My students' first paragraph

This week I asked my students to write a little paragraph about themselves. It was very exciting to see their first texts.They are careful with aspects like grammar and syntax.
These are just two examples

Dear teacher Olga

How are you? I am Jesus Antonio, i am student of technological design at National Pedagogical University. I like learning in english class.
My teacher is good education for the deaf students, she likes learning a Colombian sign language and we are happy of learning english.

Jesus Monroy




Hello, I am Edith Rodríguez. I´m twenty four years old. I am very intelligent, beautiful, funny and nice. I´m a pschy pedagogy student at National pedagogical University. I´am good worker and I´am very happy at the deaf community. I´am interested in english class to learn nev english words.

Love

Image taken from http: // 64.76.64.kolores/images/photos/escribiendo%20en%20el%20pizarrón

The last data collection instrument

Image taken from http://www.bragfolio.com/CMFiles/Images/Interview%20Logo.jpg
November 10

The university is open again. There are only eleven deaf students in class. It seems that the others have a lot of academic work because the semester is finishing and they decided not coming to class.
Today, I applied another data collection instrument: the formal interview. It gave students the opportunity to express their insights and opinions about the English course. This semi- structured interview was designed in Spanish to facilitate the interpreter's comprehension and translation. In addition, it was flexible enough to enable students to talk freely about the aspects they considered relevant. It allowed for " the emergence of themes and topics which may have not been anticipated when the investigation began ". (Burns, 1999, p. 120)
In general, most students were very collaborative and their comments were interesting and useful to improve not only the research project but also the teaching process.

Reference
Burns, A. ( 1999) Collaborative Action Research for English Language Teachers.CUP.

November 3

Seven students arrived to the school, but the interpreter and the filmmaker did not. When I started the class, I was a little nervous because I did not have sign language support. However, my deaf students were very helpful because they have learned to “interpret” my own gestures and I had brought a lot of labelled visual support. It was amazing! Fortunately, after forty minututes another deaf student showed up accompanied by a guy who also works as interpreter at U.P.N. and he kindly helped me

Iamge taken from http://gua30.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/voluntarios.jp

A learning space can be physical or virtual

image taken from http://redesuniversitarias.blogia.com/

October 27

The university classrooms have been blocked. There are no regular academic classes. I have been in contact with my deaf students by e-mail. They have explored some EFL Internet resources to reinforce basic concepts. I just wanted to show them a variety of available learning resources which help them to identify their language needs and make decisions to support their professional growth.
Nunan ( 1996,p.298) proposes awareness as the starting point to empower students' role in their learning process and finding a new way of interaction with their peers and teachers to be more autonomous.
Today, I have written a message inviting them to have our F2F class in the school where I work, near U.P.N. I think that this is a good excuse to see their autonomy and interest on the course. Some of them have accepted.

Reference
Nunan,D. ( 1996 p. 298). Towards autonomus learning: Som tehorretica, empirical and practical issues.

First results

§ Pucca is very ideal.

§ She loves Guru.

§ She is learning.

§ She is short


Andrea Riaño's virtual homework.


October 13

Some deaf students have been very responsible with their virtual homeworks. Today, I spent the F2F session giving them feedback about their tasks. I noticed they liked to be corrected by giving them “visual” examples and writing the translation of some sentences into Spanish. They like working in teams and receiving the teachers’ or partners’ feedback positively. They require the complete teacher’s attention to solve their doubts, suggestions or difficulties towards the leaning process.
About the project, I have learned some useful signs to have a better classroom management and luckily, I got a new member in my team: Sacha Valdez, a filmmaking student has accepted to attend the classes and record students’ interaction. This project is attractive for everyone!

We had special guests!

Image taken from http://www.state.gov/cms_images/ukraine_monastery_2003_04_25.jpg


October 6

My Research teachers, Valeriya and Liubava came to class tonight. My students were so curious about the visitors and they were very polite and receptive. The familiarity and casual atmosphere promoted students’ participation making them feel included, valued, and respected. Students enjoyed the activities and they showed a high collaborative work. They helped each other by explaining or giving examples of new concepts. I noticed that each student is explicitly conscious of self and others and all have a common objective: learning English.
When this class finished and after talking to my teachers, many research questions came to my mind. Once again, I realized that this research project would change a lot.

Words, Words, Words...

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September 29

It has been very interesting to notice that every planned lesson is a wonderful resource to explore students' needs.They have asked many questions about vocabulary and grammar from a little descriptive paragraph. I must be ready to take advantage of their curiosity to progress in the course development.
Today, I asked students to write some descriptive sentences and I found that some strategies from the Grammar Translation Method were useful. Using the grammar structure SUBJECT + VERB + COMPLEMENT to guide their writing exercise. was useful. As I noticed that students asked for qualitative adjectives to write their sentences, I am going to make emphasis on that topic. Once their sentences were done, I noticed that spelling mistakes were common and the conjugation of the verb " to have" in third persn of singular must be checked once again.

First day

Image taken from www.myenglishpages.com
September 22

It was my first class as a hearing teacher working with deaf students.They were so curious to know the meaning and use of many English expressions that they see on magazines, Internet and television. Fortunately,a special educator who was my student some years ago, accepted being my interpreter.It was very interesting because she helped me a lot and also gave me some strategies to have a better communication with deaf people. Aspects like the rythm and amount of the information given, the location of the teacher and the use of Spanish as a supporting written language have taken a different methodological perspective for me. Although I had designed a " reading" diagnostic test for my deaf students, I realized that it would be necessary to change the focus of my research project because they just need to start their English acquisition process. They are like little children " discovering" a new language.

Let's start

September 18

Today, I met the group of 23 deaf students who belong to different academic programs at Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, but have not received English instruction as part of their professional qualification.This fact, make them feel in disadvantage with their hearing peers.
When I proposed them to start a blended English course supported by some EFL Internet resources , they reacted positively. They had many questions about the methodology, the contents and the course requirements. Most of them agreed attending clases on Tuesdays night and getting some virtual taks on Thursdays. I have many expectations about this English course and I think that it is a good opportunity to follow an action research study .So, the big research question is : What is the effect of using EFL Internet resources as a a support on the development of an English course designed for deaf university students?
Students were very enthusiastic with the research proposal and even answered the initial survey designed to know their previous experience with English, their course expectations, their language needs and their learning interests.

Class activity

Can you imagine a communicative class in silence?