LHypothesis - Develop Hypotheses

Describe your process for developing hypotheses  (hunch) e.g. what you read, who you talked with.

SCANNING

Knowing my learners in this inquiry is vital in this process of developing hypotheses (hunches) about their learning. I started off this process with a quick scanning of evidence collected about the learners and their learning in order to get an overview of the whole group - their areas of strengths and of needs for development. The key question here is, 'What is happening for my learners in my classroom?'

Progress and achievement in reading standardized assessments:
The key questions are - What do these learners already know in reading? What do they need to learn and do? What should they achieve? The only area of strength shown here is that these learners can read very short and simple texts with the help of illustrations and context. The evidence collected show that these learners generally have limited knowledge and ability in reading comprehension, and there are many facets in reading they need to learn and do. These are the areas of needs for development in their reading:

• Familiarity with reading different types of texts (eg poems, explanation, and narratives)
• Reading skills of retrieving information; Making local and global inferences 
• Understanding author's craft
• Word knowledge and skills
• Comprehension skills and constructing meanings
• Analyzing Literary Texts
• Analyzing Argument and Evaluating Text 

Learners' Background:

Evidence from the information collected show that with these learners:

• Very limited exposure to English as a second language in the islands before migration
• Short duration of time since entering NZ
• No real acquisition or learning of English language in the islands and NZ
• Limited knowledge of NZ education system and its relevance to them
• Emotional struggles at home for missing real parents who are in the islands
• Over-crowded at some homes
• Anxiety and low self esteem at school because they are ELLs
• Limited access for books at home or library

Motivation and Attitudes to reading and teaching of reading at school:

Evidence about these learners show that:

• Most rate themselves as poor readers and they all like teachers reading to them
• They are shy and have anxieties when asked to read aloud in class, coming to a new word when reading, or having to spell a new word they don't know how to spell
• They are not motivated readers, they'd rather do other chores than reading after school, and they don't spend much time reading at home
• They like writing stories for teachers because they want feedback from them
•  They are all positive about going to school

First and Second Language (L1 - L2)

One area of strength in the profile of these ELLs is their understanding and ability to speak, read, and write in their first languages (L1). They have full understanding almost always, no matter what the context is, they can fully fluently speak in their first languages in any situation, they can read and understand almost anything, and they they write very well in their first languages.

With English as their second language (L2), the learners rated their understanding as ranging from minimal few words to day to day talk with friends and families. Their speaking is limited to speaking with friends and families, their reading is from knowing only few words to can read and understand only easy reading. They can only write quite a bit - they write as they speak.

FOCUSING
The key question for me at this focusing part of the process is the question, 'Where should I concentrate my energies in order to change the experiences and outcomes of my learners?' Focusing here is about establishing priority for improvement. At this phase I used information from my scanning about areas of learners' strengths and needs to determine where my time and energy need to be invested. This focusing phase should also narrow or hone down the area of my investigation.

These key focusing questions helped me at this phase of the process:

• What popped out at me during the scanning process?
• What are the strengths that my learners show? How might I build on those strengths?
• What's not working well?
• What really matters most for my learners?
• What is going to make the the biggest difference to the learning of my learners?

It's important for me that the focus areas I choose are related to student learning, that I have the ability to tackle, and to inquire more to teaching practice.

With these to guide me, I choose these focus areas which popped out at me:

An area of strength:
1) Learners have sound understanding and ability in their L1

Areas of needs for development:

2) Reading and understand the purposes, ideas, structures, and language features used in different types of written texts
3) Using reading skills and strategies to read for comprehension
4) Develop learner's levels of English vocabulary and word skills
5) Motivation and interests of learners to read independently at school and at home after school

6) Limited acquisition and learning of L2 both in the islands and NZ
7) Emotional and social challenges at home and anxieties while doing reading in classes

DEVELOPING (AND TESTING) HYPOTHESES (HUNCHES)
The key question at this phase is, 'How my teaching practices have contributed to student learning in an area identified as a potential focus for improving?' Developing these hunches is an opportunity for me to use my teaching intuition based on my observations and experiences with these ELLs.

Some hypotheses I generated:

• If I teach these ELLs the strategy of transferring prior knowledge, prior linguistic and cognitive skills, and language base knowledge from their L1 to their reading in L2, then that will increase their reading comprehension in L2, as well as their production ability.
• If I practice selecting quantity and quality different text types and use a 'dive in' approach to teach their purposes, text features, and meanings, then these ELLs will increase their reading comprehension when reading them as unfamiliar texts.
• If I practice teaching specific reading strategies such as - retrieving information, making local or informal inferences, use of prior knowledge, prediction, summarizing, and some others, then these ELLs will increase their levels of reading comprehension.
• If I practice deliberate teaching of vocabulary through reading, then it will help these ELLs increase their reading comprehension, as well as their other language skills, listening, speaking, and writing.
• If I practice providing, motivating, and engaging these ELLs in guided independent reading where they read everyday at school and at home after school, then they will increase their incidental learning of vocabulary, reading comprehension, and other language skills
• If I practice making provisions for these ELLs to interact and use oral language everyday in class, then they will be able to transfer those skills to their reading comprehension and other production skills.
• If I practice reading stories and having fun with these ELLs in class, then they will enjoy learning how to read and learning English as a language.