Week 14 - Class reflection – Content-based instruction and Group work implementation

This week’s class started with Dr. Lybeck’s presentation about using Content-Based Instruction (CBI) in teaching Writing to non-native speakers. I was greatly inspired by the idea, especially when the content being implemented was Second Language Acquisition – a topic which is close to every language teacher’s heart. Also, since none of my language skill classes were instructed in this method throughout my English learning experience, it was hard for me at first to imagine how a CBI language class was like. And the presentation with detailed descriptions of how the teacher goes about teaching the students helped clear the mist of the unfeasibility of CBI in an EFL setting that had been with me since I was introduced to this method of instruction. This change of mind drives it home to me how as a teacher I can teach differently from the way I was taught, as long as the method benefits my students. Besides, as Dr. Lybeck stated, she wasn’t sure if the improvements the students made were due to the instruction or if there were any other contributive factors, still, I believe the instruction has an important part to play. One more thing this CBI writing course that I find really stimulating is that at the end of the course, students walk out of the classroom equipped with not only the skills needed to prosper in their academic writing life, but also a considerable amount of knowledge about second language acquisition that is surely beneficial to their language development in the long run.

Bekir, Kizuna and Veronika’s presentation about learning styles and strategies which followed was really concise and informative. One issue which was brought up by JoAnn during Bekir’s presentation about the use of group work and which is quite familiar to me was the fact that during group work, students may turn to their native language without teacher’s notice. Even though this is a quite natural thing to do when students at a modest language proficiency level have difficulty expressing themselves in the target language, it takes away one of the main purposes of group work implementation, which is to foster the use of English within smaller communities and to maximize students’ talking time. In my experience, many of my teachers used “financial punishment” to deal with this problem. That is to say, the teacher goes around to observe the students while they are working in groups, and apart from taking notes of mistakes and answering questions, he/she also listens and notices students who use their first language more than 2 times in the discussion and writes their names down. At the end of the class, the teacher reads the name list out loud and students whose names are on the list must give a particular amount of money to the teacher. In my case the amount was not too big but it was large enough to “bother” students who resort to their first language too often. Though this solution did work for some of the speaking classes I was in, personally I don’t like it since it seems too straight-forward and the involvement of money may adversely affect student-teacher interaction. To me, a more effective solution teachers might use is to assign each student in each group a specific role, and among which there is one called “moderator” – whose job is to make sure all group members limit their use of the native language during group discussion. The moderators may be asked by the teacher at any time during the group activity to report on how many times their groups have turned to the native language to make sure they are doing their job properly.

The last activity of peer-reviewing on the last two genres was useful as always. Also, I was glad that Dr.Smidt gave some explanations and examples of the posters that we are to make during the last week of class. This gave me a clearer picture of what to be included in the poster presentation.

Week 14 Reading reflection - Learning styles and strategies

This week's reading discusses the issue of second/foreign language learning from quite a different perspective: learners' learning styles and strategies.

According to the learning styles analyzed in the book, i categorize myself as a visual, extrovert, sensing-sequential, closure-oriented learner. However, before reading the chapter in the Apple book, i hardly had any idea of what my learning styles are except for the visual one, since i remember we did a survey on this matter during the first weeks of class. That's why i really like what the book says about the teacher's own awareness of his/her own learning styles, since they go a long way toward dictating his/her teaching style. Also, thanks to the reading i come to fully understand how important it is for language teachers to always keep in mind various learning styles of the students when designing classroom tasks/activities. Of course as teachers we can't cater for all of our students' need, but it always pays off to do as best as we can.

Another issue which captures my attention is whether or not to teach students learning strategies. In my experience as a foreign language learner, this is definitely useful and necessary. Such strategies as how to memorize new vocabulary and use them appropriately or using guessing abilities when reading, listening and speaking in a foreign language that I learned from my language teachers have been really beneficial to me. However, as indicated in the book, the teaching of learning strategies should not be made into a separate lesson, rather, it should be a small part which is well incorporated into the language lessons, so that learners can take it as a piece of advice rather than something they HAVE TO remember.

Week 13 classtime reflection

Although the reading covers many things, this week's class primarily focused on the use of literature in the language classroom.

Starting with Adib's concise and well-run presentation on using a short story (or fairy tale) as a teaching material, the class proceeded with another short story-based activity, and i really enjoyed the task we were asked to do: thinking of as many teaching activities developed from the story as possible. Our group worked hard and came up with 20 activities, and it was also interesting to hear other groups share their ideas. Through this activity i came to fully understand how such a small literature work can generate lots of teaching ideas and a variety of thoughts, how important it is for language teachers to be creative and adaptable in creating learning tasks, and one last thing being the sharing spirit among teachers. Since different teachers may have different approaches toward the same teaching materials, sharing experience and the tasks that are designed can help enrich the teaching scenario and circulate bright teaching ideas.

Also, as the issue of blogging was raised, i think i am one of the students in the class who likes blogging and find it interesting and inspiring. Since i have been keeping a personal blog on Yahoo360! for more than 2 years, to me blogging is not a stranger, rather, it is a good way for me to express my opinions, feelings, ideas and more importantly, to share and to be shared. Unlike a personal diary in which the writer writes to herself/himself, blog entries, as long as they are not so personal, are for the writer to share his/her viewpoints and emotions, which very often come out more easilyby means of writing than speaking. The exact same things apply to this learning blog of mine. I find the blog another means for me to communicate with my teacher and my classmates besides class hours. And it seems i am able to express myself much more here than in class, since 4-hour meeting each week is defintely not enough for everyone's ideas to be listened and shared. As a future teacher, i will definitely use blogs as one of my teaching tools, especially when i teach writing.

The following discussion about the final portfolio was really helpful, and Bekir and I were able to figure out what we needed to include in the portfolio. I found Pair-work work really well here.

Week 13 Reading reflection - Overwhelmed with knowledge!

This week's reading covers a whole bunch of practical issues in teaching and learning, and even though i felt overwhelmed to be taking in a large amount of knowledge all at once, there are quite a few issues that i am really interested in.

First, it is the use of literature as a material for content-based language teaching. I used to think literary works are very often difficult for learners who learn a foreign language. However, as the author indicated, there are at least three advantages to using literature in the language classroom, the most important of which, in my opinion, being that literature gives students insights into what and how language can be used to convey personal viewpoints. Thanks to the reading in which the author describes clearly how a content-based literature lesson operates , i can picture in my mind how i will be using literary works in my future teaching in a way that they bring effectiveness and freshness to my language class.

Another highlight I can perceive while reading is the use of project work and group work. These methods are extremely helpful in getting students to have closer contact with the target language outside the classroom, especially in the EFL setting. The wide range of project topics that are proposed in the book is really inspiring and practical as well. I am determined to appropriately apply these into my future teaching. With a bit of adjustments and creativity, i believe such group work projects would benefit students in many ways and create an authentic learning experience.

Week 12 class reflection

This week's class focuses on classroom observation and the features of different classroom settings.

Marya's presentation was very focused and task-based. I think our group had a good discussion in finding arguments to support for the use of communicative instructional settings. Also, the fact that this setting has the most advantages also made it easier for us to prove our points.

The next activity of observing and commenting on an English classroom in Korea was demanding yet interesting. The activity the teacher in the clip was carrying out was very much creative and practical, which can give students authentic language practice. However, he was apparently dominating the classroom with too many instructions and a lot of talking. As i was watching the class, i wonder if the students understood what the teacher explained or not, since they mostly just smiled and nodded their heads. But then i came cross the next clip which featured the students' activity right after the first teacher-talking clip, and it seemed all the students knew what they had to do and the exchange between the student customers and bank tellers went really well. This indicated that even though his instruction-giving techniques needs more skills, the teacher was able to get the students understand his instructions. Through this activity it became clear to me that apart from teaching, observing and evaluating other teachers' teaching is also an important part of being a teacher. As in many other professions, teachers can learn a lot from each other's success and failure. It is therefore necessary to develop a critical mind so that constructive criticisms can be made to enhance the teaching quality.

The next part of peer-reviewing the next 2 genres was useful. Our group reviewed the works of Aaron, Stephanie and Adib and i must say their genres are very well-connected to their research questions and after reading their genres i can clearly see the benefits of using creative written works in teaching. Also, our works were reviewed and commented by another group. The recipe received good feedback, but the diary genre definitely needs more work. I was really disappointed when i first heard the comments on our diary genre and for some moments it occured to me that the genre was a complete failure. However, as i think more about my classmates' comments and advice, i came to realize how subjective i was as a writer when i created the genre and i feel thankful because I had a chance to have my work reviewed.

Week 12 Reading reflection - Approaches to second language learning and teaching

In this week's reading i am especially interested in the three different approaches to second/foreign language learning and teaching that are brought into focus.

In an EFL setting, it seems to me that each of these approaches has its own strengths that can be beneficial to language learners at certain points in their learning process. In particular, for students at the beginning level, structure-based instructional setting can make it easier for new language items to be conveyed and absorbed, since linguistics items are presented and practiced in isolation and errors are frequently corrected. However, as students progress to a higher level, communicative instructional setting with greater focus on authentic language practice works best. Meanwhile, high-intermediate and advanced students may benefit the most in the natural setting, where the target language is frequently and naturally used.

Also, the natural acquisition setting with its unique characteristics captures a lot of my attention. Growing up in a tourist city in Vietnam which hosts a large number of foreign tourists every year, i have met with many language learners who are mostly souvenir-sellers and street-vendors and who learn the language mostly in the natural setting with no or very little formal instruction. Most sellers in a big market in my hometown can speak at least 3 languages and can switch back and forth among them depending on the nationality of the customers they serve. It is true that their language ability is very limited and most of the time speaking is the only skill they have, but the natural setting in which they use the language does make them fairly intelligible. This again brings into concern the importance of a natural acquisition setting in teaching English in an EFL context, which is sure not an easy task to achieve...

How technology can adversely affect the learning outcomes

It goes without saying that technological advances which have so far been used have gone a long way toward facilitating teaching and learning and make the classroom a much more modern and advanced environment to be working in for both students and teachers alike. However, on the other side of the coin, there also exists some situations in which the technology being used does not have as good influences on learners as expected.

In my own learning experience, technology-aided teaching has become a very common term to teachers of all teaching contexts, from elementary, middle, high school to university. Every year teachers are required to teach a number of lessons with the help of technology, which in my country would be automatically associated with the use of computers. However, what happened when i was in high school was as students we were mostly attracted by the fancy power-point presentation, how the animations were created and how vivid the animated effects were than the lesson itself. Once in my Mathematics class our teacher showed us a demonstration of how a certain type of graph was made and changed and it was so amazing that the whole class turned into a chaos of discussion about which shape the moving graph made right after that. It then took my teacher nearly 10 minutes to get everyone's attention back. Also, there were times when the power-point presentation went too fast that we felt like in a rush, which was affected by the fact that it was hard for teachers to estimate the time for students to take notes when he had had everything beforehand and did not write the stuff himself. Besides, the use of technology sometimes put into question the role of the teacher in the class. I had a couple of teachers who did nothing in class but read from his/her power-point.

Luckily, these incidents happened less often in my language classes. Still, it did occur that sometimes we students felt we missed out on emotional interaction, especially eye contacts with the teacher because she/he was more busy operating the technological equipments.

All of the above is just taken from my own experience and they surely do not speak for any conclusion or theory. It may be just a reminder that no matter how advanced and developed technological achievements are, they can never take the place of the human figure of the teacher in the classroom, since it's because of teacher-student interaction that people are going to school for.

Class time reflection - 3/11

This week’s focus is technology and how it can facilitate the teaching and learning of a second/foreign language. The first activity of brainstorming all the technological advances that can be used in the classroom is really engaging and inspiring, since apart from the usual equipments which are normally used, it was interesting to see my classmates come up with some very innovational ones such as coffee-grinder, oven, etc. I was bit puzzled at first at how these equipments could be used in the English class but then it became clear that all of them can be realia for teaching vocabulary. Also, personally I think the list would have been more concise and well-related to TESL if the definition of technology had been discussed before we started the brainstorming activity, for it is true that our present life is so much influenced by technology that it’s understandable for people to get confused between what’s technological and what’s not.

Besides, the short wrap-up clip about text and technology that we watched in class did leave an impression in my mind. I felt like I was blown away with the galloping development of technology described in the clip. That again reinforces in me the importance of honing my technological skills to be well-qualified for teaching English in the new era. I fully understand there are so many things about the application of technology in the field of English teaching that I have yet to know, and that’s why keeping an opening eye on these is important for me as a future English teacher.

Bekir and Brian’s presentation which came next was interesting and demanding. The textbook evaluation activity was practical and useful, although I wish we had had more time to work on it.

The last part about the final portfolio was, I must say, tough. It was at first confusing too, since I didn’t get it right when the professor mentioned the final porfolio at the beginning of the semester. Now as far as I understand we have to make an overall review of all the stuff we have been creating during the semester and put them under specific standards. This is definitely not easy, since in my opinion we could hardly meet all of these demands with the work in one course. However, it’s good to know we can do this in pair, which means I can share what I have with my partner and be supplemented with what I don’t have.

Reading reflection - Week 11

This week's reading focuses on a lot of issues that are close to the heart of second language teachers and the more i do the readings as the course proceeds, the more practical the knowledge in the books become to me, which very much nurtures and strengthens my teaching inspiration.

One thing i noticed about Chapter 11 in the HDB book is the different types of drills that are mentioned. As a language learner I found the drill practice carried out by my English teachers very helpful for me as i first learned a new grammar point. In fact, drills and the repetition that go with this kind of language practice give students necessary practice before they move on to the next stage of being able to manipulate the language by themselves. However, as mentioned in the book, the teacher should be careful when using drills, since the overuse of this technique can make learning repetitive and boring. Therefore, in my future teaching, i will try to make good and appropriate use of drills, with more focus being given to meaningful drills where students are required to produce both questions and answers, not just repeat a sentence and make some minor changes.

Textbook adaptation is also a matter of great concern to me, since i know not everything written in the textbook is appropriate to my students, especially when in Vietnam, English textbooks very often contain exercises/tasks that are mechanical and not very meaningful. For some exercises students do not understand the meaning of the sentences but still can do them correctly. Textbook adaptation therefore becomes more important to me as a way of improving my teaching quality.

The next chapter about Techonology in the classroom is also very informative and practical. Living in the technological era, hardly can any teachers in general and language teachers in particular turn a blind eye toward the technological equipments which are designed to enhance the teaching and learning quality. The benefit of using technology language teaching is of course numerous. One of my writing teachers once used an online forum as a supplement for his writing class and whenever a new thread was posted, it really got everyone in the class involved and contribute, which could hardly happen in a real classroom context. However, one thing that i myself have experienced and which i think can actually happen is that there are times when the visual-audio techniques being used are so dominant and impressive that they take away students' attention and it then takes a long time for teachers to reset the order. In short, whether or not technology has a postive impact on the language learning process all depends on the technological conditions available and the teacher's flexibility and creativity.

Class + Presentation reflection 10/27

Before our presentation Kizuna and I discussed with each other many times and it was really hard to come up with the activities that would be interesting and engaging to a class of all excellent classmates. Even though I did quite a few micro-teaching and presentations when i was at my home university before, that was my first time presenting in a foreign context and i knew it was not going to be easy.

We started quite well with the explanation of the first activity but then what we were afraid the most did happen: the questions were quite easy to the two teams and we wasted a large amount of time on timing for the answer. Also, the fact that there were quite a few students absent in the class that day did affect our arrangement. Luckily we received on-the-spot suggestions from our teacher and our classmates and finally were able to adjust our plan. The second activity went a bit wild but the follow-up discussion about novice teachers and experienced ones was really interesting to me and i'm glad our short skit was able to arouse quite a few issues for everyone to think about.

Though the presentation is not a requirement for me, i am glad that i did it because i was able to learn about things and skills that i would never know unless i myself actually carry it out. The saying "Learning is by doing" works perfectly for me in this case. I also came to realize that as teachers it's better to give students a task and make them produce a particular and real product at the same time. In other words, as Dr Smidt suggested, students should do something while they're discussing in order to be fully involved in the lesson. This would be a really good lesson for me and i'll keep that in mind in my future teaching.

Also, the next part about peer teaching and lesson plan review was very much fruitful and useful. I was able to discuss with my groupmates about my own lesson plan as well as learn from theirs. The 10-minute micro-teaching were also very effective and i can feel our group worked very hard and we had fun at the same time as well.