Waikowhai Intermediate School and Waikowhai Primary School (TLIF 4-023) - Expressing writing through one’s first language Publications
Publication Details
Project Reference: Waikowhai Intermediate School and Waikowhai Primary School (TLIF 4-023) - This study set out to improve students’ writing through use of their first language. In 2017, Waikowhai Intermediate School had been one of four Auckland schools to participate in a TLIF project looking at the use of learning maps to accelerate students’ progress in writing. (See the summary report, Accelerating writing progress through learner maps, TLIF2-043).
Author(s): (Inquiry Team) Leanne Smith (Waikowhai Intermediate)
Date Published: May 2020
Overview
The experience enabled the identification of five areas of teaching practice that support writing: family/whānau/‘aiga involvement, collaboration, promoting wellbeing and agency, supporting students to learn, and personalising writing activities to be responsive to students’ culture and personal preferences.
The bus ride was cool. I like the chair because it was very comfortable. It was so satisfying watching the wafers being made and my favourite part was eating and drinking milk.
Na’e fakalata ‘a e heka pasi’. Na’a ku sai’ia he ‘ü sea’ he na’e ongo fiemälie ‘aupito. Na’e fakafiemälie atu ‘a e mamata ki hono ngaohi ‘o e wafers pea ko e konga na’a ku manako taha ai’ ko e ma’u me’atokoni’ mo e inu hu’akau’..
Stellan Harris Year 2 student (translated by Francis Puluno Year 8) in Big and Little Journey, a collection of stories written by students of Waikowhai Intermediate School and Waikowhai Primary School.
Family/whānau/‘aiga who had been engaged in the first inquiry had been enthusiastic. They suggested after the first cycle that there was still room for greater involvement from home in the buddying programme and for the inclusion of their children’s first languages. In this inquiry, each student was paired in relation to their first language and family/whānau/‘aiga were actively involved.
The project team found that this approach led to even better outcomes for students than had been achieved with the previous project. Student achievement and motivation improved and family/whānau/‘aiga engaged more frequently and in greater depth. Collaborative relationships were forged that were valued by all participants, including students who otherwise tended to be disengaged. The team concluded that the five teacher practices, in their refined form, supported students’ writing by attending to three dimensions of students’ experience: relationships, culture and language.
The inquiry story
This inquiry grew out of an earlier TLIF inquiry that had involved staff, students, family/whānau/‘aiga at four Auckland schools. Its lead teacher had led the earlier project, and her school continued its involvement. Waikowhai Primary School had not participated in the previous inquiry, but its close proximity to the intermediate school meant it made sense for the two schools to collaborate in this work. The inquiry involved 22 Year 1/2 students and 14 Year 8 students. Their family/whānau/‘aiga were actively involved and five parents contributed as translators.
What was the focus?
The aim of the study was to refine a set of teacher practices that had emerged during the first cycle of the project. The teachers wanted to know if these practices supported the improvement of student’s writing. They also wanted to know if the use of children’s first language supported the improvement of their writing and if greater engagement of family/whānau/‘aiga impacted on the writing process.
In 2017, during the first cycle of the project teachers in four Auckland schools collaborated to improve student writing progress through a process that included buddying younger students with older students and having the students use the Infinity Learning Maps method to describe their learning environments and identify – and thus activate – the naturally occurring resources available to support their development as writers. This first inquiry was successful in fostering positive attitudinal change across all students, and significant improvement in writing for those in the primary and intermediate schools. It enabled teachers to trial and refine a set of research-informed practices that support students’ writing. These are:
- Family involvement in the writing process
- Collaboration among students, teachers and family/whānau/‘aiga
- Fostering well-being, including agency, through the buddy relationship
- Helping students learning how to learn
- Personalised learning to reflect students’ culture and preferred ways of learning.
Family/whānau/aiga participated in the first inquiry through attendance at hui/fono and the exchange of information between home and school. At the final hui/fono, they suggested that the approach might be even more successful if students were also supported to write in their first language and if family/whānau/‘aiga could be more directly involved in the buddying programme. This second inquiry incorporated these suggestions. It addressed three questions:
- How can we develop collaboration across year groups to extend achievement in writing?
- Will allowing students to write using their first language improve writing achievement?
- How do we best engage families/whanau/’aiga in their child’s writing?
What did the teachers try?
The second cycle built on the learning from the first cycle, but with refinements to increase the level and quality of personalisation, collaboration, and responsiveness. While it included a variety of learning experiences, the highlight was a visit to the JJ Wafer Factory, accompanied by family/whānau/‘aiga with a follow-up visit by the CEO. The students’ stories were professionally published in a book that was lavishly illustrated with photographs of the learning journey.
Family involvement: Teachers continued and extended their use of a range of means for information-sharing, both face-to-face and digital. These included three-way conferences and digital tools, such as SeeSaw, blogging, Google writing samples, and videos. Family/whānau/‘aiga were encouraged to comment on their children’s writing using their preferred language. Five family members took on the role of translators, so that all children could see their writing in their home language.
Collaboration: As in the previous cycle, students from the two schools were buddied up with each other for writing activities that they completed in their Buddy Writing Books. The buddy visits were built into the weekly timetable. Again, the opportunities for collaborative writing were both face-to-face and digital. All participants could comment on the blogs, and this engagement was monitored.
Collaboration between teachers was fostered through the construction of narratives. These were shared on a Google form that enabled joint reflection, both online as well as when they met with each other.
At the end of the year, the whole group collaborated to create and publish the book based on the shared experience of their visit to a local wafer factory.
Well-being and agency: The initial focus was on relationship-building through provision of enjoyable and manageable hands-on activities, such as storytelling with Puppet Pals. Students had time to get to know each other, play together, and read together before moving into writing activities. Teachers observed how the relationships were going and adjusted the pairings where necessary to ensure everyone felt safe and secure.
Knowing how to learn: The older students were coached into how they could scaffold learning for their buddies, for example, how to make reading interactive through questioning techniques and how to make helpful comments on their buddy’s writing. They were provided with a template to help scaffold their reflections and the comments they made on their buddies’ blogs. Initial intensive teachers scaffolding was gradually reduced as students’ understanding of these strategies grew and they became more independent.
Personalised learning and cultural responsiveness: As before, students were encouraged to make learning choices that reflected the preferences they had identified in their learning maps. For example, they could choose where they worked and with whom, and the writing tools they preferred to use. However, this time, there was more attention to matching students with the same linguistic and cultural background and the students were actively encouraged to use the language of their choice, both in informal interactions and in their writing. The teachers offered novel language learning experiences that took student preferences into account and were linked to a familiar setting.
What happened?
Both groups of students made significant progress, with the gains surpassing those achieved in the previous project cycle. The Year 8 students progressed by an average of 2.9 sublevels in e-asTTle writing. Having begun below or well below expectation, 78 per cent ended the year at expected levels of achievement. Each of the five Year 1 students tracked made substantial gains and mastered all areas of the Observation Survey. Students’ oral language flourished with the frequent opportunities for discussion in their language of choice.
Students were happy and motivated, and disappointed when there was an interruption to their buddy sessions. Students who were not part of the programme wanted to participate and older students who were not typically engaged in school made sure they were present for their school visits. Younger children were more focused on their writing, even when their buddies were not present. The older students began to include their “little buddies” on their learning maps, acknowledging the role the younger child played in their learning.
Teacher practice was examined through an iterative process of reflection on all five areas of practice. Through this process, their practices gradually became more sophisticated and better shaped for purpose, as reflected in the next section.
The project had a powerful impact on teachers’ relationships with family/whānau/‘aiga . This was observable though whānau members’ willingness to enter the schools, be part of the buddy sessions, comment on their children’s blogs, and attend trips. The trip to the wafer factory was oversubscribed and all the Year 1 students had whānau in attendance. The exchange of information and perspectives spread across a range of settings, for example, into informal conversation at Saturday sport.
What did they learn?
The improvements were attributed to the five teaching practices as a set, but especially personalised learning and family involvement. The project team refined their understanding of teaching practices that work in fostering student writing achievement, as follows.
Family involvement: Genuine, culturally responsive contexts for learning enable family/whānau/‘aiga to better understand their role in their children’s formal learning and take a more active part. Informal exchanges can be more fruitful than fono or hui, and whānau feel more comfortable to contribute when they can use their own language. The team are interested in what might happen if whānau had more opportunities to engage in school learning activities with their children.
Collaboration: It is well worth taking time to build buddy relationships through positive, non-pressured activities before launching into the writing. Strong relationships between teachers facilitate student collaboration. Pairing two neighbouring schools makes it easier to set up frequent interactions between students and teachers from different schools.
Fostering well-being and agency: Support students to take an active part by providing a safe learning environment. Provide regular quality time, guidance and support to the big buddies and prepare the younger buddies to take agency for their own writing.
Helping students learn how to learn: Initially, teachers should scaffold older peers in how to learn and how to support others to learn. Reduce this gradually as they became more independent and better able to use their knowledge of strategies to manage their tasks as writers and as buddies. At times, teachers should also teach all students together, so that younger students regularly observe the strategies and practices being modelled by their buddy.
Personalised learning: Explicit and deliberate acts of personalised teaching must be relevant, taking into account individual, linguistic, and cultural preferences and making links to familiar settings. Teachers should choose topics and activities that students will want to write about.
The team concluded that the five teacher practices, in their refined form, supported students’ writing by attending to three dimensions of students’ experience: relationships, culture and language.
Inquiry team
The inquiry team was led by Leanne Smith (Waikowhai Intermediate) and included:
- Timena Muna, and Helen McGrath — Waikowhai Intermediate School
- Lois Shinn, Chand Rai, and Miriam Lane – Waikowhai Primary School.
The team was supported by Dr Jean Annan from Positively Psychology.
For further information
If you would like to learn more about this project, please contact the project leader Leanne Smith at lsmith@wai-int.school.nz
Reference list
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