Week 15

I had it written down that I was supposed to blog for Thursday, but I realize we only had readings for Tuesday, so I am writing a belated blog for the week.
Since we've already talked about the Anthology and Kuma. articles in class, I suppose I will talk a bit about what I thought of the Kuma. chapter.  I think Kuma. has some interesting things to say, as far as M&M model goes. In school, I had never experienced one of my teachers being observed or observing another teacher, so in reading how to do this, I think it is a really interesting idea. One reason is it shows students that the faculty are supportive of each other which is important in creating a school community.  I also think that, as a teacher, this a great opportunity to get feedback from your co-workers and to correct things that aren't working within your class that you may never have noticed before. I think that I would, as a future educator, enjoy feedback like this, and hope that I will be able to experience this.

NCTE conference

I was able to attend the NCTE conference in Chicago on Nov. 19.  It was really a very interesting place! I was able to attend a few really great sessions, but unfortunately I was unable to see any that directly pertained to TESOL.  The first one I attended was on how to get LGBT authors into your classroom for free to talk to your students. It's a great resource, and I heard a lot of ideas from current teachers on how to best use this resource in the classroom. I'm really glad I went to that session because it gave me some ideas for my own class. The second session I attended was on blogging (I was inspired to go to it from my experiences from this class) but was rather disappointed. I am happy to say I have learned more about blogging in this class than what the presenters were discussing in their panel, and I really did not think it was a worthwhile session. The last session I went to was about the use of film as text in the classroom. As a preservice English teacher (with some experience in TESOL) I hope to be able to use different means of textual representation in the classroom and the session really helped me to better understand ways to incorporate film as literature in the classroom. All in all, NCTE was a great experience, and I was very glad I was able to attend.

Week 13: Assessment

Tuesday's reading cover section 14 of the Anthology book.  Each of the articles weighed in on different thoughts, ideas, and/or approaches to alternative assessment in the second language classroom.  I would have to agree with using alternative assessment in a ESL setting as well as any other classroom setting. As far as the articles go, I really like what the Huerta-Macias had to say about the usage of alternative testing.  She writes in her article how "alternative assessment..consisting of valid and reliable procedures that avoid many of the problems inherent in traditional testing, including norming, linguistic, and cultural bias...[alternative assessment] as the power to tell a story" (342).  I think this is very important to keep in mind because of how assessment can affect our students.  Alternative assessment is no less valuable than any other means of assessing students, and, in fact, it can engage more students by allowing them to express themselves more fully than a traditional test.  Alternative assessments--like journal writing, for example--can allow students to express themselves while teachers can keep up with students' progress and give them great feedback.  Overall, I really approve of alternative assessment because of what it can do for both students and teachers.