Kuma Chapter 13 and Anthology Chapter 3

Kuma Chapter 13: Monitoring Teaching Acts

We must help teachers be flexible with the ability to create their own theories for the situations they will encounter while teaching. We cannot teach them how to deal with all the situations they encounter. Instead we must teach them to become autonomous in that they can adapt to what they may find in the classroom.

Self-observation and analysis is very important in teaching and can help teachers become more efficient in their classrooms if it is done with as much of a lack of bias as possible.

Product-oriented models have their merit in teacher observation in that the teacher receives input and guidance from an outside source who is able to observe them as they teach and work with students. When an observation comes from a supervisor or teacher with more experience, the teacher being observed is able to consider what they can improve upon and what may help them teach more efficiently. I would find this kind of feedback particularly useful in my own teaching, especially as a new teacher. In my own teachings I’d like to be abroad and having the guidance of a teacher who has been a part of the culture longer than I have will help me adjust and work with the students in their comfort zone instead of only sticking to my own roots in teaching theory. With this in mind I think this model will be very useful for me.

The process-oriented model also has its merit in that it considers the inner workings of the teacher and students and how they process the teaching and learning their classroom. As Kuma notes, it is rather cumbersome and seems to mostly benefit “researchers, supervisors, and teacher educators” (288). I know it would be beneficial for my teaching to be able to analyze my own teaching processes while also receiving feedback from my students but I think that these models need to be combined, like Kuma does with his M & M model so that I can have all three points of observation to help me improve my teaching.

Kumas presentation of the M & M observational scheme seems to take data from both the product-oriented model and the process-oriented model and combines them to give the teacher a rounded out way to analyze their teaching. I especially find the videotaping of your teaching to be helpful. I think that watching yourself teach is much different from being in a teaching situation because you are able to go back and observe your processes and how the students reacted to said processes. As far as step 7 is concerned, when the observer and teacher meet with students to discuss their view of the teaching, I think this can be a good idea but with students, depending on the grade level, this could become very difficult. Students may not have the ability to describe processes or they may have no interest in the subject matter being taught. They may feel pressured to say something ‘nice’ in front of the teacher. I feel that in the case of students, anonymous questionnaires may be a better route because there is less pressure to be ‘nice’ or ‘polite’. There is no fear of bias towards grades when the teacher doesn’t know who said what in evaluations. The issue with anonymous evaluations becomes that many students don’t take them seriously. So it is a difficult thing to reconcile.

Anthology Chapter 3

Lesson planning is definitely an important part of the teaching process and I know it will play a key role in my own teachings because I want to teach abroad. The daily planning will become crucial with my students and how I teach because I am working with a new culture (for me anyway) and I know that lessons may take longer or shorter than I originally plan. That being said, planning is important but there are many things we cannot count on, thus we must have a flexible attitude towards our planning and lessons so we can adapt to our students learning processes.

Kuma 11 and Leki

Chapter 11: Ensuring Social Relevance

Standard variety is prestigious because of social, political, and economic factors.

Recognition of varieties of English is essential in the ESL classroom to help students.

It is interesting to me that the book talks about two situations, one in Britain and one in Sri Lanka, where the use of the L1 seems to be fairly heavy. I suppose it depends on the level of the learner but I think it would be fairly difficult to use the learners native tongue if you, as a teacher, don't know it or are not familiar with it. I liked the idea of a bilingual aid but that can become expensive for the school to pay another person to help in the classroom. I feel this could become difficult in terms of getting the school to hire a bilingual aid. They may say that you shouldn't be using students' L1 and that doesn't not include taking into account the different languages of students. This is especially true in Britain and the U.S. because you are dealing with a classroom which may have many different native languages present. It presents an interesting problem. Though I still believe that acknowledgement and use of the L1 can be extremely helpful when learning your L2.

Leki

Lekis' article makes an interesting point because we, as teachers, may believe that we are not included in those who look upon the ESL student as their ESOL representation but, as Leki states, “that would be missing the point.” I find myself in that boat as well. I don't think I would look upon students according to their representation in society and the media but, even if I think I don't, how do I address those issues in the classroom? There is always some kind of underlying bias due to our own social conditioning and this is also true for students in the classroom. Being in an open dialogue about this topic could become difficult if we are convinced that we do not hold these views about the ESOL student. It is an interesting dilemma, one that I'm not sure how to solve or work on.

Chapter 5 + 7 Kuma

Chapter 5: Facilitating Negotiated Interaction

Interaction with target language is key.

Types of interactional activity:
    •    Textual Activity makes use of Krashens Monitor Model and i + 1 as a means of teaching students. The best way for them to learn their L2 is to receive comprehensible input.

I think that students can learn how to understand and speak a language (at a young age) just by listening and interacting with the language in that way but they will not be able to write or read the language with any sort of proficiency and that can be very detrimental to the students’ academic career. Because there is no active participation by the learner there seems to be a lack of learner autonomy in this kind of activity.

    •    Interpersonal Activity includes specific types of interaction in which the negotiation of meaning is involved (Prevent or repair communication breakdowns).

Being able to converse with native speakers and being able to adjust your own speaking can be extremely helpful in learning a L2. This kind of interaction allows the learner to take some control of their learning, instead of just being spoken at. There may be more use of mental facilities and a focus on correct grammar when speaking to become comprehensible. The learner may be able to notice further their own mistakes when they are corrected by those with a higher proficiency.

Comprehensible output is actually, in my opinion, a very important piece to learning a language. In my own language learning for Spanish the best ways that I’ve learned and gained further fluency is to 1) hear the language spoken to me by native speakers and 2) to be able to respond and sound out my own output of the language. With this kind of method I find that I learn from the native speaker and their use of grammar and I also learn from my own mistakes as I speak and correct as I go along in the conversation. So I consider output to be a key part of learning an L2.

    •    Ideational Activity pits ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) against i + 1 and how one follows a meaningful interaction model while the other merely suggests input at the learners’ level and one step higher with no emphasis on interaction.
This method is focused on interaction and the learner but it also takes into account sociocultural factors and the effect they have on L2 development.

Chapter 7: Fostering Language Awareness

Language Awareness Movements:
    •    The British Movement: 1975 report of the Bullock Committee to go into “the teaching to reading and other uses of English” Promotion of linguistic tolerance began and a few educational reform proposals began. A new desire arose to create curiosity in students concerning language and its uses in everyday life and how it changes our lives.

    •    The American Movement: The Whole Language Movement  ~1975. This is the introduction of language into all aspects of classwork and disciplines. It looks to enrich the experience of the students with language. A new recognition of diverse linguistic resources that learners bring to class.

This idea of using language and acknowledging language in all aspects of the curriculum, in math classes and whatnot, reminds me of changes made to curriculum that require the use of math across the curriculum which was implemented when I was in junior high and high school. It seems to be used as a way to create more linguistic awareness, just like the use of math in all courses was used to improve the math scores/knowledge for students.

Language Awareness of Language Teachers
In my 241 English class this semester we have talked quite extensively about the issues of teaching and how problematic it can be when teachers themselves do not understand the language they are teaching which is why knowing the languages’ history is so important. Teachers must have language awareness so that we are not leaving our students with answers like the one on page 161. Having no answer at all, or saying something happens just because it does, can cause serious confusion for students who are trying to learn English as their L2.

Section 7: Chapter 13, 14, & 15

7 bad reasons - these reasons are justified as bad reasons to teach grammar. Most of them seem to fall under the category of ease for the teacher.

2 good reasons - these are both very important reasons to understand grammar to some degree. I think comprehensibility is number 1 though because grammar helps students make sense of what they are hearing while also have the ability to help others understand what they are trying to say. It also helps with reading and writing ability which are essential in the adult world of jobs and academia.

Grammar-focused teaching making way for Task-focused instruction - I find a few things here that I disagree with, though the author of the article may do so as well. It seems to met that the ideal is placed on the Communicative Language Teaching approach with positives ranging from speaking fluency to use of implicit knowledge to vernacular speech style; yet there can be no communicative teaching without some basis in grammar and vocabulary. As student cannot merely speak the language without some background knowledge and this means that early classes for ESL students just starting to learn English need to consider their needs as well. They have reason to learn, for the vast majority of the class, grammar and vocabulary so that they can move on to communicative situations. Until they have that base of knowledge they won't be able to communicate in the first place.

This is noted later in the article as they take a second look at task based learning. The students are unable to fully communicate without the grammatical knowledge nor can they speak well without knowledge of the vocabulary they need to describe the situation.

Now, the article calls for addressing accuracy prior to the task, which can be helpful, but this is in the context of teaching grammar that may be used in the task and teaching before the task is completed. I'm still not sure I agree with this methodology because, though it gives the students a key as to the grammatically correct answer, it does not help them retain this information. I view grammar as something that needs to be practiced, more than once, more than just before the task. It's very similar to studying for a test, at least, it is for me.

When I'm studying for a test, many times. I will prepare for the test, memorize the information temporarily, go to the test, do well on the test, and then promptly forget most of what I had 'memorized' for the test because there is no reason to hold onto that information. Now I realize this makes me a bad student in some ways and I don't do it all the time but it happens and I could see a lot of students using this method when not being given explicit grammar instruction.

That does not mean I'm against communicative language teaching because I actually find it to be quite useful, for more intermediate to advanced learners.

Anyway, that is where I shall rest for this blog post.

Kuma 6

The educational goal is to create autonomous individuals who are willing and able to think independently and act responsibly (p.131).
Learner autonomy has a strong connection with learner motivation.
Related terms: self-instruction, self-direction, self-access learning, and individualized instruction.

Self-instruction is difficult to come by in any classroom situation because learners don’t always know what they want or need to learn thus the teacher takes the lead. There is some self-instruction in research projects in which the student must present what he/she learns to the class but it seems rather difficult, in many classroom situations to follow a self-instruction model entirely.

Narrow view: learn to learn
    -equipping learners with tools necessary to learn on their own.
    -training them to use appropriate strategies for attaining their learning goals.
    -Processes: planning, monitoring, problem solving, and evaluating.

These methods can be effective but I feel L2 learners must have a higher proficiency in order to understand how to use these strategies because they will have to understand the vocabulary and concepts of the strategies in order to utilize them. This can pose a problem for first time learners of an L2, or early learners, who are still working on the basics of the language. This can also pose a problem for teachers who may not speak the languages of all their students in their class and thus cannot necessarily give the students these strategies in their L1. Is there a way to teach these early students these strategies without confusing them in their learning of the L2?

    -Allows learners the choice to be autonomous or not.
    -Academic autonomy.
    -Critics: can create successful language learners but not truly autonomous individuals.

Broad view: learn to liberate
    -Learning a language as a means to an end, learning to liberate.
    -Liberatory autonomy.
    -Empowers learners to become critical thinkers in order to realize their human potential (141).
    -Allowing the learner a way to connect with social, political, and cultural aspects of L2 learning and  its consequences.

Liberatory autonomy makes for an interesting idea if we do not consider the administrative policies in place in the classroom/teaching environment. Talking about and using social, political, and cultural aspects of L2 learning in the classroom can be an extreme challenge for teachers to navigate with all the red tape of what must be learned in the given amount of time and what teachers can and cannot do in their classrooms. This does not mean that we, as teachers, should give up addressing these topics and ideas but it does mean that helping students form their own liberated, autonomous identity can become an extremely difficult task which may not happen in the time allotted.

(Reflection 6.4) I see these autonomies as a continuum, not as opposites or as separate things. I believe each can be used in the classroom setting at any given time depending on the task at hand and what the teacher (or students) feel best fits the situation. I think that, even day to day, the classroom can go from academic autonomy to liberatory autonomy and anywhere in between.

Learner autonomy is double sided and must be a joint effort between teachers and students in which the teacher must decide how much they are willing to let go and how much students are willing to take hold of their learning. In many classrooms teachers may find no desire in the students to take hold of their own learning whereas in others there may be an overwhelming desire from learners to be autonomous or, at least, have a willingness to become autonomous.

October 11th Post

Chapter 18 (Anthology)

This chapter is a basic discussion on what adult ESL learners need to become proficient in a second language. The article discussed quite a range of points but each one seemed fairly similar to things we've discussed before, though maybe for younger students. As important as it is to review these things I think that this chapter is repetitive in that it doesn't give me information I didn't already know.

We, as TESOL students are aware of the complexities of learning a second language and (many of us having been learning our L2's as well) we are aware of the difficulties of speaking a L2. This chapter basically sums up what a teacher for adult ESL classes can do in order to make the learning process smoother for the learner and help them learn in a systematic and efficient way.

Chapter 20 (Anthology)

I don't like the idea of using an entirely structured format in any discussion activity because the students have no way insert there own opinions into something of that nature. They cannot, as learners, bring their own knowledge into the topic because of the structure. I think this also takes away, extremely so, from student creativity. So, though it may be viable, I find it to be ridgid.

This chapter, article, makes a great point that this guided approach (as I said before) may be viable but the article shows us a more student centered, yet controlled, environment in which the students have a say and a voice and an opinion.

I suppose the charts (on pages 228 and 229) to keep track of the discussion and help it move along could be useful but I feel they should not be taken too seriously because, if a teacher should only be focused on charts and the questions they should ask, they may miss important learning opportunities for their students throughout the discussion.

Also, a teacher may find natural breaks in the discussion and the questions in Figure 2 are fairly self explanatory so I don't believe they need to be followed to the 't'. They just need to be ready to be used by the teacher in the discussion as the need arises.

Anthology Chapters 30, 31, and 32; Ferris article

Starting with Ferris's article on the Myth of Error Correction for ESL students I have to say I fully agree with Ferris in that an ESL student cannot be expected to have 100% accurate and error-free papers. I would be very impressed if any student, native speakers included, could procure a completely error free paper on the first few tries. I find this kind of a standard to be ridiculous as I know even I struggle to produce error free writing. It is human to err and applies to all groups, ESL and not. Thus Ferris brings up valid points in giving students the chance to self-edit and really work with their own writing, with the teachers guidance, to be able to better edit their papers. I think this is an important strategy in helping students recognize their own errors.

At the same time I find that working individually with students, not just in writing but in all classes, can become a very difficult task because of the overcrowding of schools and lack of funding to hire more ESL teachers. Individual work with the students can become impossible in some situations which can be detrimental for the students when they don't receive the feedback they need. I see this as an opportunity to come up with a strategy for just such cases. How can a teacher reach their students if they are teaching large classes of ESL learners? Or how can they reach ESL learners in large classes of native speakers in those school who do not have extensive ESL programs?

I think these are two very important questions to consider with this kind of instruction for writing.

As far as the Anthology chapters were concerned I felt they were very straight forward on how to teach ESL students different skills for academic language and academic learning they will have to partake in for their day to day classes. The chapters brought up important steps on how to work with the students to help them obtain theses skills.

Finally, I need to note here what kind of a project I will be partaking in for the semester. I will be writing a research paper on CLT and how this method needs to be changed in terms of how teachers use it, or when they choose to use it.