LScan - Inquiry Question 2

Describe how and why you have selected this challenge of student learning.

Some circumstances drew me to select this achievement challenge of student learning for my inquiry:

As a teacher of English and HOD of English language at school, I constantly observe the struggles these English language learners (ELLs) have in their new environment as well as their hesitations, shyness, and feelings of insufficiency to answer or ask questions in class. I also observe their self-consciousness and insecure self-esteem in the midst of their peers simply because of who they are, 'ESOL' students. They feel they are below their peers because of the level of their English.

The low achievements of these ELLs in PAT and STAR reading comprehension tests constantly nag me to address them as significant learning needs and that those needs are too huge and detrimental to ignore.

I realised my own needs of having to make changes in my teaching and to increase my pedagogical knowledge and skills if I were to make any difference in meeting the needs of these ELLs.

Further to these, I felt NCEA is very important to these learners and that is our core business at secondary school. These learners have to be able to manage and do well in NCEA because that's a pathway they must take for any success in their future. The key question therefore for me was, "How in the world would these learners manage or do well in NCEA in all learning areas with the limited language knowledge and skills that they have in English?" These learners must improve in these areas if they are to succeed in NCEA. The New Zealand curriculum states:

As language is central to learning and English is the medium for most learning in the New Zealand Curriculum, the importance of literacy in English cannot be overstated. The New Zealand Curriculum, page 16

These are why and how I was drawn to select this challenge for my inquiry.

Locate your inquiry in the context of patterns of student learning in Manaiakalani overall.

To locate my inquiry in the context of patterns of student learning in Manaiakalani overall, I looked at the national norm and mean scale scores of these groups in the PAT reading comprehension.

The mean scale scores of the Manaiakalani overall year 10 reading at both the beginning of 2018 (65.2) and this year 2019 (66.2) are below the national norm of 76.5. The reading achievement of my inquiry group at the beginning of this year is very similar to that pattern. Their mean scale score is 55.9, and that is well below the national norm, and yet still below both the mean scores of the Manaiakalani overall in those consecutive years.

The mean scale score of the girls in the Manaiakalani overall reading at the beginning of last year was above the Manaiakalani overall mean score, while the boys mean score was below. That means the girls' reading achievement were higher than that of the boys.The pattern of girls and boys reading in my inquiry group is not similar to that pattern. The scale scores of all the girls and boys in my inquiry group are all below the Manaiakalani overall and the national norm.