teaching writing

In teaching writing research there are a number of issuses in recent research that do draw attention to different perspectives in first and second language acquisition camps. Some of these are authenticity, differences between L1 and L2 writing, and product versuse process.

Authenticity: How many writing exercises are authentic. what is the purpose for writing in the classroom. This is a real challene when trying to help students write for academic purposes. How can I help students become better academic writers. Real writing which is writing when the reader doesn't know the answer and wants to find out what it is. A strategy like this can be incorporated to create authentic and meaningful exercises for students.

L1 and L2 writing: research shows that students are less fluent and accurate in their writing. Students that write in their L2 have been shown to plan less when preparing to write. I think it is important to help students plan writing a paper whether it be there L1 or L2. Some students need help organizing their thoughts. Also, activities where students can broaden their vocabulary so that they can more easily express their thoughts and ideas.

Product vs. Process: in the product perspective the final form of the written sample is the most important. The written sample needs to a standard or certain criteria. Where as, the process perspective is more focus on the content and message that is trying to be conveyed by the author. As a an educator, I need to find an equilibrium between these two perspectives because students can not just write and not meet standards. Standards are a way of assessing a students progress. However, the content and message is also important. I think this perspective allows for more student creativity and is more meaningful for students.

emergent literacy: two perspectives

Two varying perspectives are outlined in Chapter 5 of P&B. They are the "reading readiness" and "emergent literacy" perspectives. The afore mentioned perspective is a more traditionalist view based on maturationist theories of development. While the latter is more contemporary and based research from children who learned to read before having formal reading instruction.

The reading readiness perspective has the children focus on four sub-skills auditor discrimination(identifying ryhming words), visual discrimination(recognize colors and shapes), visual motor skills(color inside the lines of a picture), and large motor skills(walk a straight line). By being able to complete these objectives the students then showed that they were ready to read. So this perspective believes that they are steps that need to be taken before learning how to read.

The emergent literacy perspective focuses on exposing children to rich environments that are filled with reading and writing in a variety of forms and purposes. From this children will construct knowledge about form and function. Emergent literacy encourages parents to read to children and emphasizes the importanct of home-school connections

Content reading and writing

Strategies to promote reading comprehension are grouped into three categories. They are prereading, during reading, and post reading. However, I will only be discussing prereading and during reading strategies.

Prereading strategies build a purpose and background for reading. Some techniques are simplying telling students why they are reading a particular text and what they will do with the information later. Building background through films, movies, video clips, newpaper articles, and field trips help students organize schema for the upcoming lesson. Students can also plays games or simulate situations at have real life implications.

During reading strategies building questions from the subheadings and headings and making sure that students read these. Doing this well help students create a purpose for reading.Clustering is an example where synonyms can be placed outside a main word and then students have to guess what word is in the middle and the word in the middle can come from the text. This can helps students generate meaning in context. Jigsawing activities and learning logs area also during reading activities for monitoring comprehension. Learning logs require students to formulate questions about what they think or puzzling over. This helps students assess their learning and also helps them get help. If many students are formulating similar questions than the teacher can discuss it to the entire class.

class 4/27/09

During class tonight we spent the entire time peer reviewing for our final portfolio, final paper, and final presentation. I thought it was great to see the work of my peers see how they learned and fulfilled the standards for effective practice. I enjoy comparing my work with others so that I can gain new insights about myself and teaching.

Class 4/13/09

Tonight's class was about reading and second language assessment. Class began with an with a class presentation from Jodi. She presented an activity on reading assessment. In this activity the class was grouped into groups of two. One person had to read an short story. The other student had to follow along and count all of the errors that the reader read. The number of errors were then subtracted from the total number of words. This information was then used to assess the students reading ability.

Next, the class was divided into two groups where we had to find definitions from our reading by using note cards and sticky notes. I like this activity and it is one we have used before. It is a good way to increase student vocabulary.

My favorite part of the night was the last activity. In the last activity we discussed two questions. The two questions were experiences with TOEFL tests and experiences in the classroom. I love hearing personal experiences from teachers in the classroom because it helps me prepare myself for what I will face when I am in the classroom. Also, learning about the TOEFL tests is something that in the future I will also be involved with because my future plans are to teach ESL in Germany after graduation. So the more I know about the tests the better I can help my students prepare for them.

Class 4/5/09

Unfortunately, I was not able to attend class tonight because of a meeting that I attended in New Ulm. The meeting ran longer than I had intended so I was not able to attend any of part of class. Hopefully, I will be able to catch up on what was covered in class when we meet next monday.

Emergent Literacy

This weeks reading focuses on Emergent Literacy. Two perspectives that are focused on in emergent literacy are "emergent literacy" and "reading readiness".

Emergent literacy focuses on social environments where reading and writing are purposeful. Through these contexts children can gradually grasp how to create these form through writing and understand the reading forms. This differs from the reading readiness perspective which focuses on preparing students to read.

The reading readiness perspective teaches students how to read and other skills that are deemed necessary to be able to read. These skills include reading from left to right, skipping, recognizing shapes and colors, and cutting in a straight line with a scissors.

Of these two perspective the reading readiness perspective is the traditional perspective. I believe that large motor skills like skipping are irrelevant in teaching a student to read and write. The most important thing is exposing young students to numerous forms of print that they can connect with. Creating an environment where students can explore anything imaginable can engage a student's motivation to begin reading and writing.

Class 3/17/09

This weeks class was focused on reading. We did a number of activities these included a textbook evaluation, a video analysis, and a student presentation. However, I found the most interesting question posed during class to be whether to read aloud or not. I never would have thought that there would be such strong opinions about such a topic. I guess I never took into consideration that some people do not see as reading aloud as an important skill. I however am not one of those people. I believe that reading aloud helps students recognize words and make sense of what they are reading. It was good to hear however that others disagreed and thought that reading aloud is not helpful. Great to hear another perspective.

Class 3/02/09

In class we discussed speaking in the classroom and also peer reviewed artifacts for our final portfolio. Our student presenter for the night was Mariya. I thought she posed to very good questions. The first, which is more imporant in speaking accuracy or fluency. Secondly, are segmentals or suprasegmentals. In my opinion fluency and suprasegmentals are more important because they focus on the overall product. Where as, accuracy and segmentals focus on individual words and sounds. I believe the most important part in speaking is the message. Not how the message sounds. As long as it is understood and the meaning of it can be negotiated. In my opinion this is the more important aspect of speaking.
The peer review for our final portfolio went well. It is good to get something done before the end of the semester so I am not so rushed during finals week. I was glad to see that my group had made progress as well. It was good to see some examples of their work, because I was confused on what type of artifact would fulfill the standard I choose.

Speaking in the classroom

Speaking in the classroom. I recently sat through a presentation on TPR and TPRS. I was blown away. I think this teaching strategy provides so many opportunities for the students to create with language. Students can learn in context, exposed to language, and it is amazingly fun. Students are being active in the class, responding to a teachers instruction. Students are learning by doing or responding verbally. Students are not inclined to speak immediately. Rather, allowed to speak at their own pace, which lowers the anxiety level of the students. However, a couple of the limitations for this strategy is if a student is abesent from class and age level appropriateness. The content needs to be aligned to the appropriate level. This strategy can be incorporated with many other strategies for successful speaking activities in the classroom.

Class 2-23-09

Tonights class was focused on developing oral language in the classroom. Aaron and Kizuna presented on the topic. Next, we moved to the GLL and tried to assess students oral proficiency based on the SOLOM. This was a great activity except for the technichal difficulties. Part of the class then moved onto the next activity which was finding resources that could be used in an oral activity. I thought this was good for two reasons. First, it was great to take a look at some of the resources in the library and get an idea of what is available or can be used. Secondly, it made me apply my knowledge and think of how this be used in my classroom. How can I apply these resources using oral language. The only thing that limits resources in the classroom is creativity. Being creative keeps the classroom fun and exciting for the students.

Oral Language Development

This weeks reading focused on oral language development in the classroom. I found the section on the integration of skills beneficial because when students learn a language they learn all four skills listening, reading, writing, and speaking. A successful teacher would not separate these skills and teach them individually every time. I will integrate listening activities that make students create written projects. The students can then present there project to other students enhancing the other students listening skills, while keeping the content relatively comprehensible. One interesting thing I learned while reading was that children acquire listening before reading and writing in the L1. When I reflect on this idea, I see how this is true. Humans acquire listening skills before reading, writing, or speaking. I think this is a very important point to make for the classroom. Students need to be exposed to language in various forms. They need to be able to listen to music, tv, jokes, and total physical response storytelling (TPRS). One has to keep in mind that the content should be scaffolded to student ability and take into account of students interests. All activities should be meaningful for learners, otherwise it makes learning less effective.

The P&B book continues on by describing the effectiveness of oral language development in content area instruction. The three areas mention in this chapter are math, social studies, and science. There are many advantages of content instruction including development of metacognitive skills, students can be allowed to explore the world around them through problem solving, and students are exposed to new vocabulary and should be given the opportunity to present new material to other students.

Finally, how do you assess students? The SOLOM is an observation instrument used to asses students oral language. The five characteristics are comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. I can use this assessment to monitor student progress through out the year in daily classroom activities. It is suggested to assess students in a group setting. The benefit of the group setting is the anxiety factor students can feel when they take a formal assessment. Teachers should not only use formal assessments like the SOLOM, but also informal. These can include obeservations, grades, and assignments students have completed. The more students are assessed the better understanding teachers can have of student oral language development.

Listening

In this weeks readings I found the types of classroom listening performance helpful. The six types are reactive, intensive, responsive, selective, extensive, and interactive. I found these interesting because these are ways in which students listen and depending on the activity students can use all of these types of listening or just one. This is important for me because I have to know how I want my students to listen during any given activity. If I want my students to be reactive listeners. I could just want them to repeat what i said. For the sole purpose of repetition and exposure to the language. In extensive listening, I might want my students to listen to a newsbroadcast and then create a picture based on what they heard. The purpose of this activity would be for the students to recreate what they heard in a different mode. i.e. drawing. The best way to learn listening is to incorporate other skills into listening activities. By using different skills students have to work with the content they just heard. Allowing them to try draw can help make the activity meaningful for them.

Class reflection 2-16-09

The listening presentations by Thea and Stephanie were amazing. They gave me insight on how I should incorporate activities into the classroom. Using Simon says as a listening activity, but this activity also makes use of vocabulary that students might have just learned and now can assess their listening skills. It is also a fun way to engage students in a different learning style.

I was disappointed with Solan's presentation. I was expecting more insight on some issues. I guess I never heard anything that connected with me.

In the GLL working with my group on the final portfolio was helpful in planning. So hopefully there will be less procrastination with projects. In the long run I think it will be beneficial to have these peer reviews earlier. The only problem I see with them is creating some documents to show mastery of the standards.

I think one that could have been added to our class discussion would be the implications of not teaching listening or teaching it to much. More generally, just any way it would apply to me as a future teacher. What problems might arise in the classroom? I think these type of questions are the most beneficial to me, because they help me apply the knowledge in the readings.

Vocabulary learning

Collocations involves knowing words that tend to appear with other words. In my experience in language learning, I have found this to be very important. In German, verbs use certain prepositions and nouns. So knowing what verb goes with what preposition is very important. Sometimes there is not a direct translation so memorization is often times warranted. I think this word association is important for communicating and reading competence.

Week 3 class reflection

Cross cultural differences is a very important topic for ESL. Having an understanding or a willingness to understand other cultures is pivotal if you want to work with individuals from other cultures. The class activity provided examples of race, age, gender, and social context provided and variations between cultures. These examples will help me understand my students, when I enter the teaching profession.

My favorite activity in class was completing the lesson plans. I thought this was useful to think about the assignments that we will have to complete in the coming months. It helped keep my focused and organized on what i need to do. I thought the comments from the class were very beneficial in helping clear up any gray areas that might still be lingering.

Integration of skillzzzzz

Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking. What do these four words mean to you? How do you use them in the language classroom? When I first started reading this weeks assignment, I thought to myself that teaching each one of these skills seperately just seem to make more sense because you are able to get so indepth in each area without have to worry about the others. STOP. But then i realized that humans respond to feedback. We listen to music and then we sing in the shower. We read a book and then write a poem. We are always responding to the world around us that is why teaching only one of these four skills is not efficient.

The approach that i connected to the most is the experimental learning, mostly because it brought back thoughts of a class I took last semester that dealt with the issues of cognitive development most specifically Piaget. The notion I related that class to this weeks reading was that humans develop through experimenting and creating schemeta. Experimenting creates a context to which we can understand the world around us and language is the vehicle we use to explore the world. Without experimenting we don't have language and vice versa.

Professional Development: Reading

The readings on professional development were extremely dry and boring, but they are not to be overlooked because have to continuously strive to better themselves. You might ask yourselves why? I went to college and got my degree. Why should I have to take even more classes? The fact is the world changes and evolves and if we didn't change or reflect on how we teach we would be doing a disservice to our students.

Reflecting on our teaching I think is the easiest and least time consuming way to to develop and learn from our mistakes and accomplishments. All it takes is writing down a few notes after a great unit plan or a few critiques of one that didn't go so smoothly. This is not that hard. I can not think of one reason why any teacher would not be doing this.

I love language conferences even though I have only been to on. It is a great chance to meet people, get resources, and learn new ideas. I think it also provides teachers the opportunity to become remotivated or reenergized about teaching. Learning about some exciting new topic or teaching approach can alter my perspective on how I look at the classroom. If a theme grabs my eyes maybe I would like to try it in my classroom. It would give me the idea to experiement with different ideas so that teaching does not become monotonous, but rather a breath of fresh air.

Week 2: Teaching reflection

During this week's class I was given the opportunity to present a half hour presentation on the Professional Development. I found this topic very difficult to think of ideas that would engage the students interest. I did however come up with three activities. The first, was a class discussion based on ways to continue to develop. The second, activity was a personal assessment. Lastly, a group discussion about lectures and conferences.

The first, activity went well. However , some students did seem to dominate the discussion and it was difficult for me to engage all of the students in this classroom exercise. I did feel like I posed good questions to students reactions. My transitions as a whole were rather abrupt. I would like to work on this in the future.

The second activity was the individual assessment. I had every student rate 30 langauge characteristics on a scale of 1-10. Most of the responses were what i expected many of them recieving low grades due to lack of experience in the classroom. However this is important for students to see what is expected of them when they become a professional teacher.

In the last activity, the entire class was split into four groups, each group had a member that had experience at a langauge conference of lecture. The goal of this activity was for the members of the group to share experiences and ask questions. I thought this activity went very well. After the groups were done discussing we returned back to discuss and share with the entire class.

Overall, my nervousness of being infront of class, preparing an entire presentation by myself and thinking on my feet have vastly improved from my last "teaching experience". However i still need to work on my transitions from one activity to the next. Also, stating the objectives of the activity and time limits on each one to help keep the students on task.