Teacher inquiry 2019 Term 1-2

Students background:

These three students are all English Language Learners, two of them are boys and they are strong with the first language: the third one is a girl who was born in New Zealand but her family have strong Cook Island and Samoan cultural backgrounds. 

The two boys are literate in their own first language which is Samoan and Filipino.

They are all struggling with their writing as evident in their work products and Asttle
achievements. Detailed analysis of their strengths and weaknesses structuring ideas before
writing was the catalyst.

All three students showed they have done poorly in all writing elements as displayed in the
table below according to the e- asttle writing rubric and writing samples (Appendix I1 and I2).
The table displayed the Strengths and Needs of these students doesn’t focus on one
element but all across.

Personal Learners’ Profile

 Through observations and interviews, these pupils have illustrated that they needed a lot of help

not only with the Writing Elements but also the Writing Process (Appendix J1, J2, J3).

Olinghouse, (2012), Gillespie al (2011) and Graham (2010); Andrews et al, 2009; Graham et al, 2011; Santangelo and Olinghouse, (20019) cited in Department of Education (2012) have clarified that writing process needed to be taught, all my students have identified (Appendix K) that they somehow know about it but there is a need for it to be taught. Daly, (2003); Ofsted, (2005) also agrees that the writing process needs to be taught explicitly such as planning, language topic selection, effective use of drafting and the use of structures. Through surveys and conversations, it is apparent there are things that clouded these students' understanding which they always relied on the teacher’s scaffolding strategies to help them step by step (Appendix K). Students have stated that they like writing but not at school, enjoyed writing about things that they have done or involved with especially with friends or schools.  Bruce Saddler, Susan Moran, Steve Graham & Karen R. Harris (2004) stated: “ good writing is not only hard work, it is also extremely complex and challenging mental task” (pg. 4).

Clark and Dudgale (2009); Clark (2012) cited in the Department of Education Research (2012) firm that theory by describing that a lot of students like writing but only for the family but not at school. These three students felt that writing is hard work (Appendix K)

because they don’t understand what to write, struggle to choose the appropriate language

to use or even follow the writing process.

During my observation student, E is always busy, settles really fast and starts working immediately
and the other two often take up to 5-10 minutes to start. Gilbert & Graham (2010) indicate that primary students in their study spent at least 25 minutes composing one paragraph while my threes will spend 60 minutes writing two incomplete sentences. Again Gilbert & Graham (2010)
recommend that we need to assign a significantly longer period of times for students to
accelerate writing. Brown, M., Morrell, J. & Rowlands, K. D. (2011) pointed out that students who have self-efficacy have confidence they are a good writer and those who are incompetent are less likely to participate. It is urgent to support and encourage students to stay focus during Asttle writing time because I often caught them finishing off tasks within 10-15 minutes which is not enough to produce a complex piece of writing which is expected of them. With student R and G, they would start writing and not for long they will stop, they always say “I know how do write in my own language and struggling to translate into English.” According to Si’ilata (2014), bilingual learners hear the word in English and immediately switch their thinking into Samoan to gain understanding. The lack of engagement and poor quality of output is hard, is seemingly increased because students are disengaged due to completing a task that has no relevance to them. In the Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum, it talks about the need to be purposeful and meaningful for the students’ context, the Education Research (2012) suggested to give opportunities for students to choose the topic they would like to write about and also explore the genre to use. The students also required more time to write, not just completing work. Surprisingly during feedback and feedforward with students, they came up with ideas of “what good writing habits” might look like in the classroom (Appendix L).

The guiding principles of LEAP suggested that bilingual learners learn best when they use their first language which gives them the confidence to complete their writing task (Appendix M).

The guiding principles of LEAP and Si’ilata (2014) believe for these students to be able to succeed at school they need to be able to understand the academic language and make it accessible for them in the classroom.