Week 8: Listening

This Thursday's readings dealt with the topic of the importance of listening in L2 learning.  Several writers in Section 10 of the Anthology present their views on how listening should be incorporated into L2 instruction.  

The three articles (by David Nunan, John Field, and Wendy Y.K. Lam, respectively) demonstrate different facets of listening learning in L2 instruction.  Nunan's views focus on more of a need for using listening as a means to build proficiency after other more schematic strategies have been implemented, listening should be done for specific purposes, and must be individualized according to each specific learner.  Field's article poses a design for using listening with three distinct sections--pre-listening, listening, and post-listening. Pre-listening consists of vocabulary, grammar, cultural topics, etc.  Listening consists of intensive/extensive distinction, questions about what is being listened to, tasks to do while listening, etc.  Post-listening is comprised of meaning making for words that are being taught.  He also focuses on some of the problems that need to be remedied with listening--such as teaching it rather than testing it.  Finally, Lam's article draws attention to the importance of using other materials (spoken and written) in teaching listening.

In thinking of the articles, I like most of Nunan's ideas, but I think that perhaps it may be a bit difficult if dealing with a large number of students to personalize listening instruction.   Field has some valuable points to consider in his essay, and I like how he describes how to go about teaching listening skills.  I agree with him that oftentimes students are tested rather than taught how to listen to their target language.  Lam's article I thought, sort of had similar ideas to that of Nunan and Field, but made them more concise and better to understand.

Final Project Idea

I think I would like to write a research paper for my final project about content based instruction and perhaps include aspects of the focus on form aspect of the SIOP model.

Week 7: Teaching of Reading and Writing

On teaching a second language, it is important for students to be able to read and write in their TL in order to obtain better proficiency in the language.  Without these necessary skills, it would be very difficult for L2 speakers to function in the TL's society without proper means of understanding and producing written means of communication.
The texts for this week focus on the various aspects of reading and writing for ELL students.  The articles talk about various strategies to help L2 learners in reading and writing proficiency. Both the Kuma. article on heuristics and the anthology readings (particularly chapter 28) focused on "the process of self-discovery on the part of the learner" and how important it is to being able to read and write competently in the TL.  As Kuma. states "activating the intuitive heuristics that every learner naturally possesses is a worthy goal to pursue, and...there are several options available to those L2 teachers who wish to pursue that worthy goal" (203).  Meaning that there are several factors that influence how students learn.
I particularly enjoyed these readings.  They helped me better understand why my reading comprehension wasn't always the greatest when I was learning another language.  I think what Kuma. has to say about heuristics is very important for us as future educators to understand because it helps in understanding how to better help our students.   

ELT Curriculum

The first article for today--chapter 3 of the Anthology--was about lesson planning. This chapter, to me, was very straight forward, since I spent all of last semester in a lesson planning class.  I really found the chapter 7 article on ELT curriculum to be very interesting.  Denise Finney describes how in today's research on some of the planning that is being done in language learning classrooms.  She proposes ideas of the major types of curriculum which include content (what is to be learned by/transmitted to the learner), objectives, and process (enable individuals to progress toward self-fulfillment).  But, as Finney points out that most classrooms tend to "be a blend of all three" (77).  I agree with Finney in a blending of all three of these approaches.  I can't image only going with one in a classroom setting, that would not seem beneficial for students.  Finney also states "there is a need for flexibility and openness to change and influences from the broader perspective of general education theory" (77).  I agree.  Students do not adhere to a cookie-cutter model, so why should we expect them to in our approaches?

Content Based Instruction

The article in Anthology, "Project Work: A Means to Promote Language and Content," was one I felt  to be very interesting.  It talks about Content Based Instruction (CBI) where the activities in the classroom are based on what it being taught.  I think this seems quite like common sense--activities should relate to what one is trying to teach in the classroom.  The article goes on to list how it helps to motivated students in their work.  CBI also brings about the idea of Project Work--which is just as it sounds, sometimes with group work, though.  I rather like the idea of CBI and Project work because there seems to be endless possibilities when it comes to classroom activities and projects that will help students to get excited and interested in the material being covered.

Week 5: Task Based Instruction. Tue. 9/20

Today's readings were comprised of two articles that highlight the basic ideas for task based learning, as Peter Skehan explains in his article on the subject that "naturalistic use (of a language) has to come first and is necessary to drive forward interlanguage" (1).  Task-based learning has students accomplish proficiency through exposure to real-life scenarios with the target language.  The article also brought up the idea of Focus-on-Form where "learners may be participating in interactions with meaning as primary, there is some concern on form" (2).    I think that task-based instruction is good because it gets students to deal with more real, practical context for language, but I think it would probably work best with some sort of combination with communicative language teaching in order to better reach proficiency.  I think using the two together would bring a more holistic view of learning for the students and help them to understand concepts more efficiently.

Hu's Article

In going with this week's theme of communicative language teaching (CLT), Guangwei Hu, in his article "Potential Cultural Resistance to Pedagogical Imports: The Case of Communicative Language Teaching in China, shows how CLT is used in China to teach English.  While it would seem like CLT would be a good choice for Chinese learners of English, Hu points out that CLT conflicts with traditional views on education in Chinese culture.  Hu states that since Chinese education is primarily based on Confucian thinking that education is seen as"a goal in itself [that] has been internalised throughout Chinese society, even by those who themselves have not received any schooling" (Hu 97) and that CLT conflicts with this way of thinking because it does not strive for necessarily the fully mastery of the language.  I find this very interesting, as it seems that CLT can be very helpful in learning another language, especially in the ever-expanding world of global business, but I can also understand why the Chinese would not want to over-turn hundreds of years worth of practice and philosophy of education because of something that would make learning easier.  It's interesting, to me, since we as Americans tend to forget how young we are in our thinking and want the quick and easy way to solve a problem or learn a concept, while so many other cultures have been cultivating ideas for centuries.