Shen, Fan. “The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition.” From College Composition and Communication 40(4). 1989. Requirements of English composition have been an “uphill battle to recapture “myself.” “Learning the rules of English composition is, to a certain extent, learning the values of Anglo-American society.” Rule # 1…
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…
Something I Learned About Myself as a Reader in L1 and L2 As a reader in my L1, I learned that I am disorganized and unfocused. Actually, I knew that already because it takes me so long to get through MAT readings and I don’t retain much once the page leaves my field of vision,…
What I write in a 24-hour period With my first cup of coffee, check e-mail and respond to any essential ones Jot notes on ideas I may have for future e-mails or future blog postings Start working on a homework assignment: writing a paper or lesson plan, transferring notes to my blog, etc. While driving…
Ease Definition The teacher’s task: Simplicity, economy of preparing the materials. The more you rely on If you turn to Ss for content of lesson, the richer the lesson will be. Haiku Easy; little prep for the teacher. Ss did research on haikus, explained its history and form, wrote the poems. He had 123 haiku…
Auerbach, Elsa and Paxton, Diane (1997). “It’s Not the English Thing”: Bringing Reading Research Into the ESL Classroom. TESOL Quarterly 31(2), 259. Sample Strategies Prereading Strategies Accessing prior knowledge Writing your way into reading (writing about your experience related to the topic) Asking questions based on the title Semantic mapping Making predictions based on previewing…
John Henry was a little boy, No bigger than the palm of your hand. By the time that boy was nine years old He was driving spikes like a man, Lord, Lord. Driving spikes like a man. John Henry said to the captain, yeah, “Man, you ought to see me swing. I weigh 49 pounds…
Choice of Text For my reading lesson plan, again I used the John Henry legend as the source, this time in ballad form. My target students are intermediate-advanced adult learners of English in Mexico. Underlying my choice to work with folklore is my belief that it may be a powerful vehicle for English-language learning, because:…
Tense Every verb consists of two characteristics: tense and aspect. Tense is time: when an action, event or state of being took place. In English there are three tenses: past, present and future: I go, I went, I will go. Modality Thornbury: “A grammatical means by which interpersonal meaning can be conveyed.” Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman…
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…
This is the best article I’ve read so far in our SLA class: incredibly clear, concise, engaging… and on a topic so potentially deadly, no less. At the same time, the author didn’t compromise her academic integrity. She begins with a survey of definitions of grammar, and then presents the following as a working definition…
[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…
Social cartophraphy: Painting Ourselves on a Map Chiapas: Zapatista. 1994 was the Z uprising. Wanted a different education that respected their culture, their langauge: to have a central role in creating their language. So they wanted autonomous eduction (from gov’t) so refused books, money, teachers from gov’t; had to figure out how to produce those…
I just had a long talk with Nita from Nepal. She’s taking advanced English and is very unhappy with the teacher. The teacher, she says, is knowledgeable but doesn’t know how to transmit the knowledge so she isn’t learning anything. The class started out with twenty people and now has four or five. But it’s…
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…
For the final two classes (11/16 and 11/23), I would like you to research ONE key area in the field of adult ESL education. Please let me know by Friday Oct. 30 which area you want to research–lst and 2nd choices please). You can also suggest any additional area for research. I would prefer that…
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:…
Lexicon Core Vocabulary One observation that I made after consulting the dictionary on selected words is that the words we ought to teach first in a group of synonyms are the ones that appear in the definition of the other words. Here are the word groupings he gave as examples. In the first, “angry” is…
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…
Recalled early reading experiences: our memory of first reading, our favorite book, where we prefer to read. We drew pictures of all this. It’s important to consider people’s early reading experiences when teaching it, and figure out how to recreate a positive learning environment. Homework assignment for Friday Think about how I approach a new…
English as a Lingua Franca by Ginna Allison — October, 2009 It has often been said that language is inextricably linked with culture. But what can one say about a single language — in this case, English — spoken natively or secondarily by people from scores of different cultures? In such a situation, there is no…
Errors: When you get something wrong because you don’t know it. They have to do with lack of competence. Mistakes: When you get something wrong that you really know but you spaced out for some reason. They have to do with performance due to stress, etc. In the Community Blackboard, the prompts guide people through…
[I can find no record of feedback from Elizabeth on this, either via e-mail or Moodle.] What did I learn about myself as a listener in my L1? After finishing this unit, I still think my strongest L1 skills are listening and writing. In our “cocktail party” exercise it was easy to tune out the…
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…
Here are notes from Monica Flores’ thesis. One thing I found particularly noteworthy is in bold. The author describes several key ways she consciously learns new words when she hears on spoken (or sees it written) and doesn’t understand it. Noticing Repetition Identifying collocations Conscious decision to use newly noticed words Comparing it to L1…
DIE Describe (what is it) Interpret (what does it mean) Evaluate (what do you think of it) In cooperative learning situations there is a positive interdependence among students’ goal attainments; students perceive that they can reach their learning goals if and only if the other students in the learning group also reach their goals. No…
Dear Mike, Here is my… Group Dynamics Final Paper Progress Report Theme Since talking to you last week, I’ve refined my theme from the “one in every group” idea to Invisible Dynamics: what goes on beneath the surface that never gets expressed (unless you’re in some kind of encounter group, like doing blindfolded naked finger-painting).…
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…
What beliefs/assumptions about teaching listening underlie this lesson? That listening as an activity, while closely tied to the other four skills, can be isolated in an exercise to spotlight certain aural factors in the language. That there is value to focusing on the sound of the language first in isolation, and then as it relates…
Students Older teenagers and adults. Level: intermediate. Location: their native town in Mexico (EFL) in a small, rustic classroom with few amenities. Purpose of learning English: unknown as yet. For this exercise, I will assume it’s to gain English language skills for use in the US. Theme John Henry: Steel Drivin’ Man (the American legendary…
Selinker and Lamendella (1978) defined fossilization as a permanent cessation of IL learning before the learner has attained TL norms at all levels of linguistic structure and in all discourse domains in spite of the learner’s positive ability, opportunity, and motivation to learn and acculturate into target society. ____ From Second Language Research (publication); Reconceptualizing…
[Quotes from Teaching American English Pronunciation (Peter Avery & Susan Ehrlich). Chapter 11, Suprasegmentals in the Pronunciation Class: Setting Priorities by Maureen McNerney & Davis Mendelsohn.] Classroom norm has been to devote majority of time and effort to segmentals (individual sounds), and usually vowels. This is because in a multilingual group of ESL learners, vowels…
In Zimbabwe: “Let’s we go.” Solution is to expand the contraction. Ishmael learned vocabulary first, and later grammatical terms. Tatiana: she knows the rules but not the exceptions and usage so she feels that native speakers are the better teachers. But I think we’re not as good as knowing the rules, but only the usage.…
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…
I’ve been angry ever since Saturday night when I really wanted to go to the Pumpkin Festival in Keene but couldn’t because I had too much homework. I was at work on my presentation for my Monday 8:30 a.m. class in Adult Education. The festival in Keene is a big deal around here. Over thirty-thousand…
1. I want to begin with question 3: what it was like working in my group. I’ve worked on another class presentation with Regina and have found her easy to work with: cooperative and willing. I haven’t worked with Tatiana before, but had befriended her back in the beginning of our MAT days when she…
Here is a Quicktime of the PowerPoint we did today. It’s tiny so you can barely see it but oh well. You’ll have to wait a while for it to load, and then you can flip through it by hitting the arrow keys. Connected Speech: Linking, Assimilation & Elition And here is the lesson plan…
I know little about my internship, and what little I write here is subject to change. Who are the students? They are 5th-6th grade children and adults at ABC School of English. Of course I don’t know their personalities yet, or their proficiency level. I believe the class size is under 15 but I’m not…
We were given a presentation by a very young woman who worked on a project called the Vermont Harmony Project, which went into migrant communities and taught them (and performed) songs. Her presentation was wanting in direction. Her “any questions” left me blank. But the more I thought about what they’d done, the more it…
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,…
Here are the phonology exam questions with Alex’s answers. My own answers are filed in my LALP folder on my computer. 1. An English learner hears the sentence: “I can’t stand the hot weather.” but has trouble getting the meaning. In fact, he can’t determine if the speaker is saying she can or cannot tolerate…
Alex suggested we take notes on this chapter of Planning Lessons & Courses by Tessa Woodward, so I am. Modes of Learning Finding out for yourself: “guided learning encounter” Learner does noticing mostly on their own. But unlike the process of stumbling into an electric fence, this process involves a guide who, rather than subjecting…
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…
Key Learning Today (content and process) test Questions or things that are unclear test What helped me learn today? test What hindered my learning today? test Participation: What did I notice/learn about my/classmates’/teacher’s participation using each of the skills? Listening test Speaking test Reading test Writing test Strategies that I can use to improve my…
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…
Schema building: all groups Top-Down Processing: The beginning group and the advanced group did this (tried to get the big picture) Bottom-Up Processing: The intermediate group did this, trying to make meaning from recognizable words Interactive Processing: The more people knew, the more of this they did Prediction/Guessing: We all guessed. Inference (higher order skill)…
