This week we did some work to lead up to the song "Billy la Bufanda". We wanted the song to be completely comprehensible to the students. Therefore, we did a mini-story this week about a character who had a toothache and how he resolved his situation. Once they mastered those structures they needed for this song, we started working on the song. They completed a personalized question and answer session about if they had gone to the restaurant, pharmacy, watched a basketball game, if they love spaghetti, etc. Next, we read the lyrics together as a class and acted the song out. We had someone come to the front and play “Billy” and the class discussed the plot and answered comprehension questions. Only after this did we watch the music video and sang along to the song, and the students absolutely loved it, especially because they knew everything the song said. Afterwards, they completed activities answering questions about where Billy had gone in the song, and even translated some of the lyrics into English. I think this activity was perfectly well-rounded and applicable to this level. We used the song as a springboard for having a great deal of comprehensible input and personalized discussion that interested the students. The song is entertaining and well-suited for their language level. Even after the oral and aural sections of this lesson, they were able to enhance their writing skills and produce their own language based off of the song. I made a PowerPoint using screenshots from the song in which the students will use to look at and discuss the song in their own words with a partner. I will definitely use this lesson in my future classes.
I have been researching a little bit about using technology in the classroom. After pondering the subject the last few days, talking with a few teachers in my department, and forming my own opinion, I have decided that technology does not need to be present in a class in order for the students to acquire a language, but there are many benefits to using technology as a support resource. I understand that many schools do not have access or the resources to provide technology to their students. These students absolutely can still acquire a language by engaging with someone who speaks the language (the teacher), reading books, short stories or articles, and eventually writing. However, if technology is available, it can be implemented in creative ways in order to develop important 21st century skills.
I believe there are a few pieces of technology that I would love to try in a Spanish classroom. First and most importantly is the SMART Board. This would be one of the most beneficial technological resources, because it is so versatile and could be used with almost every lesson. In my comprehensible input focused classroom in which I am student teaching, I would use the SMART Board during storytelling time, or when we are creating one word images with conversation. A different student could go to the board and add a different component of the story so that it is one more visual to aid the students in comprehension. It would also save timed to switch between applications we used daily, such as YouTube for songs, PowerPoint, and Microsoft word. Another great application I would like to try is Google Classroom. This would be a great place to put all of my classroom information on, such as videos of myself, copies of assignments, additional readings, etc. Students would benefit from this because they could use it as much as they felt necessary to keep up with the class, and it would be an organizational tool for myself. They could also find links to other resources I would like to use in my class such as Story Kit and Kahoot. When I think of world language programs, I typically think of high school language classes first. It is uncommon to hear about learning a second language in elementary schools, is more common to hear about students beginning to learn a target language in middle school, and it is most common that students can study at least four years of a language in a high school. Therefore, in Chapter 4 of The Teacher’s Handbook, it was so intriguing to learn about the different program models available for elementary aged children. The one that stood out to me was the immersion program. I thought it was amazing that this program is content based, and the target language is used 50-100% of the school day. I like that reading is taught through the second language in this program. I think that learning other subject areas in a target language allows students to pick up on grammatical structures and gain an expanded vocabulary without spending all of their time focusing on these aspects. The students can still be engaged in another topic, like a story they have read, or a math problem they are working on, and become more proficient in the language by being challenged to communicate on these topics that may not be taught to them on vocabulary lists or out of the book. I think this program model is more realistic and more beneficial.
This program model was demonstrated in the video we watched in class on October 28, 2014. The video demonstrated a French teacher with his class of kindergarten students who participate in a full-immersion French class. In the segment we watched, I found a few things striking. The teacher commented that the students had only been in the class for about nine weeks, but all of them seemed to understand everything the teacher was saying; I made this inference when I noticed that each time the teacher asked a different student a question, every single one of them could correctly answer him, even though they had to use English to respond. Another striking feature of this class was that the teacher did not use English one time. Each time a student said something in English, he repeated back to them what they said in French. In order for the students to better understand him in French, he used gestures which seemed to work great. The teacher was extremely aware and knowledgeable of the level his students were at, which is very important. For example, the teacher wanted to read to them the book about the chicken pox, but knew the vocabulary and grammar was far beyond their comprehension levels. Therefore, he continued to teach from the book, but paraphrased what the pages were saying so that the students could better understand him. I believe this immersion class will be successful due to the teacher’s dedication and patience, as well as how engaging the class was for the students. I would love to teach a class like this one day. This week I read Framework for Portfolio Assessment, Chapter 11 from the Teacher’s Handbook, and Integrated Performance Assessment. The entire article about portfolio assessment was intriguing to me. I only previously knew about this concept because when I took Spanish in 11th grade, my teachers in the foreign language departments were trying to implement them into the classes. My experience with them had been minimal; my classmates and I were given a checklist at the end of the semester, and we had to pull specific assignments from our folders that matched the list and put them in order in the binder. We added in only written assignments, none about reading comprehension, and no presentational or interpersonal speaking examples. What I liked most about the information in the reading is the stress upon student involvement, calling this type of assessment “an ongoing, interactive assessment that actively involves both the teacher and the student in the process of learning” (560). They demonstrate what students already know, set goals for what they hope to achieve/learn in the class, and their progress towards these goals. It emphasizes student ownership because they are in charge of showing their progress and get to have a greater input in what they want to know. Portfolios really benefit foreign language classrooms because they are a space where students can give examples of their writing, reading, speaking, and communication goals all in one. I hope I can view some examples of student portfolios in a Spanish classroom before I am a teacher so I can try to integrate them into my classroom from the beginning.
The second most important piece of information to me was the cyclical approach of the Integrated Performance Assessment. It makes a lot of sense to me that students should build upon what they know, starting with the interpretive communication phase. To me, this phase includes listening and reading, which is a great introduction to vocabulary and grammar, but students must negotiate meaning of the authentic texts. After this exposure, they can begin the interpersonal communication phase, where they communicate with others what they just learn and their prior knowledge. Afterwards, they can finish with the presentational task, which they were introduced to in the beginning of the lesson, and demonstrate what they know to a greater audience than just the teacher. I think the Integrated Performance Assessment really pushes students to the next level of language learning, encouraging them to communicate much more than in previous methods, but are always involved and aware of their final tasks. This goes along with backwards design and I absolutely will use this in my classroom. There were two important pieces of information that I took away from reading Chapter 3 of the Teacher’s Handbook. The first was the difference between teachers using IRE (initiates, responds, and evaluation) versus IRF (initiation, response, feedback). What I think was most striking about this section is the difference between evaluation and feedback. Ultimately what I took away from this was that I can take my classroom and students’ learning to a whole other level if I ask higher level questions and encourage meaningful discussion when talking about topics, rather than giving basic “great” or “close, but not exactly” responses to an answer. I also really liked the suggestion of having longer, more meaningful conversations with a couple of students in the beginning of class, rather than asking each student a short question. I think this is important to incorporate into my future class because although a few students will receive more attention on alternate days, the entire class will benefit from listening to deeper conversations, and hearing different grammatical structures and new vocabulary put to work.
The second important piece of information I took away from this chapter was the section about integrating language and content learning (pages 88-90). In this colloquium class I was wondering to myself to what extent I can teach other subjects in class to my Spanish students, in order to learn the Spanish language. I know that I most likely will teach Spanish to English speaking students, and not in an immersion classroom or to ESL students. The figure 3.4 on page 89 helps me understand the reality of this situation better; it seems that you can have a larger content focus if you have a full day immersion program and a stronger language focus in shorter class periods. However, knowing that I can still teach content while having a continuing to have a language focus can be beneficial because I will still provide enough input, feedback, and output “that are critical to interlanguage development”. Therefore, I plan to teach other content subjects in Spanish to keep the class interesting and diverse, but so there will still be the language focus. After learning a little bit about the background history of standards for foreign language teaching, I found it interesting that the standards help guide our approaches and practices to teach the content. One approach I learned about that really stood out to me was the “Top-Down Approach” (page 59). In this method, I learned that learners are presented with “whole texts” that are authentic and relevant to the topic they are learning. Looking back on my experiences in high school Spanish class, I truly wish my teachers would have used this approach. I think that although at the time it would have been difficult for me, I would have benefited far more than I did with the traditional grammar and vocabulary exercises. What I really like about this approach is that in accordance with the other readings I have done, the authentic texts are above the students’ current skill level, but through working with the teacher and exploring the material, they can actually see grammatical structures and new vocabulary in meaningful, relevant texts. In the example they describe how students will listen to authentic conversations between employee and traveler, or reading an authentic advertisement. I will use these in my classroom rather than the textbook for exercises to be able to shoot down the “when will I ever use this?” question in my future class.
Contextualizing the language instruction is also a key point I took away from this reading. To me, contextualized language instruction and the “Top-Down Approach” go hand in hand. In order to make the instruction meaningful and relevant, we can give current, important texts to the students in order to work down towards the specific grammar and vocabulary. The main idea of contextualizing the language instruction, in my opinion, is to give students meaningful resources to work with so they find intrinsic motivation to learn the language. Number 5 in the article "Popular Ideas About Language Learning Revisted" states “the earlier a second language is introduced in school programs, the greater the likelihood of success in learning” and gives alternate viewpoints about this. I thought there would be a direct answer: yes, you would be more successful in learning if you’re introduced to it earlier in your education. However, I was surprised that there were many factors to contribute to an answer about this. I thought that no matter what, it would be beneficial to start kids off early. However, after reading this section and thinking about it, kids in elementary school who start to learn a second language usually get to have an hour or two of instruction per week. And according to this article, “ this drip-feed approach often leads to frustration as learners feel that they have been studying for years without making much progress”. I agree that the age of the kids and intensity of the programs need to be taken into account when thinking about the overall goal of the program, such as how well the student should be able to communicate and understand about the second language.
I disagree with the statement “the best way to learn new vocabulary is through reading”. I do think that authentic texts that are meaningful to the students can expand vocabulary, but I also think it can cause frustration and discouragement if too many of the words are unknown and a majority of the time is spent on looking words up. I also think that sometimes if students don’t have to memorize a word, and just read it without producing it in their own sentences, the word can easily be forgotten. I felt this way in my Survey of Latin American Literature class. So much time was devoted to looking up words that I could not fluently read the passage, became extremely discouraged, and could not comprehend the main idea of the text. There should definitely be a happy medium in ways to learn new vocabulary terms. This week we learned about two concepts in this reading: the “Atlas Complex” as well as “Audiolingualism”. The beginning of this article explains the Atlas Complex as a teacher-centered classroom with the teacher taking on the entire burden of the students’ learning. This first concept was extremely eye-opening for me. I did realize that almost all of my educational settings have been this way, with the teacher in the front of the class, relaying all information to us, directing the conversation, etc. However, what I did not realize is the actual impact this has on students and their learning. When “all action and interaction, as well as explanations, are dictated by the instructor” (page 8), I have now changed my opinion that this has a negative impact on students, causing them to be a “passive audience” and in the long run, debilitating the amount a student could actually learn or comprehend if they were to seek the information themselves or with peers. After realizing what the Atlas Complex actually is, and how it can affect my future classroom, I will now make an extreme effort to create a learner- centered classroom environment.
What I found absurd was that audiolingualism and the drill method is actually a practice used in second language acquisition! I feel like the only time this should be used is to practice the pronunciation of vocabulary. This could be helpful because the main focus in audiolingualism is repetition, pronunciation, and correction. I do not think this device should be used to practice grammar skills; I think grammar skills should be practiced in authentic situations where students can make valuable connections. I feel more educated in knowing that these two ideas are prevalent in second language teaching, but do not agree that they are the best practices. To be honest, I was stumped when I was asked the question “what are you best/worst learning experiences?” I know I had a ridiculous amount of experiences within the classroom from grade school to college. I could think of all of my teachers, classes I’ve taken, projects I’ve worked on, etc. After reminiscing for a while, it seemed that I could only think of general attitudes or feelings towards a teacher or a class when I tried to think of my negative experiences. However, when I shifted my thinking to my best learning experience, a recent one came to mind very quickly.
In my second year of college I took a Human Development for Educators course. The majority of our final grade was based on a semester-long project. Each week a different student of the class had to present the chapter we were learning to the class. Everyone in the class was to read the chapter before we got to class, but it was the responsibility of one student per week to make a SMARTBoard presentation, present it to the class, and make sure all the students of the class understood the material. During the semester, I created activities and assessments to make sure I knew what the students understood prior to the lesson, and to ensure that the material I was trying to relay actually made sense to them after I taught the lesson. After working so hard all semester on perfecting my SMARTBoard presentation, I felt elated after having presented it to the class. I think this was such a positive learning experience for me for a few different reasons. First, the class overall had such a comfortable, inviting and relaxed atmosphere since everyone had a chance to lead the class. The students were all very supportive of each other, so I felt so confident when I was giving my presentation. The professor was constantly giving feedback, and since he gave more positive than negative feedback, it was not a very big deal when he corrected us because we knew he supported us and was just trying to help. The information in the class felt so relevant and important to what we were studying, so we were all eager to learn it. Since a different person was presenting each week, it was always presented in a new and interesting way, which kept the class fresh and exciting. It was also very rewarding to have worked on something for so long and then get to show it off to others. Every aspect that I liked of the classroom and project that was involved in my best learning experience is the exact opposite of what was involved in my worst learning experience. I absolutely loved my freshman year of Spanish in high school, so I was thrilled to take a second year of it. I had a new teacher for the first semester of the second year, and after about two weeks into the class, I could tell it just wouldn’t be the same as it had been the first year. Before entering that class, I could tell you exactly what we would be doing that day, but not because we could see a schedule or because it was posted on blackboard… we did the exact same thing every day, just with different material. We would come in, sit down, and the teacher would go around and check our homework to see if it was done. Then, she would sit in front of the class and go up and down the rows for the answers. After, she would assign three activities from the book, and we could work with the person next to us, and tell the class our answers, just like with our homework. Finally, she would assign our homework for the next day. The repetition and lack of diversity in the activities created a disinterest in everything we did in that class, and I loved Spanish and it had been my favorite class the year before. Working with the same person who sat next to me the whole semester was also terrible, because I seemed to always do the majority of the work and was so sick of it. I felt discouraged, disinterested, and disappointed in what seemed like the lack of effort put in by the teacher. I was there every day but felt like I hadn’t learned anything because the answers were just given to us but we weren’t applying them to anything relevant. There were so many bad things about my worst learning experience, but I think the worst part was that the teacher didn’t know my name until the second to last week of the semester. |
BlogThe following are my opinions and reactions to some of the texts about second language acquisition I have read throughout my teacher education. Archives
March 2016
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