Summary of our research project

What is the bilingual project?

• The bilingual project in Madrid is called AICOLE and began in 2004

• The project began with just 26 schools in the whole of the community of Madrid and is now running in 276 schools• Each school has from 2 to 6 language assistants and a minimum of 30% of classes are taught in English (excluding Spanish language and Maths)

So… What exactly does a language assistant do?

Reinforce and improve students oral fluencyHelp teachers by preparing didactical materials Have direct responsibility in supervising studentsGive students and teachers an insight into their cultureBring coffee to all the teachers in the morningHelp improve students grammar and phoneticsComplete a report detailing activities carried out during the yearThey can be left alone in the classroom with students whenever considered necessary

They give members of staff English lessonsThey have to speak Spanish at all times in the classroom

Following our research and personal experience working with and as language

assistants we have come up with the following hypothesis:

“Which are the areas a language assistant should be

covering? Which are being covered?

And why?”

CEIP Iplacea in Alcalá de HenaresThe school has been part of the bilingual project since 2005There are approximately 350 students Our investigation was centered around 6th form students who are more capable of analysing the role of language assistants

Where our investigation took place…

There are two 6th form groups in the school.We will be working with 6A, which is made up of 9 girls and 10 boys.They have been part of the bilingualproject from its beginnings.

There are 4 language assistants in the schoolALL 4 of them rotate between classes on a daily basis.Here is the timetable for 6A…

MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY

María Laura Lindsay Laura

Stewart Stewart Lindsay

María Lindsay

BREAK

Laura Lindsay Laura

María Stewart

Our research is naturalisticData collected is both quantitative and qualitativeTherefore comes from a statistic , interpretative and deductive researchIt has been conducted using students as our primary tool of measurement. To complete and justify conclusions we have also carried out a second questionnaire with most of the bilingual teachers from the school.

Our research tool…

Our questionnaire is made up of:Closed questions: Yes/No/Excellent/Good/etc. Open questions

Mixed options

The procedure we followed…

We began our background research on the role of language assistants with the help of various articles and the BOCM (9th July 2009 Orden 2670/2009)To reinforce/improve oral fluencyTo improve grammar and phoneticsTo Provide help to teachers by preparing didactical materialTo give students and teachers an insight into English/American culture through games and current issuesAny other activity related to English decided by the Ministry of EducationNO responsibility whatsoever for supervising students Language assistants should NEVER be left alone with students in the classroom (outside?)On finishing the school year Language assistants have to complete a report detailing the activities they have carried out in the classroom.Language assistants have 16 teaching hours per week however two of these hours can be used for teaching English to members of staff

We then decided our objectives based on the BOCMHere are some examples of the conclusions we hope to reach:0. To know whether students have a good relationship with the language assistant0. To discover if they consider the language assistant as another teacher and respect them as such0. To find out if they think that the language assistant motivates them in English classes. i.e. are classes more fun?0. To see if the students think that there is a good relation between teacher and language assistant1. To know whether any Spanish is spoken in the class by the language assistant therefore implying that students will make far less effort to speak in English to them

We then elaborated our questionnaire taking into account the objectives we had established

The final questionnaire was established with the help of our classmates

We gave the pilot questionnaire to our children We discovered and consequently changed two or three difficult questions

The final results!!

The student’s questionnaire…

QUESTION 1 QUESTION 2 QUESTION 3 TTL %0

10

20

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100

YESNOTTL%

We grouped questions 1,2 and 3 together to establish whether student/language assistant relationship can be considered positive.

Questions 9 and 10 establish if language assistant corrects oral and written English

YES NO TTL %0

10

20

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40

50

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100

QUESTION 9QUESTION 10TTL %

Questions 12, 14 and 15 gave us an insight into whether the language assistant transmits their culture to the students

1 2 3 40

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100

QUESTION 12QUESTION 14QUESTION 15TTL %

And finally we combined questions 6 and 7 to establish whether speaking/listening skills were reinforced with the language assistant

VERY POSITIVE POSITIVE TTL VERY POSITIVE RESULTS %

0

5

10

15

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30

35

40

QUESTION 6QUESTION 7TTL %

The teacher’s questionnaire…

YES NO TTL %0

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20

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QUESTION 1

With question1we wanted to find out if teachers’ were completely aware of language assistants role according to the BOCM

ENOUGH NOT ENOUGH

TTL %05

101520253035404550

QUESTION 2

Question 2 gave us an insight into whether teachers received sufficient training related to working with language assistants in the classroom

YES NO TTL %0

10

20

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40

50

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90

QUESTION 3QUESTION 4

By combining questions 3 and 4 we discover if language assistants are aware of the syllabus and daily lesson plans

YES NO TTL %0

102030405060708090

100

QUESTION 12

Finally question 12 told us if teachers’ considered language assistants necessary

According to the results we have obtained from the student’s questionnaires:

Results concerning reinforcement of speaking/listening were quite positive but lower than expected

74% considered their relationship with the language assistant as extremely positive

Virtually all students realised that the language assistant corrected their oral and written EnglishAn extremely high percentage were able to give examples of “cultural” activities carried out by the language assistant

According to the results we have obtained from the teacher’s questionnaires:

All 6 teachers interviewed believed that language assistants were a necessary resource in the bilingual project

Two of the bilingual teachers were completely unaware of the language assistants role according to BOCM!!These same two teachers answered that they had received no training whatsoever related to working with language assistantsVirtually all teachers thought that language assistants were aware of the syllabus and lesson plans in advance!!

Taking all of these facts and figures into consideration, here are some of our conclusions…

• Results were extremely positive in most questions

• Teachers consider language assistants an important element in learning a language

• Although most students rated their relationship with the language assistant as “good” rather than “excellent” we consider that on the whole they are very much appreciated by students and teachers alike

• Language assistants are not just speakers of a foreign language. They transmit their culture to the students and create a genuine interest in learning a foreign language

Difficulties and anecdotes encountered during the process… • The day after our research one of the assistants

left without warning!• Some students don’t understand the meaning of

anonymous and insisted on writing their names on the questionnaires!

• Other students thought it was a kind of test and copied classmates answers!

• Due to the fact that they have four language assistants (we were unaware of this beforehand) consecutively it was difficult for them to judge and reply to some of the questions.

• We discovered that Thanksgiving has been renamed “turkey celebration”!

Thank you very much for your attention!