Chapter 9 in HDB was a good review of what we've discussed and what we need to keep in mind while planning. It is a useful resource for making sure we have a variety of activities and include controlled and semicontrolled ones. I liked the textbook evaluation form because it is much shorter than what we read last week.

I like what I read to be practical. I do not like to spend my time reading about theories alone. I like reading about things that are useful and that can include the theories. For me that is when the theories actually make sense.

Chapter 10 in the same book was nice for people who haven't done teaching. It's also a good reminder for those of us who have written a million lesson plans. It's important to refresh our brains as to what is important when planning. I find that especially important for me, because I find that I do these things by instinct rather than by any teaching I had as an undergrad. I like to reassure myself that I am doing my best to reach everyone.

Week 9 Reaction

It was surprising how many of us had not realized we were teaching lessons in groups in the coming week. We knew we had to do it at some point, but we were just not expecting it now.

The review of the multi-genre projects was interesting. Especially when the reviewers created the context for the project that was definitely not what was intended. It really gave us all something to think about. I also think it was interesting how defensive each of us was over the portions we had worked on. We really take these things as personal affronts.

Crazy that we find so much of these little things not as constructive, but feel attacked. I think it is human nature.

Overall I think it was a good week, in spite of my personal crankiness. :)

Week 9 Reading

I liked the MCM readings this week. The section of Guidelines for Language Classroom Instruction gives a nice outline of ideas to keep in mind when prepping a class. It’s easy to get set on a style of teaching (type of activity) to keep using, because it fits how we think as teachers. However, since people have a variety of learning styles it helps to remember different activities that reach the same goal. It’s also good to remember that sometimes a million activities are less effective than direct instruction (and the reverse). We tend to focus on leaving the “old lecture” style behind that we ignore it’s uses.

The most useful part of the ESP section, for me, was the one on preparing the curriculum and how to assess the needs of the learners. Again it helps to have a list of things to keep in mind when working on classes.

The lesson planning section was the same as in any other class.

I liked having a list of things to look for in text books. I’ve actually avoided textbooks. I just pick and choose the materials I want from a variety of texts to teach my classes. But it would be nice to have much of what I want to use in one source.

Week 8 reflections

I thought the presenters, Jodi and Mariya, did nice jobs this week. They were clear and concise.

I do have some thoughts about CASAS. I can tell Mariya truly enjoyed working with this system. It is well thought out, organized and easy to execute. However, the core tools of this program are against what I've been taught about teaching. This program seems to use testing. Standardized testing gets in the way of teaching. Every test given is time out of instruction. These students have the stress of testing every couple of months. They are going to feel the stress knowing the test is coming and not be as able to concentrate during instruction. The second aspect I have trouble with is that it encourages teaching to the test. When teachers focus on how to pass the test, other aspects disappear. They have to leave out culture or communication aspects. So is this the best way?

I know that these are adult learners and I haven't studied the strategies for adult learners. Perhaps incredible amounts of testing and teaching to the test are fine for adults. I just don't know, but listening to the concepts set off alarm bells in my head.

Finally, when Mariya mentioned some of the vocabulary I wondered why hasn't this been updated more recently. I know that updating tests is very costly, but if so many places are using the system (and adding the system) aren't they bringing in the money to do the update? I would think so. Then what is the company doing with the money, vacationing in Hawaii?

I guess I'm skeptical about this program because it seems too easy.

Response to reading Week 8

So when I was reading chapter 8 in Brown this week I wondered where some communities fall into the ESL/EFL category. There are several small towns in this area where a full third of the town is hispanic/latino. In these communities the students speak Spanish at home, because that is was their families and neighbors speak. However, at school they have to speak English...but they don't typically "hang out" with the English speaking students, they hang with the Spanish speaking students. This means these students are not utilizing the tools/resources they have available to them. They have the opportunity to use English through most of their school day, but they isolate themselves and choose to not practice their social English. Are these students still learning ESL...they've virtually created an EFL situation for themselves. The students I'm thinking of mostly came to the US in late elementary school or later.

The kids who came in early elementary school straddle the gap. They have friends who are NSs of English as well as Spanish. They hang out in both groups fairly comfortably and enjoy the benefits of bilingualism.

The adults in these families often do not need to learn English either because they have their children's (limited or proficient) English to count on. Schools hire professional interpreters, children interpret when necessary, and numbers are the same in the grocery stores. Small towns are isolated.

The chapter talked about various situations in elementary/secondary classes as well as colleges. But I just wondered about the isolated communities.

Week 7 Response

I enjoyed the active nature of the game from the presentation. Although at times it was a little heated.

The library presentation was a useful starting point. It was very helpful, to me, to hear a little of the differences in the different journal/article searches. I'd been just randomly choosing something and now I have a little focus. It would be expecting miracles for me to have more than a little focus these days.

I quite enjoyed reworking someone else's lesson plans. It's fun to take something and change it a little bit, with the goal of maintaining the author's intent. I hope that when the other group looks at what we came up with they can still recognize their original lesson. I have to say it was tough to change, because theirs was a lot of fun. I think we did change the target level, yet maintained the fun.

Confession time, I hate to blog (sorry Chris and others). I hated keeping journals in the past, I occasionally try to force myself to do so. I just hate it. A blog is so much like a journal only rather public. I find it invasive. I enjoy my privacy, yet have no qualms about sharing my thoughts in person. Perhaps that is the performer in me. I worry that things I write will be misunderstood because I have such a clear voice in my head (my own voice, not the kind that tell me to do things) that is full of sarcasm, tenderness, laughter etc. I often find myself misunderstood and I don't like that. When I speak, the tone of my voice fills in the blanks that writing leaves. I could fill them in, in writing, but I'd sound downright silly (she said seriously).

Reading Week 7

L&S ch 3 dealt with when it's best to learn a language. Basically if it's done very young the learner will gain near native fluency. However beyond that studies are all over the place. Various ages learn different aspects more quickly than others. In the end there wasn't any clear cut advantage in adolescent vs adult learning. Different characteristics can be "proven" to be most important in acquisition.

The chapter in Brown about age levels was obvious. For one thing younger learners don't have the vocabulary in their L1 to talk about the concepts that adult learners do, therefor there will be things that can't be done in their L2. Also, when planning activities for a class, a good rule of thumb is 1 minute per year of age, then change activities...this has to do with attention span. You go too long and they are playing TMNT, Little Ponies, Harry Potter, planning their next date, passing notes, paying bills...they've made the change for you. Of course this is only a rule of thumb, and some activities hold them longer.

The specific advice in chapter 7 felt fairly obvious. However, it was so nice to finally see a breakdown of the major levels of language acquisition. In trying to plan a lesson for _________ level learners I was completely making things up. I didn't know what it meant and made guesses. If I said beginning I went way back, and advance very advanced. I made sure I never had to plan anything for intermediate learners, because how far from the extremes was it really. This chapter would make more sense at the beginning of the book. For one thing, knowing what level I am looking at makes different theories hold more true in my head than others.

Class

I kind of liked the presentation as lecture this week. We could participate as we had reactions or we could sit back and absorb the information. I liked reviewing the major points from the reading, because I don't retain the specific points, just overall ideas. This helped me focus in and file the information.

I found the organizing of the twelve styles interesting. Our group was pretty laid back, yet I could see that some members didn't agree with what we decided. In spite of the difference of opinion, nothing was said and they just went along with what the rest said. It was unfortunate because they may have had valid arguments that we didn't get to hear.

I did not like the placing of ideas on the board. Partially because I was not in a frame of mind to walk around and read various ideas. But also because the boards were so crowded we couldn't get close enough to really read the thoughts. I also found nothing inspiring that was up there, this sounds evil!!! I don't think it was though, it would have taken a three ring circus to inspire me during class.

When we did the discussion of the learning styles I realized that I actually enjoy the large group discussions, whether or not I vocally participate. The thoughtful discussion of various topics intrigues me. I may not agree with what's being said, but I like to hear why other people think the way they do.

I realized, as we worked on the lesson plans, that the difference between content and language objectives is fuzzy in my brain. All the language objectives I could think of were grammar related. I need to review objectives that don't focus on grammar.

Class response

I enjoyed the energy Stephanie and Brian brought to their presentation. I think the review and the way they got to the review of the reading was good, what I felt was missing was any discussion of the material. When there was dispute of the answer we just continued on. We weren't really involved in the process, only saying true or false. The supporting of a particular view was interesting, it might've been even more engaging to support our "choices" in a verbal debate. Overall, I felt a lot of thought went into this presentation.