Chapter three in Reflective Teaching in Second Language Classrooms by Richards and Lockhart discusses professionalism in English teaching and asks us to reflect on what that means to us and whether we believe teaching English is a profession. AS with most books that I've seen that bring the topic of professionalism up, the book does not define the term. This is a problem because just like "business casual", the term means different things to different people. The book even goes on to mention that some people perceive it as a skilled trade instead of a profession. My first thought was, "What's the difference?" Unfortunately, the authors did not inform me. Looking on Wikipedia briefly just to get a feel for the term and an idea, I found the following: A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialized set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, engineers, lawyers, architects and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to nurses, accountants, educators, scientists, technology experts, social workers, artists, librarians (information professionals) and many more. I think the most important aspects of professionalism, after looking at this excerpt and reflecting on what else I know about the idea, are the high degree of specialization, work autonomy that is creative and intellectually challenging, regulation by peers and strong ethical obligation. So in many ways, I definitely see teaching English as a professionalism, but think there are many ways it could improve. I think the high degree of specialization is not quite there yet in the field. Some treat the job as a random selection of English materials without much thought. I think in a true profession, specialization entails knowing what to do and when. This means everything should have a clear purpose and that this should be known before class, not during class. It also makes sense to base any of this on a proper assessment, which seems to be a huge gap in English teaching. Properly assessing English knowledge in learners is in no way uniform or consistent and is closely linked to point three about regulation. I do think that we clearly fit into the high work autonomy and engagement in creative and intellectual challenge category. There are few positions that require as much creativity on a moment to moment basis and fewer with a higher degree of worker autonomy. Of course, some positions or jobs will be very controlled and force to follow an exact curriculum, but especially outside of the United States, from what I've seen, the autonomy is there. Regulation by peers is something that is not firmly in place and could be improved. There is little in terms of agreement on education, certification, licensing or any other form of regulation in terms of who can and cannot teach ESOL. Until that happens, many learners will receive drastically different education from place to place. Even observations and feedback from peers is not common. Finally, the idea of an ethical obligation is quite obvious in most professions. Medicine as the Hippocratic oath and financial advisers have fiduciary duty. There are no real legal oaths or duties that teachers have that I am aware of, for English or in general. I just do not think teachers look at the act of teaching with the idea of, "First, do no harm," as many other professions are obligated to do. Teachers need a greater awareness of the fact that although they may not always inspire and educate a student to their fullest potential, they should at the very least do no harm to them and their future. There are too many anecdotal stories of people that believe they aren't intelligent or capable due to a past teacher. This is unacceptable. Perhaps education would benefit greatly from taking a "Socratic oath" which could imitate the Hippocratic oath in form and function, but have a decidedly educational bent to it. Taking the Hippocratic oath from Wikipedia and rearranging the appropriate parts for education would look something like this: "I swear by Hermes, the educator, Apollo, Athena, and Mnemosyne, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment, the following Oath and agreement: This was copied and pasted from Wikipedia and then changed all in good fun, but something similar should indeed be created for educators. Hope you found it interesting.
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I believe that SLA is a manifestation of the General Adaptation Syndrome, along with any other type of learning, especially skills. This syndrome includes three stages which are predictable responses to stress in the human body. They include shock, recovery, and adaptation. The learner is introduced to a new stress in the form of the unknown language and eventually adapts after recovering from initial shock. This adaptation is not a vague abstract thought, but an actual physical adaptation to the learner's neurons and brain.
The brain itself will adapt given time and that the stress is not too large. A stress that is too large will simply induce exhaustion and overwhelm. A stress that is too small (i.e. not stressful), will not induce any adaptation and can actually allow for the learner to become unadapted as time goes on if a successful stress is not induced. This idea of unadapting is very similar to Ausubel's cognitive pruning, but again would be a very physical transformation where the neuronal connections simply become weaker over time as they are not called on to develop and strengthen. The entire theory actually fits rather closely with both Krashen's "i + 1" theory and Vygotsky's "zone of proximal development", however, this theory is rooted in biology and was development by endocrinologist Dr. Hans Selye. One idea that does seem to be missing from Krashen's theories is that adaptations are specific and that, while transfer does occur among similar tasks, it is best to induce stress using an activity or task that is as close to what you hope to do as possible. For instance, taking a reading course for TOEFL preparation is more specific than taking a general reading course if that is your goal. Hopefully at least. The take away point with this last comment is that grammar does have a place in a theory based on adaptation, while it does not necessarily have a strong role in Krashen's. This is because some situations in life do call for highly accurate grammar use, such as academic environments and professional writings. For these situations, understanding that learning adaptations are specific means that time should be devoted them at some point. However, if a learner is not interested or does not have need for a highly accurate grammar system, there is no reason to study or focus on it. It will not necessarily help them with communication or further their goals in any way.
Authors and summary: This is chapter 3 of Diaz-Rico and Weed's The Crosscultural, Language, and Academic Development Handbook. It covers second language acquisition and its methodologies and theories. Methodologies 1. Grammar-Translation - second languages are learned by understanding their structures, mainly grammatical.strength - clearly defined success, curriculum can be carefully constructed and controlled drawbacks - students have little choice in what they learn, little contact with native speakers, no language use in social situations, few creative stimuli 2. Structural Linguistics - second languages are learned by describing their structures, including sounds; by comparing languages with each other and classifying similar families strengths - exotic languages could be seen and learned in the context of their langauge family drawbacks - does not accurately predict leaners difficulties with a new language 3. Audiolingualism - second language is learned by habit formation, especially correct pronunciation strengths - focuses on correct pronuncation drawbacks - limits exposure to the target language and does not emphasize self-motivated learner acquisition 4. Direct Teaching - second language is learned by dividing what is to be learned into small units and using rote repetition, with much drill and practice strengths - focuses on sub-skills and immediate remediation drawbacks -students are seldom asked to set their own goals 5. Mastery Learning - similar to direct teaching but students can progress at their own rate instead of in locked unison strengths - allows to students to progress at their own rate drawbacks -same as direct teaching Theories of SLA 1. Transformational Grammar - envision language as a set of rules the humans unconsciously know and use, which transformational grammarians attempt to describe 2. Krashen's Five Hypothesis -
3. Cummins's Theories of BICS and CALP -
Thoughts: This is a really great overview of the methodologies and theories, but does not give a ton of new information for those that have already read or studied about them in depth. I really like the section on brain-based learning and will be looking into some of the recommended texts as soon as possible. Quotes: Students do not have to relearn in a second language the essentials of schooling: how to communicate, how to think critically, and how to read and write. (p. 60) Conversational skills have been found to approach native-like levels within two years of exposure to English, but five or more years may be required for minority students to match native speakers in CALP. (p. 60) CALP represents the cognitive toolbox, entire systems of thought as well as the language to encode and decode this thought. Without the acquisition of CALP, students are incapable of acquiring the in-depth knowledge that characterizes the well-educated individual in a complex modern society.
Authors and summary: This was written by Ginsburg in 1997 as part of Entering the Child Mind.
Thoughts: I really like the premise of this reading. I do rant about traditional research beneath one of the quotations below, but I feel the points made by the authors of this reading justify many of the thoughts I spilled out. If you want to know an ability of a person, you need to talk with them, ask them questions, watch them, and get to know them overall. A "test" is situational and not justified in labeling someone. It's similar to taking the blood pressure of a person one time and then writing them prescriptions for high blood pressure. Without more readings, one test does not tell you the average or "normal" state of an individual. It also is not representative of their potential in any true way. Quotes: This book is an attempt to show that for certain key purposes the traditional methods of standardized testing are inadequate. (p. 2) if anything is to be learned in investigations like these, the experimenter must have control over the stimuli and must be able to ensure that procedures are fully standardized. (p. 6) All subjects must receive the same test stimuli - whether this be a list of nonsense syllables or a paragraph or an IQ test - in the same manner. (p. 7) In one way or another, these reasons revolve around fairness or impartiality. One justification is that standard tests prevent the teacher from favoring some children over others (perhaps by giving some children easier questions than others) or from interfering with the process of testing. Another justification is that the tests make the process public, so that an outside observer can judge whether the questions are too hard or too easy. In this way, testing can be fair and "just." (p. 7-8) The quote directly above has to be the largest lie ever and the central problem with traditional research. This illusion of control is totally off base. If I gave a strength test to every child that involve squatting a the same weight for maximum reps (say 135 lbs), it would appear by traditional research standards that this is highly standardized and controlled. However, 135 lbs does not represent the same stimuli to all children. Some are genetically superior in terms of strength and some have environmental factors that affect their output that day. You have adequately "tested" their strength with this controlled and standardized test. You've simply demonstrated that at the day, time, and context children vary. What does that actually tell you? Excruciatingly little in my mind. The fact that it keeps teachers from "favoring" one student is also untrue. All it says it that they aren't favoring a student by changing the testing in the moment. However, the teacher could easily have focused their instruction on a student to improve their strength prior to the test. They could have selected 135 lbs in order to favor one student over another because they already know the past performances and capabilities of the student. The entire illusion of control, fairness, impartiality is a joke and a bad one at that. In brief, standardized administration does not automatically result in presenting children with the "same" tasks and tests. Objective equivalence may differ from subjective equivalence, which should be our main concern. We must always be alert to the possibility that different children interpret the same task in different ways. (p. 12) You cannot do good research or clinical practice unless you use your head. First, you have to explore, and indeed, sometimes you learn more from exploration than formal "rigorous" procedures used later. (p. 25)
Summary: This session reviewed our practicum placements and went over observational notes in the first half in conjunction with what we read about journaling. The second half focused on planning a thematic unit and individual lesson plans.
Thoughts: This session was okay. I feel like I can cover much of the material at home and that much of the chatting is not beneficial to me. Some of the thoughts are interesting, but much is not.
Author and summary: This is chapter 2 of Diaz-Rico and Weed's The Crosscultural, Language, and Academic Development Handbook. It covers several langauge structures including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
Thoughts: I personally really like learning about this stuff. I particularly like the pragmatics part as it is interesting to note differences between cultures and languages. Certain aspects of syntax and semantics are really interesting as well. This area of second language acquisition or TESOL is much more scientific in nature than the rest and I am naturally more drawn this objective material. Quotes: At last count, 6,809 languages are spoken in today's world. (p. 32) No languages are "primitive". All languages are equally complex, capable of expressing a wide range of ideas, and expandable to include new words for new concepts. (p. 33) All human languages use a finite set of sounds that are combined to form meaningful elements or words, which themselves form an infinite set of possible sentences. Every spoken language also uses discrete sound segments, such /p/, /n/, or /a/, and has a class of vowels and a class of consonants. The number of phonemes in a language ranges between twenty and fifty; English has a high average count, from thirty-four to forty-five, depending on the the dialect. (p. 34) Native speakers are seldom if ever taught explicitly the phonological rules of their language, yet they know them. Phonological knowledge is acquired as a learner listens to and begins to produce speech. The same is true in a second language. A learner routinely exposed to a specific dialect or accent in English views it as the target language. (p. 37) Making charts of English words that English learners use in their first language and words English has borrowed from the students' native languages increases everyone's vocabulary and often generates interesting discussions about food, clothing, cultural artifacts, and the ever-expanding world of technology. (p. 38) Whereas syntax refers to the internally constructed rules that make sentences, grammar looks at whether a sentence conforms to as standard. An important distinction, therefore, is the one between standard and colloquial usage. Many colloquial usages are acceptable sentence patterns in English, even though their usage is not standard - for example, "I ain't got no pencil" is acceptable English syntax. Every situation carries with it the expectations of the speakers involved and a script that carries out those expectations. (Note: When linguists use the term script, they mean a predictable sequence of events, not a written dialogue that actors follow.) (p. 44) This nonverbal system, estimated to account for up to 93 percent of communication, involves sending and receiving messages through gesture, facial express, eye contact, posture, and tone of voice. (p. 45)
Author and summary: This research article was written by Dr. Sarina Molina about changing demographics and how teachers are coping. It appears that many teachers quit the profession very early in their careers. This seems to be mostly from a lack of support from their institution and the fact that they are not trained to deal with the large number of cultures inside the classrooms. Many are white monolingual teachers trying to educate bilingual multicultural students. Thoughts: I think awareness of this as a teacher is important, especially for veteran teachers and prospective teachers. By knowing about this before entering the profession, prospective teachers can have a more realistic vision of their future career. On the other hand, veteran teachers that are aware of this can take more time to support and scaffold the experiences of new teachers in an attempt to ease them into the profession, rather than dumping them into a classroom they are unprepared for and overwhelmed by. This experience of overwhelm and unpreparedness is something that I experienced in my first year in Korea at the public middle schools. I was lucky enough to change to a private elementary school that had a ton of support and it made all the difference. Quotes: In fact, 22% of the teachers leave the profession in their first four years of teaching (p. 2) The purpose of this study is to make a small attempt at understanding one facet of the unfortunate phenomenon of teacher attrition by gaining some insight into the ways in which a small number of teachers manage—or, possibly, fail to manage—the challenges of working with ELLs. Specifically, the study will explore the challenges identified by a small number of teachers, the ways in which they approach these challenges, and their understanding of the relationship between the challenges they face in working with ELLs and teacher attrition. (p. 3) Children were really low academically and I started to feel like a bad teacher even though intellectually, I knew that wasn’t the case. I kept on trying new things, and I can understand the frustration. Typically, brand new teachers get put into a classrooms that are a challenge because the teachers that have been around a while find ways to manipulate the system, let’s say, and so the brand new teachers get into combination classrooms, with two grades, and two or three languages. It’s frustrating and challenging. (p. 10) But they’re trying really hard, yet still it seems like from my experience in the other school I worked at, I felt lucky if I had five students meeting the grade level at the end of the school year out of a class of 20. And so the challenge is that they don’t meet the standard, and it seems like year after year they fall further and further behind. (p. 11) I barely speak Spanish or any other language other than English. I have had, the majority of our ELL students are Spanish speakers. I have had Chinese students, though as well. So the challenge is always the same. How do you communicate? So, I use a lot of layman’s sign language. I just show them physically what I’m looking for. (p. 12) I think bilingualism goes a long way. If a teacher knows the language or has an understanding of a romance language than he can tap into the cognates or whatever it happens to be and say, “You guys know this word. What’s this word in Spanish? Oh, so you do know this word and you do know what it means. You just didn’t translate it yet.” It is the vocabulary that is the big barrier between any type of language (p. 14) having someone they can latch on to, who is willing to and sometimes they have to, you have to seek that Last year, we spent a lot of time talking about what was going on in Uganda and Rwanda and there’s always this kind of idea that nothing is ever limited to the textbook or to the classroom, but that everything is applicable in every way, shape and form in all aspects of their lives and in all cultures and that they are unique and that they certainly share similarities with many different cultures and with many groups of people. (p. 19) it seems if I were at a school of say rich, white kids who all spoke English perfectly that if I have talents, my He makes the case that experiences are generalized from one situation to another for the individual and all experiences even those that are empirical need to progress through Piaget’s schema model of assimilation, accommodation, integration and differentiation. A single case study, according to Donmoyer (1990) has the ability to give readers access to an experience they may have otherwise never had, provide a framework in which to understand the theoretical viewpoint of the researcher, but also have enough space to create one’s own interpretation, and distance the readers from the sense of defensiveness commonly associated with the telling of direct experiences that might bear some threat psychologically (p. 22)
Authors and summary: Written by Larsen Freeman on Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and content-based, task-based, and participatory approaches.
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Thoughts: This was very informative. I really like the task-based and participatory approach described. I would certainly agree that I am more motivated to learn when creating something of real value or purpose. It also is an easier way to connect lessons to the students' cultural, social, or economic realities as the curriculum can react to what is going on in their lives, especially with the participatory approach.
Authors and summary: Prepared by The Center for Student Success (CSS), Research JULY 2007 (second edition)and Planning (RP) Group for California Community Colleges. Effective instructional practices are the key to achieving desired student outcomes for developmental programs.
Thoughts: This had a ton of very dense information. My take away points are that student-centered apprenticeship based teaching or "coaching" is the preferred approach by the group of writers for this document. I agree with this and have constantly stated that I would prefer to have a mentor instead of a teacher. I simply want things modeled for me and then I can take what I like and modify it. I don't really need a lecture on anything, just a model of my questions whether through physical actions or a piece of writing.
Authors and summary: This article is written by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins. It provides a framework for a three stage framework of teaching. Summarized below:
Thoughts: Seems like a straight forward way of teaching. I don't typically like doing anything without the goal in mind and can't really imagine doing it any other way. The assessment in stage 2 seems to be the difficult part of the framework. I think some understandings can be very difficult assess. However, I do like the teachers as coaches metaphor. Learning priorities are established by long-term performance goals—what it is we want students, in the end, to be able to do with what they have learned. The bottom-line goal of education is transfer.The point of school is not to simply excel in each class, but to be able to use one’s learning in other settings. |
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