I found it rather interesting to learn about CLT, because I feel that this is the method that almost all of my teachers used within my Spanish classes in high school. We were always playing games and learning role plays to get ready for "real-life situations" that could occur. Personally, I thought this method was useful because it made the material and language fun to learn. It got the class active and moving around and prepared us for real encounters with native speakers. I disagree with what Legutke and Thomas (1991) say when they state that "very little is communicated in the L2 classroom because it does not stimulate the wish of learners to say something." I really disagree with this statement because I feel like if the learners are intrinsically motivated and feel comfortable speaking out in the classroom, this method is great practice for situations that might happen out in the real world.
I agree that it is important for a language teacher to know the history about the past methods and approaches that have been used, but I also believe when choosing which one to use, it should not be determined by one that is "most popular" during this time period. We should choose the approach based on the needs of the students and which will benefit them most. Overall, this article was very informative in seeing the different aspects as well as the similarities and differences among the variety of approaches. I think it really comes down to fitting the needs of the students depending on their characteristics and their situation.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
8/29
Anthology Chapters 1 and 2
I found the most beneficial part of chapter 1 to be about the diagnosis, treatment, and assessment of English Language Learners. The paragraph about diagnosis taught me how to recognize if a person has a need for language instruction. Then, after reading about the treatment, I felt like this was something that I was more familiar with and had learned about last year in my education classes. I had never seen the list of the ten strategic investments for language learning/teaching, but I found them make a lot of sense and I understood why they would be appropriate in certain contexts or with specific students. Chapter 2 was much easier to follow along and was interesting to read. It was shocking to me that "effective teachers" are considered ones that have students who perform better on standardized tests. In all of the education classes that I've taken I've been taught that teachers shouldn't "teach to the test" and that standardized tests are ineffective ways to assess students, especially ELL's. In general, I believe that a variety of approaches should be used to teach any students whether ELL's or not. I could see myself using several of the approaches mentioned including the value-based and art-craft approach. In my opinion, all students learn differently and should be given several ways to learn the language and content.
I found the most beneficial part of chapter 1 to be about the diagnosis, treatment, and assessment of English Language Learners. The paragraph about diagnosis taught me how to recognize if a person has a need for language instruction. Then, after reading about the treatment, I felt like this was something that I was more familiar with and had learned about last year in my education classes. I had never seen the list of the ten strategic investments for language learning/teaching, but I found them make a lot of sense and I understood why they would be appropriate in certain contexts or with specific students. Chapter 2 was much easier to follow along and was interesting to read. It was shocking to me that "effective teachers" are considered ones that have students who perform better on standardized tests. In all of the education classes that I've taken I've been taught that teachers shouldn't "teach to the test" and that standardized tests are ineffective ways to assess students, especially ELL's. In general, I believe that a variety of approaches should be used to teach any students whether ELL's or not. I could see myself using several of the approaches mentioned including the value-based and art-craft approach. In my opinion, all students learn differently and should be given several ways to learn the language and content.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
8/24
Diaz-Rico & Weed.
I found this article to be extremely interesting, but very typical to some other articles that I have read during my TESOL classes. What I loved about this article was the fact that almost the first 10 pages were about how the United States has been diverse since the very beginning. This makes me wonder why so many people think that anyone other than a white, middle class, english-speaking person deserves less respect and should be treated differently. It's a great eye-opening article because it shows that there are so many other types of people in this country that are in need of help. We started as a diverse country and we are continuing to be a diverse country, so we should be accommodating for all of the languages and backgrounds that we have here. It saddens me that the education of families that speak a language other than English is very poor. Is the country simply not educated about the high demand for teachers that can work with immigrant students? Clearly the population of "minority groups" is increasingly rapidly, so this makes me wonder why universities aren't promoting the high need for qualified teachers in this area. I've come across several articles similar to this one, and it makes me curious to know if we Americans are taking something away from these statistics and helping out the people that need it most.
Jenkins
I found this article to be much more complex and almost confusing. It did open my eyes a lot to how many people in the world actually do speak English. It was shocking. It really made me think about how many people around the world learn English as their second, third, or forth language and how most people in the United States that speak English as their first language do not speak anything other than English. This is why we are in such high demand for educators that can help these students who speak other languages. I also found it interesting to see how many varieties of English there are within regions. For example, even though we say that English is a common language in the US, we never think about how many different types of English there actually is like southern, black english, etc. It's crazy how in depth this article gets about one single language. It makes me assume that this is probably the same for several other languages across the world. I feel like when someone says they speak "English" I'll never be able to think about it the same knowing how many forms there actually are.
I found this article to be extremely interesting, but very typical to some other articles that I have read during my TESOL classes. What I loved about this article was the fact that almost the first 10 pages were about how the United States has been diverse since the very beginning. This makes me wonder why so many people think that anyone other than a white, middle class, english-speaking person deserves less respect and should be treated differently. It's a great eye-opening article because it shows that there are so many other types of people in this country that are in need of help. We started as a diverse country and we are continuing to be a diverse country, so we should be accommodating for all of the languages and backgrounds that we have here. It saddens me that the education of families that speak a language other than English is very poor. Is the country simply not educated about the high demand for teachers that can work with immigrant students? Clearly the population of "minority groups" is increasingly rapidly, so this makes me wonder why universities aren't promoting the high need for qualified teachers in this area. I've come across several articles similar to this one, and it makes me curious to know if we Americans are taking something away from these statistics and helping out the people that need it most.
Jenkins
I found this article to be much more complex and almost confusing. It did open my eyes a lot to how many people in the world actually do speak English. It was shocking. It really made me think about how many people around the world learn English as their second, third, or forth language and how most people in the United States that speak English as their first language do not speak anything other than English. This is why we are in such high demand for educators that can help these students who speak other languages. I also found it interesting to see how many varieties of English there are within regions. For example, even though we say that English is a common language in the US, we never think about how many different types of English there actually is like southern, black english, etc. It's crazy how in depth this article gets about one single language. It makes me assume that this is probably the same for several other languages across the world. I feel like when someone says they speak "English" I'll never be able to think about it the same knowing how many forms there actually are.
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