Project #:  F05MH

Proposal Title: ESL Essay

Stipend Level:  1


In the space below, present a statement of your proposed research project (approximately 500-1000 words), including a general description of the scope and nature of your project, the design or the outline to be followed. Describe your planned activities and timelines.

his classroom project will take the full 17 weeks to complete. It will be done in my ESL 100 Advanced Composition for Non-Native Speakers course. This class focuses on writing essays but also requires students to pass an essay interview for each paper. The interview requires students to  “talk through” their essay identifying key elements and defending their points.  In addition, the students use Blackboard for online quizzes and discussions.  For this project, students will do two essays with topic preparation done in class discussions and two essays with topic preparation done in an online discussion format.

Procedure
For the first (Exposition) and third essay (Cause/Effect), students will do an in-class discussion on the essay topic. For the second (Comparison/Contrast) and fourth (Argumentation) essay, students will do an online discussion on the essay topics.  The discussions will follow the same format and question style; half will be written online and half will be oral.  Following discussions, students will write an essay on each topic and complete one interview on each essay.

In-class discussions and oral interviews will be recorded.  


What are the objectives of your project? Describe the relevance of your project to student learning.
 The objective of the research project is to determine the efficacy of online discussion of essay topics versus in-class discussion.  The key question is:
Does articulating the topic and activating the vocabulary orally have a greater or lesser impact than a written online discussion on:
the grammar and content of student essays?
student performance in essay interviews?

This project is essential to student learning because it is all about discovering what this particular student group gains from two different styles. It also taps into language acquisition for non-native speakers online versus face-to-face.  

 What evaluation methodology will you use to provide progress measures for your project? Include a description of your benchmarks.
 Essays will be graded on structure, content, grammar, and language, the last three categories being the focus of the research.  Interviews are graded on student’s ability to express the content ideas in their essays and on language skills. Essays will be graded by myself and at least one other independent ESL instructor. Scores for each category will be analyzed and each student’s performance in in-class discussions and on-line discussions analyzed and compared with the written and oral products.

What teaching strategies/learning concepts/pedagogical theories/technology skills did you gain knowledge of through the Institute of Teaching and Learning courses that you will apply to your classroom research?
Microteaching class was a refresher in creativity and innovation.  Incorporating the serious discussion element into the writing process came partly from there as did setting very specific, measurable, and attainable goals within a lesson period.  Strategies for Online Learning gave me real experience in participating in online discussions and online learning -since that class, I have used an online component in all my classes, but decided it was time to start analyzing a little more formally the efficacy of parts of the online activities.

How many students (approximately) will participate in the research project?  35
 
What do you (as an instructor) hope to learn from your research? Describe any instructional development or improvement you hope to glean from this project.

I personally hope to find out if the online discussion component really is making students process the ideas and content of the essay topics or if these students need time in class to really articulate ideas.  Making valuable discoveries in this area will shape future classes and help in planning for hybrid and fully online ESL courses.

Anticipated Research Costs (if any)?  $