Jane+Macdonald

= My Profile: I am an experienced French teacher at a country secondary college. Currently I teach Years 9 -12 and students in the Steiner stream at our school. = = Action Research Project Planner:  = Which area/s of your practice would you like to improve? What will be your focus for this project in 2012? Which aspects of the Standards does your project relate to? || Increase the use of the target language in the Year 11 class. Language and Culture - They have knowledge of the language and culture they teach which enables them to participate readily in interactions in and out of the classroom. Language pedagogy - Accomplished teachers have a developed understanding of the language learning process. || Timeline for 2012 || Write the survey Term 3 Analyse survey Term 4 Observe - what did we notice? What do the students think? Did the survey tell us anything? Reflect - What can we do with this now? How was it helpful? || What did you do?
 * = Stage 1 ** – ** ANALYSE =
 * Speaking in the target language (French) in Year 11 class. How to use the target language while still communicating the expectations and requirements of the VCE.
 * = Stage 2 - PLAN =
 * **Week 1 3rd May** - Workshop 1 Planning the investigation
 * Week 3 or 4 May** -give survey to Year 11s
 * == Stage 3 – ACT ==

Term 4 Observe/Reflect- Having met Lionel during the first session in May 2012 where he had already identified an area that he wished to explore we planned to do a survey of students to see what their experiences and observations were about the amount of French that Lionel used in the classroom. We developed the questions together and later Lionel created the survey on Survey Monkey which was then given to both his Year 11 students and also as a matter of interest to my Year 11 students as well. The results of which are available on Lionel's wiki. Unfortunately because we had both schools responding it did make the analysis more time consuming but helpful all the same.Lionel spent some time eliciting the data for his own students. We emailed each other throughout the second semester to discuss the results and also to arrange a time for me to visit Lionel at his school. This didn't eventuate until half way through Semester 1 2013. I went to see Lionel with his class of Year 11 students. However, this was now a different group as the ones from last year were now in Year 12 and with another teacher. We spent time afterwards discussing what changes, if any, had been made. || What did you notice?
 * == Stage 4 - OBSERVE ==
 * == Stage 4 - OBSERVE ==

Lionel had prepared a unit of work on “Work” and the students were already working on application letters and CVs in French. His lesson was not “set up” especially as one for enhancing the amount of French spoken in the class but as a true reflection of how the class operates during a unit of work at the Year 11 level.

Lionel greeted the students in French and they respond. Giving instructions was mainly in English but also with French throughout. Students constantly ask him to verify things, so there is a lot of spoken French in the room. Lionel has a very good rapport with students and to maintain this there is some chat in English. We spent time afterwards discussing some of the things we observed with the survey and if things had changed much from when students made their observations last time. We also compared the results from the student survey from each school to see if students perceived the amount of French used in each class differently. Generally speaking there was very little difference from our analysis. Lionel observed that students did look to having vocabulary introduced using spoken French more often in the classroom. We discussed what we could do to change practice that would allow for that and how we might need to look at some different tools and strategies that other teachers use to see if we could both try to adapt to speaking more on these occasions. || What would you do the same/differently in the future? ||
 * == Stage 5 - REFLECT ==
 * == Stage 5 - REFLECT ==