readings for week 5

I thought the assigned articles were interesting this week because they pointed out various viewpoints that I hadn’t previously considered. For example, Skehan’s article mentions that although input is a crucial aspect in language learning, along with interaction, these two combined are still not enough.  I always agreed that input alone is not enough because it provides no opportunity for practice or learning through interaction, this article suggests that focus on form is equally as important. I thought this was interesting because I never really remember focusing on form when learning my native language, but I did find it important when acquiring my L2. This was somewhat eye opening to me because once I began learning my L2, I started comparing the forms and meanings to my L1 which in turn helped me develop my L1 as well.

I strongly agree with the Skehan article and its stress on the importance of negotiation of meaning. I never really applied negotiation of meaning to my language acquisition process but I realized the importance of this concept when I reflected on my learning of particularly difficult topics for me like geology. The only way that I found out I could acquire the new concepts was when I talked them out with a friend until we both agreed on a definition we created together.  

The section of the various tasks and how the author thought it was difficult to provide an exact definition was interesting to me because it reminded me of another class activity in which my classmates and I were asked to provide a definition of “text”. What I thought was a relatively simple word turned into an hour long debate on what could be considered a text. In my opinion, I think that tasks requiring justification and interaction are the two best tasks in regards to language acquisition. These are the two methods that best prove whether a student has a real understanding of the language because  they are forced to communicate with interaction, and justification shows that they can explain a conclusion once it is reached.

When comparing the task based instruction article and the end of CLT, I thought that they both were similar in stating that CLT is just not enough.  The quote about communicative language teaching not being enough because it was focused on the teaching and not learning really caught my eye because it shows how much you can take away from just the title of something. I think that focusing more on the context and veering away from just the main principles of CLT a happy medium can be reached.

 

Readings for Week 4

Once again, I would like to point out the beginning quote. I love the comparison between teachers and their ability to sway only after having a stable and steady base to ground themselves to. As much as I am indifferent to the idea of “tenure” I think this metaphor is a perfect example of teachers who have been working with a school for an extended period of time and the luxuries they come to find after putting in their time closely following guidelines.

I liked the way Kumar presented his classification of methods as language-centered methods, learner-centered methods and learning-centered methods. He continues to explain that language centered methods are concerned with linguistic forms, or grammatical structures that seek to provide practice examples that may help lead to a mastery of the language.  Kumar argues that language is developed through a conscious effort, so does that mean he is opposed to the critical period hypothesis? Furthermore, his idea of learner centered methods aim to “make language learners grammatically accurate and communicatively fluent” and it differs from the first method because it is more concerned with the learner and their understanding of the linguistic forms.  Lastly, he presents learning centered methods that focus primarily on the learning process and language development is considered more incidental than intentional.

I thought his ideas of post method pedagogy, entailing particularity, practicality and possibility were presented in an interesting fashion and the visual of the three dependant on one another in the circle was a nice touch. Without teaching towards specific students, with much practice and embracing your individual character as a teacher, I agree with Kumar that the learning process would not be the same.

I had never really dissected the meanings of either communicative language learning or task based language teaching but it was interesting to see how Brown compared the two. I like the idea of TBLT because it requires lifelike interactions, there is an assessment of the activity and there is a problem to solve.  By using real situations it is easier for a learner to acquire new terms, expressions and behaviors common to a certain culture.

Beyond methods ch. 1

"To teach is to be full of hope” this very first quote that started the chapter really caught my eye before I began reading because it is absolutely spot on.  I think that all teachers must be very optimistic and have passion for sharing their knowledge with their students.  Without hope this would be an extremely taxing job that would never be enjoyed. As I continued reading I thought the different classifications of teaching were interested because I always just thought the words to be synonyms and never really considered there being a difference between them. For example, when the author stated that a profession really differs from vocation because an employee can be considered professional while still not considering it to be their calling, I thought it was a great connection to the first quote.  Everyone lives to find their true calling in life which re-sparks the idea of hope.

When the author discussed the main goal of teaching as the learning process to take place in as short of time as possible it made me reflect on the little things I may have passed on to the children I have already been able to work with. My most recent example would have to be over the summer when I was working as a nanny and I taught a little girl how to blow a bubble with her gum in a rather short period of time.  As simple and meaningless as the task may seem, it is a habit that can be practiced on a daily basis for the rest of her life and I like to think that she will think of me occasionally because I was the one who taught her how.   Similarly, whenever I reflect on how I learned Spanish I always think of my previous teachers who impacted my language acquisition. I’m sure they would be happy to know that I remember them from time to time now that I am beginning to pave the way towards becoming a teacher myself.

Teaching by principles, ch. 1&2

I just want to start by saying that the first page of this chapter was extremely uplifting and I was really excited by my career choice having read the first chapter.  Although it points out the challenges that will come as well, I really enjoyed being reminded of how much my profession will make a difference which is something I should remind myself on a daily basis especially when things become overwhelming. “Few professions can offer the fulfillment of knowing that your seemingly insignificant work really can make a difference in a world in need of communication that transcends national borders and interests”.  

The drill of analyzing a teachers approach to teaching different topics is really helpful because I like to analyze my own lesson plans in order to make them better and I appreciate feedback as well. In Ms. Lee’s lesson plans it is very apparent that she is a flexible teacher. She realized that some aspects of the activities proved too demanding for students and in order to make sure that each student is getting the full understanding of the lesson she helped by explaining things herself instead of having volunteers (like with the movie categories) so that each and every student understood instead of just a handful.

As I continued reading, I liked being able to split up a lesson plan with the ideas of approach, method and technique. It was interesting to see how many different varieties of these ideas were made throughout time until present day. I also liked to analyze the different learning methods and feel that my personal favorite was the “suggestopedia” that stated great quantities of material can be processed if the right learning conditions are given.  I really agree with this idea because I know how I learn, and I am much more prone to developing and learning if I am in an environment in which I am comfortable in.

ENG 345 blog post #1

Diving into my third TESOL class is really exciting to me because now that I understand the basic fundamentals of the principles behind TESOL now we get to learn "beyond" the methods. I am a senior Spanish education major with a minor in TESOL and I will be student teaching in the spring (provided I pass my OPI, fingers crossed!) I had the opportunity of studying abroad in fall of 2010 and I would absolutely love to visit another Spanish speaking country very soon. I have not been placed for my student teaching but I would like to be placed somewhere in the Northwest suburbs since that is where I was raised. I think my ideal setting would be teaching Spanish in a highschool but I would also be interested in trying out the middle school age group at some point in my life.  I think that down the road once I have a better grasp of the language and it is very natural, I would love to teach ESL in a middle school because I think I would be making much more of a difference teaching English because although Spanish is useful to know in the United States, it is not necessary while  without an understanding of English it would be very difficult to get by. With this in mind, I look forward to learning more about how I can teach ESL classes in various settings this semester.

Week 15: Globalization and Language Teaching

To start off with this week’s discussion, I found most of the key ideas that caught my attention were from Kubota’s article on globalization.  I felt he carefully explained this concept as “an increased local diversity influenced by human contact across cultural boundaries as well as speedy exchange of commodities and information.”  He then continued to explain Japan and its situation regarding this concept and compared globalization to being like Americanization.  This was interesting to me because it made me think about any other country that other countries try to become similar to.  I think that each country has its own unique characteristics that make them fascinating and until I went to Europe I never really noticed how much of an influence American culture has on the world.  It then made me wonder if companies like Starbucks and McDonalds were somewhat of a combined effort of ideas from other countries or if America really took the reins and other countries just bought the franchise. 

The quote from the Japanese manager of a McDonalds, “if we eat McDonalds hamburgers and potatoes for a thousand years, we will become taller, our skin will become white and our hair blonde” made me wonder how he intended for this quote to come out.  In a sarcastic sense, it is humorous obviously because aside from weight gain, the effects of a big mac would not cause such drastic transformations on a person’s hair or skin color.  In a more out of the box analysis of this statement, if Japan accepts an American company such as McDonald’s among their culture, who knows how far that can unravel making Japanese citizens want to acquire more and more attributes from the American culture like our “white skin” and “blonde hair”.  The article also stated that this idea of globalization also causes increased nationalism.

It was interesting to ponder the fact that Japan is struggling between the promotion of English and its own nationalism.  I can see how acquiring more American ideas or customs would be an intriguing thought because it could draw more attention to their economy or even more visitors to the area but on the other hand I can see it being distressing because it may be seen as an abandonment of various characteristics of their Japanese culture.  English is often seen as a symbol of power that is superior to other languages because it is a lingua franca and enables an understanding of multiple areas of the world. 

The concept of a world English correlates nicely with the ideas expressed in Kubota’s article because it demonstrates its significance worldwide.  We’ve discussed numerous times in class about which dialect or accent should be deemed the “standard” English but the fact that there are speakers all over the world with their own unique dialect makes this idea of one uniform English close to impossible.  How would one acquire a pronunciation if it is almost impossible based on their first language?  I think that the English language has definitely brought us a long way from where we once were without a lingua franca but it’s understandable that globalization in regards to English can be a scary thought for some speakers of other languages.

Week 14: Language Variations, Language Ideologies

The word accent has been tossed around in my vocabulary be it through Spanish classes or my day to day happenings since I was younger but I never really set my own concrete definition to the word.  The book chapters defined it in a variety of ways but the definition I found most relatable to my previous thoughts is “a loose bundle of prosodic and segmental features distributed over geographic and social space.” The article then went into more depth on the main ideas of both prosodic and segmental features which really caught my attention.  The author gave various examples of words that in English may or may not be pronounced the same depending on the speaker’s residence area and even though their spellings are different.  The two words that in my opinion exemplify the Chicago accent are the words ‘cot’ and ‘caught’.  I have noticed that people I meet from California would normally pronounce these words very similarly but in my own pronunciation I say these words completely different.  I now understand how strong my accent may sound to speakers unfamiliar with this area and it is really interesting to think about how many other languages have different pronunciations.

Another concept the author mentioned was about how social identity can be marked through accents.  Through stereotypical pronunciations we can identify various race groups based solely on how they pronounce different words in English.  This may bring up some conflict in regards to eliminating the idea of race and its impact on language but I feel that it is just another indicator about how each person is unique.

Quite frankly I felt appalled by the story Lippie-Green shared about Mr. Kahakua.  Using the word “handicap” based solely on how the teacher pronounced his words was the very first thing that triggered my annoyance with the application process he went through.  I recently participated in a research study about teachers whose native language is something other than English and it pointed out numerous things to me.  I was asked numerous questions but the one that stood out to me the most was “If in the future you come into a position of power and are asked to fill a position, would you hire a teacher whose native language is not English?”  My immediate thoughts were absolutely, just because someone was raised in an environment different than my own should not mean that they are automatically not qualified for the position. After further thought I began to realize the complexities of this question; although I feel that everyone deserves an equal opportunity, what if although the interviewee was incredibly qualified and would make an excellent educator, there is a chance that students would not succeed to the same level as if they were instructed by a native English teacher?

The last concept I really appreciated from the article was the concept of the Sound House.  I enjoyed the way the author painted a picture of her point when she used Meryl Streep and Eddie Murphy as her examples.  Although Streep is able to speak in different accents, she is given breaks and opportunities to refilm any scene she may not exhibit her best use of the accent.  While Eddie Murphy on the other hand was brought up in a Sound house that enabled him to be exposed to both African American vernacular as well as “proper” English so he was able to demonstrate a perfect accent in both accounts.