Our groups, and links to our surveys

This is the blog entry on which you will all post your surveys, so we can take other groups' surveys as peer-editors, to tell them whether everything worked.

Below, I will list all the groups, and the group members' names. Under the heading "topic," you will post your survey link when it is done.

EVERYBODY needs to TAKE THREE SURVEYS; you can choose which ones! You are responsible for telling the group whose survey you took whether you found any mistakes of logic / layout / options to click on / spelling, etc.

TASK: You will each take three surveys, and write a short memo to each group whose survey it was how you found the survey, what was good about it, what was ambiguous about it, what to change, etc.

EMAIL YOUR MEMO to the members of the group who did the survey, and to me in a copy.



GROUP 1:

Survey Topic: "Understanding Autism Through Supervision"


Group Members: Vanessa Knepp, Alison Romershausen, Daniel Colcord, Regina Evans

Audience: Supervisors of autistic children

Purpose: To learn different approaches & techniques of educating, communicating with, and enhancing overall the life of an autistic child.

Anticipated Outcome: The approaches and techniques used will differ for each child.

Statement of Need: This will display personal accents and a variety of approaches which will help show the large spectrum that affects autistic children.



GROUP 2:

Survey Topic: "What Second Language Teachers Think About AAE as a Second Language"

Group Members: Amy McKenzie, Bonnie Bilyeu, Bryan Norbut

Audience: SIUC's Foreign Language Department staff

Purpose: to explore the opinions of F2 instructors of AAE as a second language, to ascertain whether AAE is worthy of foreign language status

Anticipated Outcome: We doubt they will recognize it as a second language

Statement of Need: We feel it is important to seek the opinions of experts in the field of foreign language to ascertain whether AAE is worthy of foreign language status


GROUP 3:

Survey Topic: "Teaching English as a Second Language"


Second part of survey

Group Members: Zach Casselman, John Lynch, Jen Johnson, Von Smalley, Issak Diaz

Audience: teachers of diverse students

Purpose: See how teachers approach and apply methods to teach foreign students.

Anticipated Outcome: We predict teachers will not indicate any existing bias, and that they will work on a 1 on 1 basis with students.

Statement of Need: Look into relationship of teachers and foreign students, and look into better teaching strategies to employ.



GROUP 4:

Survey Topic: "Should Ebonics Be Used In Schools?"

Group Members: Ti'erra Taylor, Josette Maxime, Amanda Yates

Audience: 3 teachers, 2 parents, 5 students

Purpose: To see if people believe that teaching Ebonics in schools is good or bad, and how they feel it affects the students.

Anticipated Outcome: We anticipate that people will think it is good to teach Ebonics in schools.

Statement of Need: This survey is important because it'll give different perspectives on people's opinion of using Ebonics in school.



GROUP 5:

Survey Topic: "Language Acquisition Among Twins"

Group Members: Amanda Murphy, Ashley Wetzler

Audience: Our audience will be comprised of twins or people who deal with twins.

Purpose: Our purpose is to see whether language acquisition differs between twins and those who aren't twins.

Outcome: We think that there will be a difference in the learning acquisition of twins.

Statement of Need: This information is important because it may change the way that language needs to be taught to twins.


GROUP 6:

Survey Topic: "It's 'cause we is Twins?"

Group Members: Alex Gholson, Christian Holt, Lindsay Buettner, Stephanie Tillery, Jessica Berry

Audience: twins, family, friends, teachers

Purpose: To discover whether or not twins are at a linguistic disadvantage.

Anticipated Outcome: Any disadvantage is not created from being twins, but from external influences.

Statement of Need: To dispell any misconceptions brought on by past research about language development in twins.


GROUP 7:

Survey Topic: Click Here to take survey">"Learning a Second Language"

Group Members: Jim Radice, Mike Schloz

Audience: Undergraduate Foreign Language students.

Purpose: Why students choose to take a foreign language.

Anticipated Outcome: Students want to learn foreign languages to broaden their horizons. Not enough Americans learn foreign languages.

Statement of Need: This survey is important because it will provide data on the reasons people take foreign languages, and offer instructors more info on the motivations of their students.

Homework for Friday, March 21st

HOMEWORK for this FRIDAY:

1. As a preparation for our guest speaker about the topic of L2 next Monday, please read the text "The Role of Grammar in the Communicative Classroom" which I will distribute today in class for Friday, March 21st. (For those who are interested: here's a JSTOR review article by Terry Ballmann evaluating this text. It is chapter 2 out of a methodology textbook for foreign language instructors, The Communicative Classroom.)


2. Answer questions 1 + 2 on the handout in written form (email, or hard copy).

3. Write a short statement of what YOU think about teaching "no grammar," or "grammar for grammar's sake" in second language learners' classes.

Tip: This would make a good topic for your surveys, too!


IN-CLASS ACTIVITY on WEDNESDAY, March 19th:

1. Mini-Lesson by Amanda Yates
2. Work on our surveys

a) get together in groups, and discuss your survey project
b) take one index card per group, and write on it in this order:
- your survey's title
- the name of your group members
- a definition of your audience
- the purpose of your survey
- your anticipated outcome
- statement of need
(WHY this survey is important; what kind of new data it will procure)

Submit your index cards to me for approval by the end of today's lesson.

c) Brainstorm possible questions for your survey (just one paper per group).

d) Begin to compose the introductory letter to your audience.

e) Find research articles dealing with your topic, for the "Literature Review" part of your research paper about the survey.

ASSIGN ROLES TO YOUR DIFFERENT GROUP MEMBERS! For example, one person looks up research, another begins the introductory letter, another notes down the questions you put together...

IF ONE OF YOUR GROUP MEMBERS IS MISSING TODAY, it's your responsibility to contact that person to tell him/her what you've done, and what you expect him/her to do!

Reviewing First and Second Language Acquisition: A Comparison Between Young and Adult Learners.

This article is written by Hiromi Hadley. The main focus of this article is to compare the abilities of learning a first and second language between children and adults. The author focuses on language input as an external factor and the learner’s age as an internal factor. The author then goes on to explain the implications for English language learning in classrooms in Japan. The author hopes that the findings from her research will “encourage second language learners and parents, as well as practicing teachers, to reflect upon their own learning and teaching strategies” (Hadley). This article focuses on many different points like the difference in terms of quantity and quality of external input between children, an L1, and adults learning an L2 in the classroom, and the learner’s physical, cognitive, and affective developments as an internal factor. When focusing on input as an External Factor the author centers the attention on both the quantity and the quality of the learners input, connectionism, meaningful input, and the differences in additional input that is provided through interaction. The autor also talks about how child-directed speech and teacher talk affect language acquisition and levels of comprehension. The learner’s age as an internal factor is another topic that this article looks at. The author talks about how physical, cognitive, and affective developments in the learner all affect their ability to learn a language. Language ego and second identity are key factors in affective development as well as attitudes and motivation. All of these things that affect the learner also affect his or her ability to learn a second language. The Critical Period Hypothesis is the idea that language acquisition in L2 learners is increasingly difficult to do after the age of puberty. This hypothesis shows that there are age-related differences in the acquisition of language due to the fact that the learner goes through significant physical, cognitive, and emotional changes at puberty. The author believes that for people to acquire a second language in the classroom better they must focus on the learner as a person and the learning environment. When you have a good learning environment and the learner is up to the task then language acquisition may not be all that hard.

Focal Skills and L2 Acquisition

This article discusses the efforts used at Shenandoah University to introduce early English language learners to improved language acquisition. The university believes that having a clear purpose is important for acquisition, thus, the Focal Skills approach was created. In this program, students are placed in one of four modules (listening, reading, writing, immersion). Each module focuses on communication rather than rules of language, and meaning rather than the language itself. There is no pressure on the students to produce language until they are comfortable with it. Classroom activities are aimed at encouraging student interest rather than calling attention to the rules of grammar. Every four weeks the students are tested to see how much progress they have made and whether they should move on to another module. Once students students begin to develop output and apply language and grammar rules, the program then helps students develop their skills through working in cyberspace. Instructors train their students with "focused rewrites" which involve the teacher restating sections of the students work. Students and teachers meet on a daily basis to go over the rewrites. The teachers use a computer program called Share Space which "aligns student output and teacher changes in parallel columns." Students explore the web to learn about language output and also to share their work with others. By seeing the correct models of output ,the students are able to gradually improve their own writing skills.

the next three blog readings

summary by Amanda Yates: Focal Skills and L2 Acquisition: Writers do it better in Cyberspace
due Wednesday, March 19th

summary by Stephanie Tillery: Reviewing First and Second Language Acquisition:
A Comparison between Young and Adult Learners
due Friday, March 21st

summary by Regina Evans: Instructional Input (read only pp. 117-126)
due Monday, March 23rd

New Topic: Surveys

After our mini lesson today, we're going to start our big semester project: the surveys, which are the basis for our research essays.

First, an ANNOUNCEMENT: next Monday, March 23rd, we will welcome a guest speaker, Dr. Thorsten Huth, who is going to talk about L2 acquisition. Thorsten is a German teacher in the Foreign Language Department. I count on your collaboration to make this an interesting presentation - which means, participate, and ask him questions!!!

Today, we'll learn how to create online surveys with SurveyMonkey.com.

I'll show you a couple of sample surveys we've created in ENGL 300-002 last year.

Your TASK will be:

1) to get together in (permanent) groups
2) to pick a topic that deals with "language acquisition" (not confined to pure grammar)
3) to assemble questions about your topic that you might ask in a survey
4) to figure out who your audience is going to be (will your questionnaire be for students, parents, teachers, or guardians; or relatives/parents of autistic or disabled children?)
5) to note down emails of the contact persons you are going to interview (you should have between 10 - 20 interviewees!!!) Take into consideration that many people don't answer email surveys. So, if you address 20 people, count on it that 50% won't respond, anyway. If you have less than 10 interviewees, that won't give you a valuable research basis.

You don't have to type anything into the online questionnaire yet!!! Just assemble everything on paper for your group.

Further tasks (that will become homework, depending how far we get with our in-class work today and on Wednesday):

1) Write a letter of introduction to the persons you will interview. State
- your name;
- class;
- instructor;
- why you do this survey;
- that you don't need consent by the Human Subjects Committee (HSC)/ Institutional Review Board (IRB) of SIU to conduct this survey, because it doesn't involve minors, or take blood samples, and is not for publication but for in-class practice only;
- that the survey is anonymous
- what the aim of your survey is
- how long it will take (not longer than 10 minutes)
- that your subjects can have the results of your survey from you, when it is finished
- how you will compensate them for taking the survey, if you do that
- say THANK YOU for taking the survey.

A lisp is a speech defect consisting in pronouncing s and z like or nearly like the th-sounds of thin and this. It can also be any unconventional articulation of the sibilants, as the pronunciation of s and z with the tongue between the teeth (lingual protrusion lisp), close to or touching the upper front teeth (dental lisp), or raised so that the breath is emitted laterally (lateral lisp). I have included an article that describes what a lisp is and what causes a lisp in children.

http://www.childrentoday.com/articles/development/a-lithp-is-just-a-lisp-1606/3/

Working with Input

The article "working with input" discusses how input is one of the key components to acquisition. Some of the keys to input are comprehension and meaning bearing. Comprehension is very important for the learner to understand what a writer/speaker is saying in order for acquisition to happen. (Acquisition means to gain something, or to acquire something.) The example in the text speaks about using the word "chien" with a person who is trying to learn French. With continued conditioning, the learner will learn that the word "chien" (pronounced "chee-en") means "dog". Another key to input is "meaning-bearing". This means that what ever message that the learner is listening to has to have some sort of message that the learner is supposed to attend to. With 1st and 2nd language acquisition it is important to modify speech to help the learner to fully comprehend and gain lasting knowledge of what it is that they're learning. Vocabulary is also very important with input. Even when learning different languages. Total physical response, or TPR is a great way to teach vocabulary, you HEAR the word and SEE the object, hence the total PHYSICAL response.