Lesson Planning

Lesson planning is an important part of teaching. Laying out a set out path or plan is a must to be able to keep up. While lesson planning I believe that there should be different levels of planning a yearly, weekly, and daily plan. I liked the quote by Baily (19960 " a lesson plan is like a road map which describes where the teacher hopes to go in a lesson, presumably taking the students along". A key word in that quote is "hopes" not every lesson will go as planned and it needs to be recognized by the teacher when it is not working and they need to derive the plan. This is not alway apparent to the teaching when something doesn't work out how they would like. Student feedback could be very benificial to find out if the lesson has worked or not worked.

Cultural Consciousness

Cultural consciousness and language go hand and hand. The goal of a teacher is to get the teacher have the learner see the culture through a native speakers perspective. In order for this to happen I think the teacher should first do the same thing for their student’s culture. It is important for the teacher to have a understanding so they can understand any discourse their student might have while learning the target language. It is a two way street in learning cultures teachers and students will be learning things from each other. The importance of a familiarity of the target language is great. It will not only help with language development but is needed to interact with others in the native language. Culture can be embedded throughout all types of teachings and need to be regularly used.

Integrating Language skills

We have been learning about the importance of the primary skills of language od listening, speaking, reading, and writing but it becomes difficult the intregrate all into the learning. We have talked about the importance of authentic examples to be cordinated into the classroom but we have found there are some obstacles in doing so. As ESL teachers our goal isto help our studnts become competent in each area so we need to finds particular ways to use all at once. I really enjoyed some of the proposed projects and microstrategies that are offered to promote the integration of all of the skills. The main problem is that we ask ourselves how realistic is that these projects can be used in the classroom. There are always time restrainsts that teachers have to face. Also tachers face the always daunting fear of approval from the principal to create projects that do not follow the curiculum.

Ch 24 and 25

One part that really got me thinking was a very small mention in the beginning of ch 24 about learning inflections of a new vocabulary word. This was not a major point of the chapter but it caught my eye.  After reading this, I though about some experiences with second languge learners and this is a are they seems to be a struggle. The English inflections are not like other languages. Throughout Englishes' history the amount of inflections have decreased and has become more unlike other languages. For example, the romantic languages (spanish, italian, french, ect) have much more inflections. I know when I started learning Spanish coming up with the correct inflection form is something I really struggled with because it is so different from English. Teachers should not only teach new vocabulary words but expand and really emphasize the inflection involving the words to help the student gain a full grasp on the vocabulary and the context it should be used in.

Kuma Ch6

Kuma's Ch 6 goes really well with the discussion we had as a class on Tuesday. I want to touch up on the topic of learning how to learn again. In high school I felt that I had no organized pattern of learning. If I did have a strategy for learning I would use it for every subject that I had. Once I came to college I came to understand the importance of implementing affective learning strategies. It took me about a sememster of college but I found out what strategy I needed for each subject.

We touched upon this last class meeting but I want to reemphasize the importance how teachers of atleast the high school level should explicitly or inexplicitly begin to teach students how to learn. Also as ESL teachers we must be aware that some strategies of learning may not fit with everly SLL. We should show and incorporate learning strategies into the framework of the classroom. We must also be aware is it is not working effectively and show a new way that might work better

Writing Skills

In the chapter about the second language writing process I found important. Native speakers struggle organizing their writing i their first language. For second language learning students this much be an even larger obstacle they face. It shopuld be a focus for the students learn how to organize their ideas and be able to translate those ideas into learning. I know personally organizing my thoughs into writing is not a strrong point of mine and process writting has help me. Group brainstorming could be very beneficial especially 2LL because it gives them opportunities to hear others speak and they might have similar ideas but do not nessesarilly know how to say it the language. Proccess writitng is a skill as like anything else so the opportunities the students are exposed to the process they can only improve.

project proposal

I am going to do the research project.

Syllubus of A Mixed Focus Curriculum

A syllubus of a mixed focus curriculum "included all levels all the time, but the emphasis changes at different stages of learning." (p76 methdology) Each level has a new focus allowing changes in lesson planning and focus of content in second language learning. This makes sense because as learners of different ages have different levels od cognition. As learners grow they are more adapt at being able to learn more advanced and abstract materials. An advantage of this design "would seem to allow the syllabus designer the most freedom to respond to changing or newly percieved needs in the learner, and at the same time provides a framework for the teacher who may not be willing or willing to 'go fully communicative' (76 methdology) The goal is to challege learners to learn new ideas but also promote viable communication

Content Based Instruction

One aspect of the Content Based Instuction i would like to touch on is project work. Project work with groups can be very beneficial for a second language classroom. Not only does it help students learn the language but it also can lead towards a better social understading of the the language depending on the type of project. Group projects also promote communicative interaction between group memebers in the target language along with a presentation can help develop verbal skill. If students are able to pick a topic they are interested in they are more likely to get something out of it and have and investment in the learning. It also creates an atmospherre where students are teaching their peers which on a personal level I sometimes felt it was easier to understand at times. The problem with group project work in a second language (or any classroom) there needs to be callaborative effort instead of one or two people doing all the work and the others sitting on the sideline

Task-based instruction

After reading about the chapter task based instruction it had me thinking about the type of instruction that I recieved in my second language education. In high school, there were some elements that I recieved would be considered task-based but the class was focused more on form rather than meaning. Once I started taking a second language in college I noticed that there was a more focus on meaning than what was emphasized in my highschool classroom. We approached learning the language towards authentic communication rather than strictly grammatical forms. While focus on form may work for some I felt the larger focus on real life communicative situations had a more deeper inpact on my learning.

The end of CLT

Bax is quick to argue that CLT is the overbearing majority method teachers use to teach a second language. He claims that this method is the fad of the times and does not adequetly give a substantial form of teacheing. He claims that everybody believes, "The communicative appraoch is the way to do it, no matter where you are, no matter what the context" (p281) I disagree, although this approach is very popular it is not the only method being used and no one teacher truely uses a CLT approach. As we have discussed good teachers overlap methods and use what is best suited for their students. I believe he is a little too critical of the CLT approach.

Communicative Language Teaching

Communicative competence is as important as being able to produce the target language. It is counterproductive to learn a second language if you are unable to communicate with others with the language. As a second language teacher it is important to promote and teach students both communicative and social competence of the language. I beleive there should be a large emphisis on communicative competence and a teacher should use various activitites to promote it.

TESOL relationships among speakers

In the matter of TESOL there is a presence of inequality.TESOL has the dichotomy between native and nonnative speakers the power stuggle between native and nonnative speakers looms. There seems to be a struggle for nonative find a complete social welcoming. Tones on race and ethnicity run widely in the configurations of power and inequality in English. "As one's nativeness as a speaker of English is often assumed to correlate with the paleness of one's skin. (Pennycock 333) How do we find a way to close the gaps of inequality and power stuggles for nonnative speakers and other supressed groups? There is no simple solution to this problem.

Nature of a Teacher

Kuma discusses what is the nature of a teacher and the type of teachers there are. He catagorized how teachers view themselves as passive technicians, reflective practitioners, and transformative intellectuals. This got me thinking about how I view myself. At this point in my education I see myself fall under a reflective practitioner. The majority if not all teachers share some attributes from each catagory and are not fully placed in one place. "Learnign 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. Reflecting on teaching will show what you know or do not know about teaching.

Approaches in ESL teaching

There are so many approaches for teachers of ESL to concider what is the right one for them? The answer is that there is not one right was way there must be consideration in each given circumstance and teachers philosophies. In order to find what is comfortable or what best fits the teacher and students as a group teachers must be familiar with each approaches and be aware of new ideas. A teacher should be peasonally aware and aware of their students. As Celce-Murcia says, "Adopt; don't adapt".

Ch 1 and 2 Anthology

Over the years it has been shown that teaching a language is not a perfect science. Good teachers are able to adapt to students needs and new ideas to perfom a successful deliverance of teaching. As mentioned in Ch 1 the 12 principles is key to have a dynamic classrroom. Many factors are placed on the teacher and student for this procces to work. Teachers should have meaniful lesson that reach out to student to keep their attention and reason to learn. Their should be a desire to learn the language and understanding of their own personal goals and abilities as students. Theories on teaching are not so concrete either. Teachers should find a happy medium for what works best for them and their students. There are options such as science-research conceptions, thoery-philosophy conseptions, values-based conceptions, and art-craft conceptions. All which have different strengths for teachers.