Key Silent Way ideas: what am I doing the Ss can do for myself, and awareness is educable. In evaluating something, whether positive or negative, consider “where’s the evidence.” Donald Freeman was Bev’s biggest influence. Mike wrote a book on the experiential learning cycle Bev described the concentric circles of language education, a la Silent…
Alex’s embedded comments in my paper are in blue and bold. His answers from the generic answer key are plain old blue. I’m the rest. Ginna: Your review is actually quite strong, one of the most coherent and insightful I’ve read so far. It is true that you didn’t hold on to tense vs aspect…
Rationale This is inspired by Alex’s opening presentation in LALP, which I loved; it was funny and engaging, and succeeded in more than just introducing himself to students. It also communicated that he has foibles, and is a member of the class rather than solely its leader. Genevieve also told me about her introductory exercise…
The Ladder of Inference Always try to move down the ladder. Books for CLIT Pat Moran: Teaching Culture Lisa Delpit: Other People’s Children The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
This is all from: Dörnyei, Zoltán and Murphey, Tim (2008). Group Dynamics in the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Four main functions of “closure”: Help students realize and summarize what they’ve achieved during the course Provide emotional finality Help students think about what’s next (plan of action) Evaluate teacher’s work The authors quote Tim…
Course Goals and Objectives In answering this I have reviewed the list of objectives and find that the course has met them each, with one exception: to develop an attitude of confidence. While I understand that that comes from experience, practice and moral support, perhaps there are some additional techniques we can learn so that…
Teachers & Teaching TWBAT: Switch gears midstream when lesson isn’t working; be spontaneous when circumstances require it; modify or toss a lesson plan on the fly. How: Have eyes open to students’ reactions and my own feelings; ask students for their ideas; be myself and confident enough that my brain is fluid; have lesson plans…
[Beverly feedback in blue.] I’ve never been sure that I wanted to teach English as an additional language. I came to SIT because of my passionate interest in international culture, the personal stories that emerge from experience, and a desire to make a difference in the lives of people who may be educationally (and otherwise)…
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…
I understand about the blank sheet….. try loop-writing. Take another blank sheet (not the worksheet) and just write whatever comes into your mind on the subject of ‘language’. Keep your pencil/pen to the paper, or fingers to the keyboard. Don’t lift them and don’t stop writing, even if it means that you have to write:…
Vella, Jane (1994). Learning To Listen, Learning to Teach: The Power of Dialog in Educating Adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers. 3–4: “A principle, the philosopher tells us, is the beginning of an action.” Her twelve principles of teaching adults across culture [all this is a direct quote]: Needs assessment: participation of the learners in…
Little by little I’m starting to see some patterns of my interests in the field, and where they intersect with what I already know and care about. I still have absolutely no idea what I want to do when I leave here. I may not want to teach ESL at all. But there is overlap…
Focus: Teachers & Teaching Statement of Conception I believe that teachers must be adaptable. Definition of Terms By adaptable I mean that, after observing the teaching environment — from classroom context to students’ goals and personalities — a teacher must be able to adjust plans (or scrap them) as needed. Illustration An example of this…
It’s good to invite S feedback on topics to explore It’s okay to get the ideas and take them home to find the language first Be careful about trying to teach something Ss want if you’re not prepared Be yourself, though; don’t do topics that make you uncomfortable It’s okay to give them a choice…
SW subordinates teaching to learning. Teaching guided by human potential for learning and by actual learning process of individual learners. Questions that Silent Way teachers study all their lives — and that all teachers need to contemplate, and that we can discuss with out teachers and ask in the world beyond; our answers will change…
Course Goals & Objectives The stated goals and objectives are definitely relevant. But, even though I didn’t know too much about adult ed for refugees in the US, I don’t feel I learned much. As I mention below, I felt the course design, being relatively broad in scope for a one-unit class, didn’t allow us…
Graves, Kathleen [ed.] (1999). Teachers as Course Developers. New York: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 1 (Teachers as Course Developers) also by Kathleen Graves. “Prabhu (1990) defines theory in the general sense as an abstraction that attempts to unite diverse and complex phenomena into a single principle or system of principles so as to make sense…
By Alex: Often the most difficult challenge in developing a lesson or unit plan is knowing how to get started. This is especially true where there is no existing curriculum or text to guide you. Freedom can be paralyzing, but it also suggests myriad opportunities for creativity and the chance to put your personal stamp…
My Thanksgiving Dinner Set into Dell Hymes (RIP) Framework Setting and Scene: Where is the speech event? Is the physical space significant? What types of props are there? It took place at my brother’s house on Cape Cod, in Wood’s Hole. The physical space was significant in that the house was newly remodeled — he…
Hidden Dynamics For every thought we express during a conversation, there are probably several others that never emerge: ideas that are off-topic (or off-color), discourteous or otherwise inappropriate. And often what we do say is not really what we mean. For personal, cultural or other reasons, many of us are reluctant (or unable) to express…
Dell Hymes, Linguist With a Wide Net, Dies at 82 By Margalit Fox, November 22, 2009, The New York Times Dell H. Hymes, a prominent anthropologist, linguist and folklorist whose work mined the rich, often overlooked territory where language and culture intersect, died on Nov. 13 in Charlottesville, Va. He was 82 and lived in…
David Sedaris has written a lot of funny stuff about second-language-learning. Here’s this about avoidance: Living in France, he avoids natives whenever he can, since his linguistic inadequacies come into full bloom during live conversation. But if he were in prison, he postulates, then he’d have nowhere to hide. He imagines asking a fellow prisoner…
[ELIZABETH’S FEEDBACK IN BLUE CAPS] Something I Learned About Myself as a Writer in My L2 I am out of practice in my L2 and had a very difficult time remembering even the basic vocabulary that I needed to complete my writing project. So I used a lot of avoidance strategies, as fundamental as changing…
Derewianka, Beverly. Exploring How Texts Work. Victoria, Australia: Primary English Teaching Association, 2004. I borrowed Beverly’s copy. Here are notes I took, beginning with their page numbers. 3: “A functional approach looks at how language enables us to do things — to share information, to enquire, to express attitudes, to entertain, to argue, to get…
I had the opportunity (for which I am truly grateful) to speak with Bev for 1.5 hours, one on one, about CBI and my confusion about it. As a student, it meant everything to me that she took that valuable time to devote just to me, and in doing so she has sparked an interest…
Class notes 11/30/09: Modals are there to tell you something about the main verb; they’re supporting verbs. Must and Have To Have to: can take conjugations, auxilliary/modals, past & future [can potentially have the same two meanings as ‘must’] Must: can’t do any of the above [two primary meanings: obligation and conclusion from evidence] ‘Have…
Conceptions: For each of the following dimensions, write 1 conception (a belief, assumption, principle, view) that is important to you as a language teacher and that guides your decisions. Language (What is your view of language?) It is equally a means of communication and a badge of identity and pride (or sometimes of shame). Mastery…
A brief note about the role of the institution in a student’s motivation. As the weeks have passed I’ve been hearing more and more about the sorry state of SIT’s — or at least the MAT program’s — fiscal and morale difficulties. I’ve learned that just before I arrived, the school laid off a significant…
Read Ann Raimes and Jessica Williams articles. She began class, as she has before, by posting quotations (Raimes) around the room and asking us to go around and pick one that relate to our experience as teacher or learner.
This overlaps with some of what I wrote in my last post. The writing module was a little disappointing to me when I consider the excitement with which I approached it in the beginning. I don’t know what I expected, but it seemed that the process writing explanation was formulaic. I don’t mean to say…
Topic: Part of a course on energy and the environment OR labor OR socioeconomics, etc. Students: Advanced-intermediate college students Linguistic objectives: Relevant vocabulary; build discourse from series of photographic images; past-tense constructions; critical thinking: articulating ideas based on prompts. Later component could consist of writing exercise and debate. Introduction to Coal Mining What kinds of…
This “reflection” conveniently falls into the category both for Approaches and Four Skills, having sprung from the way they’ve blurred. For my Participatory Approach paper I wrote that I didn’t understand where the line should be between one’s teaching and one’s opinion. That’s no problem, generally, if you’re teaching pronouns. Well, it could be: the…
Here’s my PP presentation (in .mov format) on Mexican immigration to the US: Quicktime movie: Mexican immigration to the US I have no feedback to post from peers or teacher since I got only the usual post-yack applause.
This is my PowerPoint presentation on older-adult learning. And here are comments from, first, my teacher and then my classmates: Elizabeth There was so much information that i wanted to spend more time on each slide. If you did this as a TESOL presentation, you would have 45 minutes and then the audience could interact…
Mungu ibariki Afrika Wabariki Viongozi wake Hekima Umoja na Amani Hizi ni ngao zetu Afrika na watu wake. Ibariki — Afrika Ibariki — Afrika Tubariki watoto wa Afrika. Mungu ibariki Tanzania Dumisha uhuru na Umoja Wake kwa Waume na Watoto Mungu Ibariki Tanzania na watu wake. Ibariki — Tanzania Ibariki — Tanzania Tubariki watoto wa…
Course goals/objectives [I wish I could’ve found the course objectives on Moodle (if they were there, they were hiding). One reason it took me so long to get to this is I never had time to dig through old papers to find them!] Elka was outstanding in clearly presenting expectations and objectives, and I never…
Students: Advanced/intermediate teenagers and adults in Mexico. First class session. Objective(s): In the first week of class, provide the students with a introductory activity that taps into their life story as a source, helps them get to know their classmates and teacher, and let them experience writing as a low-stress, personal and rich experience; to…
In Panama, they don’t want to learn English; they want to learn American (accent). They want jobs at a call center. High motivation. Namibian: no standards on African vs. American vs. English English That’s the end of the notes I took. I am very interested in this subject, having written a paper on it. Yet…
Kabla: Before (kabla ya) Baada: After Mada: Topic Kwanza: First Pya: New (mada mpya, darasa jipya, mwalimu mpya) Mtu (one person); watu (people) Vipi? How? (Like ‘What do you think?’) Namba: Number Chagua: Choice Mti: Tree They don’t say “mtu moja” (one person). Instead: Take the first letter of the noun and stick it with…
Put a tiny piece of paper with your name on it into a basket. Teacher assigns a scribe, and both teacher and scribe take part in the circle of naming things: Scribe writes what everyone likes to get as a present: book, plane ticket, Wii, camera, laptop, chocolate, printer (and three “passes” — people aren’t…
[Ack: I forget the source. My text, or the book she has on hold.] CLT is still the dominant approach to L2 teaching. (132). CBI is a descendent. What strikes me at the moment: I like the nonthreatening way of learning (with group discussion) and the idea of learning a language through learning another topic:…
[Beverly’s comments in brackets and blue] Teachers, like all humans, have an agenda. More often than not, it is based in noble intention, but it is there nonetheless. (And of course teachers have literal agendas, in the form of lesson plans). Studying the Participatory Approach heightened my awareness the idea of “checking your agenda at…
1. The lesson plan is the final stage of a long process that includes beliefs, the constraints, demands and opportunities of the context, and a lesson structure (e.g. Stimulus +Moves). The plan itself is the surface level of this whole process. Analogy: Any serious chef has a philosophy of cooking, or at least a set…
How would we use it for beginners? How would we use it for English? How can teachers be both participants in the discussion and neutral. How can codes be neutral and still elicit emotion. If they overtly represent both sides of a dialog, they’ve already solved the problem and provide the answers. Don’t they have…
Among the types of correction are: S: I sleeped all morning. That’s why I’m sleepy. T: I sleeped, or…? If the S can correct, it helps them identify a mistake. If they can’t, you know it’s an error and something you can work on. That’s helpful feedback. T: Now tell me what I just said.…
1. What was an experience you had as a writer in English that helped your confidence? Why? [Importance to me as teacher: ascertain level of willingness, motivation, affect] Joseph: He always had a profound love for reading, which has affected his writing. “Once you embrace a language, you automatically embrace the culture.” 2. Were there…
My made-up lesson plan based on Alex’s Islamabad class exercise: Students: Advanced-Intermediate from varied cultures. Goals: Introduce students to key vocabulary in context. Engage and maintain their interest by the gradual unfurling of the story and by placing events into a physical and emotional context to which they can relate. Materials Required: Cuisenaire rods, blackboard…
For our in-class exercise for this coming Friday I used Auerbach’s criteria for evaluating codes. First, I had to determine if this is a viable PA issue: Is it a real issue for your group? Is it a common, social issue for your group? Is it an issue that appeals to the whole group and…
Update 12/1/09: Culture: community-based: rules, norms, and conditions of Ss’ society Teacher: Facilitator, guide through codes and toward action, co-learner Teaching: Ensuring balanace, asking questions, focus on S strengths Learners: Active participants, researchers, problem-solvers, generally adults Learning: Rehearsing for real life, everyone teaches & everyone learns, language is means to an end (anti-banking) Context: From…
I’m excited about this writing module. I think it will provide an opportunity for me to objectify facets of writing that I already know deeply but have never been able to articulate. But I’m also worried that this excitement may lead to anticlimactic disappointment: maybe teaching writing won’t be fun. I love how the Lucy…
