Because of how gracefully the MAT courses interlock with one another, it is difficult to write a paper that isolates my learning specifically about my Four Skills class. My brain is an eddy — rather, a maelstrom — of new information: ideas about teaching writing (from Four Skills) swirl around with a newly discovered interest in task-based instruction (from Approaches) which jumbles together with inspiration about stimulus and moves (from LALP).
All this learning is accompanied by significant confusion as I try to synthesize it, and to envision theory in action. It is a daunting process, but I’ve realized something surprising in the past few weeks of class: I don’t have to reinvent myself to become part of the world of TESOL. The teaching theories and practices that I’ve begun to learn in Four Skills and other classes have illuminated possible pathways between my past and my future.
As you know, I have a lifelong interest in oral history, folklore, popular and traditional culture, and other social issues: in essence, the stories, lives and challenges of “regular” people. I’d always known that there could be a connection between this and the field of TESOL. Now, at semester’s end, I have a more concrete sense of the potential to mesh my documentary experience with teaching in ways that address students’ goals and interests.
The Most Influential Aspects of “Teaching the Four Skills”
One general comment before I attempt to identify a few key areas of four-skills learning: I admit that I feared “the four skills” would be a deadly dull topic, which it was when I was in primary school. Fortunately, I was wrong. I also hadn’t known how closely integrated — and at times inseparable — the skills are: a fact that is obvious to you and other teachers but was a revelation to me. More exciting was the confirmation of my guess that there is infinite potential for creativity in teaching.
On Lesson Plans
The opportunity to practice developing lesson plans, without topical constraint, was one of the most valuable aspects of the class. The process became the first step in what I’ve referenced above: finding the intersection between my experience and what is useful to English-learners. Unintentionally, a pattern emerged in the subjects I chose, as I sought common ground between my passions and the needs of my [imaginary] students): all explore human experience as a vehicle for learning an aspect of language.
Specifically: for writing I asked students to describe a place they love and something that happened there; for speaking, students drew from their childhood experience to invent a playground dialog; and for reading and listening, through the John Henry ballad they personalized the idea of challenging a person or institution more powerful then they.
It was eye-opening to realize that language objectives can be achieved by building lesson plans from the subject down: that is, to define an area of interest and drill into it for underlying, teachable linguistic structures. I later realized that this is a fundamental idea of task- and content-based instruction.
Finally, peer feedback during the presentation of lesson plans was extremely valuable. It helped me revise and focus my exercises and made me realize what outstanding resources I will have at my disposal when in Mexico. Not only that, but I believe my feedback to the others (and my lesson plans themselves) was equally helpful to them.
Frameworks
I appreciated the frameworks and central concepts to which we were exposed. There are, of course, too many to describe here; but briefly, my awareness of the following will strongly influence my work in the classroom:
- Pre-, during- and post-activities: helped me envision the functions of and pacing in these stages of lesson plans, specifically for the receptive skills.
- Comprehension strategies: top- and bottom-down listening/reading, etc.: important to recognize both as a student (using this awareness as a tool for understanding) and a lesson-planner (providing structure for the learner).
- Schema-activation: I tend to want to jump to the interactive part of the activity, without considering the need to provide sufficient (but not too much) context first.
- Not surprisingly, the Language Experience Approach stood out as particularly intriguing, rooted as it is in the personal stories of students [1]: adaptable not just to production but to all the four skills.
- The complexity of spoken language — with its repetition, discourse rules, registers, etc.: I had been unaware of the extent of the differences between oral and written forms.
The Readings
I appreciated the wide range of concepts to which our readings exposed us, from theoretical to practical. Much of what we read dovetails neatly with readings from other classes, the effect of which is to help hammer home (to use a John Henry metaphor!) particularly dense or rich ideas.
One of our most recent readings (McAndrew, 2007), consists of ideas we’ve encountered in all our classes, yet in the reading they are combined in a new way. Finding himself in a teaching situation for which existing materials didn’t address students’ needs, the author concocted his own solution, consisting of: scaffolding; communicative language teaching; text-based approach, field, tenor and mode; genre writing; teaching-learning cycle; fluency versus accuracy; negotiation of meaning, and more.
What I glean from that, aside from the observation that resourceful teachers are wizards, is that as a teacher I (ideally) will pull from what I’ve learned in Four Skills (and other courses) to devise my own methodology suited to a particular circumstance. The Four Skills class has begun to stock my pantry with ingredients. It will be up to me to pull out only what I need, depending on whether I’m baking cookies or a soufflé.
Questions I’m Grappling With
As is true when learning has taken place, for each piece of knowledge I’ve gained, four times as many questions have arisen.
What remains difficult for me (and I hope will become clearer) is how these ideas and principles are put into practice live. The lesson plan is similar to a radio script, so it is not difficult for me to conceptualize. But as I get ready to plunge into my internship, I wonder:
- How will I be able to ascertain the needs, levels, abilities and challenges of my students — while teaching? Your idea of engaging students before class in brief conversations is a good one. Sarah’s 2-5-2 exercise (talking to a student two minutes a day, five days a week for two weeks) is, while ambitious, another promising technique. More difficult will be to ascertain skill levels in the middle of class when I’m also thinking about what to do next.
- If learning is truly to be subordinate to teaching, how will I be able to adapt facets of a lesson plan (or even cast the whole thing out) spontaneously when the situation dictates? When, for example, a conversation exercise is clearly crashing, how will I pull out of the nosedive — and without losing credibility as a teacher?
- How will I be able to assimilate the things I’ve learned in Four Skills and pluck from my weary brain just the most relevant to a particular situation? Will I even be able to access them under duress, or, alternately, will I get bogged down in the ocean of possibilities?
- I realize that many answers come from experience, that I’m going to Mexico with fabulous colleagues, and that the students there are wonderful — but what if I fail!
McAndrew, John (2007). Responding to learners’ language needs in an oral EFL class. In A. Burns and H. deSilva (Eds.), Planning and Teaching Creatively within a Required Curriculum for Adult Learners (pp 189–204). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.
[1] I first typed that as “stoodent,” which makes me doubt my capacity as a teetcher.