SR 5: Surveys & Interviews
Hello again! I'm trying to work ahead a little bit, so as to give myself more time later to work on chapter 2 of my APP.
This article, entitled "Factors Affecting Oral Classroom Participation of International Graduate Students in an ESL Setting" was written by Jun Liu and Li-feng Kuo from Ohio State University. I thought about many different things while reading this article, a few of which I'd like to discuss here. The first thing was that I couldn't get over how similar the questions posed by the authors were to the real-life situations of some of my grad school peers. I think back to my very first year of grad school at MSU, and my new friends from Korea. (I won't mention names to avoid offending someone, but you can probably guess who these people are if you were around in 2003-2004.) They had a very difficult time speaking up in class, and an even harder time questioning the professors...it just wasn't part of their culture to do so. They simply can't force themselves to adjust 100% to the norms of the mid-western culture of "looking people in the eye" when talking to them or when listening, and questions authority is frowned upon there when it isn't here (as long as it's done in a respectful way).
Another thing I thought of was certain students I have right now in my Spanish classes. A few of them have no problems asking questions, almost to the point of annoying others (and myself!), but others who really need the extra help never raise their hand or stay after class to ask for additional help. I worry about these "quiet ones," mostly because I used to be one of them myself growing up.
A third thing I thought of actually ties into what I posted earlier about chapter 10...the amount of time required to administer the survey and/or interviews, and even more time to compile and interpret the data collected. Again, I barely have enough time in the day to keep up with lesson plans and grading papers, and then I have grad school work staring me in the face when I get home from work every day...when would the "average bear" have time to hand out surveys or conduct interviews with their coworkers or students?!?!
This article, entitled "Factors Affecting Oral Classroom Participation of International Graduate Students in an ESL Setting" was written by Jun Liu and Li-feng Kuo from Ohio State University. I thought about many different things while reading this article, a few of which I'd like to discuss here. The first thing was that I couldn't get over how similar the questions posed by the authors were to the real-life situations of some of my grad school peers. I think back to my very first year of grad school at MSU, and my new friends from Korea. (I won't mention names to avoid offending someone, but you can probably guess who these people are if you were around in 2003-2004.) They had a very difficult time speaking up in class, and an even harder time questioning the professors...it just wasn't part of their culture to do so. They simply can't force themselves to adjust 100% to the norms of the mid-western culture of "looking people in the eye" when talking to them or when listening, and questions authority is frowned upon there when it isn't here (as long as it's done in a respectful way).
Another thing I thought of was certain students I have right now in my Spanish classes. A few of them have no problems asking questions, almost to the point of annoying others (and myself!), but others who really need the extra help never raise their hand or stay after class to ask for additional help. I worry about these "quiet ones," mostly because I used to be one of them myself growing up.
A third thing I thought of actually ties into what I posted earlier about chapter 10...the amount of time required to administer the survey and/or interviews, and even more time to compile and interpret the data collected. Again, I barely have enough time in the day to keep up with lesson plans and grading papers, and then I have grad school work staring me in the face when I get home from work every day...when would the "average bear" have time to hand out surveys or conduct interviews with their coworkers or students?!?!
posted by Tanya Loewen at 1:04 PM
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