Contact Information
Email: katebarba10@gmail.com
Phone: (267) 261-4551
Learning Outcome 10
"Students will demonstrate knowledge of how research is
conducted in the field and an ability to conduct and analyze their own research."
During my first semester in the PCMI program at Gonzaga, one of my classes was Research Perspectives in Second Language Education. The main requirement for this class was to conduct our own action research on an issue that we identified in the ESL field. As I had recently started the program, I was unsure about what to research because I was unaware of any potential issues and all of my experience teaching was in the EFL field. I decided to investigate the effectiveness in which the PCMI program at Gonzaga University prepares students for their service in the Peace Corps. Through the completion of the action research paper, I became familiar with the steps and process so that I can apply the techniques to my classes in the future. In the menu section, you can see a tab labeled Research Products which will take you to the final action research paper that I wrote for the research class.
I had the opportunity to apply the techniques and my knowledge of the research process during my second year in my Peace Corps service. The first step is to identify a need or a problem, which in Ecuador is the lack of importance on reading. It is highly uncommon in Ecuador for children or adults to read in their spare time and the inclusion of literature was almost nonexistent in my secondary high school. Therefore, the need that I identified was how to incorporate more literature in the English classes in a way that would be fun and interesting to the students. The presentation below highlights the steps that I followed which conducting my action research.
Research in Action
In the following video, you can see the final assessment project that the students created to represent their chosen books. The students were required to present the book in a creative way, which in this case was a short play showcasing the story of Beauty and the Beast.