Critical reflection of the Rainbow Serpent Reading Project

Well, where should I start...

I think I got a little carried away by this project. At the beginning, I just needed a gap filler for about two weeks, while the class was passively listening to the "shopping for a school camp" text. I just looked through my posts again and here's a very short resume:

Monday, 7th of September
Introducing the project / clarifying the aim of the project / letting them pick their text.

Friday, 11th of September
Understanding the story / clarifying unknown vocabulary / start listening to the audio book

(no homework over the weekend)

Monday, 14th of September 
Reading along the audio book / silently > as an echo > at the same time

(Tuesday - Thursday = camp = no homework)

Friday, 18th of September
Practise and preparation time / practising in many different ways

(no homework over the weekend)

Monday, 21st of September (visitors day)
last practise / first reading out loud

(first time I could give them homework - which was to practise, since on Friday all of them had to read out loud)

Friday, 25th of September
Reading in front of the class and in the other room to record it.

Monday, 28th of September
The one who was sick read to the class and together with his mates to the dictating machine.
(while starting with shopping for a school camp)

Friday, 2dn of October
Giving back the grades (CD Cover) and going through the questionnaire.



MY CRITICAL THOUGHTS

So all in all it took us four weeks to finish the project even though we just spent two weeks (or a little more) with preparing the text (clarifying vocabulary and practising reading it out loud). The rest of the time was used for their presentations, the recordings, folding their CD cover and answering a questionnaire...

Well the question is, if all this wasted too much time or if it showed the kids appreciation for their effort and accomplishment? It's hard too say but by the looks at their faces, as they folded their CD cover with themselves being one of the "artists" they really enjoyed it. I wonder if any of them listened to their readings again at home or if they showed it to their parents... I'll definitely ask.

If I could have found a way of reducing the time they read in front of the class, that might have been good. But since there were up to four kids reading the same text they seamed to be disappointed as I just wanted to give them a couple of lines so most texts were presented more than once which made it boring for the listeners... Due to the fact that the kids who read their texts at the visitors day wanted to read their texts again it was probably too much time that we spent reading them out loud in front of the class. And still I believe that it was good for their self-esteem to make such good performances in front of the others. So from that point of view, it was well worth the time.

By looking through the aims of the project again I realised something... I didn't really stick to the checklist I wrote and I definitely should have! Only four of the kids read it to me before the read it in front of the whole class!!! I wrote, that they could tell me whenever they thought they were ready and they could read it to me. Then I would tell them the part they were going to read in front of the class and then they could go home and practise this particular part again!!! SHAME!!! I had such a fantastic idea when I wrote these aims and then I completely ignored this step!

I have realised, why I made something like a short cut... There was this visitor day and I was told, that it would be good if the parents didn't only see the kids sitting in their desks and working for themselves, so I thought that would be a great opportunity to start with the reading presentation. But actually  I think that was a mistake... Just by sticking to the plan, I could have saved a lot of time... Because if they had all read to me first, they could have practised their particular part and we could have heard all six stories only once in class... But still, it would have taken a long time to have all of them reading the whole story to me and I would have had to find an additional task for the ones that were ready longtime before the others...

And there is one more thing that I realised... This one worksheet I handed out for the class to do while I was in the other room with each group to record their readings was never even looked at again. For me it was just something to keep them busy but I should have gone through the answers with them because I know some of them really worked through it thoroughly. To avoid having to leave the class working alone until all stories were recorded, I could have showed them how to do the recordings themselves and so each group could have gone to the separate room by themselves to record their readings? That might have been a better idea...

Well and then there is the grading... I got just one grade out of this whole project... And it's a speaking grade. It's a bit confusing because it's a reading project but here, reading out loud is considered as speaking and reading means reading comprehension. So I should have given the project a different title... AND I could have made a reading comprehension grade on this too... AND a writing... AND a listening... First I thought of letting them write a couple of sentences about their story, or giving them a couple of questions about their texts or the texts they have just heard from their class mates. That way I would have gotten grades for more sections of the report card but I decided not to since the aim was clearly: Reading a story to the class... I'll have to think of wider aims on the next project or I'm never going to fill these report cards. 

MY CONCLUSION

Well after all these thoughts I'll try to come to a conclusion:
Making a project like this (especially for the first time) is probably full of making compromises. I don't know if it would have been "better" in a different way... But here are a couple of points that I do judge as positive and negative:

Negative:

• The level was too low for some of the kids. In the questionnaire one boy mentioned that he got bored by reading the same text over and over again. So in the future, for a heterogeneous class I need heterogeneous texts, especially if it takes us 4 weeks until we get though with them.
• If I give the kids a clear schedule like in those aims - I have to stick to it and not change it because I wanted their parents to have a more exciting visitor's day. 
• I should have showed them, how I will grade their performance and I should have thought it through thoroughly. This would have made it clearer for the kids and it would have saved me lots of time.
• Next time I plan a project, I'll have to think about grading the kids so I can set the aims in a way I cover more than just one skill. If ever possible I should try to cover "reading", "writing", "listening" and "speaking" in order not to spend 4 weeks on a project and just getting one skill graded.
• And here are the points, the kids liked the least about the project:
• Rather boring stories (5) - Well this is the first point of my critics too.
• Reading in front of the class (4) - OK, I can remember how I felt in school when I had to stand in front of the class. I really hated it... So I can understand those guys who didn't really enjoy this even if all of them did great!
• Nothing (4) - oh that's charming ;-)))
• Always reading the same text (1) - well yes! That the thing about heterogeneous texts. I totally understand this critic.
• The audio book was read too slowly (1) - Same thing!
• Uncomfortable earphones (1) - You bet. I have to do something about this. The MP3 players did their jobs but they are really not luxurious at all. 

Positive:

Well that's the thing about me... I'm not too good in making compliments to myself. I always think I could have done better, but I'll try to write down what I think was pretty good.

• Well the outcome of the whole project was definitely great! They all did a fantastic job. Hearing all these kids reading English out loud so fluently and with such proper pronunciation made me incredibly proud. Especially since they have not been known for being strong in English at all. 
• My thesis, that learning a language is something very auditory cannot be too wrong. I don't think that reading these stories without the help of the audio book would have caused such great results.
• I do think, that the kids had fun. At least most of the time. I see that some could have done with one or two lessons fewer or with more demanding stories but except for that I thought there was a very productive, motivated and jolly mood in the class while working on this project. 
• I think it was good, that the kids could choose their story (even if there were only six simple ones) and that they could work on it individually.
• And here are the points, the kids liked the most about this project:
• The MP3-listening in class (9) - This I realised. It was new for them but they really enjoyed reading along the audio book. Even as they had the choice to read it without the MP3-Players, none of them wanted to miss the opportunity to listen to the texts.
• That they have gotten a CD (2) - This is good to read because it cost me plenty of time :-)
• That it was something different (1) - Oh this definitely was different than just the "Young World"
• Understanding all the words and knowing how to pronounce them (1) - This was nice to read especially since it came from the one guy that wrote that he didn't really like the project because it became boring. He did enjoy knowing the whole text and being able to pronounce all the words. 
• Not having to study vocabulary (1) - mmmmhh... Well I'm sure they liked this even if I think I could have gotten a whole lot more out of this project, just like I wrote a little above.