Course Goals and Objectives I’ve just reviewed stated goals/objectives and see the course achieves them… except maybe “gain skills in working in small groups.” I can’t say I’ve done that, tho’ we have worked in small groups in this and other classes. Gained experience: yes; new skills: no. Very minor observation. All major goals have…
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…
[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)…
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:…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
[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…
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…
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…
Finding a Code Listen to Ss talk: what are their concerns Read/research/newspapers/magazines Ask Ss directly Get to know neighborhood Bring in photos or culturally appropriate cartoons Get Ss to bring in things (realia, important stuff) Music: what do they listen to Movies, books What Can a Code Be Dialog/Role-playing Photos, cartoons, newspaper clippings Song Advertisement…
Learner centered; not banking (empty vessel) model Activism: real issues in real lives Empower students to find the power they already have to find solutions and take actions Ss become subjects of their own education Curriculum generated mostly by Ss S involvement is essential Rejects domination Access to education they need PE came out of…
[Bev’s comments in blue and brackets] I realize, both from experience and observation, that the Silent Way and Community Language Learning are much more complicated to teach than they appear; still, I found the Communicative Language Teaching the most difficult. I think the source was my attempt to attend to the concert of principles: the…
This was a difficult but energizing exercise for me. I felt much more like I was in the spotlight/center of attention, and felt the need to drive a show, keep things rolling and animated, and act like I knew what I was doing. So I got panicked a few times, because I was afraid of…
This post references this article (pdf). As we know by now, CLT says the goal of language-teaching is communicative competence (as described in this article, linguistic, pragmatic, discourse, strategic and fluency). Many pros think it’s the most effective of current approaches. However, CLT doesn’t distinguish between EFL and ESL environments. In the former, real-life target…
Lesson objective: introduce some new vocabulary that useful in everyday context, to let them practice with it in isolation, and then let them practice in a reality-based context. Personal goal: To do this lesson all in Spanish, not only to challenge my own language ability, but more to get a sense from my “students” about…
Five features that characterize Communicative Language Teaching: An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language (not just oral but all of four skills) The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on the learning process itself:…
First she taped drawings representing drinks on the bb (on yellow paper) and food drawings on pink paper, saying the name of it as she put it up. Then, underneath each one she put its word, sometimes engaging us by asking us to guess a little e.g. by saying the word before showing us what…
An Important Insight The single most memorable observation about Community Language Learning came from comparing two approaches to it: the traditional form in which students initiate and develop their own conversation, and the alternative version in which the teacher uses manipulatives as a springboard for students to develop their own dialog. [What emerged from this…
First of all, here’s my CLL lesson plan from today. Students: (Two of them) Bilingual English-Korean and English-German Theme: My family Objectives: Introduce students to family-unit vocabulary and present tense household action Materials: Cuisenaire rods, pen and paper Method Hand students rods. Let them feel and manipulate them as I explain briefly that they are…
Underlying assumptions of language as communication, and the goal of learning as effective communication (CLT in China: A Re-examination) Krashen stresses that provided that learners are exposed to enough comprehensive input in a relaxed setting, acquisition will take care of itself. Inspired by the interactionists’ [e.g. Vygotsky] hypothesis, typical exercise types and activities compatible with…
Quotes from an article. The Advantages of Communicative Language Teaching Rebecca Belchamber (Melbourne, Australia) The more I read on the topic, the more I defended the continued suitability of CLT for some of these diverse learner groups. It really does benefit the students in a variety of ways. Focus on accuracy versus fluency not often…
Snow, Marguerite Ann and Brinton, Donna M. (1997). Content-Based Classroom: Perspectives on Integrating Language and Content. White Plains, NY: Longman. Chapter 4: Moving from Comprehensible Input to “Learning to Learn” by Kate Kinsella. p 52-53: “A Rationale for Strategy Instruction” She talks about how some students get good at taking tests without comprehending. Some teachers…
Philosophy Began as way to deal with adult learners’ feeling threatened by learning new language Language: viewed as communication. Student’s cultures play a role. Approach much more challenging with multilingual groups. Twelve or fewer students ideal. Teachers: language counselors: being sensitive to student fears and helping them overcome them Students: whole persons: intellect, emotion, desire,…
The Silent Way and I A prominent insight I gained from our Silent Way studies is that the affective filter, once raised, is hard to lower. My first contact with the Silent Way was through our readings, and my reaction then was, “I wonder what kind of learner benefits from this approach, because it’s sure…
Today we each taught, in groups of three, using the Silent Way. I taught Spanish, and since my Spanish has reverted to an infantile stage it was, in itself, a stretch. The lesson in that — which was pointed out to me in the critique after I finished — was that I needed more confidence…
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…
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,…
[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…
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…
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…
