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.