Week 9 Classtime reflection: I enjoy classtime and this turns out to be my longest entry ever! =)

First, I greatly enjoyed Stephanie and Chris's presentation, which clearly showed careful preparation and great efforts. I like the way they organized and carried out all the activities in a well-connected, smooth and lively way, which in itself is a good model of flexible and thorough lesson plan. One more good thing is that they two cooperated perfectly during the whole presentation, which somehow puts me under some kind of pressure since next week Kizuna and i are going to do our presentation on the same topic.

Also, Thea's sharing on her own experience in having students do the multi-genre research project was really interesting to me. Seeing the products made by Thea's students did help me visualize and understand better how diverse and creative the genres can be. Added to this, it was useful to know how Thea and other students in the class as well as my teacher would deal with plagiarism in the follow-up discussion. Every teacher obviously has his/her own way of handling students' misbehaviours, but here a common feature that can be seen is that tolerance and understanding play very important roles. From this i learn a good teaching philosophy: Don't ever push your students too hard and don't say to them: "You are NOT able enough to do this/that".

Additionally, the brief touch on "teachable moments" really attracted my attention. That was the first time i heard of the term and it sure is very much interesting. This, in my opinion, affirms the flexible nature of lesson planning and how being able to realize and utilize teachable moments can help language teachers arouse students' motivation and guide them towards a higher level of performance based on their personal interests. However, this ability undoubtedly does not come naturally. A lot of sensitivities, good observation and quick reactions on the part of teachers are surely needed.

What's more, i think the peer review session is really fruitful. Our group got a chance to have our works reviewed and commented by another group, which is an excellent way for us to look at our product from a less biased perspective. We were glad to receive a lot of constructive comments from Stephanie, Aaron and Adib and i think we'll be able to improve a lot on our genres based on their review. Apart from that, to me it was a great experience to read and review on the genres of Chris, Rachel, Mitch and Thea, who are working on the topic of Humor in TESL, which i find really interesting. Due to the lack of background knowledge, it was difficult at first for me to understand the humor presented in the products, but after listening to Brian's explanations, both Kizuna and I were very excited. However, as Chris pointed out to us, the most important thing about the genre is not the jokes themselves, but more significantly, they are able to prove that there is a close relationship between humor and the outcome of classroom interaction. One thing about this topic that just crossed my mind when i am writing this entry is: Does the teacher have to be a humourous kind of person to incorporate humor into his/her teaching? The reason i am asking this question is because i am not the person who are good at telling jokes or making other people laugh. A good sense of humor is just not a part of my personality and i wonder whether there are any rules/techniques that can be used. I know this sounds like a wild idea but i just can't help wondering. =)

One last comment I would like to make is that I really like the way the class gets more interesting with time and I am able to learn a lot from my teacher and my classmates. Also, one thing i can feel and enjoy is that as the course proceeds everyone in the class seems to loosen themselves a little more. All of this makes learning a much more non-threatening experience.

Reading reflection Week 9: How my teaching desire grows stronger...

In this week's reading, I found the chapter on textbook evaluation and implementation greatly practical and useful. After reading the chapters i am able to identify where i will be at in my future teaching concerning the choice of textbooks. Specifically, in my future teaching context in Vietnam, the Ministry of Education and Training publishes their own version of national textbooks and i will have to stick to their designs as long as i am still teaching at Mid/High school. I know this means i will not have much freedom regarding what to teach, but at the same time it gives novice teachers like me crucial initial guidelines as to how i am to plan and teach a lesson of my own. Also, as stated in the book, a nationalized textbook does not close off all of teachers' own choices. The door to creative and active teaching is still wide open provided that language teachers know how to maximize their "power".

Also, the part about "The fit between Students and Texts", in which one of the criteria under investigation is how Exercises/Tasks provided in the textbook relate to students' interests, did very much remind me of the different textbooks that i had when learning foreign languages. These examples again are about my French versus English learning experience, and this time it is about the textbooks being used. For my English classes, all of the content of the textbooks used in all grades focus on very general everyday and social issues such as environment, festivals, family, school life, etc., which are of course all useful for us students with respect to vocabulary and grammar acquisition. However, when it comes to my French textbook (which was the authentic ones written by native French speakers), since the title of the textbook is "ADO" - the abbreviation for "adolescent" in French, the story is totally different: most of the book is amazingly about popular teenage issues and problems such as dressing styles, hairstyles, boyfriend/girlfriend affairs, generation gap/conflicts and so on. It is therefore not very difficult for you to imagine how much we loved the fantastic French textbook compared with its practical yet not-very-fanciful English counterpart. As a result, even though French is not our main foreign language, my friends and I really enjoyed the class and we even tried to look up the new words before class to understand the teenage stories that were featured in the textbook, which really amazed my French teacher. This greatly brings it home to me how a student-oriented textbook version can help make teaching and learning more interesting and appealing to teachers and students alike.

Finally, to tell you the truth, the more I read about lesson planning and textbook evaluation in this week's reading, the more my desire for teaching grows stronger and the more i want to apply those guidelines and evaluation techniques that are put forward in the book into my future teaching. I can feel very clearly here how inspiring this reading time is to me as a reader and a future language teacher.

Week 8 Classtime reflection

First, regarding the class discussion about our ancestors' language, i was really amazed by the fact that many of my classmates have very diverse family backgrounds and it was really interesting to hear how the language their great-grandparents talked connect to them and why knowing the language helps them better understand their personal identities. Though in Vietnam families members very often speak the same language throughout the family history, i have met here in the US many young Vietnamese Americans being born and growing up with the English language and knowing very little Vietnamese who also develop a desire to learn Vietnamese at a later point in their life as a means of defining who they really are. This, together with what many students shared in the class, helps solidifies the idea that learning a language is indeed a process of discovering one's own self, and though it is always good to master a foreign language, it is even better that you don't lose your own unique identities as you try to integrate into your target language's environment.

Also, I found Jodie's presentation really interesting, especially when she showed a short video featuring how people speak different dialects in different places in the US. This reminded me of one element in this week's reading, that teachers should not only teach students standard English but also need to direct their attention to various varieties of English, so that the students know what to expect when encountering real English usage in everyday contexts.

The following activity of using post-it items to match settings with definitions was a little bit messed up but still it helped reinforce what i previously read for the class and sort out important points.

Week 8 Reading reflection: NESTs vs. Non-NESTs

This week's reading delves into an issue about which i have always developed and nurtured quite a lot of thoughts: Who makes a better English teacher, Native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) or non-native English-speaking teachers (non-NESTs)?

As i read the first part of Peter Medgyes's essay in the Apple book, i was filled with a feeling of inferiority and a lack of self-confidence. The reason is clear: as a non-NEST, i would hardly be able to reach a language proficiency level of that of a NEST colleague who was born and grew up with the English language. And it was even tougher when the author emphasizes "In no areas of English language proficiency can they (non-NESTs) emulate NESTs" and "... very few non-NESTs are able to catch up with their colleagues" regarding language ability. However, as i read on to the part which discusses the bright side of being non-NESTs, security and self-confidence began to return to me. Since as the book stated, both NESTs and non-NESTs have a lot to offer their students and each group possesses some uniques values that the other does not.

Also, with regards to the differences in teaching behaviors between NESTs and non-NESTs, though i agree with most of the teaching characteristics of non-NESTs indicated in the book, i strongly think that in today's teaching context, besides maintaining their teaching styles, more and more non-NESTs are turning toward their NEST colleagues and adapt some teaching behaviors which focus more on fluency, meaning and oral skills; and vice versa, a considerably large number of NESTs who come to teach English in a foreign context learn some teaching tips from their non-NESTs. This shift, in my opinion, helps minimize the dichotomy between the two groups, since whether the teachers are native or non-native speakers of English, they both head toward the same goal of producing generations of students who can communicate well in English.

As the chapter came to the end, i was able to meet with a preferable answer to the question i previously have, that there is no fixed rules on which the concept of an ideal teacher is built, and both NESTs and non-NESTs are capable of being good English teachers based on their language ability, pedagogical skills and teaching experience. These statements very much strengthen by self-confidence as a future non-NEST.

Week 7 - Classtime reflection

In this week's class, i found the part in which the guest speaker gave a talk about how to utilize the library resources very relevant and helpful. Still, one thing i noticed while searching for reference materials during the process of doing the multigenre research paper is that while the online databases offered in the library website are very diverse and large, the books related to ESL in the library catalog are comparatively limited and somehow it is hard to find those that relate to our topic. I am now still trying to figure out the most effective way to look for library books and it would therefore be great to be receiving advice regarding this matter.

Also, i enjoyed Rachel's presentation and the way she divided the class into two groups of girls and guys to "compete" against each other. As both groups were very excited to answer the questions, get points for their group, and more importantly protect their gender pride, it brought it home to me that sometimes it can be helpful for teachers to conduct activities that aim at arousing students' self-respect, so that they are more motivated to get involved and prove themselves.

Besides, the following activity of revising the lesson plan of another group was also very helpful for me. I could learn a lot from my classmates while we talked and discussed with each other. What's more, even though i did make some lesson plans before, the way things are organized here are quite different from what i previously learned. Therefore, activities like this give me a good chance to practice and get used to the lesson plan making process.

Week 7 Reading reflection

This week's reading covers many practical issues which are close to the heart of language teachers regarding individual differences in second language learning. I was really amazed at the extent to which the authors of the books were able to address many questions about language teaching in a very concise and understandable way.

Among the issues under discussion, my attention is especially directed toward the matter of personality mentioned in Lightbown and Spada book. As a language learner, i used to think that i am well aware of the influence of learners' personality on their language learning performance, that obviously extroverted people are to master the target language more easily than quiet ones. However, as i read the chapter, it dawned on me that the generalization may work best for the oral competence, but for the other language skills it may not be the case. This leads me to develop a new philosophy that as a language teacher i should never judge my students' language capability based on their extroversion, and to always keep in mind that quiet students also have a lot to offer. One more thing i found useful in this part of L&B book is when the author mentioned the positive effect of anxiety. Before that i did not think worries or anxieties could do any good to learner's performance in the language classroom, whereas in fact they do have a good impact on students in certain cases as stated in the book. This also adds one more thing in my future teaching guidelines: language teachers should know how to make a balance between relaxedness and anxieties, so that they can place on their students an amount of anxiety which is enough to drive them toward a higher level of performance.

Added to this, the parts about teaching across age and proficiency levels are also useful and informative. The author succeeded in pointing out different characteristics of learners of different ages and levels and how teacher's instruction should develop accordingly to match those features. However, personally i found those explanations are somehow general and theoretical. It would have been more practical if some case studies on sample classroom practices were employed to illustrate the principles/rules that are put forward.