addition, we have created new surveys and reflections for our reading students in hopes of continually helping students become independent, self-aware learners. While our initial activities targeted students at the high intermediate to advanced levels, we also plan to develop reflective tools to use with beginning English learners to promote student self-awareness and reflection from day one of the learning process.
References
- Ash, S. & Clayton P. (Fall 2009). Generating, deepening & documenting learning: The power of critical reflection in applied learning. Journal of Applied Learning in Higher Education, 1.
- Dörnyei, Z. (2014). Motivation in second language learning. In M Celce-Murcia, D.M. Brinton, & M.A. Snow (Eds), Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language 4th Ed (518-531). Boston, MA: National Geographic Learning.
- Purpura, J. (2014). Language learning strategies and styles. In M Celce-Murcia, D.M. Brinton, & M.A. Snow (Eds), Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language 4th Ed (532 549). Boston, MA: National Geographic Learning.
- Richards, J. (2008). Moving beyond the plateau: From intermediate to advanced levels in language learning. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.