Phase I.

Findings

The process of Phase I was challenging and unorganized. As an instructor and as a

researcher, I realized that every class is unexpected and unforeseen in terms of predicting the

outcome of the lesson. Through phase I, I have gained and obtained rich experiences and analysis

that I can further assist my study to support non-native English students to increase their oral

participation.

In phase I, I used observation notes, student conferences, and the frame of Blooms

Taxonomy as my rubric to determine their abilities and progress with their speaking skills.

Having the framework of Blooms Taxonomy, I gave a separate handout called The Ultimate

Cheatsheet for Critical Thinking during the intervention to guide and support the students on

higher order thinking. The handout has 5Ws (When, Where, Why, What, and Who) and 1H

(How) and there are sample questions for each letter to provoke higher order thinking. Under the

provided data, I was able to find out the missing pieces of segments that I did not know and still

need to learn to support the non-native English students oral participation.

Observation. Through the observations noted within my teachers journal, I found that

non-native English students sat on the right side and the native English speakers on the left side

of the classroom. So when I was in front of the class, I was able observe a clear division between

native students and non-native students. Because the students sat next to those who spoke their

mother language, I was able to notice how students communicated in the language they were

comfortable in. In addition, when group assignments were given, the students did not move.

Rather, they teamed up with the person next to them. In this case, native speakers grouped with

native speaker and non-native speakers with non-native speakers. Because of this, I thought it

would be better to assign the group separately because students need to get out of their comfort
zone and speak with others they do not know. It is important for the students to get out of their

comfort zone because the development of learning happens when it challenges the students from

their actual level of development (Walqui, 2006). Having said this, snowball discussion became a

good activity to break the norm. The Snowball activity allowed the students to move around the

class, meet the students they did not know, discuss the passage they chose from the reading, and

analyze the specific passages that stood out to them by using the The Ultimate Cheatsheet for

Critical Thinking.

As the students got into their assigned groups, I was able to notice how non-native

speakers were relying on native speaking students. For instance, I witnessed the native speaking

student taking on the role of the discussion leader and the non-native students becoming passive

listeners. As a lead instructor for the portion of the class, I intervened in those groups and

reminded the students that it is important for all of them to share their opinions. As I observed

the groups to see if they were completing their tasks, I noticed how non-native English speakers

spoke, but not to the extent of what I wanted to see in these discussion. The non-native English

speakers were speaking a little more than usual due to the implemented action from me which

was the snowball activity, to mix the groups and remind them that all participants needed to

contribute to the group discussions. However, when the class became one big group at the end of

the snowball activity chain, I noticed the non-native students began to speak voluntarily. In the

beginning of the activity, no non-native English speakers asked questions nor shared ideas. As I

walked around to implement the action that all students need to speak, few of them spoke but in

very short answers, such as yes, I like that or I like it, to show they are following the

directions. Those phrases were not enough to align with active discussions or employ critical

thinking.
 However, the moment when the topic switched to culture, the non-native English students

spoke more. They started to raise their hands to explain about their culture and how they would

recommend if they were in that situation. For instance, the passage was about parental sacrifice

and one of the non-native students raised her hand and spoke how she strongly agree with

parental sacrifice because she is a mother. She explained how parental sacrifice is one of the

ways to show love to their child or children. Her explanation not only touched based on how

much she agreed, but it also shared why she agrees by relating it to her experience. Even though

there were some grammatical errors, I was impressed to see the courage she took to speak in

discussion. Also, I was pleased to see a 36% increase in voluntary oral participation from the

non-native speakers. I could not help but to notice that this may have been the result of the text

they were reading which was related to culture and the questions that probed into their own

personal background and culture. For example, many of them responded with the following

sentence starter, In my culture to state the validity in their statement. Furthermore, when the

students were sharing their stories about their culture, relating to the text, the 36% of those who

voluntarily spoke did not face difficulties answering why and how when the theme changed to

culture. This explained how powerful it is to use a topic that the students can relate to.

On the other hand, there were challenges in Blooms Taxonomy. As there are 36% who

were able to reach the higher order thinking, there were 64% of students who were unable to

reach it. In order for the students to reach higher order thinking, the handout The Ultimate

Cheatsheet for Critical Thinking, was there to guide and help the students in analyzing their

passage from the reading. The purpose of usage was to use it as a guideline for the students to

achieve the top three levels of Blooms Taxonomy which include analyzing, evaluating, and

creating as per the course goals. Many students were able to answer comprehension level
questions such as who is the character? and what is the plot of the chapter?, yet they were

unable to connect the passage or the novel to these questions promoting critical thinking. For

instance, Student D was unable to connect the passage to his experience. He said,

I dont understand how to put these questions to the discussion. I mean, I

understand these questions[scratches his head] but novel is only a novel. Story is only
a story. [looks at me in the eyes] How can I know how to connect this to.for
example.. look at this question is it relevant to me/others?, this is a story so I don't
think this is relevant. Is this the way you want me to answer? (Student D)
Using the framework of Blooms Taxonomy, Student D was unable to reach the top three

levels (analyze, evaluate, and create). He was unable to relate, compare, critique, and develop his

thinking skills based on the handout of 5Ws and 1H. Because the expectation of the activity was

for the students to discuss the passage using critical thinking skills, students were not ready for

the discussion because they did not understand the concept of critical thinking skills. The

students were unable to differentiate between surface level thinking and deep critical thinking.

There should have been more scaffolding in terms of knowing the terms of critical thinking skills

and how the 5Ws and 1H work. In other words, scaffolding as a structure and process were

missing in order to help the students to set up the situation to make their understanding flow

better. Because the structure and process in scaffolding was missing, the students were unable to

pull back and handle the role to manage the activity by themselves (Walqui, 2006).
 Exit Slip. Based on the two questions I have asked, what was the most difficult concept

of todays discussion and write one thing I can help you to improve in oral

Figure 4. Exit slip was written on March 28. More guidance is needed to support higher order thinking.

participation, most of the students gave me short answers, such as good or it was okay or

easy, but there were 2 students out of 11 non-native English students who gave me some

additional information that I was unable to ascertain through observation. I focused on these two

students feedback because their answers guided me to know what I needed to support in order to

help them. The other nine students exit slips responses were very general where I assume some

of them wanted to leave the class

Figure 5. Exit slip was written on March 28. A comment from a student on how difficult the activity was today.
early or they did not know what do write. Based on the exit slip from the two students, they

wrote their difficulties based on 5Ws and 1H. In other words, Why and How questions were

the most difficult questions to ask. They wanted to have more guided practices and more

scaffolding in terms of providing more examples and guided practice before the activity began.

Because the guided practice was lacking, several students were unable to follow the activity as I

had hoped. When I was observing, students seemed to follow the direction, but it was the exit

slip that helped me to determine the gap in my intervention.

Student Conferences. I held student conferences as additional data to support my study

and to collect what I could not have attained in my observation and exit slips. It is through

conversation where I can grasp students needs and learning development in depth. During the

conference, only three students participated out of 20 students because they were only ones who

volunteered to come. In addition, some students had a class straight after the other and some

students had to go to work that they were unable to make up the time to meet with me. Having

said this, with the three volunteers, I decided to have student conferences and they gave me

insightful references that I can apply to my phase II. Among three students, student A and B are

non-native speaker and C is a native English speaker. They all responded differently to my

conference question, How do you feel about speaking in class? which shed light on different

perspectives students had on speaking during these one-on-one conferencing sessions. Student A

shared,

I first scared of talking (sight) because I scared of not saying word right. But
now I like book. I understand the story. (smile) the native students need to be
embarrassed because they are first language is English. I should not because I am
learning English. (Student A)

From student A, I was able to tell how she was uncomfortable and scared in the beginning. She

did not speak much and seemed shy when I observed her. The word scared told me she was not
shy, but rather scared of being judged by the instructor and from her native English speaking

peers. But as the conference continued, she made a strong statement where she felt she should

not be embarrassed because as a language learner, she is still learning. She strongly believed that

as a learner, it is acceptable to make mistakes. Similarly, to student A, I was able to find similar

perspective of shyness from student B but in a different point of view. She states,

It is not shy. Depend on like you know like some cultures are good and want to
show and then like some people make mistakes and misunderstand our culture. I will
speak to let them know but then like if you disagree with something and not want to hear,
I don't talk. (Student B)

Corresponding to student A, student B also mentions her discomfort through affective domain.

She demonstrated her opinion through expressing the importance of understanding and

embracing different cultures. She mentioned that she will speak in class to clarify the

misunderstanding about her culture but if her classmate disagrees and speaks negative about her

culture, she will not speak. Her expression was very strong as in terms of she will not speak

when she does not feel accepted. Through this conference, finding the validity in ones voice

became crucial.

Unlike the previous students, student C is a native English speaker whom I asked

the same question. He replied,

I feel comfortable speaking in front of the class when it is my strong suit when it is
something that I know. Last time, it wasn't because it was grammar. When it is book and
adjust it, I feel comfortable because I am saying my feelings. (Student C)

Unlike student A and B, student C had confidence in speaking in class discussion. There did not

appear to be any sense of being discomfort. However, native English student also had a barrier

in speaking. The student feels comfortable in sharing his thoughts based on the topic, but when it

comes to grammatical structure which is not his strong suit, he felt uncomfortable participating.
 Contrary to what I might have thought about non-native English speakers having low oral

participation because English is not their first language, I found that the topic can play a role in

determining participation levels, even for native speakers. In the case of student C, he was not

comfortable participating in class when the topic was on grammar. Though this, I became aware

that because English is his/her first language, that does not mean he/she will feel comfortable in

speaking in class discussion or in small groups. It is important to understand that all students,

whether they are native or non-native speakers, are the speakers of their own right (Walqui,

2006, p. 160) and I can be more cognizant of this as I move forward to support all of my students

with this rather than focus primarily on my non-native English speaking students.