Class last night

Ah writing...the bane of my existence. It is not an easy thing to do and then you have a room full of people who already teach writing. I do not envy Charlie and Chris. But they did a nice job of getting us all on task and ignored our craziness. I liked how Charlie kept checking on how Jodi and I were working.

Reading March 30

No matter what, feedback sucks. The whole writing process is a complete pain to teach and then to have to comment on it. You teach students to make mind maps and brain storm. Then you take them into creating a paper from this. Finally you get what they think you were looking for and you have to comment on it. GACK!!!!!!!!

You try commenting on grammar and major problems, but when they turn in the next draft what you commented on are the ONLY changes made. This is an exercise in frustration!!!! I don't think it matters how you comment, students often do nothing with it, so what's the point?

The cow says moo

I thought the lesson using puppets to make animal noises to help students interact with the book was fun. It makes them pay attention to the story, and gives them a way to participate. I do think a conversation about animal noises would be appropriate, since they vary around the world.

I keep thinking about teaching reading, and I wonder how I would be taught to read in Spain, Mexico, Guatemala, Germany etc. I have a basic grasp of both Spanish and German, I'm not fluent, but I can definitely get myself in trouble. I've been plugging away at reading Harry Potter in Spanish for a very long time. Last year I was really trucking along, but I got distracted so I'm now in the same place I was last June. This isn't what I was taught to do, but reading is my love in English so it seems natural to me to want to read in my L2s. I occasionally read children's books in German, because they are in my home. However, they do not tax me, I grew up with them.

While I was learning German and Spanish I learned basic vocabulary (numbers, colors, simple greetings). Then we learned verbs...then we learned about other tenses the verbs could take. At this point I decided I could read on my own...but not well. How does this translate to TELL/TESL? Is it different because there could be a variety of L1s? What if the entire group shares an L1, do you then turn to the "format" for teaching a foreign language?

I guess I've digressed from purely reading, but these things go hand in hand in my mind.

Reading-again

I say Wo0-Hoo to all people who can read fluently, as described on 154 of MCM, in a second lanuage. When I try to read in Spanish I find myself so concerned about every word, there is no flow. I need to practice again, but it'll have to wait, yet again.

As I read the list of assumptions I went duh! (At me, not the book.) Why would everyone know that? And actually, the first one caused me to fail an assignment in highschool. (There was a political cartoon in the center of an article. I didn't get the cartoon, but did understand the article. Unfortunately, the two were unrelated.)

My next, Duh, moment came in labeling items in the room. I've seen it in French, German and Spanish rooms...Duh.It is really the same concept. I'm just into lists right now, because I liked this list too. Actually I just get excited when it's time to talk about reading.

Reading

I was intrigued by the discussion of oral reading. I read beautifully in German (or so my mother says) but I don't understand what I'm reading. I know the rules of pronunciation and use my skills from English to read ahead enough to maintain "fluency." Heck, I even recognize enough words quickly enough to not be entirely without inflection. But I have no comprehension, I do not read German for fun. (My spanish is in a similar situation.)

Now I have had students read aloud many times, and it can be incredibly painful. I'm not even thinking of the ESL students...a very large number of NSs cannot read aloud with fluency, I'm very sad for their future children. Throwing out all issues of comprehension and nerves...I can see using oral reading to give me an idea as to how a student is reading. How quickly can I expect them to read something I've assigned. It isn't perfect, but a general guideline. I believe I need to use this more in my classroom, because the more you do it, the less the nerves interfere...I just need to learn to let go of my need to read aloud to them.

Reading

I like the list of things a good/fluent reader does. I forget that not everyone does all of those things. I have been known to ask people how they "see" characters or scenes of a story...only to find out that they don't visualize anything. They ONLY see the words. It is no wonder many people dislike reading for anything but fact finding.

It's funny to me that the experts always break reading down: pre, during, post, awareness of structure, graphic organizers etc. (And I do all of these things with my students.) However they push whatever worked for them best. When you boil down everything experts say everywhere, the best and only way to improve reading is to read more. I will continue to teach vocab strategies, scanning, glossing, post-it noting...use graphic organizers to help understand complex stories, organize plots etc. But I will also continue requiring students to read every week and give credit for EVERYTHING they read: books, papers, internet, cereal boxes...they need to read and read and read.

Mariya's presentation

I love that Mariya always has enough information for about 75 lessons : ) I listen to her and figure that if the topic isn't going the way she wants she has a backup plan.

I found the emphasis on segmental/suprasegmental to begin class with interesting. I feel that this is something that depends upon the situation and that knowing what situation we were looking at could have provided a clearer conversation.

In the lab-I always find the peer reviews to be tough. We don't know the end vision the other group has. This means we may ask questions that are actually being answered through the development of other projects. (of course the portfolios and MGRPs are a little mixed in my brain and the latter isn't an issue this term). I think having a couple other standard expectations would help too, ie the statement being illustrated should be at the top of the project demonstrating.

MCM pronun chap

I was looking at the section about Kinesthetic Activities and it mentions the scene from the Wizard of Oz when they are afraid of the forest. First I love the scene, secondly I never realized they were stepping on the emphasized syllable...I was waiting for Lion to jump out. I think this would be interesting to try sometime. It aloso made me wonder how much I actually take for granted. I had this exact scene come up as an example in ESL 202, but it was a terrible example. This movie is a classic here in the states and the story is one I read when I was very little, along with all the sequels. It never occurred to me that someone could be unfamiliar with it, but not one of my students had even heard of the story.

I was also thinking about reduced speech and linking. For me they are very difficult to teach. I don't even notice that things are being combined in a way that would be "inexact" they are said how they should be.

I've mentioned before that I have trouble understanding some people because all the words have the same stress, intonation, length etc. They are pronouncing everything correctly, but all of the linking etc has been eliminated, because I don't think about that it takes me a long time to figure out why I'm having so much difficulty understanding them. On a related topic, my experiences in areas with many spanish speaking people has developed my ear for this. I am so used to listening to S/Central American Spanish accents that I rarely misunderstand and have a hard time picking out what they are doing that is non-standard.

Finally, I get four beats in the movie example on page 120.

Class I missed

I heard there was a heated discussion about men's and women's conversational techniques. I discussed the events with Charlie and determined that I actually agreed with him. Of course I did not hear how it was presented in class, so the tone of voice may have triggered my feminine pride. We also discussed how men and women discuss things in brief meetings. When men meet most men stick with current events and move on, most women will learn about families and health first then go into current affairs.

Whatever the fact may be, I know I contribute to raising the amount women speak. I love to talk.

Oral Skills Reading

So I was looking at the different activities (MCM 106-109) and I got to thinking, always a problem, I know. Anyway, discussion, speech, conversation even role play all make sense. However, I have a problem with role play. We all talk about it as if it were authentic speech, but it's not. In role plays there are two possible ways they can go: prewritten, or made-up on the spot. A pre-written one is not going to promote the thinking that is needed to produce spontaneous speech and often the phrases are stilted and no-one would talk the way the participants do. The other version is so full of pressure, not only does the student have to "perform" but they don't have the script...is this too much pressure? I know that I LOVE to act, but I HATE to role play.
For the record, I do see the value of pre-written scripts when working on certain speech acts etc, I just find them awkwardly written...even when I'm the author.

I also thought about the taped dialogue journals. I could see them being done as pod-casts. However, I do not see me ever making use of them in my classes.

Class 2/16

In spite of a rocky start to class for me, this was a good session. Stephanie and I had so many more activities that focused on different types of lessons. We probably could have taught for another hour. It is interesting how much time we spend actively and passively listening. Then there are so many different goals in our listening-to process for communication, to gain information, to take commands etc. Stephanie and I came up with a lot of ideas, but then the class provided us with more reasons. I had merely looked at processing from aural to written, then Chao raised the idea of negotiating for meaning. She needed to ask for repetition, this was an aspect that I hadn't thought of. The lesson brought out the ideas from the reading that we wanted and more. I felt it was a very successful lesson. My only real regret is forgetting to go over the rules for Simon Says.

Reading on Listening

I thought about the listening and it made me think of minimal pair work. That is "simply" listening and repeating, however it is listening with a very specific purpose. I also thought about how I always try to give my students a reason/goal with reading I also try to have something in a listening exercise. If my students are giving speeches then the audience has to write down a plus and a minus with specific things that were good or needed work. That way they have to pay attention to how the others are speaking. I like that listening lessons lend themselves to entertaining activities such as games and stories, rather than lecture...although that is a huge part as well.

2/9

Rachel and Stephanie did a nice job presenting the material. Their power point was worth the wait, because they used a good amount of humor.
I wish we would've had more time to edit or LPs because they were not very much changed from last week and I don't think it was a good example of how we would really leave directions for a sub.

Reading Week 5

I found the section on vocabulary acquisition to be interesting. (MCM) I especially was interested in the figures-500 words leads to frustration because everything is new, yet 2000 words (most commonly used) allow someone the chance to read and be able to access the unfamiliar words through context clues and have very few words that must be looked up. Then 3000 words for academic purposes. It fascinates me that a person could function in a culture with so few words; and surprises me that people ever thought 500 words would allow someone to continue on their own. I think the learning strategies are good reinforcement for what makes sense to me.

Finally I think that collocations are hard to teach.

Class Feb 2

Rachel and I presented last week. I thought it was interesting that the things she and I found so very bizarre did not seem to have phased the rest of the class. It also struck me that some of the questions we posed were for discussion, not for right and wrong answers. However, people were expecting right or wrong answers. In a discussion often the point is to talk about ideas and generate more ideas. Hearing what someone else thinks gives us a different perspective and a chance to change our own thinking. We brought the candy to encourage talking, but people spoke anyway. I liked that almost everyone in the class actually contributed to the discussion. I truly liked that some people who rarely speak up added to the discussion. I also liked that working with Rachel we were both able to bring in things that weren't in the reading. We had different ideas that we bounced off each other. I felt it was a successful class.

In looking at the group activity we worked on the rest of class I find it interesting that no two groups saw the same destination. Having such a variety of approaches it made it difficult to "judge" what was written by each other group. None of the groups wrote up their plan with enough detail for a sub. With that in mind I could have told each group, mine included, that they were failures in the planning for a sub stage. This makes me think of another thing. As a sub, I don't care at all about WHY the class is doing something, I merely want to know what and how. If the topic is very important to the development of the class I really hope that the teacher will be re-doing the entire lesson, because I do not have the background to cover the topic with enough competency to merit having done it in most cases.

Readings Week 4

In the readings this week there were many comparisons of cultures. I know I've written about wait time after questions before, but I'm wondering why this was not addressed in the reading. As we know wait time varies by culture and even within a culture by age.
If the appropriate wait time in a standard classroom, no ESL students, is 20 to 30 seconds, how does that affect an ESL class?
Are we quick to jump in? Having too much dead air? If native speakers need 30 seconds to respond, then if it is an L2 doesn't that mean that more time would be appropriate?

Why was this not addressed? the book discussed people being found rude or using inappropriate language for a situation. However, we are going to teach...shouldn't we know how long to wait for a response?

Week 3-Class

Brian did a nice job getting people talking about conferences. I thought it was interesting and we actually all had a lot to say. We also discussed team teaching. I find team teaching to be difficult, but I like the idea. The basic plan is that the teachers involved have the same students. This means a sounding board for each other. If the teachers have a theme, say astronomy, that could be dealt with in fun ways. For example, science could cover the make up of the stars, social using them for navigation, English could read stories about constellations and ESL could work on vocabulary for all the subjects because they are going to overlap. I've taught in a class where we tried to fill in the gaps, as Bekir talked about, but the students didn't respond to the other teacher. It was a terrible mess and I'm hesitant to ever do that again.

At the end of class we were all discussing what the topic in our proposal meant. We never came to a real conclusion, so I'll post it in the discussion board.