Unit Reflections
TESL 120Unit #1 Reflections - Approaches to Speaking Instruction
From Unit #1 my '"aha" moment, was when I was reading Thornbury's How To Teach Speaking, chapter 2: 'What Speakers Know'. In the chapter, Thornbury claims, "there are two main purposes for speaking. Speaking serves either a transactional function, in that its primary purpose is to convey information and facilitate the exchange of goods or services, or it serves an interpersonal function, in that its primary purpose is to establish and maintain social relations"(Thornbury, 2005, p.13).
What struck me as interesting about Thornbury's theory is that I have never even stopped to think about the different means of conversation and the purposes behind them (well besides the obvious, the basic needs of communication). Thornbury then breaks speech down furthermore into 'genres' of speech for example, interactive and non-interactive as well as, planned and unplanned (Thornbury, 2005, p.14). He uses "public speeches and business presentations" as planned speech whereas random conversation between strangers, like the example he uses "a phone conversation to ask for train timetable information" as unplanned (Thornbury, 2005, p.14).
I think that Thornbury's opinion the purposes behind speaking and the different reasons for spoken interactions between people is quite interesting and something I would like to learn more about. Perhaps I will research it some more on my own time.
References:
Thornbury, S. (2005). How to Teach Speaking, Chapter 2: What Speakers Know, pp. 11-26. Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education Limited.
TESL 120
Unit #2 Reflections - Pronunciation
For Unit #2 my "aha' moment was reading chapter 13: Teaching Pronunciation in J. Harmer's book The practice of English language teaching. What I found to be interesting in J. Hamer's chapter on pronunciation was his introduction. In his intro, he claims that:
"Almost all English language teachers get students to study grammar and vocabulary, practise
functional dialogues, take part in productive skill activities and become competent in listen-
ing and reading. Yet some of these same teachers make little attempt to teach pronunciation
in any overt way and only give attention to it in passing." (Harmer, 2001, p.183.)
When I read the passage from Harmer it got me thinking... I started to think of when I was being taught English and if the teachers really made an effort in teaching the pronunciations of the words rather then to teaching the correct spelling; or how they are to be used in sentence structure. I couldn't think of any time in my early development of English any teacher making the extra effort to properly teach the students the correct pronunciation. Which I thought was odd, but Harmer then shortly after in his chapter begins to ask the questions that I was starting to think about, like... "how good our students' pronunciation ought to be and what is the proper way of teaching them?" (Harmer, 2001, p.184). Harmer understands that people from different countries will pronounce the same words differently, but is that problematic for teaching purposes? In Harmer's opinion, yes it can be problematic, and I would agree with him here. He states that:
"Students should be able to use a pronunciation which is good enough for them to be always
understood. If their pronunciation is not up to this standard, it is thought, then there is a
serious danger that they will fail to communicate effectively." (Harmer, 2001, p.184.)
Harmer's chapter is very interesting because and raises many concerns that tend to not be asked when teaching English. He is asking the questions that people like myself most likely would not have asked, like, how to best teach English not only to people whose native tongue is English but also, for people who are just learning English for the first time. I believe his chapter is an excellent read for those of us, who like myself who are looking to become TESL teachers.
References:
Harmer, J. (2001). Chapter 13: Teaching Pronunciation. In Harmer, J. (Ed.). The practice of English language teaching (pp. 34-51). Essex, England: Longman.
TESL 120
Unit #3 - Approaches to Listening Instruction
While going over the content from Unit 3, my "aha" moment came from reading J. J. Wilson's article on How to Teach Listening. Wilson's article is about debunking stereotypical ideas about listening and language learning. He breaks these stereotypes into six different categories that he describes as "myths". (Wilson, 2008, p. 21.) But that is not what I found interesting; what I found interesting were the so-called "myths". Myth #1 is "You can't teach people how to listen", myth #2 "Listening is a 'passive' skill", #3 "It is easier for students to understand a native speaker of English than foreign speakers of English", #4 "The skills involved in listening to a foreign language are the same as those that we use for listening to our native language", #5 "While listening in class, students shouldn't try to understand every word", and finally #6 "Students shouldn't be allowed to read the scripts of recordings."(Wilson, 2008, p. 24.) Where in all of this is my "aha' moment you might be wondering... Well... My "aha" moment came once I'd read through the entire article carefully and went back to Wilson's second "myth", "Listening is a 'passive' skill". While reading the passage for another time I thought that the sentence "Listening is a process of hypothesising in real time." (Wilson, 2008, p.22.) Wilson then follows up by explaining that:
"Listening, then, is an activity that takes place on many levels simultaneously, from recognition of individual phonemes to a recognition of patterns of intonation that alert us to irony, sarcasm, anger, and delight." (Wilson, 2008, p.22.)
He explains that listening "is receptive rather than a passive skill", which I can agree with 100% but it took me reading the article for all these ideas to really set in. (Wilson, 2008, p.22.)
References:
TESL 120
Unit #4 - Assessment, Lesson Planning and Differentiation
Unit #4 was interesting because it brought important aspects of the classroom that a teacher must be aware of before teaching. I am very glad that the unit touched on the fact that all students are different and non-two are the same, every classroom has a wide variety of students who have wide varieties of different skills.
My "aha" moment in Unit #4 comes from Mathews-Aydinli & Van Horne's article Promoting success of Multilevel ESL classes: What teachers and administrators can do. In the article, the authors set up a hierarchy of the students and call the classroom a "multilevel" class, which just means some students already have a better understanding of English. (Mathews-Aydinli & Van Horne, 2006, p.1.) But in the article, the authors refer the students in more subjective forms I thought, titling some students as "advanced" and others as "beginners", the term beginners I have no problem with but when I read "advanced" I thought "aha" that's strange. (Mathews-Aydinli & Van Horne, 2006, p.1.) I understand that some students will know more English than others but referring to them as more "advanced" just seems to me it is a bit derogative to the other students who are only learning English for the first time or having a harder time learning. It is clear to me that the teacher must be aware of each student's abilities in English and plan around with the "what" and "where" different students need help. But to make such broad and subjective terms like "advanced" just doesn't sit well with me, that's just my opinion on it and my "aha" moment of Unit #4.
References:
Mathews-Aydinli, J. & Van Horne. (April 2006-02). Promoting success of multilevel ESL classes: What teachers and administrators can do. Retrieved from http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/briefs/multilevel.pdf
TESL 130
Unit #1 - Reflections - Contextualizing Content: What Does Reading Involve?
What is Reading?
Studies show that reading literature makes people more empathetic. When reading fiction, you learn to put yourself in another’s shoes. For me, that is a large part of why I enjoy reading so much.
Reading literature also improves your language skills. It improves your vocabulary. Reading long works of fiction extend your attention span.
Literature shows us the human condition. It expands your mind and shows you new ways to look at things. You see recurring tropes that echo through the ages and across cultures show us what all humans have in common.
TESL 130
Unit #2 - Reflectings - Adapting a Text
A problem teachers struggle with is adapting a text for learners' because usually, the classroom is full of students who are at a different level in their learning English journey.
While examing the "Reading Skills Practice: Foreign Exchange Emails - Exercises"
(provided on UMLearn) I thought that the exercise was great for helping students get used to writing in English. Simple emails back and forth between students who are trying to learn English is a great way for both students to benefit. In my classroom, I would have the students pair up and practice writing emails to one another and once they were done they could present their emails to me for corrective feedback. Then once I had gone over all of their emails to each other I could then come up with some true or false questions or matching questions like in the exercise and have the students work on the correct grammar and punctuation. In the beginning, I would have the students work on the true or false and matching questions in groups but once they become more advanced in English I would have them work on exercises alone.
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