Next Steps

Phase One of my action plan continued to take shape as I counseled the students through the
process of using Azar to supplement their in-class learning. However, it soon became clear that
it was not having a positive effect across the board. I cross-referenced login data obtained from
the Azar website with the information from the grade center on Blackboard. My findings were
scattered. Some of the higher level students were apparently not using Azar to the extent I would
have predicted. However others were scoring below 70 percent regardless of time spent on Azar.
Others low scores correlated directly with their infrequent participation on Azar. It was
immediately apparent that some of the students were in jeopardy of not passing the class.
With only a month remaining in the semester and the grammar final looming over the heads of
the students, I look toward adjusting my action plan to focus on the eight lowest scoring students,
those who may not attain a grade of 70% needed to pass the class and move on to the next level
of ESOL.
I began by inviting those students to meet with me personally during my office hours in the
English Center lab. I added additional hours to make it more convenient for those who had time
restrictions. The students were offered one on one tutoring through the Azar online activities in
the areas that they felt posed the most difficulties. Additional counseling sessions were agreed
upon 20 minutes prior to the start of class with several of the students agreeing to meet me in the
upcoming weeks.
I also rethought my informal observation technique and considered started taking tally
notes apart from the students without them being aware of what I was doing. I attempted to
adjust my observations by remaining seated in an area where I could observe the entire class and
keep track of both correct and incorrect usage regarding that particular weeks grammar points.
However, I soon realized that the target language use could not be controlled and it would be
virtually impossible to follow a chart of verb tenses and make notes in a class wide discussion.
Once more I felt my efforts were in vain since I was unable to keep up with the pace of the
dialogues between teacher and student sufficiently to make accurate notations. It also became
apparent to me that this fact finding tally would only be of use to my research if I were able to
conduct it accurately and that seemed out of reach on my own. It was clearly of no benefit to the
students in danger of failing. Therefore I chose to eliminate this area of data collection entirely
and focus only on preparing the at-risk students to succeed.