This is a summary of the first half dozen or so classes with Alex, since I didn’t keep track digitally during this time. Intro to Alex: Class One For everything that Alex has taught us so far about phonology, he has even more inspired thinking about new teaching ideas. I’m late in catching this up…
Immigrant A person who settles in another country to live and work. It is often difficult to obtain a visa or work permit. Without these a person is considered “undocumented.” Refugee A person who fells their homeland owing to war or persecution. People who are recognized as refugees by the US government are eligible for…
Linked here is the PDF I found online about the top ten myths and facts about immigration. Also, we were to do some research into immigrant and refugee groups. I chose to look at who’s coming into the US now: From Refugee Transitions Iraq The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that more…
In Friday’s class we broke apart the process of Silent Way as taught by Beverly. She shook the box of rods and tilted it toward us so we could see the colors in side. She took out one. “‘N Staafi,” she said: A rod, and held it up for us all to see. Then she…
In class on Friday Elizabeth did two exercises. The first was a simulated cocktail party (she was the waitress). She reviewed the cultural aspects of a cocktail party: how one behaves, the tone and style of the conversation, and other norms (superficial speech, milling around, informality…). Then the “party” began. She put on fairly loud…
Rate my participation in the group on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. Even before our first meeting I resolved to know as much about the subject matter as possible. What role did I take in the group? I took several: sometimes leader and organizer, sometimes listener and follower. I…
Given that our brains are hard-wired differently, in a true democratic classroom we should… Be attentive to each student’s behavior to get a sense of their nature, and then figure out how we can adapt our lesson to be inclusive of all learning types. Use a full spectrum of learning techniques — e.g. inductive and…
Interesting points Civilization begins with the first cemetery Coming to America is coming to the language. People don’t have to learn the language to speak the “language” of the culture. He spoke of his friend who, after twenty years here, still speaks no English. But when she arrived she didn’t know what a washing machine…
Notes from Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools the Silent Way He talks about “the subordination of teaching to learning,” as SIT does. In order to understand the idea, he says, we must accept experimental lessons as the test of its validity. The Silent Way (1963 initially), as with L1-learning, is not just imitation and practice.…
When I read about this approach, I suspected it wouldn’t work for me, since it requires repetition and memorization of verbal cues spontaneously, without the aid of writing. My memory is very poor, and worse when it’s under the duress of being noticed by others. Still, I went into the lesson with an open mind,…
Sarah lent me this book by LouAnn Johnson (Jossey-Bass, 2005). It’s about the teacher-woman on whom the movie Dangerous Minds is based. There are some useful teaching tips in it, some of which I’ll list here for reference: Consider what quality of teacher you’d like to be: super, excellent or good. Super means you dedicate…
Myers-Briggs [Isabel] Type Indicator Uses a four-letter symbol to represent your personality type, and to suggest occupations best suited to you. Used in a variety of settings: big biz (organizational behavior & team-building), schools… From Wikipedia… Based on CG Jung’s psychological types theory Wikipedia: “a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people…
What I listen to in English in a 24-hour period Things are silent for me in the morning. The only human voice I hear is my own, talking to myself, but since I’m talking I’m not really listening. In Real Life I can go hours or days hearing nothing in English. Here at school, the…
This is the outline for the second half of our class presentation we gave on October 2 on pragmatics. Before break: ask class to consider a cross-cultural pragmatics challenge. [GINNA] SLIDE: What Are Cross-Cultural Pragmatics? [10:00] Objective: As we transition from intra-cultural to cross-cultural perspective, refresh memories about meaning of pragmatics. SLIDE: “The study of…
Cultural Globalization & Language Education This article by Kumaravadivelu (SJSU) explores nativist undercurrents in language acquisition which have infiltrated Ln teaching. According to Wikipedia, nativism is rooted in Chomsky’s theory of innate and universal grammar. But this article uses them term in what seems to me more of an ethnocentric way, with a definite negative…
Forty percent of Kiswahili words derive from Arabic. Kingazija has been since 1957 the national dialect of Kiswahili. In Kiswahili, many of the consonants are named by their sounds, without aspiration. Some of the sounds are softer than in our language: the p is less aspirated; the b sounds like a burp by itself. Here’s…
[Bev’s comments in blue with brackets] What Has Made Me Want To Teach Consolidating 55 years into a single timeline has been an interesting exercise, and in mapping out my life this way I’ve recognized five primary areas of influence. For context, I’ll pick a key event from each. (Timeline attached for reference.) [This is…
Reading from Approaches & Methods in Language Teaching (Richards & Rogers), chapter 6. Salient Points/Notes from Book The Silent Way is the brainchild of Caleb Gattegno and I think it got its sart in the mid-sixties. The basic premise is that the teacher should be as quiet as possible, while the students speak the target…
From University of Nebraska, Lincoln Office of Graduate Studies [Ginna’s Note: This is clearly geared toward American students and much is not applicable overseas. I don’t think I’d have South Africans making a game out of passports, considering (among other things) their history of passbooks.] Do you consider yourself “name-learning challenged?” Do you find it…
Notable quotes: “Total commitment, total involvement, a total physical, intellectual, and emotional response are necessary” to successfully send a receive messages in a second language. It’s a gargantuan task that requires powerful dedication on the part of the student. Some of that a student may bring to class, but it’s largely up to the teacher…
Words We Use in Daily Class Ba’ada = After Hapa = Here Kaa = Sit or stay (singular) Kaeni = Sit or stay (plural) Kingareza = English Kwa sabubu = Because Leo = Today Lingine = The other, another Majina = Nouns Misamiati = Vocabulary (this is a plural noun) Mko tayarai? = Are you…
FOR EACH READING WE NEED TO EXAMINE WHY IT MAKES US FEEL A CERTAIN WAY. Do that for Stevick article.
Richards & Rogers, Chapter Two Chapter Two began by defining the term “approaches,” which was way more complicated than I expected. An approach is, in essence, an underlying theory about the nature of language and the process of learning. That is, they ask, “What are the psycholinguistic and cognitive processes involved in language learning?” and…
The first teacher who pops into mind is Mr. Greisinger. It’s not because he was a good teacher in any traditional sense, but rather because he put the fear of God into me, and thus I learned. He was ferocious: angry and violent. He didn’t like the boys in class. He favored me, fortunately, though…
Parker Palmer: The Courage To Teach I believe that elsewhere in this blog I have a few quotes I’d saved from when I read part of his book this summer, but since I’m probably a different person now than two months ago, I’ll start from scratch. Lacking background in classroom teaching and having abundant stores…
Remember a teacher who was a good leader. What features made her effective? Scrolling back through the years, I find that Miss Richardson stands out as a strong leader. She was a PE teacher. I hated PE, but she made it a little less painful. I’ve had a handful of good teachers over the years,…
Dear Eleni and Molly, Hello, daughters young and slightly less young. I’m writing you (and cc’ing my teacher, Elka) as an assignment for my second language acquisition (SLA) class. I am to describe some of what I’ve learned here at SIT thus far. I’m still eligible for a passing grade if you don’t e-mail me…
Following is Elka’s handout about Lev Vygotsgy. Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1896 –1934) Here is the information used in the various segments of our class on Vygotsky. It was my objective for this class to re-constructe, with you help, the social, intellectual, and cultural climate in Vygotsky’s Soviet Russia that influenced his views on education. I…
I don’t believe this. I’d written copious notes about what we did today and when I went to save it, the fucking thing ate the entire entry. When the f will I learn to compose offline. I am furious. I have no time with this stupid school schedule. I haven’t had time even to take…
I’m always racing to catch up, and am never done when the others are.) My attitude is not great. I notice the high performers who are just beginning to produce for real, using a verb they know and trying out a different ending in an original situation with vocabulary from a different session. I’ve forgotten…
Subject Matter I thought we were going to do clocks today but we didn’t. We began, as always, with the “dictation” (it doesn’t really seem like a formal dictation. He just says a word and we start to write it as he writes on the board. That’s something I do regardless of whether or not…
I don’t recall Elka having ever stated the fundamental rules of courtesy that we kept using during our colloquia in orientation, unless she referenced them once on the first day, in passing. I may have grown immune to hearing it by then. The Recorder When we arrived in class we found that Elka had laid…
Something I learned / explored further / found interesting, valuable, important: I learned that “shortcuts” is traditional teacherese for ways to get the brain to make connections that otherwise might be harder/take longer. Using patterns is the example she gave. David suggested mnemonic devices like homonyms can help. Minimal pairs, colocations. I want to find…
Elka’s Teaching Tips Pay attention to transitions during class, from topic to topic. She writes on the board before class the main things we’ll discuss and goes over them verbally at the start of class. She uses the recorder to silence us at the end of a work group session. Have people work in threes…
Subject Matter He began (as he has done before but I forgot to notice/mention it) by stating & writing on the board the date. It was a nice way to start the class and get students’ attention. It was sort of a dictation; he told us to write things down, anyway. Ordering breakfast in a…
Semiotic: related to the study of signs and symbols and their use and interpretation Negotiation of meaning: the process by which a piece of language that was not comprehensible becomes comprehensible as a result of discussion Sustained acquisition: long-term language learning Ecological view of language: Affordance: “a reciprocal relationship between an organism and a particular…
Definitions of Pragmatics “The study of meaning in context.” — McCarthy, 1991 “The study of speaker and hearer meaning created in their joint actions that include both linguistic and nonlinguistic signals in the context of socioculturally organized activities.”— LoCastro, 2006 “The study of language from the point of view of users, especially of the choices…
Today I felt really left behind much of the time, while many others seemed to memorize vocab spontaneously. Observations about today vs. the other days: He spoke a little more English than in the previous two days. Not much, but just enough to clarify certain points, which was helpful. But of course in Real Life…
Instrumental factors for successful L1 Music Rhythm/Cadence Rhyme Multiple sources of input (the more the merrier) Comprehensible input L1 factors that can be applied to L2 Positive evidence Social contact Understanding of social context (language/norms) Low affective filter (uninhibited in interaction) Family environment (number of siblings, family members, support, encouragement) How to take advantage of…
Ray built on what we started yesterday, using identical techniques as far as I could tell: introducing new words and phrases, pantomiming them, calling on us in the circle, anmd then breaking us into pairs to try them. I felt he was moving very fast. In our pair work, since we were covering more ground…
This is in reference to our Explore the Environment exercise last week. It is drawn from all the groups’ feedback. Helped Cooperation Motivation; shared goal Mutual respect Positive attitude Flexibility Building friendships Tolerance for ambiguity Awareness of task Make task manageable: triage Movement Diversity of perspectives Empathy Taking turns: allowing each person a voice [polychronic/monochronic:…
Some instrumental factors in L1 Learning Interaction of child and context Input Comprehension Repetition and modeling Turn-taking Ability to distinguish between “self” and “other,” means and ends, cause and effect (semantics?) Low affective filter Ability to distinguish sounds in their environment, between “speech” and “other,” and later between happy, angry, friendly sounds. Practicing melody, rhythm,…
The teacher, spoke no English to us throughout the entire class (except for the fifteen minutes of methodology reflection at the end). When we walked in, he handed each of us a card with our names written in Turkish. As he pointed out later, this signaled to us that we’re working with a very different…
Interesting Issues 1. “Linguistic competence develops by stages. Observations of children in different language areas of the world reveal that the stages are similar — possibly universal. Some of the stages last for a short time; others remain longer.” [The source got eaten by my computer when I downloaded it but, if needed, I can…
From all the groups in which I’ve participated during orientation, what have I learned about the way groups form in the beginning? From a somewhat objective perspective I see that certain people appear as more willing to talk and to lead, and others to assume a quieter, follower role. Over a day or two I…
“Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives.” — James Joyce
I was just browsing YouTube looking for “linguistics humor” and found an amusing little skit by Fry and Laurie, and then this book trailer that I enjoyed. I’ll have to check out the book.
A few days ago I put this up on my wormlips blog, but it’s relevant here too. This will remind me that a sense humor should have a prominent place in my TESOL studies.
I just got back from the library and Barnes & Noble, where I looked for books that would contain appropriate stories to read to Madhu Maya: with concepts of interest and relevance to an adult but with vocabulary and grammar appropriate for someone pre-literate. I know such materials exist, but I got to thinking: Hey,…
Here’s an inspiring, thought-provoking e-mail I got today from Karen. She gives insight into what I might notice in her classroom. “We had a great time and I look forward to seeing you soon. Let’s set a date, maybe for August, for you to come visit my classroom. It would not be disruptive at all.…
