Ooops. Going back to the starting point.

After watching the video-recording of my class through the eyes, equipped with a bit more theories of teaching children, my discovery was nothing to do with my focus, teacher's feedback. I found that giving a certain task to children as a pair or a group work increases the active participation, motivation, sense of ownership and learner to learner talk without the teacher's intervention. Lots of laughters and interactions between learners have identified and the post- task presentations seemed to make a clear goal for them. In order to achieve the task more successfully, the stronger or the faster learners help the slower ones without any instructions from the teacher. Learners discussed and came up with better strategies to achieve the task on their own. They looked more involved and interested when they work in pairs or groups rather than in a teacher-innitiated activities. In other words, more student-centered and self-regulated class was evident in a group or pair works, at least in this particular class with 3 of 6 graders, 2 of 4th graders and 2 of 2nd graders. The level gap among them due to the age differences has become one of clear decisive measures in grouping or pairing children. The age differences between students also give unique dynamics in the class rather than obstacles. Elder students are more forgiving and supportive with younger ones who are not their siblings and this interesting tendency among elder students make the group or pair work more harmonious and effective for enhancing learning. Moreover, by stepping back and observe their work, I could see what kind of supports they need in order to achieve their tasks in a short term and improve their English proficiency in long term. These findings would help me to plan or revise the next tasks and lessons.

In spite of all the positive outcome of the pair work and group work, excessive usage of L1 has been apparent and troubling me ever since. Almost 100% of student's interactions during the task were conducted in L1 except some moments when I gave them some clues to use phrases that they have already acquired. My dilemma: How can a teacher maximize students L2 usage in group or pair practice in monolingual language class without depriving of their spontaneous interactions and learning opportunities through the work?

I would ask teachers in various settings how they deal with L1 usage in their classes via Survey Monkey and find more research papers on the subject.

I feel like running in a circle chasing my own tale. But my partner who is an experienced researcher says, "It is a part of research and that's how you find your own path."

With this inspiring and encouraging words in mind, I shall start seeking my path again :-)

Why do I say that!?

After recording my class, I listed to some to find what was going on. Perhaps most of you who have recorded your class to reflect your practice feel the same: SHOCK! Even though this is not the first time for me to record my own class and listened to it but this time my focus was teacher's feedback so that I focused on what I said. It is not really friendly and comfy to see the reality.

Some findings are listed below:

-Not enough wait-time for students to contribute answers or opinions.
- More display questions than referential ones
- Excessive use of teacher echos and IRF
- More form-fosused feedback than content feedback
- No enough student-initiated talk
-Filling in the gaps
-Some ineffective praises such as "Good!" due to habitual tendency

Positive ones are:

-Sufficient use of speech modification and rephrasing for comprehensible input
- Some negotiation for meaning ( teacher- students)
- Some content feedback
-Some referential questions such as "What would you like to eat for Thanksgiving dinner?"
- Prompting

Some use of L1 is not the focus but also something to consider. In the particular lesson, I feel I used L1 appropriately in order to use time effectively and support students' understanding for the tasks they need to do. I started using L1, considering some students' personalities as well. Some students can't move on unless they understand their task perfectly.

According to the data, some serious consideration and reformation are needed. The first big step of such  reformation is to be aware of my tendencies and errors, some features of my practice which are considered as obstruction for more learning opportunities for students in EFL settings (Walsh 2002)

I am going to consider the criteria of supportive teacher talk within the classroom as a unique institutional discourse setting.

What is a teacher's feedback for?

After having a Skype meeting with my tutor and a participant of the course for methodology module, I felt lost. The reason was that my tutor didn't get impressed at all while I was keen on talking about self -theory that explained two types of mindsets. Just before I was going to explain the connection between mindsets and an effective kind of praise, my tutor stopped me and asked me to reconsider the starting point I got for teacher's praises might not be a reason that students feel helplessness at the face of challenging tasks. That comment sounded a brutal rejection of my proposal. 

On the other hand, the other participant in the meeting got very positive feedback from the tutor such as 

"It sounds worth investigating."

"Oh, that sounds intriguing."

where the ones I got were:

"I don't understand what you mean."

"I am not sure if that (praising, my focus) is worth investigating."

"Oh, that is only psychological matter."

The tone of her voice told me that I wasn't even close to meet her expectation. The whole session was unexpectedly upsetting. Ironically, the session proved that teacher's feedback matter to a student a lot. Especially it was the first meeting and I had such an inspiring and motivating tutor in the last module, I was devastated due to the time I might have wasted and the work I need to do ahead. I felt like I was quite close to the goal in a race and one of the judges of the race disqualified me for running off track.

I went to bed feeling absolutely miserable in spite of kind and generous support from my partner. He tried everything he could to cheer me up again. But, as you may know, nothing works when the message receiver is experiencing the helplessness.

This morning, as I saw the sun rising, I got more hopeful mood and started reflecting what exactly happened last night and what I should do from there with a big support from my partner. He listened to every single messy whinging-like mumble just before beginning his very busy day at the breakfast table. I am afraid he couldn't digest all the food at all. As I mumbled away, I felt much better and realized I was in absolutely fixed mindset. Last night I was absolutely in shock at the face of challenges and lost all my motivation because I didn't see the session as a learning process but a painful criticize on my work. Then I realize how arrogant I have been to expect a positive feedback from my tutor and how silly to compare myself to the other participant. As I felt more open to  my partner's advice, I realized that the session was a great learning opportunity for me in many ways:

I can now related to how exactly my students feel when I gave them a negative feedback while giving others positive ones.

I identified my own tendency to fall in the fixed mindset easily as a student.

I can develop my knowledge on praising via reading more literature in order to find better starting point.

I feel more determined to record my class and examine more carefully.

I got better understanding of qualitative research.

I got better idea how I narrow down a general topic to a research topic.

I got better idea where the answer would be in Action Research.

All my puzzles haven't been solved yet but I know where I can go now. It is the kids, the classroom, my home. This whole session turned my enthusiastic pleasant evening into a nightmarish one. But at the same time, it got me back home where I seek the answers for my puzzles. Young learners in various stages in their lives I have met at Sunnyfield English, my home, showed me the way how to talk, learn and grow together in the last decade.  So, I am quite sure they will show me the way on this challenging path as well.