Final Application Project

For my final application project I would like to write about my experiences and reflections working with ELL's at UNITY community center in Normal. I work with them every Tuesday and Wednesday from 4:30-6:45 on their homework or on different activities that promote leadership and important values. I get the chance to work with children from the Congo, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. I learn a lot from these children and I think it would be the perfect opportunity to write about my experiences and the knowledge that I have gained there.

9/27

After reading Chapter 3 in Anthology, I formed a lot of opinions of my own about how I feel about lesson plans. I do agree that good planning is crucial to make sure the lesson has a purpose and that accomplishments are made from it. I don't think its the end of the world if the lesson doesn't go completely as planned, IF the main objectives are still accomplished. I'm aware that questions will pop up during class and the schedule might not go exactly as it should. I believe that forming a meaningful lesson plan is going to take a lot of trial and error and experience. I think the more experience we gain, the more we can make adjustments to our lesson plan to make them turn out better the next time. This is where the evaluation aspect of the lesson plan will really come into play. Each time we evaluate our lesson plan, we can improve it for the next time or find out what worked and what didn't work depending on the students, environment, resources available, etc. Next year I will be doing PDS in Little Village, Chicago, which is basically a full year of student teaching before I'm completely on my own in the classroom. The nice part about this is, I will have a full year of trial and error with lesson plans before I have my own classroom. I can get opinions from the students as well as my cooperating teacher to evaluate the lessons that I'm planning.

As far as curriculums go, I agree with what the author said at the end of the chapter. The perfect curriculum would really be a blend of all three because it would include the content, objectives, and the process. This is very similar to how I feel with the different methods and approaches that are available. Instead of choosing one particular way that is exclusive and doesn't include a little bit of everything for the variety of students and the variety of needs, choose something that can capture a little bit of everything to accommodate more for the students. For example, instead of choosing one approach that only covers grammar, but not communicative teaching, why not choose one that includes some of each? Each student isn't going to have the same needs and some students might need one more than the othe. By choosing a curriculum or approach that is all inclusive we can make sure we are really accommodating the diverse needs of our students.

9/22

I have seen the SIOP model in action and I feel like this is a great model to use. Teachers are still able to use whatever method they prefer, while giving some extra reinforcement to the students. This model can benefit everyone in the class, whether ELL's or not. It allows the ELL's to still be engaged in the activity and learn what the rest of the class is learning. It's great that the teacher does not have to be specialized in ESL or bilingual education either, which makes it a perfect tool for mainstream teachers that have a few ELL's in their classroom. It is unfortunate though, that many elementary education majors are not taught this model in their education classes at the university level. This is probably why so often we have ELL's failing in the school system. If these teachers were given some knowledge about this model it would take some stress off of them as well as the ELL student. In my opinion, the administrators of the school should take it upon themselves to make sure their teachers are qualified to do this. A simple course or workshop could go a long way to help the ELL students that aren't in bilingual education classrooms.

The quote "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" was stated in chapter 2 of the article, and it made me think. If we as teachers don't take action and work with our ELL students that are continuously in our classrooms, they will keep falling further and further behind while the native speakers are progressing far ahead of them. This then turns into a downward spiral of scoring poorly on standardized testing and even eventually dropping out of school. Something so simple as using the SIOP model to reinforce concepts, use repetition, and even visual aids could make such a difference in the long run for our students.

9/20

After reading Chapter 9 in Anthology and Skehan's article I have mixed opinions about task-based language teaching. I like the idea of it, because I could see how it could push the students and get them doing real-life interactions, but I don't think it would be a good idea to have this as the only approach used in a classroom. If it were to be the only approach, it seems like it would work better with more advanced language learners. In my opinion, the beginner level still needs explicit grammar instruction as well as some communicative language teaching. After both of these have been implemented, I think the task-based teaching would work best.

I was most  confused about how to measure the student's performance during and after the task is being done. With the example in the book of the Japanese students completing a 12 week task, the students are doing so much of the interaction and research outside of the classroom that it would be difficult to see which areas they are struggling in and which areas are easiest for them. I'm also wondering, if all of the students are at different language levels in the classroom, how do we differentiate for them? Some students might have a way easier time completing a certain task while someone else in the class may find it nearly impossible. Is this still considered beneficial for all of the students? Shouldn't the tasks be assigned according to their abilities? I remember learning that with content areas, we should have the students work in their "zone of proximal development." I'm sure this is the same for language learning, but its not going to be possible that every student in the class is at the same level. This confirms my realization that grammar instruction combined with CLT is most beneficial in a language learning classroom.

9/15

After reading a lot about how the Chinese view education, I can see why CLT might not have worked out for them. The beliefs about education in the U.S. and the education in China are very different, which is probably why this approach wasn't as successful for this group. The article explained how the Chinese love textbooks and are always reading and getting all of their information from different textbooks. The CLT method differs a lot in this aspect. We try to stay away from textbooks when teaching communicative language because it doesn't give us hands-on, real life experiences that we can practice from. We can read all about them, but we don't get to interact with other learners. Role-plays, interviews, and skits are a lot more common than the textbook is in this case. Another area that is very different from education in the U.S. is the fact that in China, the learners are not supposed to question or challenge the material. They expect them to keep their own ideas to themselves until the material is mastered. This is completely opposite from what we encourage our students to do here. We are always wanting the learners to "think critically" and ask any questions that they have. According to Piaget, without doing this the student would never make it to the formal operational cognitive stage of development, which is crucial to have for higher-order thinking.
The differences among the educational beliefs within these two countries made me think a lot. The majority of the teachers in our classrooms in the U.S. probably have no idea about this cultural difference. If a student from China transfered into our classroom we would expect them to go about learning as we do here, never explaining to them that it's ok to ask questions and participate in class. We would assume that they would already know this, but this is completely wrong and almost scary. It's the teacher's job and obligation to make themselves knowledgeable about the background of their students and  research how things might be different for them here. This is also a clear sign of how a certain method doesn't automatically work for everyone in any context. Different methods need to be used for different settings. It's not a "one size fits all" situation.  Clearly, this situation shows that the CLT method might not be best for this group of learners. In my opinion, the Chinese culture sounds like it would fit best with a direct grammar-based approach.

9/13

In my opinion, communicative language teaching is completely necessary and a fun, interactive way to learn a language. I do feel that it is important to have some sort of explicit grammar instruction, but following that should be a lot of focus on communication. Whether the student is learning the language for academic or personal purposes, they will need to know how to communicate using the language. Learning this aspect is so important because every language and culture communicates differently. Simply teaching the student grammar and sending them on their way wouldn't be beneficial at all. We use expressions and conversation techniques that, often times, aren't taught in the grammar class. I loved the idea of the card game that the students played in Larsen-Freeman's article. The students got to interact with each other while learning how to do things like describe and predict what sport was on the card. Both of these strategies are commonly used and are essential for the students to know if they want to succeed with the native language speakers.

In chapter 3 of Kuma's book, I really agreed with the first couple of pages that discussed how a teacher's agenda, materials, and syllabus can have serious limitations. This almost seems like common sense to me. If the teacher is stuck on one specific agenda then there will never be time to stop and discuss the 'spur of the moment' topics and questions. The same goes for the materials that he/she decides to use. Kind of like what we talked about with methods, they should be used as a starting point for the lesson and be able to be adjusted as the students develop questions. I also liked the way that Kuma described how a teacher should utilize the learning environment and not just have the teacher be the only one talking. It made me think about how much I really do learn from the other students in my classes. Letting the students build off what they each say could benefit them alot, rather than just having the teacher be the only one talking. Overall, I found both of the readings to be very informative and I could truly see myself using these techniques in my future.

9/7

I found the area of the article that discusses how to approach "differences" in the classroom to be most interesting and beneficial to me. This is something that I've often thought about. What's the best way to address the differences that the students have? Are they feeling inferior compared to the people around them? This could be a very uncomfortable and sensitive area to discuss if you don't know how to go about it. I also feel like avoiding it is the wrong decision as well because it could have major affect on the students. As Pennycock stated, most of the ESL textbooks that we use today are filled with the wholesome white families that look like they should be on the back of a Kellogg's Cornflakes box. Seeing this all the time and never discussing differences would make me feel inferior as well. I thought the pedagogy of engagement approach is a smart way to bring this topic up with the students. I loved the fact that rather than just discussing issues of gender, race, class, and sexuality, it helps the students to see the background and history of it. It recognizes how people have come to be who they are. This approach seems more settling because it gives the students some knowledge about the issue. A discussion would allow the students to talk about the topic but still doesn't give them that feeling of closure and sincerity.

9/6

In chapter 2 the Postmethod pedagogy made me think the most. Thinking about what I learn in my education classes today made me realize how much times have changed in the "education world". For the longest time we have been searching for the "best" and "correct" method, but why? Isn't it common sense that not everyone learns the same way? I wouldn't go as far as saying that we should never use a method at all, but rather as a template and adjust it as you teach. There are so many limitations when using only one method. As stated in chapter 2, "no idealized method can visualize all the variables in advance." I agree with this completely. Every country, state, school, classroom, and individual needs to be taken into account. The method should be used as a starting point and adjusted according to the context. Along with this, it made me think about what kind of teacher I wanted to be. In Chapter 1 I came across a quote that described my philosophy of teaching perfectly. The quote said "Learning to teach does not end with obtaining a diploma or a degree in teacher education, but is an ongoing process throughout one's teaching career. " As we read about the methods and descriptions of teachers I'm seeing how quickly the "best" idea changes into something new. I believe this is the reality of teaching and by keeping up with the times and learning from experiences my teaching will improve and benefit the students more and more. I feel that when one gives up on learning new styles and methods, they have given up on the success of their students.