4.3b: Think of a specific language course which I taught. Which aspects of the chart in Figure 4.4. did the course focus on? Which aspect(s) were the organizing principles for the course?

Conceptualizing Content According to Language, Learner & Social Context

I’ll focus on my conversation class in Mexico because it was the one for which I decided the curriculum.

Disclaimer: Because it met only six times and because I wasn’t given time  or resources to develop a unifying theme, it is unbalanced from a bird’s-eye perspective.

Linguistic Skills

As a native speaker, I took advantage of the opportunity to work on pronunciation on numerous occasions. My best work was when I was able to define a sound in contrast to another, and specifically when I juxtaposed it with the L1 source of the error. (I had the advantage of being in a single-language classroom.)

Grammar and vocabulary I addressed only incidentally.

Topics/Themes; Tasks; Content

In this class I did choose a thread for the last three classes: a group presentation about Mexican culture. During the four-hour class, we spent only about an hour of class time on the project, except for the last class, which was entirely devoted to it, at its culmination.

Other than that, I didn’t focus on any particular theme. I had discrete exercises with different language objectives based on what I observed as deficient in the language production of the group.

Listening

On several occasions I used songs and cloze exercises for listening skills. In this context we also examined meaning, vocabulary and symbolism.

The other primary source of listening was to each other during discussions and reports.

Writing

I had a couple of writing exercises but this was a conversation class so we didn’t do essays and formal writing. Still, because it reinforces grammar and conversation and communication skills, we did some. Students wrote scripts for their presentations, for example. And I think I did one written exercise in which students were to use the simple past form.

Speaking

Lots of it through a variety of means: conversations, opinions, expository presentation, and myriad language games like BASTA and Mad Libs and Pass-the-Word.

Reading

I didn’t have any reading assignments except to research their topic, but I’m guessing they did that in Spanish, which is what I expected and intended. Actually, I think some of their sources were in English because the language they came back with didn’t seem like something they would have produced on their own, at their level.

Genre

We worked on a digital, in-person presentation. But I’m not sure that qualifies here, as “texts that accomplish a purpose within a social context.” Each student’s project was intended to inform classmates about an aspect of their culture, but it was a scholastic more than a social goal.

What I Didn’t Do

I didn’t address much, or at all, competencies …. oh, wait: I did address strategic competence a little, in encouraging them to find alternate ways to describe something they didn’t have the vocabulary for. But again, this was incidental. I may have detoured along the way to explore something in a social context, but I had no formal lesson plan that addressed that. Also absent were situations and communicative functions.

Focus on Learning & the Learner

Affective Goals

I was very attentive to students’ emotional states: levels of confidence as they tried something scary. Initially few students wanted to talk, though all dutifully tried. By the end I felt that they had grown vastly in this respect. Their grammar wasn’t significantly better, but their willingness to try to speak, and their ability to get their message across, had grown. I believe this is because my central focus was on this aspect of their learning.

Interpersonal Skills

I didn’t address this in any significant way. We did a little pair work, but since the group itself was so small (8 people) we functioned mostly as a single unit. I didn’t work on group dynamics or collaborative skills. Each person’s project was individual. That was a conscious decision made by student consensus. Everyone was respectful in the class, and attentive, so I didn’t do more than foster that.

Learning Strategies

No, I didn’t do anything with this.

Focus on Social Context

Sociolinguistic Skills

We talked just a little about register. My own behavior was a model of two modes: both respectful and casual. I joked with them frequently in a friendly manner once we got to know each other, and we had a good rapport. But when they were trying to learn something, I was earnest and more serious.

Sociocultural Skills

They were all of the same nationality so cultural norms were essentially shared among the students. I talked a little about mine, sometimes in relation to theirs. Their reports were implicitly but not explicitly about Mexican culture.

Sociopolitical Skills

I didn’t do anything with this.