Reflection

The phase I intervention did not go as smoothly as planned. I expected the intervention to

go smoothly as it means to have an active discussion within a small, mixed of non-native and

native English speakers through snowball activity. However, I found that when the students were

assigned in a small group, many non-native English speakers were facing the activity

emotionally because they were scared or shy that their speaking skills, such as accent or

grammatical mistakes, will affect the overall discussion. During the activity, I had to intervene

and remind the students that everyone needs to participate in order to share different perspectives

on the themes they chose. With the little bit of input, I heard few phrases from non-native

students but it was not enough to support the higher order thinking. Their response was either it

was good or I like that, but these responses were not enough to reach higher order response.

Through the observation, I became aware that it will benefit the students learning outcome if I

model the activity first so that the students understand the purpose of the activity. However, it

was important to find out that it was not only non-native students who faced the barrier in

speaking. Native students also faced the barrier in speaking based on the topic like grammar or

mechanics in English. Because everyone has their own weakness in certain areas, it is important

to find the validity in their voice. Furthermore, it was a lesson learned for me to scaffold the

activity before I let the students take over the class. For instance, for phase I, I only dictated the

direction as in reading it with the students rather than modelling or bridging the activity for the

students so that they understand and know what is requested from me. Following the concept of

scaffolding, I realized that Blooms Taxonomy is not sufficient for me to scale students higher

order thinking because it is only a framework of how critical thinking works in six steps. My

phase I could have been better supported if I had a rubric to scale the students critical thinking
skills. Having said this, there is more for me to learn in how the framework of Blooms

Taxonomy works and how I can meaningfully integrate this as an intervention in my classroom.

Teachers Development. Because this was my first attempt in teaching speaking, I had

much to learn. As this was my first time embedded as a teachers assistant in a speaking course,

it was challenging for me to put into an action with the limited knowledge I had on the methods

of teaching speaking. I have learned the theories but it was difficult to put it into the practice. For

instance, I had in mind that integrating interactive activities and allowing the students to engage

in groups would benefit their speaking skills within their zone of proximal development (ZPD).

In addition, I asked for suggestions from the course professor since she and I had the same

concern in developing non-native English students oral participation. However, even with her

guidance, it was hard when I had to put all of the information into an action. I needed more

experience and practice as in terms of articulating my understanding to the students because

sometimes what made sense to me did not make sense to the students.

What I learned was that I, myself, needed some support in explaining the why and

how in order to support the students critical thinking skills. In my mind, the words how and

why made sense, but when I was explaining it to the students, I was unable to provide a clear

explanation. Furthermore, I overlooked the students level in critical thinking. Because

accelerated English basic-skills class is not an ESOL class, I assumed that the students would

already know the concept of 5W and 1H and understand how to apply the concept to the passage.

In another words, I expected the students to reach higher order thinking without any explicit

support.

Furthermore, I found that when the discussion focused on the theme of culture, the non-

native students spoke more. This tells me that, as a teacher, I need to change the topic that relates
to what is relevant to the students. When the discussion was simply about analyzing the themes,

motifs, and character, the students did not share much as the theme or topic did not have any

relevance to the students lives. However, when the topic changed switched to where they could

relate to the text to their own experiences, the atmosphere in the class changed where the

traditionally quiet, non-native students began to speak voluntarily in order for their voice to be

heard. The result of choosing a relevant theme taught me that students speak more when the topic

relates to their personal experience.

Researchers Development. Going back to the purpose of this study, I have noticed how

my knowledge in developing speaking skills for my students became uncertain as the lesson

proceeded. I realized this through my observation of the students and my own reflections. In the

beginning, I only thought of improving oral participation by designating mixed groups of non-

native and native English students so that they can learn from one another. Despite the surface

level of this activity, I recognized that in order to support the students oral participation, I

constantly had to research on different methods that I can do to support on their needs. For

instance, the intention of the snowball activity was for the students to get out of their comfort

zone and experience different perspectives from the students they are not friends with. In this

case, the assigned group always had non-native and native English speaking students. However, I

found that it was really integrating the topic that was relevant to their lives that shed light on

their oral participation rather than my intervention of the snowball activity and the mixing of

groups. however, I also found that connections to their personal lives did not necessarily yield

higher order responses and my handout by itself did not elicit these types of response.
 As with any unforeseen circumstances, I reflected upon the importance of being flexible

towards the new and emerging needs in the classroom. This flexibility I found is really important

towards both aspects of my emerging identity as a researcher and as a teacher.