JULY 15 Reflection from Class

July 15 Reflection

Actions for July 15 Reflection

Jennifer Rose posted Jul 19, 2015 12:55 PM

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On Wednesday my group spent a lot of time talking about spoken grammar vs. written grammar and trying to determine which was the most important to teach. I think the consensus we came to was most definitely that spoken grammar was far more important. I wasn’t quite satisfied with that discussion though. I know from personal experience the students I teach now have no intention of furthering their education (many have Bachelor’s degrees from a University in their country) and really just want better employment, and to them it’s the spoken grammar of being able to navigate a job search process and nail an interview that is most important for them. 

Many say that it is verb conjugation in oral speech that makes them sound like an unintelligent foreigner (when this is not the case) that an American employer would not hire. So my focus in class is most definitely spoken grammar. It wasn’t until Friday when we finished our discussion with the Korean teachers that I realized just how important written grammar actually was for this group of people. I never realized how high the stakes were and don’t think now I can fully wrap my brain around the fact that ONE missed question on a test determines whether a learner can attend the university of his choice or not....seems absurd to me when Americans (myself included) don’t really even write with correct grammar on occasion. 

It seems unfair, but I suppose it’s a cultural phenomenon that can’t be judged from an outside perspective. It made me rethink my reasons for wanting to become a teacher. Of course I want to teach communication strategies and teaching grammar rules is not my thing, but I do it when I have to. What if I end up taking a position at a Korean High School when I am done with my Master’s Degree? It seems like a likely fit seeing how the Atlanta ESL market and IEP settings are saturated. Korea seems like a good setting for me to gain more experience (seeing as how I already have a little), but after Friday it seems I will have to become a lot more detail-oriented in regards to written grammar if I am to succeed with adults or high school students there. Being a big-picture, idea-based thinker, I’m really good at coming up with activities when it comes to unit plans, but not so good at focusing on a topic such as the use of modal verbs in written grammar. But I suppose I can learn this skill with a lot of practice. Being a native speaker contributes to this struggle, as I’ve never had to think about why we say things the way we do. It adds to the challenge of ESL teaching, but it’s doable. Talking to the elementary teachers from Korea friday (there was one at my table) it seems like their stakes are a little lower, but working with kids brings a whole new set of challenges (namely behavior and parents) and it seems like if you work with kids for too long you get stuck there and not able to move to a different level, but I could be wrong.

New Beginnings/New Learning

Friday’s event at Georgia Tech brought many new ideas and learnings to me. It’s hard to identify the most important but I shall try. I have grouped them into categories for ease of reading. I will say that I could have kept talking to my group for a few more hours and not run out of topics to talk about.

Importance of Being an Effective Discussion Leader in the Classroom

I think this was my biggest takeaway. I’ve always considered myself pretty skilled at getting people talking, which is one of the reasons I chose the field of ESL teaching to explore. I approached the discussion with an air of curiosity in my voice so that I was asking my table to comment on various topics after introducing themselves. What I discovered is it’s really hard to keep a group of just six people from different backgrounds and cultures talking to each other as a group. There were many points in the conversation where I could tell the Panamanians and the Koreans just didn’t understand and didn’t know what else to ask. I tried to insert my clarification of what I think was said, but I could never be really sure if that is what they were intending to get across. There were several points in the conversation where the table would split, and pairs would start talking to each other for longer periods of time, and I was afraid they were bored. I had two men even start texting for a period of time but they eventually came back to the group. 

I know that I am a person that needs to feel comfortable with a group before leading, and so introductions are not necessarily my strong suit. I know I will have to work on this for future classes because knowing what I know now, introductions are crucial. I didn’t really feel like we got into the meat of things until the last thirty minutes and felt like this part was rushed because of time. It always takes me a few extra minutes to really feel comfortable with leading a group. Once we got into our conversation, I felt comfortable enough to ask “Why did you become an English teacher?” In hindsight, I should have asked this question as one of my first but shied away thinking it was too personal for having just met. This question is the one that helped me understand everything else said during group and served to neatly close the conversation, which I suppose is good too. Leading a conversation is one of the hardest things to do, I learned. I don’t want to talk too much, but I want to make everyone feel comfortable at the same time. It’s almost like walking a fine line.

Motivation for Becoming an ESL/EFL Teacher: A Cultural Divide

When I asked the “Why did you become an English teacher?” question, I got two major answers: one from the Koreans and one from Panamanians. The Koreans always answered among the lines of “It’s a solid/stable/respected career with good working conditions.” I thought about this answer quite a bit. How is this different in the United States? I know as a certified teacher I will always have work. That, however, is where the similarities end. I wouldn’t call teaching a respected career in this country. In fact, when I came home from college my junior year and told my parents I had changed my major from Nursing to Early Childhood Education they had one question for me: “Why?” Then they asked if I intended to marry rich. I had no such plans. They were incredulous and made it seem like they wished better for me. Working my way through two years of teaching with Minneapolis Public Schools made me see my parents’ original point. It’s a thankless job and the working conditions (namely sheer volume of time put in to achieve a mediocre result) were less than average. 

While my kids were always great, my parents seemed much different. I was constantly questioned and criticized about every step of my teaching process, from my classroom management to my assessment practices, to my ability to run a classroom when I was not a parent myself. I felt just a general lack of respect, and I was not alone in my feelings. I had an entirely different experience in Korea though, and I could see that there was a much different attitude taken toward education in that country. I was suddenly an authority, and if my students did poorly on an assignment, it was their fault, not mine. The sense of responsibility the learner has is greatly increased. Which makes a teacher’s job much easier (while still not easy) in comparison. I had a moment where I understood why the Korean teachers at my table thought that teaching was a respected, stable, steady career.

Meanwhile, the Panamanians answer to this question was very different. They were elementary teachers, and it seemed like a second career for them. One woman was a journalism major who couldn’t find work in that field. She took advantage of the president’s initiative and hiring bonuses after graduating and grew to love children and teaching. The other was similar from what I gathered. Both of these woman talked about the profession similarly to the way I view elementary teaching here. Low pay, high stress. They talked a lot about inclusion in the classroom, having children with both physical disabilities and behavioral disabilities included in their classrooms. This was a concept foreign to the Koreans, and I remember having to explain the word inclusion and write it down for them. I was surprised (I don’t know why) to learn that the population of children on the autism spectrum was high in Panama. The Panamanians seemed to describe their working conditions as chaotic and stressful. They have six classes a day and move from classroom to classroom, often carrying their materials on a cart or rolling suitcase.

Behavior management is something they struggled with because they were not the classroom teacher but often the floating ESL teacher. They would enter a classroom, calm children down, do a lesson and move to the next classroom all in 50 minutes. One teacher talked in detail about the breathing exercises and meditation activities she did to calm her students. When I asked the Koreans how they handed behavior in the classroom they simply said “Students are highly motivated by scores, so when they misbehave we take off points on a test.” It seemed to work for them. I could just see the learning happening at my table, though. Neither group knew quite what the other was talking about, but they all were working for a common goal: to help children be the best they could be, and that is where I stepped back to say to myself, “Wow, what an awesome field I have chosen for myself.” Honestly, I couldn’t be happier working with the learners I work with now, learning about different cultures and constantly learning about myself. This sounds cheesy, but this is really an AWESOME life!

A working Shitty first draft of my current teaching philosophy for language

Articulating Your Teaching Philosophy: 

First Draft of Many

Please list ONLY 3 ideas per question.  I know you have more.  The point of this activity is to make you CHOOSE.  E-mail this to me before class on Monday.

1.         In your opinion, what are the three MOST important guiding principles for any teacher—language or otherwise?

            a. A classroom should be tailored to the learner – learner’s needs should come first.

            b. A teacher needs to take what she knows from theory and put it into practice creatively.

            c. Patience and compassion are vital in the role of a teacher, they set the tone of the class.

2.         In your opinion what are the three MOST important guiding principles that you will follow specifically as a second/foreign language teacher?

            a. When I fail to plan, I plan to fail. As a post-method teacher, I cannot simply use template activities. I must think through the how and why of the lesson and what my learners will gain from it.

            b. Every learner is different. When I fail to plan, I fail to take into consideration that all learners are not like me and tend to fall back to my default learning style, which is also my default teaching style. 

            c. As a language teacher, I am also a lifelong learner of a language. Although my learners may see me as an expert, I am far from it and will never stop learning and encouraging my learners to learn outside of class.

3.         In your opinion, what distinguishes a person who has acquired communicative competence in a second/foreign language from one who has not?

            a. A person who has acquired communicative competence feels confident in his or her ability to carry out every day conversational tasks in the L2 60% of the time.

            b. A person who has acquired communicative competence in L2 can interact with service providers and understand what is said and someone can understand them 75% of the time. They usually tend to have a greater quality of life in the country that L2 is spoken, and enjoy themselves more.

            c. Such a person usually has acquired enough vocabulary to be able to be creative with language and communicate the same idea multiple ways in multiple settings.

4.         If someone told you that they wanted to learn a second/foreign language and asked your advice on the best way to do it, what advice would give them and why?

            a. First, take note of your background. If you do not have any knowledge of the language, it will help tremendously to take a class in a formal setting. This will help establish basic guidelines and rules of the grammar of the language.

            b. Second, if you are not doing so already, READ. Vocabulary acquisition is the heart of language. If you do not have the words, you cannot communicate. Simple as that. Once you have picked up basic sentence structure, READ daily in L2 and learn as many words as you can.

            c. Don’t be afraid to speak. Most native speakers of their L1 don’t speak perfectly. Keep this fact in mind as you practice your L2. You will not get better at a language if you don’t use it daily in everyday conversation. SPEAK. Don’t be shy. 

5.         In your opinion, how should language teachers interact with their students and why?

            a. Be prepared daily, but be flexible. Answer students’ questions regularly. Be attentive to breakdowns in comprehension and be prepared to fix them. This requires a teacher to be extremely knowledgeable about comprehensible input at all levels of the process. Learners of a language are extremely scared when they start the process. It is important to calm those fears but also push leaners a little beyond what they can comfortably do so they improve slowly and gain more confidence.

            b. Don’t be so rigid in your beliefs on different culture that you alienate students’ motivation for being in class. Be open to learning about other cultures and languages. This will help your students see that you have experience being a learner as well and make it easier to empathize and to create a compassionate community that is willing to learn from each other. 

            c. Be non-judgmental in your words and chose your words carefully. Just because you may like the way things are done in one country or culture doesn’t mean it’s the correct way. You will have a better chance at creating a cohesive learning community if you ask open-ended questions with no bias attached. Wait and listen (and expect) learners to educate you about what is important to them.

6.         In your opinion, what are the most important aspects of creating a classroom environment conducive to learning and why?

            a. Listen more than you talk. Your learners are there to practice speaking their L2 and take risks with language. They can only do this when you as the teacher are not talking. This requires the teacher to choose her words carefully enough to be understood and then know when to stop talking and let learners practice and play with language.

            b. Remember that you are teaching language over content. When you keep this in mind, it will make it easier to recognize that there is really no one “right” answer to a discussion question and it will make it easier for you not to “jump into” a conversation and dominate the talking time in class. Let your learners make mistakes with language and try to fix it themselves before you jump to correct.

            c. Set guidelines for appropriate discussions and stick to them. Be stricter at the beginning than you would normally be. You can always be nice at the end of class and not get walked over.

7.         For each of the skills/topics listed, what is ONE idea that you find very important to keep in mind when teaching that skill/topic?

            Listening: Many listening activities assess more than listening if they assess listening at all. Listening is one of the hardest skills to assess by itself. Be mindful when selecting listening tasks to assure that 90% of the content is listening and not writing or vocabulary.

            Speaking: Make sure you as the teacher are letting the learner speak more than you. They are, after all, here to practice their L2. You are already fluent in it, and therefore don’t need the practice. 

            Grammar: Differentiate between spoken and written grammar and make sure you are teaching the one that your learner finds most important. Remember that most L1 speakers are not perfect in either. When assessing grammar make sure you only focus on what the learner has already learned. Be selective with what you do in a red pen.

            Writing: Writing is documenting the process of thinking. And it’s difficult. It’s difficult to do in an L1 and doubly difficult to do in an L2. Be compassionate about a learner’s writing and respect the process of thinking while providing ideas along the way. In the words of the great Anne Lamott, “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppression…embrace the sh#&%y first draft.” Remember how hard it is to get your own thoughts down on paper before tearing your learner’s thoughts to shreds. 

            Reading: Reading is thinking too. If you are not thinking when you are reading, you are doing it wrong. When I teach reading, I teach learners how to stop every so often, monitor comprehension, and vocalize their thoughts on what they have read so far.

            Vocabulary: Beyond a doubt, this is the most important aspect of learning a language, L1 or otherwise. A learner that does not have words cannot communicate. Reading is the most effective way to build vocabulary. In any language.

            Strategies: Strategies are imbedded in every aspect of learning a language, and a teacher who does not teach strategies has only taught half of the process. Without strategies, learners do not have what they need to learn outside of your classroom.

8.         What is your opinion on each of the following topics?  Write 1-2 sentences, no more.

            Use of L1 in an EFL Class: In absolute beginning classes, some L1 is necessary to clarify vocabulary. After that, it becomes somewhat of a crutch to learning an L2 and should be kept to as little as possible for comprehension.

            Grammar Feedback on Writing Assignments: The teacher should only comment on one or two types of grammatical errors at a time and this should be purposeful so as not to become overwhelming to the learner. The grammatical comments given should follow suit with what was learned during that week in class.

9.         List THREE things you will do to ensure that you continue to grow and improve as a teacher once you are in the field:

            a. Continue to observe and volunteer in as many experienced teacher’s classrooms as possible. I feel like this is the best way to take away good teaching practices and hone my craft.

            b. Reflect daily on my own teaching practice, in writing. The act of journaling is not only therapeutic, but very useful in determining my own thoughts and where I could have improved on the day’s lesson.

            c. Continue to be a lifelong learner of language. Ask questions of students, and research constantly. Never stop learning.

10.       What are questions you still have about teaching that we have not addressed?  List as many questions as you wish, but list at least ONE.

            What does the recent research say about L1 use in an L2 learning environment? I feel like we haven’t really covered a lot of this in class and is a definite interest of mine.

           

            

The trouble with Grad school in Education....

I’m having trouble coming up with original reflections because not a whole lot of class yesterday was spent talking about original or new things. The trouble with approaches classes is that there is just that: A LOT of talk. As an education major undergrad, I spent A LOT of time TALKING about the right way to do things. And you know what? If I’m completely honest with myself, I don’t think it did a whole lot of good. The problem with pre-service teachers like ourselves is that we think we have all the answers. We look at models of teachers and thinking like we can do better. It’s kind of like parenting I suppose. We spend a lot of time criticizing our parents for what we think they could do better, but as a non-parent, I can’t say that I would actually have done any different. And further, my friends that did just start having kids now say that they are a lot more forgiving of their parents. I went through a similar notion when I started teaching. I sat and I criticized my teachers (even my Spanish teachers) for what I thought they could be doing better. When I entered my practicums I sat in silent judgement of other teachers. He was too quick to react, or she is too nice/mean/crazy/unorganized/energetic/insert adjective here. But when I did start my ten weeks of full-time teaching, I can’t say that I did a much better job. I made all the same mistakes that rookie teachers make. I still do. I over plan, and don’t move fast enough, I don’t leave enough wait time, and I rush through the objective. I’m not sure why I’m remembering this now, but I think it is helpful to remember that it is really hard to TALK ABOUT APPROACHES when I haven’t actually APPROACHED anything real yet. Classroom talk is just that, talk. And I don’t find it helpful to talk with others who have had the same experiences in a university classroom as me but haven’t actually succeeded at teaching, like myself. Maybe yesterday just caught me in a really negative moment. But I do reflect on my classes that I teach after I teach them, and I do want to become a better teacher. I think I may be suffering from either “too much information” syndrome or “not enough real world experience” syndrome and my growth has kind of stalled or plateaued. There comes a time when one has to stop talking and start doing.

                I will use the line “papers are written from the middle out and syllabuses are written back and forth” in the future. I hate writing syllabuses. I absolutely dread it. The teacher in me loves the beginning of the year/session/semester. I absolutely love the new learning possibilities involved at the beginning of a semester. But the decisions I have to make in order to make a syllabus absolutely fill me with terror and anxiety. I have so many questions but when I ask the questions I look like I’m not a professional to my co-workers. I was told when I started teaching to “Fake it until you make it” but how much faking it do you really have to do until you really feel confident as a teacher? The syllabus I operate under now changes at least 5 times a session for some reason or another. Most of the time it is because students don’t do their homework so their progress slows and I can only meet them where they are at, so to speak. I can only hope this gets better with time, but how can it if I’m doing the same thing over and over and that same thing is wrong. After all, my piano teacher always used to tell me that practice does not make perfect; practice makes permanent. 

Silence

The point that struck me in today’s class was the following one: “Watch videos silently before watching them with sound.” I don’t know why this struck me, but it did and it did with some profundity. I show a lot of YouTube videos and videos that go along with my curriculum in my classes. I have never thought to show them without sound first but after hearing this, I went to do this on my own today because, after all, a teacher should do everything she is asking her students to do. So for today’s reflection, I decided to do this exercise. And while doing it, at first I thought that it was dumb. I sat there looking at the picture trying to imagine what I would say to a class before watching it. I didn’t really know, and was at a loss for words. But then I was instantly reminded of a course I took two years ago in American Sign Language. I began to remember how effective that class was for me not just because I learned a little sign language (I know NO deaf people) but because it made me a more effective communicator. I seriously recommend that all teachers be required to take a course in American Sign Language because you learn so much more about how to connect to another person using elements besides speech. It made me a better communicator because when I started teaching beginners, I had more tricks in my sleeve and knew more than to just talk louder as many do with people that don’t understand language. I could slow down, I could gesture, and I could use eye contact and space around me more effectively. I still don’t know how I would introduce a video I would show silently, but that will come with time.

Fluency vs accuracy

Laila and I discussed in great detail the fluency/accuracy debate from the reading and came to the conclusion that fluency was far more important than accuracy, at least in the beginning stages of learning a language. Because we talked about vocabulary being the key to learning a language (and not getting stuck on grammar and verb tenses) fluency is all about using vocabulary. If a student can show that he or she can use vocabulary, that student has achieved fluency. If I can understand what he is trying to say, I try not to correct minor points and continue with functional communication, showing the student that he was understood and comprehensible, building confidence in that student. At the beginning stages of learning a language, I believe that is far more important than correcting a lack of a plural s or a verb tense. This has taken me a while to learn, and I still slip into overcorrection mode at times, as it appears to be my default when I need something “teacherly” to do. Laila and I also talked about pronunciation and teaching it. I don’t find this difficult, but again I worry with my speech pathology background I can overkill pronunciation so that it’s not useful and just tedious to students. I use IPA when I teach this, and if my students don’t understand the symbols I teach it to them. I wonder if this is a useful strategy. It’s what I was taught to do in previous classes, along with tongue placement, mouth shape, and palate movement. Some students respond really well to these kinds of drills and others just kind of look at me like I’m crazy and move on to the next thing in the lesson that day. I’m wondering if there is a better approach

Ambiguity and Language Learning

I am reflecting today on the following statement: “A student who doesn’t tolerate ambiguity well is not going learn a language well.” I don’t exactly know why this statement jumped out at me, but it did. I began to think of my early language learning self. I think this is the reason why I am not fluent in my L2. When I started to learn Spanish, I was 16 in tenth grade. I was a student that loved following directions and I loved rules. (I credit the ISFJ in me, but that’s just one measure how I relate to my world, I realize.) I did really well memorizing vocabulary and the rules of grammar that were regular. I didn’t like stem-changing verbs because they defied the rule. I did not tolerate ambiguity. I did not like things that were not stable. As I progressed through Spanish, I think I was also getting older, and with age come maturity and an awareness of my learning style. I didn’t think I was truly aware of my learning style until after I graduated university. I have become a little more tolerant of ambiguity just out of necessity of the work and I would like to apply this to re-learning and further learning in my L2. I haven’t had a lot of time to dedicate to Spanish learning over the last few years but when I do start studying again I think I will keep this in mind.  

I also was struck by the IPA debate. I had no idea how heated people felt about this. I didn’t say anything in class because there were so many varying opinions and I didn’t want to make the issue any more confusing. I come from a speech pathology background, where the goal there is nothing BUT pronunciation and intelligibility. One of the reasons I switched fields is because I think there was TOO much emphasis on IPA and pronunciation. In my linguistics and phonetics courses we had to learn and memorize IPA symbols. And you know what I learned? There is NEVER agreement among professionals about how to transcribe a word in IPA. I had classes where we would debate one syllable for an hour. I thought it was always ridiculous because pronunciation varies by region anyway. It always seemed pretty ridiculous arguing about these because I can always tell what was said. I figured out that my view on pronunciation is that as long as it’s comprehensible I don’t do any correction. If I can understand it, it is fine, because after all that is the goal of communication, right? So I will probably never use IPA again as long as I’m in the ESL/EFL field. There are other ways to do it. The beginning book I taught from last session had a series of spheres to tell students where the emphasis of the word should be placed. The large sphere is over the syllable with the most emphasis. It was much simpler than trying to decode a whole other set of symbols. Maybe my view will change as I continue my career, but with my current experiences, I will remain here.

 I will also add that I started teaching a new class last night, and it is the first time I will have taught advanced learners. It is also the first time I will be teaching students who are a similar age to myself. In the past, I have either taught students who are way older or way younger. But I thoguht back to the discussion on the role I want to play in the classroom and fought hard not to break out of the friend role. These learners (there are 5 of them that are very close to each other becuase they have studied together for a year and there is a husband and wife team in the mix). They are very much professionals looking to break into the professional workplace here, and one is a human resource professional qualified to give the Myers Briggs. Because the unit yeseterday was about personality, I decided it would be a good idea to give a modified MBTI test as an intro. It was a great activity, and led a great discussion, but I wonder if maybe I relinquished to much control to my student becuase I saw her more of an expert than I was in that field. I am excited about the possibilites with this class, but worry about boring them to tears since my experience has always been with beginning learners.