Week 7 - Implementation #2

As week 2 of implementation has come to a close I will once again evaluate and reflect on my progress during this week. This week my focus was going to be on writing a present tense paragraph, and completing all activities for the conditional tense. I decided to instead do all activities for both and write a paragraph combining these tenses. I could not quite adhere to the daily schedule I made last week due to exams for other courses. Despite not following the day-to-day activities, having a certain amount of time to spend on each activity in a certain order was definitely beneficial.
My results for the online verb conjugator and paragraph are shown in the same format as last week below.

Online verb conjugator result table:

Discussion: These results show more accurately my improvement throughout the week as it is analytical (i.e. there is an actual percentage to compare), rather than last week's assessment being more judgemental. In all categories I improved significantly, and achieved my goal of 80%.

Paragraph correction result:

Discussion: I am quite happy with these results. The errors made were not based off any fundamental mistake, rather it was mostly using the wrong tense in the wrong context. I.e I made no conjugation mistakes! Yay! In addition, dad wrote a comment saying "Very well done! I think if you would do a few more exercises you would have perfect results!" A great confidence boost :)

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In addition to this assessment analysis, I would also like to apply some concepts from Mike Levy's week 5 lecture. He refers to Egbert & Hanson-Smith's (1999) eight 'Conditions for Optimal Language Learning Environments. It seems appropriate here to reflect on the efficiency of my language learning challenge with respect to some of these principles. I have chosen and reflected on the four principles that are most applicable to my challenge, as below:

1.  Learners are exposed to and encouraged to produce varied and creative language: This principle is well incorporated into my challenge through my paragraph writing. It requires me to be creative in terms of vocabulary, using new sentence structures, and different tenses.
2.  Learners have enough time and feedback: By creating a daily schedule, I think I have definitely given myself adequate time. In terms of feedback, I receive this on both my online quizzes in the way of a numerical score, as well as with my paragraph.
3.  Learner autonomy is supported: After doing the VARK Questionnaire and several other learning method analysis tests, I have been able to adjust my challenge to how I learn best. For example, when learning the conjugation rules I have made it as visual as possible to reflect my strength in visual learning. 
4.  Learners work in an atmosphere with an ideal stress/anxiety level: The language learning challenge is an individual, independent process, allowing me to complete it at my own pace in my own time. An advantage of this is that I am not put under any significant stress or pressure. A disadvantage however, is that it is easier to fall behind as there is no incentive or no one checking that I am keeping on top of my work. Therefore perhaps a slightly higher pressure environment would be better. 

The four other conditions include: 5. Learners have opportunities to interact and negotiate meaning; 6. Learners interact in the target language with an authentic audience; 7. Learners are involved in authentic tasks; and 8. Learners are guided to attend mindfully to the learning process.
I feel as though these conditions are not incorporated as strongly into my challenge. However, it is difficult to satisfy all criteria and I think incorporating half is rather effective considering the scope of the challenge.

This is all for now, until next week when I have learnt the futur proche (near future)! :)

References:

- Egbert, J., & Hanson-Smith, E. (1999) CALL Environments: Research, Practice, and Critical Issues. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.