Blog 19

I DON´T HAVE A LITERATURE REVIEW AND I WAS SPENDING ALL MY TIME SEARCHING FOR SOME ARTICLES FOR MY LITERATURE REVIEW SO I DECIDED TO MOVE ON TO THE OTHER SECTION AN LEAVE THIS AT THE END!


Methods:

For this study I tutored 8 sessions with different Kean University students that assisted to the writing center. Every time I tutored a student, I had the obligation of telling him/her that I was conducting a study for my writing tutoring class and explain him/her what this was about and that I am a peer tutor in training, after explaining everything about the study, I need to give them the consent form in which they will officially accept to participate in the study. The consent form is a letter that explains the benefits and the risks of participating in the study; if the student accepts to participate he/she will sign the form, after that I can use the information gathered in the session and publish it but in an anonymous way.

Once the student accepted to participate, then the data collection starts. For collecting my data I did a check list so at the end of the session, I could use it as a reminder of what happened in the session. For me to know what data I need to collect, first I need to know what was going to be the focus of my study so that I can put all my attention to collect the information I need. The focus of my study will be the switching between languages in sessions where the tutor is bilingual (in this case Spanish – English) and the student is an ESL student that speaks Spanish as the home language and that have a low level of English proficiency.
Because of the focus of my study it was difficult for me to take my own notes, because the switching of the language was spontaneous and many times I did not realized the switching, so I ask my classmates to take notes for me and pay very careful attention to the moment I switch the language, so that I can have a more complete data collection.

The switching between languages has to do with the confidence of the student, because the more confident the student feels the more you can talk in the non home language, and this will help student to improve their English proficiency. Because of this I classified my data in …. Categories, one of these categories was the measurement of the confidence of the student based on the body language in three different moments of the session: The first approach, at the climax of the session (middle) and at the closure of the session (end). TO BE CONTINUED...when I finish them jojojo!

For my data collection what I planing to do is more or less this:
Data analysis
Student # 1 first session
Assignment (comparative easy)
First 5 minutes (first approach)
Body language: The body language at this moment was very good she sat near the table and took out her computer, she gave Me a kiss and a hug, she was moving her hands as she was talking. She looks anxious
Tone of voice: Very good tone of voice loudly enough. She was very anxious, she was speaking very fast.
Eye contact: Excellent eye contact, she looked at me when I was talking and when she has something to say she will also looked at me.

At the middle of the session
Body language: She was writing in the computer, she was less anxious, she was talking more.
Tone of voice: Same as in the beginning, good tone of voice, she was speaking slower.
Eye contact: Excellent eye contact, she looked at me when I was talking and when she has something to say she will also looked at me.

At the end of the session
Body language: She was anxious again, she was rushing, and she started the hands and arms movement again.
Tone of voice: Anxious, she was speaking faster again.
Eye contact: Poor she was just seeing the computer and the book to finish the paper.

This just an example of how I´m planing to gather and categorize my information, I´m still working on it so I hope It gets better everyday.