Parents Peceptions English Class Work

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ACUERDO 19 DE 1988 DEL CONSEJO SUPERIOR UNIVERSITARIO

Artculo 167:

La Universidad Distrital Francisco Jos de Caldas no ser responsable por las

ideas expuestas en este trabajo.


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To:

Our effort for making this achievable,

Janeth Velasquez for her guidance and

to our mothers for the energy provided


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PARENTS PERCEPTIONS OF THE ENGLISH CLASS WORK

DANIEL FELIPE FORERO

Code 20011165029

ORLANDO ARTURO OVIEDO

Code 20002165048

UNIVERSIDAD DISTRITAL FRANCISCO JOS DE CALDAS

School of Science and Education


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Licenciatura en Educacin Bsica con nfasis en Ingls

Bogot, 2006

PARENTS PERCEPTIONS OF THE ENGLISH CLASS WORK

Daniel Felipe Forero

Orlando Arturo Oviedo

A Monography work presented as a requirment for the Degree of Licenciado

en Educacin Bsica con nfasis en Ingls como Lengua Extranjera

Director

Professor Janeth Velsquez M.A

UNIVERSIDAD DISTRITAL FRANCISCO JOS DE CALDAS


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School of Science and Education

Licenciatura en Educacin Bsica con nfasis en Ingls

Bogot, 2006

Note of Acceptance

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

Director: _______________________________Janeth Velsquez M.A

Jury 1:_______________________________Professor:

Jury 2:_______________________________Professor:


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Acknowledgements

It is difficult to mention all people who contributed to our professionaland personal development in this project, however we hope these words may

reach all of them.

First of all, we thank God who gave us the health, support and guidance

of our steps. We also want to thank especially our mothers, they are the source

of our energy, their constant effort and devotion were the main inspiration to

begin and conclude this stage of our lives.

Our gratefulness to our professors who shared their knowledge and

experience. Their advice allowed us to make our goal achievable. Moreover, we

would like to express our sincere thanks to Janeth Velasquez. Her disinterested

right, valuable and unconditional guide as well as her certain words and

devotion helped us to make this research possible.

To the Universidad Distrital for its acceptance and for bearing us along

these years in which we did the best thanks to the support of the professors that

accompanied us along this path.

Finally, we should show our gratitude to the participants of this research,

both parents and children, whose contribution made us understand the

importance of working together.


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Abstract

The purpose of this study is to evidence parents perceptionstowards English class-work when they work collaboratively with their children,

using written productions as a means for communication. To make it possible

we focused on theory about collaborative work referred by Rivers, Beckman and

Vigotsky; also it was necessary to bear in mind the concept of written

productions seen by Shuman, Kazemek & Rigg, Peyton & Staton and Street.

This case study research was implemented with the students of

seventh grade in the C.E.D. de Cultura Popular and their parents. The students

were asked to communicate their feelings, ideas, perceptions, thoughts, etc. in

English through the written way addressing those productions to their parents

who were encouraged to write in response, working in collaboration with their

sons or daughters to build up the writings in English.

After the data analysis, the results showed that written productions

developed a space for interaction among parents and children where they had

the opportunity to both learn from each other expressing high motivation level,

and, at the same time, written productions promoted EFL literacy.

Key words: Parents perceptions, collaborative work, written productions.


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Table of Contents

Introduction.................................................................................................................................

2

Justification.................................................................................................................................

4

Literature Review.................................................................................................................................

9

Instructional Design.................................................................................................................................

26

Research Design.................................................................................................................................

37

Research Questions.................................................................................................................................

38

Objectives.................................................................................................................................

39

Type of study.................................................................................................................................

40

Instruments


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.................................................................................................................................

41

Setting.................................................................................................................................

44

Data Analysis.................................................................................................................................

47

Analysis of Information.................................................................................................................................

47

Category 1 Parents perceptions of the English class work.................................................................................................................................

50

Sub category 1Positive announcements.................................................................................................................................

52

Sub category 2Expectant comments.................................................................................................................................

55

SubCategory 3 Further suggestions.................................................................................................................................57

Category 2 Parents perceptions of their children.................................................................................................................................

59

Subcategory 4. Parents affection


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.................................................................................................................................

61

Category 3:Parents perceptions of the English Language.................................................................................................................................

64

Conclusions

68

Implications.................................................................................................................................

70

References.................................................................................................................................

72

Annexes.................................................................................................................................

77

DATA ANALYSIS.................................................................................................................................

55

Instruments Piloting.................................................................................................................................

55

Analysis of information.................................................................................................................................

57

Category 1: Collaborative work seen as learning from each other


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.................................................................................................................................

60

Subcategory 1: Parents and children: One world, two lives.................................................................................................................................

62

Subcategory 2: Parents and childrens lack of spaces to interact.................................................................................................................................

65

Category 2: Collaborative work based on exchange of roles.................................................................................................................................

70

Category 3: Developing an interaction space among parents and children.................................................................................................................................

74

Subcategory 1: Making links between home and school.................................................................................................................................

78

CONCLUSIONS.................................................................................................................................

83

IMPLICATIONS


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List of Figures

Figure No. 1 Topics developed in the English class.................................................................................................................................

27

Figure No. 2 Curriculum.................................................................................................................................

34

Figure No. 3 Research design.................................................................................................................................

46

Figure No. 4 Categories and Subcategories.................................................................................................................................

49


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Parents Perceptions

List of annexes

Annexe No. 1 Parents consent form.................................................................................................................................

77

Annexe No. 2 Survey No. 1.................................................................................................................................

78


79


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81Annexe No. 6 Letters to parents No. 2.................................................................................................................................

82

Annexe No. 7 Letter to students No. 1...................................................................................................................................

83

Annexe No. 8 Letter to parents No. 3...................................................................................................................................

84

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Parents Perceptions

Introduction

This project was born from our concerns about the difficulties presented

in students learning process from the Instituto Distrital de Cultura Popular in

seventh grade when they were asked to produce writings in English. We found

that parents showed great interest in the work to be developed with their sons

and daughters when we introduced ourselves to them, and, taking into account

that we had been wondering how to accomplish the purpose to make students

learn easily English language and doing this apprenticeship really significant we

came up with the idea to involve parents in the process due to the consideration

that in the learning process only important things are stored in the brain.

(Vigotsky,1979).

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Parents Perceptions

In order to make learning significant for the students this research

proposal invited parents to be involved, we supported children to write to theirparents expressing their feelings, emotions and thoughts on different situations

and parents read those writings, interpreted them and learnt how words and

structures meant to express many aspects and ideas. Then parents did write to

us about their perceptions about the activities done and sometimes incorporated

words in English encouraged by themselves to learn as an example for their

sons and daughters.

Children reported how good they did in English class through the

activities presented in class and parents through writings they sent to us every

week.

Moreover beyond the fact we took for granted that parents would be

interested in understanding what their children had written, it was remarkable to

find out in terms of English learning that they were carrying out a literacy

process.

In this paper we are concerned with showing what we did in our

pedagogical research and how we developed it. In that way the reader will find

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Parents Perceptions

the description of the project, the justification, the research method, the literature

review; discussing the constructs of the research questions, the instructional

design describing the approach, the objectives, methodology and evaluation,then the research design exploring the activities done to gather data, data

analysis with the findings of the study and finally the conclusions with explicit

answer to the research questions.

Justification

The core of this study is perception as a means of knowing what parents

consider about the activities performed at English classes of their sons and

daughters using the written productions as the proof through which we are going

to answer the research question and to evidence the way parents make sense

of the world through their writings.

As other main construct of our research we have collaborative work

expecting parents to work with us because they can take advantage of that

process to acquire knowledge by means of their own children and their written

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productions. Several parent/child interactions are important in preparing the

child to learn at school and Parents can even learn (Becher, 1984).

This study as an innovative way of teaching has arisen as a reaction in

opposition to the traditional teaching that we lived through our experience of

secondary school students in which parents did not work in tandem with

students.

In our project we have proposed to involve parents in the process carried

out with the students in the school as an innovative way to plan education.

When parents are involved in their children's education, both children and

parents are likely to benefit (Bowen, 1997).

To achieve an effective English learning and in this case English learning

to write, we require linking childrens written text to their familiar context aiming

those texts to the students personal expression towards their own parents.

Consequently, we have taken into account the principle established by the Ley

General de Educacin: Ley 115 de 1994 in Titulo VI de los Educadores where it

points out that:

La comunidad educativa esta conformada por estudiantes oeducandos, educadores, padres de familia o acudientes de losestudiantes, egresados, directivas, docentes y administradoresescolares and familia como ncleo fundamental de la sociedad y primerresponsable de la educacin de los hijos.

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Parents Perceptions

As mentioned by the Ley General de Educacin, this study looked for

setting down a solid relationship among parents and school in order to worktogether for the benefit of the childrens education, as Sandler (1995) confirms in

the following declaration:

Schools can take steps to increase parents beliefs that they havean important role to play in their childrens school success. Schools cantake also steps to increase parents and teachers sense of mutual

(partnership) responsibility for student educational outcomes.(Sandler,1995).

Furthermore, we wanted to know the socio-cultural background of

students, families and communities we observed and interacted with the

students as they read and write. There are many possible ways to develop

transformative pedagogy and moreover our question is highly related to this

thanks to the collaborative work according to Carr & Wilson:

Students do best when parents and teachers understand eachothers expectations and stay in touch with one another regard-ing the childs learning habits, attitudes toward school, socialinteractions and academic progress. (Carr & Wilson, 1997)

That is related to a current way of interaction between educators and

students that attempt to foster collaborative work among them and parents who

are concerned in the teaching-learning process. It uses collaborative and critical

inquiry to enable students to analyze and understand the social realities in their

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own lives and their communities integrating them with the topics developed at

school.

We intend to provide to a small group of the society represented by the

students of seventh grade and their parents, the teachers and administrative

staff in the C.E.D. Cultura Popular with a pedagogical proposal able to permit

students to stand out and have a high self esteem level and a critical mind that

let them take an active critical role in the society, consequently with the (PEI)

Programa Educativo Institucional of this institution in which the chapter three

gestin academica mentions that:

este enfoque se ha adoptado buscando la formacin de mejoresseres humanos a traves de una propuesta pedagogica clara y de calidadque permita que los estudiantes sobresalgan en las dimensioneshumanas esenciales: intelectuales, cognitivas, expresivas y afectivas,haciendolos ms productivos social y culturalmente,

and with its manual de convivencia in which the chapter 8 is dedicated to the

parents or accompaniers duties and it defines them as son los primeros y

principales educadores de sus hijos, artifices de la unidad familiar in other

words, parents are their childrens main educators consequently they should

perform their role as educational agents.

In addition, this study reaffirms the philosophy of Universidad Distrital

Francisco Jos de Caldas that mentions

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la vision de la UD, en su condicin de institucin de educacinsuperior de carcter estatal, popular y democrtica, ha de ser un centro

de produccin de saberes, con reconocimiento local, nacional einternacional, debido a su carcter dinmico, en bsqueda constante dela excelencia, la pertenencia y la competitividad acadmica mediante elfomento a la investigacin, la innovacin, la extensin, y la docencia.

Outcomes of this academic activity must be useful for the society and

compromised with the national identity and with the searching of new relevant

knowledge in the context of Colombian cultural diversity and the specific

academic cultures.

Finally, this study recognizes the vision of El Proyecto Curricular de

Lenguas Modernas that points: El proyecto Curricular permanentemente

involucrado en el proceso de mejoramiento de la calidad del servicio educativo

propicia innovaciones en el contexto investigativo, de extensin y de docencia

con impacto a nivel nacional e internacional, de acuerdo con la propia visin de

la Universidad.

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Literature ReviewBased on the main question of this research that is to analyze how the

perceptions parents have towards English class-work are brought to light

through their written productions when they work collaboratively with their

children, this chapter introduces an overview of the main constructs that oriented

the analysis and interpretation of data. This chapter starts by introducing the

concept ofperceptions then different perspectives on the collaborative work

theory and finally the conceptualization about how writingis conceived.

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Parents Perceptions

On purpose to give an appropriate conceptualization to our proposal, we

conceive the individuals participating in this study as parents and students;

where parent is any person who although not a biological parent has parentalresponsibility for or care of a child or young person, and students those who are

enrolled in the school environment. This conceptualization is also supported by

the ALI [American Law Institute] definition; a de facto parent is a person who

shares (at least) equally in primary childcare responsibilities while residing with a

child for reasons other than money. The de facto parents assumption of

childcare responsibilities must be either with the agreement of the natural parent

or result from a parents inability to care for the child (Mason & Zavac, 2002,

p.232). Furthermore, in this study the concepts of parents and students are both

conceived as learners since they worked collaboratively sharing concepts,

opinions, feelings and knowledge.

Along the study we have done during the current term we found how

expressive parents were when referring to the work done by us at school with

their sons and daughters, that is the main reason why we decided to work on the

perceptions they had in terms of the activities presented during the academic

year. Then we considerperception as what is apprehended through the act of

perceiving when something is presented by the bodily organs or by the mind;

discernment; apprehension; cognition or mental representation also the quality,

state, or capability, of being affected by something external; sensation;

sensibility. Every comment sent from the parents to us is the parents

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perspective; it is the perception that transmitted became part of our data

research. Perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and

organizing sensoryinformation. (The American Heritage Dictionary of theEnglish Language). In large part, the extent of a discussion of perception is

determined by the definition one uses in their discussion. For the purposes of

this paper, we will use a definition proposed by Forgus and Melamed (1976):

"the process of information extraction." Forgus and Melamed based their

description ofperception on cognitive structures. These are the processes that

determine how humans interpret their surroundings. Humans interpret their

surroundings on a "higher" level than those of animals, which perceive the world

in terms of stimulus-response or reflex-tropistic actions. Humans, on the other

hand, perceive their world through information processing. Because all humans

extract information from their environment through the same general process,

Forgus and Melamed proposed that scientists must pursue the concept of

perception by the avenue of information processing. This approach makes

perception the central step in the acquisition of knowledge and higher thought.

Perception is the "superset," composed of learning, memory and thinking as

"subsets" of perception. This understanding requires a more in-depth

understanding of the relationship between learning and perception.

Moreover, in our study we used parents declarations looking for

sentences or even words that showed up as perceptions of their approaching to

English language through the collaborative work with their children in which they

11
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/The_senseshttp://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Informationhttp://dictionary.reference.com/search?config=about&q=00-database-info&db=ahd4http://dictionary.reference.com/search?config=about&q=00-database-info&db=ahd4http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/The_senseshttp://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Informationhttp://dictionary.reference.com/search?config=about&q=00-database-info&db=ahd4http://dictionary.reference.com/search?config=about&q=00-database-info&db=ahd4


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had to read and understand some letters or cards wrote by the children or by the

teachers and afterwards they were challenged to write back to those letters. Our

consideration for including collaborative work as part of our theoretical framework and as the structure of the application of this study started as a concern of

linking parents and students, in other words, to establish home-school relations

to make parents able to know and monitor the work performed in classes and to

take advantage of and even learn what children could show them as part of their

academic knowledge.

In order to reaffirm our own considerations on the benefits and

advantages of having collaborative work between the students and the persons

are accompanied them at home we base on Rivers (1983) declares:

Learners are able to build up the foreign language system whenthey use it as a medium of communication. They have to make relationsbetween what they have already acquired and what they are learningnow while exchanging meanings with each other. That means skill-getting practice and skill-using performance have to move on side by sidein the learning process.

Rivers (1983) goes on to say that this skill-using aspects of linguistic

performance can be developed only in interactions. Our project is a search of

better learning environment where the students could share their interest in the

academic content matter and experience direct participation in the learning

community through their active participation in the project.

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Rivers also gave us the key to work on collaborative work. He claims that

students learn better when they are actively committed in the process. This is

evidenced through the work done at school in which we were the onesresponsible of encouraging students to work with their parents and moreover the

papers wrote by the two of them are proof to support this.

Another aspect that we have taken into account is that the collaborative

worklooks forward to enrich learning environment by offering students an

opportunity to express their personal meaning in the target language while at the

same time acquiring the language specific skills (Rivers, 1983). It is important to

clarify that parents are also learners in this study; this learning environment is

also the same learning event to which we are going to refer below.

Eventually the last aspect to research on is the one that says that the

collaborative work is to encourage students to be more active and involved in

sharing their learning process with others (Rivers, 1983). We understand by

others the other students in the classroom and the parents at home.

Bennett (1991) reports that, regardless of the subject matter, students

working in small groups tend to learn more of what is taught and retain it longer

than when the same content is presented in other instructional formats. Students

who work in collaborative groups also appear to be more satisfied with their

classes.

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We, in our experience, first as students and now as student teachers,

have realized that having a good interaction among students and parents ispossible to make them keep in their minds significant aspects that will contribute

to the learning process, in this case the English learning process.

We attempt to state that sometimes the relation school-home is not close

enough that is why we consider interaction through the Collaborative Workis

one of the main reasons to develop this project. The axiom that two heads are

better than one really is true when it comes to strengthening children and

families in a holistic way. By thinking, planning, and working together, the

individuals and groups that make a community can accomplish goals. Foyle

(1995) statesthat knowledge is created through interaction and not 'transferred'

from educator to student. (Foyle, 1995)

The purpose of this study is to evidence theperceptions when parents

are asked to be engaged in the process of learning or acquiring the English as a

foreign language, in this paper we detail how parents-students work is as

important as teachers role when looking for their motivation, our findings have

showed that the relation home-school is useful when reporting on how revealing

the students and parents work has been.

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We consider it is important to take into account that children are not

isolated human beings; in fact, the child is a social being by nature and is always

looking somebody to interact with. (Vigotsky, 1964), teachers, through theirinteractions with parents, play a major role in encouraging parents to support

learning at home. At the beginning of this project we were wondering on how to

sensitize parents to be committed in the activity that we proposed to them on a

school reports day, parents expressed to us their interest at the very beginning

and as the time went by we realized how difficult it was for some of them to have

the time to fulfill their commitment and that was why we decided to make a

choice on the participants more responsive to us and also to the proposal.

Sometimes parents felt with not enough basis to develop the written productions

assigned and we had a challenge to handle this situation because of the time

due to the work developed at school and the time for training students to

perform or to transmit the knowledge to their parents.

We found through the surveys applied at the beginning of the term that

most of the students expressed that they did the homework on their own and

that sometimes they presented some difficulties with ideas and words not clear

enough for them and they tried to ask for collaboration to their parents with not

good response because of their activities or because they considered that those

doubts had to be answered at school, in fact the students were learning, they did

not.

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We have that; language is both personal and social. It serves to think and

to communicate. According to Newman (1985), speaking, listening, reading, and

writing are all learned best in authentic speech and literacy events.We are concerned with literacy since writing is our main means of

communication with the parents and it is the prime source of data analysis in this

research. Street (1993), views reading as a social process that takes into

account the relationship and interaction between author and reader. Meaning

flows from an understanding of the cultural, social, and political contexts in

which the reading takes place (Street, 1993).

Literacy is socially embedded in the daily lives of our learners regardless

of whether they are aware of it or not. The literacy event is an occurrence where

the individual interacts with written text. (Barton, 1998).

In the written productions we have collected we saw how the writer tried

to express ideas and perceptions, even when the grammar was not correct yet a

regular reader is able to give meaning to what the idea was about. In fact since

the commencement we were focused on making the students express

themselves, their ideas, their thoughts and perceptions in a written way rather

than learning the mere grammar.

Learners achieve expressive and communication purposes in a genuine

social context. Learning how to use language is accomplished as learners use

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language to learn about the world (Newman, 1985). In addition, we can say that

the fundamental concern for someone who uses language is making sense.

We are concerned with the socio-cultural dimensions of written language

because it is deeply related with our perception of written texts as a way to know

students perceptions and to foster social interaction with their parents. This can

be evidenced when the idea of performing this project at that school was

received with great curiosity for the head English-Teacher who gave us all the

independence to develop the activities that we describe in the Instructional

Design.

From a socio-cultural perspective, reading and writing are communicative

acts in which readers and writers position one another in particular ways,

drawing in conventions and resources provided by culture. It can be seen in our

project when all the social patterns that surround the students environment

affect them. When we presented the activity to be done on mothers day

students took the social and cultural aspect of this celebration, they invited their

mothers into an unconscious process of literacy and socio-cultural event.

Mothers responded actively when motivated to be part of this new experience as

they have expressed themselves in the surveys. Writing becomes a way of

making sense of experience or discovering what one thinks rather than

performing functionally useful tasks (Peyton & Staton, 1996). According to Freire

(1987), literacy can be viewed as a relationship of learners to the world, as a

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form of cultural politics, and not merely a process of producing knowledge, thus,

he emphasizes literacy role in social as well as personal transformation.

According to Vygotsky (1964), thought and speech have different roots in

humankind, thought being nonverbal and language being nonintellectual in an

early stage. But their development lines are not parallel - they cross again and

again. At a certain moment around the age of two, the curves of development of

thought and speech, until then separated, meet and join to initiate a new form of

behavior. That is when thought becomes verbal and speech becomes rational. A

child first seems to use language for superficial social interaction, but at some

point this language goes underground to become the structure of the child's

thinking. It is then how Vigostkys point of view become into an important tool to

us, the child shows himself as a social being who needs interaction one another

with the purpose to communicate his ideas. We wanted to apply this concept

relating it to the written-production that each student developed.

A person since the early years is looking for the most appropriate words

to express ideas, in this process the adult is the one in charge of teaching new

words and the context to use them, the necessity to communicate is what

encourages the child.

Then is in this part in which we consider that the relation between parents

and students will be really significant even for the kids as for their parents and

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our labor will be the means to encourage the kids to write, to acquire the first

language at the beginning is something that is done into a sequential process in

which the students use to ask for all kind of things that are new for them andthey learn easily those words that are able to remember them a feeling or a

sensation or an attitude.

According to Vygotsky, all fundamental cognitive activities take shape in a

matrix of social history and form the products of sociohistorical development

(Luria, 1976). That is, cognitive skills and patterns of thinking are not primarily

determined by innate factors, but are the products of the activities practiced in

the social institutions of the culture in which the individual grows up.

Many facts will be determinant in the learning process, culture, the

environment and all those aspects that are surrounding the learner can affect his

learning process, society plays a role totally different in terms of culture, it is

difficult to find a parent with his son living in the same culture and with the same

ideals, every one of them has different conceptions that have grown up with the

social conceptions from each time, with our research we are wondering how to

close these two worlds so they will communicate one another using writing as a

means to know about feelings that are focused on the social aspect. Two

different worlds can be gathered when sharing common interests, when we

designed the activities to be developed we tried hard to involve topics in which

they felt part of the same world without differences of age, learning is a social

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event, we found the way to make the learning event worth enough for them and

it is stated in our research and our findings.

Vygotsky explains; the classroom is no longer teacher and students, it

becomes more an interdependent community with all the joys and tensions and

difficulties that attend all communities. This degree of participation often

questions and reshapes power relationships assumed between parents and

their sons or daughters (Vigostky, 1964).

Cooperative learning represents the most carefully structured end of the

collaborative learning. Defined as the instructional use of small groups so that

students work together to maximize their own and each others learning

(Johnson et al. 1990).

In cooperative learning, the development of interpersonal skills is as

important as the learning itself. The development of social skills in group work-

learning to cooperate is key to high quality group work. Many cooperative

learning tasks were assigned to students with both academic objectives and

social skills objectives. This cooperative workis between parents and students

but we cannot left aside that in class the students need also social interaction to

reach the objectives proposed for in the class and moreover, the team work at

school is conceived as a strategy for developing the activities to learn the

language in the academic context, at home they are not with the same patterns

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they have when in class, so that, is what we call the learning event that takes

place in their homes, in their own environment when there is not any person

tutoring what they are doing and how they are doing, it gives them a sense ofresponsibility to behave the best they can in front of the assignment they have to

transmit the information we have taught them at school and that their parents

learned. Built into cooperative learning work is regular group processing, a

debriefing time where students reflect on how they are doing in order to learn

how to become more effective in group learning settings (Johnson, Johnson and

Holubec, 1990).

Discussing about this cooperation process we regard the conception of the

relation parents-students because as we have stated before parents play an

important role in the apprenticeship of the students and of their selves and in

fact parents are part of our research.

As Street claims:

Tanto la investigacin como parte de la prctica de la alfabetizacin haexperimentado cierto desplazamiento hacia lo que podramos llamar unaconcepcin ms social de ella. Evitando caer en una definicin tipodiccionario de la alfabetizacin, como concepto de trabajo consideramosla alfabetizacin como las prcticas sociales de lectura y/o escritura(Street, 1984).

In this sense, the collaborative work in this project searched that parents

and children shared knowledge, ideas, thoughts and life experiences by creating

an interaction where they both had something to contribute one another.

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Parents Perceptions

With our project we are looking for social practice from both parts of this

research; on the one hand students, and on the other hand the parents, as the

students are looking for a means to involve parents the topic should have anaspect quite interesting to be worked on, as Street says: the literacy process

must be considered as the social practices of reading or/ and writing. (Street,

1984)

Shuman, A. (1983) coined the concept of literacy events, like an analogy of

the concept of speech event used in socio-linguistic literature. Literacy event is

that moment in which writing or reading has a role The point is to build on what

people know, and to incorporate their local cultural knowledge into schooling

(Moll, 1992), writing is a vehicle of social and cultural affirmation (Street, 1984).

When a researcher is attempting to investigate literacy, it is necessary to have

identifiable aspect to search for; the function of the concept of literacy event is to

facilitate this.

In this project is intended to organize and structure all the spaces in which

the teaching learning processes take place. We are aware that the place and

time in which parents and students are working together should be determined,

as in a literacy event in which parents-children work collaboratively (Shuman,

1983).

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Parents Perceptions

The writing process is more than a repetitive way of nonsense aspects

that are not longer in our minds, we claim that meaningful words are more

powerful than those that do not express the way we perceived and express ourconceptions about the world.

When children develop tasks and work in cooperation with their parents

all they have the opportunity to notice the view of the world that is laying down

beyond the signs and the written meaning. They learn and know about each

others thinking, conceptions and assumptions of what is their own world in

which they are living in and interacting. As it is evidenced in our data collection

students as parents are allowed to express themselves by other means while it

is provided and build a new space to exchange perceptions and to re-know one

another as Kazemek & Rigg claim (1995).

In the cognitive view, often called the "process" approach to writing, the

focus on meaningful communication for learner-defined purposes derives from

second language acquisition theory. Writing is a vehicle for reflection and

exploration of ideas because writing becomes a way of making sense of

experience or discovering what one thinks rather than performing functionally

useful tasks (Peyton & Staton, 1996).

The point is to build on what people know, and to incorporate their local

cultural knowledge into schooling, drawing on what Luis Moll (1992) calls their

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Parents Perceptions

funds of knowledge. Thus, pedagogical practices may encourage the use of

culture-specific genres, purposes, and content. The message in this approach is

that learners' cultural knowledge and ways of using literacy are valuable and canbecome a bridge to new learning.

A focus on meaning rather than form (grammatical correctness)

encourages students and parents writing development; instruction should

stress writing for real reasons, to real audiences in order to promote authentic

communication; writing should be contextualized and that content should be

meaningful and relevant to learners; learners need some degree of overt

instruction, which includes talk about writing, substantive, specific feedback, and

multiple opportunities for revision; social and cultural variation in writing

practices and genres needs to be taken into account; and all writing pedagogy

reflects a stance about the learner in relation to the social order. The most

important point is that teachers need to be conscious of implications of their

practices and of the power of the messages that their pedagogical practices

convey. Atkinson (1987), Auerbach (1993).

Children who have more exposure to English are often placed in a

position of translating and solving other problems for parents, reversing

traditional roles and creating additional stresses for all involved. Children and

adults are resources for one another (Cummins, 1981; 1996).

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Parents Perceptions

There are many sources of inspiration for innovative work in family and

intergenerational literacy that can make a difference. With movement in the

directions outlined above, it becomes possible to imagine schools thatunderstand and respond to families and communities; families that cooperate

with schools towards agreed-upon goals; and generations who find in one

another the resources to remember their past, to manage the present, and to

take on the future with confidence and joy (Auerbach, 1992).

As a conclusion, we developed a project that sought to see thoroughly

the collaboration that existed among parents, children and school by means of

the implementation of written productions as a space where parents and

students could communicate freely their feelings, thoughts, perceptions, etc;

recognizing the importance that each one of the members of the educational

community has in teaching-learning process.

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Parents Perceptions

Instructional Design

Previously, it was indicated that we applied English written productions in

the classes to work on the topics we had to teach at school based on the

syllabus for seventh grade.These written productions were planned through

topic-based work much as it helped us to relate the exercises to the experiences

and interests of children.

A topic according to our project is best defined by Mc Lean (1994) as a

small piece of learning material that produces a cohesive, meaningful learning

outcome. Part of the aim of a topic is to provide a framework that can help

students and teachers deal with the complexity of a subject

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Parents Perceptions

What distinguishes the topic-based approach from the traditional theme-

based approach is the fact that it concentrates on more general and cross-

sectional topics which involve various cultural issues. It makes students realisethat what they are learning about is not only institutions and systems but real

people, their beliefs and problems (McLean, 1994).

According to Alan McLean (1994), whose article was a direct inspiration

for the diploma:

A topic-based approach can provide an oblique yet original

encounter with life and culture. It deals with key elements of currentliving, such as class, privatisation, education, health, not in isolationbut within a series of unifying contexts.

Thus, the topics we planned in our pedagogical intervention were related

to childrens life and also took into account the participation of their parents. For

that reason, the activities were based on 9 topics that children had already

experienced, in an attempt to develop meaningful learning. The themes were

organized as follows:

27

My

parent-

student

Likes and

Dislikes

My

house

My

Parents

Neighbor-

hood

DAILY

ACTIVITIES

Occupation

s

Personality

The

World I

live


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Parents Perceptions

Activity No.1 Personality

In class, students did a conversation interacting themselves and usingvocabulary previously taught in class. We arranged groups of 5 people, and

each group was responsible of a group of adjectives. We gave them information

about the question to place in order to know about this; what are you like? And

they wrote it on a billboard, with this information they created a billboard using

different materials such as newspaper cuttings, silhouette paper, colors, etc.

Then, we fixed the billboards around the classroom and each group presented

them to their classmates, students realized some perceptions their classmates

had about them.

As a second activity, students made in their notebook the description of

their parents, writing what are they like and everything they thought was

important in their parents personality.

Activity No. 2 Occupations

Each student represented acting the occupation that their parents had.

Then, they wrote on the notebook what it was and why it was important. We

explained them how to work with the verb to be to write about their parents: My

mother is or My father is

Homework for parents:

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Parents Perceptions

Parents wrote about their sons and daughters occupation in the future,

mentioning why they wrote that and why it was important in our society.

Homework for students:

After students developed each task in classroom, they had to explain to

parents the homework. It was for their parents to do the same task but according

to their children information and if they wanted they could write a comment

about the activity.

Activity No. 3 Daily Activities

Teachers gave students some material where there were activities and

dialogues from people with different activities. They organized the dialogues for

these people according to the drawing and the daily activities.

Students drew in a written production comics of their parents daily routine and

in each drawing they wrote the activity and the time filling the gaps in the next

format:

My parent wakes up at_____________. Then he/she/they take/s a shower

at____________Later my parent/s go/es to work at____, he she they has/ve

breakfast at________, brush/es their teeth at__________. At night my parent/s

watch/es T.V. at_________and finally my parent/s go/es to sleep

at____________.

Activity No. 4 Neighborhood

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Parents Perceptions

In class, students drew different places in the city to work on places in

English. Teachers wrote a general description of the places, the location, the

importance, etc. Then, students wrote in their notebook about the neighborhoodthey lived in, mentioning what they have there and the importance of this plan.

Activity No. 5 My parent

In the next class we studied different ways to feel in front to the activities

the parents do, for example: I do not like the work of my mom because she

works a lot.

In this class we worked the negative sentences of the verb like and the

positive ones and reviewed moods.

Individually, and with the use of their own drawings they wrote a letter to

their parents communicating them the way they felt about this, parents sent us

back their perceptions and comments about what they realized about their sons

and daughters thoughts.

Activity No. 6 My house

With some pictures that the teacher gave them in order to know different

ways of houses in terms of space, location, size, etc the students selected those

pictures with the respective vocabulary that fitted better to their own house on

the purpose to write about it and to let their parents know about the way they

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Parents Perceptions

see the place with characteristics of each one of them (cramped, dark, sad,

boring, happy)

Then, students made a drawing in a letter of what they would like to have

as a house and they gave it to their parents who simultaneously wrote to us

comments about the activity.

Activity No. 7 Likes and dislikes

As in the previous class we worked the negative form of the verb like we

decided to work on feelings connected to moods in which students would feel

the freedom of expressing the way they feel in front of some situations and

giving complementary information about what they want to mean.

like / dislike

I to feel happy when my parents (father/mother)_________.

I to feel sad when my parents (father/mother)____________.

I to feel silly when my parents (father/mother)____________.

I to feel angry when my parents (father/mother)____________.

I to feel scared when my parents (father/mother)____________.

I to feel good when my parents (father/mother)____________.

I to feel bad when my parents (father/mother)____________.

Activity No. 8 My parent student

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Parents Perceptions

We gave the students the instructions to make, with the company of their

respective parent, a comic in which they would draw themselves in a sequence

of twelve boxes in which they would show us the moment when parent andstudent decide to start working on the assignments, besides the invented

conversation the parents sent us a comment. This was important to us and our

research to figure out how and where is that moment when the students meet

their parents to accomplish the scholar assignments.

Methodology

Along the different assignments carried out through this study, the teachers

assistance consisted on:

Guiding the development of class activities, and solving different questions

the students had.

Monitoring children and parents activities development. In class, the

teachers were responsible of explaining the students role when working with

their parents and to communicate the information given to them about what

we expected.

Students Role: The student conveyed information between parents and

teachers by explaining the topics and the activities to their parents according

to the activities they did in class. In that sense, we can see students worked

collaboratively with their parents.

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Parents Perceptions

Parents Role: Parents were active participants who developed, with the help

of their children, different activities according to the topics providing us the

information to answer our research question.

Teachers Role: Teachers were guides and facilitators who managed

activities development and simultaneously, they were researchers monitoring

the process, perceptions, and students comments in each one of the

activities. In that sense, they assumed the role of:

Class-counsellor: solving doubts on how to express in a better way the

studentsideas explaining and guiding them how to talk to their parents in

order to make them understand.

Organizers: be actively involved in the organization of the different

activities that students and parents did.

Figure No. 2 Curriculum

UNIT TOPIC GRAMMAR ACTIVITYCOMMUNICATIVE

FUNCTIONWeek 1

Jan.3-Feb.4

Who arewe?

Faces

Simplepresent tense:

Verb to beand question

formUse of

AdjectivesQuestion

word: who

ReadingPair works

Writingdescriptions of

partners, family,friends

Identifying peopleDescribing people

Week 2Feb. 7 -11 Personality

ConversationsWritingdescriptions of

themselvesWeek 3

Feb. 14-18

What arewe

doing?

Occupations Presentprogressive

tenseQuestion

Analysis ofpictures and

representations todescribe ongoing

Talking aboutactions happening

nowAsking for and

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Parents Perceptions

word: what

actions

givinginformation aboutsomeone is doing

Week 3

Feb. 21 25 The World

were living

Oral and writtendescription of real

factsExchanging

points of view ingroups

Week 4

Feb.28Mar.4

How are wechanging?

Appereances Use oflook like

Demostrativepronouns:

These, thoseQuestion

Word:How

Describingpictures and

findingdifferences andsimilarities by

pairs

Talking aboutschool, teachers

and friendsIdentifying

objects/ thingsDescribing

differences inpeople

Week 5

March.711 How are things

different?

Writing acomposition

called How ismy family

different?Week 6

Mar.14 18

How arewe

feeling?

Feelings,moods

Simplepresent tense:

to need,

to want,

to like+infinitiveor object

Role playshighlighting states

of mindWriting a cardexpressing howthey feel while

being in differentplaces

Expressing needs

Expressingfeelings and what

they want toobtain

Expressing likes

and dislikes

Week 7

Mar. 21- 25

HOLY WEEK

Week 8

Mar.28Apr.1

Likes anddislikes

Students askpartners about

what they like anddont like then

they fill in chartsWriting a lettertelling about thegeneral likes and

dislikes of thechildren in theschool

Week 9

April 4 8

What arewe

producing?

GroceryShopping

There is/are

Expressionsof quantity:some/any

Quantitative:

Reading texts andfill in exercises

Asking for foodAsking for andgiving pricesTalking aboutquantity and

Role playsperforming

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Parents Perceptions

many +

shopping at acommon grocery quality

Week

10

Apr. 11

- 15

Whereare we

doing?

Environmental

Studies:describing

placesPrepositionsof Place: in,on, under,

overAdverbs:near, far

Card game tointroduce

vocabulary

Written fill inexercises relatedto pictures andthings in the

school context Locating peopleand places

Describing placesWeek

11

Apr.18 22

Myneighborhood

To make adrawing of theirneighborhood

with somecharacters ,write a

compositiondescribing that

context and thingshappening there

Week

12

Apr.25 29

Whereare we

going?

Travelling

Adverbs:here, there

Prepositions:next to,

behind, in

front of,in

Students locateplaces in picturesHiding game in apark in order touse prepositionsas instructions to

find people orthings

Asking for andgiving

information aboutwhere places are

Week

13

May 2 -6

What do wewish?

Verb to want

+ infinitive orobjectObject

pronouns: me,you, him, her,

it, us, themPrepositions:for, at vs. in

Reading and

comprehensioncheck exercisesStudents write

shortcompositions

about the thingsthey wish

Asking for andgivinginformation about:Pupils objectivesParents objectives

Teacher andschool objectives

Week

14

May 10 13

Whereare wecomingfrom?

Histories andStories

Past tenseverb to be:

was, were (allforms)

There was/there wereSimple past

tense: regularand irregular

verbs

Reading legendsand tales and

comprehensioncheck exercises

Describing peopleand events in the

pastTalking about the

past vs. thepresent

Talking aboutyour childhood,

parents and family

Week

15

May 16 20

Communityhistories

Students searchfor the family and

neighborhoodhistory

Role playsperforming their

findings

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Parents Perceptions

Personalinsights

Students write acomposition with

personalreflections on

their family in thepast vs. in the

presentWeek

16

May 23 27

What arewe

learning?

Writing a letter

All thegrammarviewed

Students writesome letters to the

teacher and totheir parents with

free justexpressing what

they want

Expressing needs,feelings, thoughts

and asking forsomething theywant to know

Week

17

May 31 Jun.3 WholeAssesment

Students selfevaluation

Students teachersevaluation

Teachers processevaluation

self-evaluatingsuccess or lack of

success incommunication

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Research Design

This study had as an initial research question How is the collaborativework revealed when the parents are involved with their sons or daughters

English written productions based on whole language theory? however, during

the implementation of the project in the school, we realized that it should be

changed since the whole language approach could not be carried out as the

basis of our pedagogical implementation like initially we expected. For this

reason, we looked for another concept that was coherent with our information

collected from parents writings and interviews. Consequently, we decided to

omit the whole language theory and to include parents perceptions since this

was more appropriate to what we had in our collection of data.

Furthermore, another part of our main question was "sons or daughters

that was discussed during a presentation of our work in the seminar class at the

university. We realized that this was not related to what we intended to study,

because it has some concerning of genre that we did not concern. Finally, we

listened some suggestions from the audience possible changes and they

allowed us to reconsider this term and look for a wordthat was more in

agreement to our objectives in the study, and then we decided to include in our

research question the word "children" which was more appropriate to our

purposes avoiding genre consideration. Thus, we made the necessary changes

in order for the question to wrap up the objective proposed in our work, and

eventually the following question was posed:

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Parents Perceptions

Research Questions

Main Question:What perceptions do parents have towards English school work when working

collaboratively with their children?

Sub-question:

What do written productions reveal about the manner parents make sense of the

world?

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Parents Perceptions

Objectives

Main Objective:To analyze how the perceptions are revealed when parents work collaboratively

with their childrens English written productions.

Specific Objective:

To identify the role of English written productions when revealing the manner the

parents make sense of the world.

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Parents Perceptions

Type of study

In order to develop an adequate research, a case study methodology wasimplemented because it is aimed to the collection and presentation of detailed

information about a small group of people, including the accounts of the subjects

themselves.

In this study we worked from a qualitative, descriptive and interpretative

standpoint, consequently with the type of data we collected throughout the

development of the research. In fact qualitative researchers build theory from

observations and intuitive understanding gained in the field. In contrast to

deductive researchers who hope to find data to match a theory, inductive

researchers hope to find a theory that explains their data (Goetz and Lecompte,

1984, p.4.)

Besides the fact we made and performed a pedagogical intervention in

the research process in which the role of teachers was played to carry out the

pedagogical intervention, which was used at the same time to collect data, we

wanted to integrate the childrens parents in our activities because we knew

they would provide us with first hand information. Qualitative research is

interested in understanding the meaning people have constructed, implies a

direct concern with experience as it is lived or felt or undergone. (Sherman and

Webb, 1988, p.7)

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That is, the parents are the ones who know more about their own.

Furthermore, we think that it is time to encourage and allow parents to be

involved in the educational dimension of their sons or daughters and to makethem aware of the importance to do it.

We have designed the activities we implemented in the research to carry

out data collection. So, during these activities we collected data in which the

children and parents written productions were gathered to be analyzed and

support findings, the students wrote reflections; and observations were made by

us.

Instruments

Written productions (from children and parents)

Parents and students did all the activities of the pedagogical intervention on

individual sheets. This instrument was a way to show the task developed inclass by students, and at home by parents and students, also it is important to

clarify that through the parents papers we collected a part of the perceptions

parents had about the English class-work with the purpose to answer our

research questions.

Surveys

Nunan (1992) quotes that survey data is collected through questionnaires or

interviews, or a combination of questionnaire and interview. In this study we

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used questionnaires and interviews to collect data since they both were

complementary; one of them could corroborate the information that the other

one had.According to Cohen and Manion (1986):

Surveys are the most commonly used descriptive method in educationalresearch, and may vary in scope from large-scale governmentalinvestigations through to small-scale studies carried out by a singleresearcher. The purpose of a survey is generally to obtain a snapshot ofconditions, attitudes, and/or events at a single point in time.

For that reason, we used three questionnaries along the project, the first

one came into use at the beginning of the research in order to get general

information about parents occupation, level of education, English level, and their

willingness and interest to participate in the education of their children.

The second one was applied to the parents in the middle of the research

process to identify what was happening with the interaction among parent and

their children during the development of the different written production

assignments; and to collect their impressions, suggestions, expectations and

comments about the project.

The third questionnaire was applied to children also in the middle of the

research process in order to know parents perception about their children.

Likewise, we made individual interviews to the students (in the middle of

the research) and to their parents (at the end) with the purpose of identifying and

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Parents Perceptions

reinforcing the obtained data through observations, artifacts, and surveys about

the interaction among the participants through out the study.

Surveys (for children and parents):

Apart from the previous instruments, we prepared a plan of surveys taking into

account what Nunan (1992) claims:

Surveys items can be relatively closed or open ended. A closed item is

one in which the range of possible responses is determined by theresearcher. An open item is one in which the subject can decide what tosay and how to say it. Surveys can consist entirely of closed questions,entirely of open questions, or mixture of closed and open questions.Mixing close and open items to gather punctual information but at thesame time going deeper on what we sought to know.

Interviews (children and parents):

To plan the interviews we considered Nunan (1992) states:

Interviews can be characterized in terms of their degree of formality, andmost can be placed on a continuum ranging from unstructured through semistructured to structured. An unstructured interview is guided by theresponses of the interviewee rather than the agenda of the researcher. Theresearcher exercises little or no control, and the direction of the interview,the interviewer has a general idea of where he or she wants the interview togo, and what should come out of it, but does not enter the interview with alist of predetermined questions. Topics and issues rather than questionsdetermine the course of the interview.

So, it was decided that unstructured interviews were more appropriate for our

project; designing, in this way, more than questions, topics that guided us to get

the required information.

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These interviews were focused on the following topics:

o Feelings during the implementation of the activities where they were

together.

o Learning through learning events.

o Difficulties they found while doing the exercises.

o Help from parents to their daughters or sons in tasks of other subjects

o Comments and suggestions

o Perceptions towards English school work

Furthermore, during the interviews it was important to consider what Nunan

(1992) calls Briefing and explanation. He states that before the interview

begins, the researcher explains the nature of the research and the purpose of

the interview to the interviewee and answers any questions that he or she may

have. So, it was necessary to make an introduction where the participants could

know general information about the project and the purposes we had when

making the interview.

Setting

This research and the pedagogical intervention were implemented with

students between 10 and 12 years of age from seventh grade in the Instituto

Educativo Distrital de Cultura Popular.

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This Institution is a public school and emerged from the integration of three

different institutions in the Puente Aranda Locality. Those institutions were

Instituto Nacional de Cultura Popular, C.E.D. Santa Rita and C.E.D. Diego LuisCordoba and they were integrated in the year of 2002 by the Resolution 2361 of

August 14th, 2002 according to the establishment of the Colombian Political

Constitution, the law 115 of 94, the law 715 of 2001 and the Sectorial Plan of

Education 2001-2004, in order to respond to all the levels of pre-school, basic

and middle education with the direction of only one principal in the institution.

The institution is placed in the Barrio Ciudad Montes 3er Sector (sede A), Santa

Rita (sede B) and Alcal (sede C), the students belong to the 1, 2 and 3 social

stratum.

To implement this project we integrated the whole class in the activities

but for the matter of data analysis we preferred to select only some of the

students with their respective parents. Consequently, this selection did not have

any specific parameters besides the mere intention and disposition to participate

in it because we did not intend to intervene in the research progress.

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Parents Perceptions

Figure No. 3 Research Design

QUESTIONS TYPE OF STUDY CONTEXT AND PARTICIPANTS INSTRUMENTS

Main Question

What perceptions do

parents have towards

English school work

when working

collaboratively with

their sons and

daughters?

Sub-Question

What do written

productions reveal

about the manner

parents make sense

of the world?

Merriam (1998)

Qualitative research is

an effort to understand

situations in their

uniqueness as part of a

particular context and

the interactions there.

Merriam (1998) it is an

examination of a specific

phenomenon such as a

program, event, a

person, a process, an

institution, or a social

group.

Centro Educativo Distrital de

Cultura Popular.

District public school in Bogot.

Students: 4 students from seventh

grade between 10 and 12 years old

Parents: (3) mothers and (1) sister

in law with secondary level studies

and a basic English level.

Written

productions Interviews

Surveys

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Data AnalisisAnalisis of information

In this chapter we are concerned in the findings of our study; consequently

we have already specified the main constructs in a previous chapter in which we

explained detailed each one. We have eight participants among them four

students and four parents who were no selected at random but by the

commitment showed since the beginning of this study.

The research revealed that when parents felt comfortable with the school,

viewed their sons or daughters motivated, and believed they had influence on

their sons or daughters, their reported involvement with the students learning

was high. These perceptions and beliefs were found to be stronger when parents

understood and were knowledgeable about classroom learning and felt like a

partner in their sons or daughters learning. It was also important that many of

the teachers communications with parents were positive instead of conveying

only negative information which often discourages parental involvement.

Parental-role construction for involvement in childrens education reflects

parents expectations and beliefs about what they should do in relation to

childrens schooling. Roles are generally constructed from personal experience

and expectations as well as the perceptions and expectations of pertinent others

(e.g.,Biddle,1986).

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Parents also appear to involve themselves in homework because they

perceive invitations from their sons or daughters or from teachers suggesting that

their homework involvement is wanted and expected (Sandler & Hoover-Dempsey, 1997).

To collect the data we applied three instruments, the first instrument is a

survey from which we collected important information about expectations,

affirmations that parents had about the activity we were in charge of developing

with their sons and daughters.

The second instrument was the written productions. This instrument is a

way to show the task developed in class by students, and at home by parents

and students, also it is important to clarify that through the parents written

productions we collected a part of the perceptions parents had about the English

class-work to answer our research questions.

Finally the third instrument are the interviews with the parents and the

interviews with the students and even it is important to make clear that the

parents interviews were highly remarkable for this study because of the

information collected through this instrument.

Parents' responses to this open-ended instrument's questions were

analyzed using analytic induction to determine any patterns or trends across

categories. Responses that referred to similar or related outcomes were grouped

together. These groups were analyzed, and tentative themes were developed to

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Parents Perceptions

convey the relationship of the responses in category. The themes served as

working hypotheses for later analyses of the data. Confirming and disconfirming

evidence was gathered, and the themes were revised as needed. Throughoutthis process, responses obtained from the parents, anchored item responses,

and information provided by students in the course of the overall evaluation of

the program was reviewed to confirm the validity of the themes. This triangulation

of data across sources and methods served to enhance the validity of the study's

findings.

Figure No. 4 Categories and Subategories

QUESTIONS CATEGORY SUBCATEGORIES

Main Question

What perceptions do

parents have towards

English school work

when working

collaboratively with

their sons and

daughters?

Category 1:

EvidencingParents

perceptions of the

English class work

Subcategory 1: Positive

announcements...

Subcategory 2:Expectant

comments.

Subcategory 3:Further

suggestions

Sub question

What do written

productions reveal

Category 2: Parents'perceptions of their

children

Subcategory 4: Parentsaffection

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Parents Perceptions

about the manner

parents make sense

of the world?

Category 3: Parents

perceptions of the

English Language

Category 1 Parents perceptions of the English class work

In this study we are concerned about finding parents perceptions about

the English class work developed with their sons or daughters at school what is

made evident through their written productions and the interviews. From this we

collected data that when analyzed it was possible to divide it in three sub

categories converging to answer the first and main category. To give validity we

have decided to include bibliography of Dauber and Epstein who helped us in

analyzing some written productions parents did.

In their study of 2,317 inner-city elementary and middle school students,

Dauber and Epstein (1993) determined that parents' perceptions of their

children's school are interconnected with the school's attempts to involve parents:

"Parents' attitudes about the quality of their children's school are morehighly correlated with the school's practices to involve parents (.346) thanwith the parents' practices of involvement (.157). Parents who becomeinvolved at home and at school say that the school has a positive climate.But even more so, parents who believe that the school is actively workingto involve them say that the school is a good one." (p. 67) (Dauber andEpstein, 1993)

In the next excerpt it is possible to see how parent 3 has expressed what

she would like in terms of the English class according to the information taken

home by her son, in fact the student is a bridge between school and home in

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which he is the one responsible of transmitting information about what is

happening at school in the English class work.

The adjectives used are not part of the parents perception in isolation, it isdue to the comments that the students did about the class in which the form to

express their perception about the class is through the adjectives used; amenas,

didacticas y dinamicas.

In the next sample of interview it is possible to perceive that when doing

the precedent interview the parent 1 used a series of adjectives to refer to the

work that was being developed at that moment at school in which she was

committed.

14 T2 Como le parece a usted que sea el colegio el que busque la ayuda15 de ustedes para trabajar con sus hijos?16 P1 Me parece muy bueno, de hecho es como ms interesante ya que a17 veces el compromiso que uno tiene con las cosas es el que lo hace hacerlas18 T1 Se siente usted comprometida en este momento?19 P1 Pues mas que comprometida me siento a gusto de poder estar20 estudiando con la nia porque a ella le gusta y a mi tambin, adems la veo21 como alegre con las clases y toda como enrgica para cuando me dice que22 vayamos a hacer las tareas me siento que como que soy una parte23 importante de la tarea.24 T2 Como le parece el trabajo que esta implementando el colegio con los25 practicantes; bueno, malo, aceptable?

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26 P1 Pues la verdad es que los tiempos cambian, cuando yo estudiaba no se27 daban estas cosas y yo soy de las que pienso que si se inventan nuevas28 cosas es por el beneficio de la gente, y por ejemplo ac me parece que el29 colegio es muy acertado al buscar nuevas formas de ensear pa que no

30 todo siga montono sino que al contrario los nios estn animados, buena31 la labor del colegio.

Also the evidence of parents perceptions is presented in the form of

comparisons with the reference of previous English classes and in the form of

feedback about the results of the work developed in the class.

Sub category 1Positive announcements.

There is a similitude when analyzing the data gathered, and it is related to

the way parents see the process developed in the school, the speech parents

used was divided in three sub categories, the first one is the positive

announcements. that parents have in front to what is happening with their sons

and daughters.

There is a way to express this type of study and also knowing the parents

perceptions in which the verb me gusta takes an important role when expressing

some of the likes that emerge from what parents know about the classes through

the sons or daughters comments at home.

In the next excerpt we present a sample of the information above.

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A number of parents indicated that their children had become more eager

or interested in learning. Some described their children as more focused or goal-

oriented. Parents indicated that their children displayed more positive attitudes

toward school and evidenced a greater understanding of the importance of

education. Parents indicated that they had developed a greater understanding of

the higher educational opportunities that were available to their children as a

result of participation in the study.

In the next sample we present an excerpt from an interview in which it is

possible to seehow the parents perceive the work that is being conducted with

their sons and daughters at school.

65 T1: Como le parece lo que estamos desarrollando actualmente con los66 muchachos?67 P3: Pues la verdad esto es bastante diferente a lo que estbamos68 acostumbrados,

69 incluso la nia me cuenta que le gusta la clase debido a los practicantes 70que la hacen pues diferente, mas chvere.

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It is then through thehighlighted words that we as researchers are able to

figure out about the perception that parents are having about the English class at

school.

It is important to remember that a written production is a way of making

sense of experience the parents were trying to express themselves through

English even when itwas not a mandatory activity but beyond that we were not

interes

Parents Peceptions English Class Work

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Transcript of Parents Peceptions English Class Work