Post 13

 Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed seemed similar to the chapter in Kuma which discussed the concept of  students being empty vessels to be filled by the teacher. The difference in Freire's pedagogy that I found, if I'm not mistaken, is that the students need to make a conscious effort to want to strive for knowledge. They should be mutual partners with the teacher to improve their knowledge. I find that the idea of oppressed people being able to have equal opportunities as those who are not oppressed is a great idea. I think the difficulty here is concerned with budget. It is ideal for all students to have equal opportunities when it comes to education. Maybe someday there will be a time when the amount of money a student's family has will not affect the degree of education they receive. This is something as future teachers we need to strive for. We must not take into account the area in which we teach. We should be the best teachers we can be no matter the environment.

Post 12

 As far as teachers being observed I would like to start by saying I feel that one time observers can never fully understand the way a teacher runs their classroom. Often times when teachers are aware they are being observed there is something unnatural about the way they go about their normal routine. For example. some teachers who normally are very organized may feel pressured to change the way the class is run to make it seem more exciting to the outsider. On the other hand, teachers who may not be such good teachers may also change their attitude just for that one class period in order to get the "okay" from the observer. I remember one class during high school in particular that may have seemed like chaos to a newcomer, but all the students were learning so much and putting it into practice. It was a controlled chaotic environment to those who knew it well enough. I do think teachers should be observed for feedback on their teaching but I feel the best way is to have another teacher who understands the material and knows the students do it. This way they can interpret more from student's reactions and interactions than a supervisor or researcher. Self evaluation should be an ongoing process and to help, I think teachers should hear feedback from their students. I believe the students hold the most valuable input to teachers. It is just figuring out how to get the information properly and use it to full potential. Considering product-oriented and process-oriented models of observation, I find the process-oriented to be most useful. This is because it is an interpretation of the goings on in a classroom, not only a description. This is helpful because the teacher knows what is going on in the classroom but may not interpret the reactions the same way. Taking into account the M & M model, I think it is helpful to have the pre and post meeting of teacher and observer. This way there can be discussion based on instances in the classroom like the example with the condo misinterpretation. That way, the teacher is made aware of mismatches and miscommunication that the teacher would not normally catch during the class period.

Final Project update

I have completed my observations and my reflections. I now need to print them and start labeling and making connections to the articles and texts.

Post 11

 I found chapter 11 to be thought provoking. I had never before thought of non-native varieties of English. The main part that stuck with me is that English does not have a home. It is an international language and therefore nobody can claim it as theirs. This means that different dialects are more than the first couple I think of; Boston, Southern, and West coast. Other countries have their own dialect of English and though it may sound improper to us, it is widely used and accepted in their society. Another part that caught my attention while reading was when it said that the people who standardize the language are the ones who control the social, political, and cultural power centers within a nation. This is true because the people attempting to standardize a language are the ones who feel that it is because the way they speak is superior based on their education of the knowledge. Truth be told, these people are trying to put a label on something that does not need one. There are a variety of Englishes spoken in and outside the United States. We need to take into account the influence of all these dialects rather than focus on standardizing the language. On a similar note, this chapter also gives two examples of countries which use their own English dialect. I compared the Indian English to my learning of Spanish. I think we put a big focus on listening to native speakers and practicing speaking with natives in order to become fluent. This is not the case for Indian English. They have native Indian teachers teaching with textbooks written by native Indian speakers. This is not necessarily the best way I would want to learn a language, but since Indian English is going to be what is spoken in their country for business and whatnot, why should they learn academic English?

Post 10

 The first thing I read in Chapter 10 that struck me as odd was that the skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing were not only separate, but ordered. It is different to look at this depending on whether the learner is learning L1 or L2. The next thing I found odd but it Kuma had rectified was the differentiation of these skills as active and passive, and then as productive and receptive. I have always thought of the skills as conscious efforts to produce or comprehend language. The idea of language skills being separated in order to learn makes no sense to me. These would not lead to very realistic scenarios in the communication aspect. However, I do believe that classes specific to reading, writing, and speaking are useful further in depth practice of an already comprehensible student. By this, I mean that a foreign language course devoted to speaking would help students improve their speech after already having the ability to communicate in this language. This is evident in our L1s as well. Many English speakers take a speech class in college. Many courses are focused on reading as well. These courses do not separate the skills completely though. For instance, a reading course may have an assessment in which the students must write a summary of what they read. Or perhaps a speaking course will require students to listen to a prompt and then respond. The point is that we should not be teaching our students to focus on these separate skills but learn to integrate them and get the most out of one task by using more than one of these skills. It is natural for students to engage in activities that involve meaningful and simultaneous engagement with language.

Post 10

 Honestly, I am still trying to decide what I thought of the movie. I cannot even say what I expected before seeing the movie, it just was not that. I must admit that before seeing it I had preconceived notions that I would not like it based on the director. In my opinion he is a bit one-sided and a little extreme for my tastes. I think the movie was more or less trying to tug on your heart strings rather than actually have a point. As it started, I expected the different families to be a part of it only for a while, but the whole movie was about these students and the lottery. I do not think there was much about what should be happening to change the way the education system is going. At the end of the movie I expected there to be some persuasive conclusion. This was not the case for me. It concluded saying that change needs to happen. It did not say how or what is expected of us future teachers. I may have completely missed the mark on this one, or my biases did not allow me to see the movie objectively, I'm not sure. I do believe it was an appeal to emotion.

 I will say there were a few things that stuck with me from the film though. When the teacher said he'd still get paid whether the students learn or not, was unbelievable to me. I wish it wasn't like that in schools, but looking back in high school and remembering the teachers who sit at their desks and hand out homework every once in a while fit this type. Hopefully something is done about this soon. Another thing I remember was about the tracking of students. In my school there were different tracks to take. I personally was on the honors track. I enjoyed the challenge these classes gave me, but I know how difficult it was to change tracks if you were not on the right one. Also if you were in honors in one class it was uncommon for you to be in regular in another. I think this separated the students a little, but it was not an issue that caused fights. I don't necessarily think that tracking is a bad thing, I just think there should be more room to budge.

Post 9

 During the poetry night a few different things stood out to me. I really enjoyed when the students from ISU read their own poetry. Many of these poems seemed to speak to me in a way that I related to more than the Black Took Collective style of poetry. It was my first time at a poetry reading and it was almost what I expected it to be. At first I almost pictured a room with bean bag chairs and bongos by the microphone. I quickly realized that happened in the cheesy movies I watched but would not be in the Prairie Room. As far as the content and language of the poems, I was surprised at first to hear the swearing and sexual content, however my shock faded fast. I realized the importance of personal expression. I personally have never thought of myself as a poet. I would never dream of being able to put myself in such a vulnerable position; on stage, talking about myself and issues that I have. The culture aspect in some of the poems was astonishing. It's great that there are people comfortable enough to share their outlooks and experiences. Hopefully in my future classroom I will be able to have students feel comfortable enough to share cultural experiences with me.

Post 8 (readings)

 Culture is a word that people throw around very lightly in my opinion. I find that many times in my education classes students say it as an answer for almost anything the teacher asks. Of course I agree it is an important topic to address but I think there are so many aspects of culture to address. Until reading this article I never thought of culture diversity to affect language misconceptions. But, since language is a part of culture, it obviously has a connection. When I think of my time spent in an ESL classroom, I recall a few times when there were language differences stemming from cultural backgrounds. We were discussing parts of a room and a student did not understand why there was a table in the kitchen. In their culture they prepare food in the kitchen and bring the meal out to the dining room. This is just one example, there have been quite a few times where I have caught myself using idioms unconsciously. It has definitely made me reflect more on my use of cultural influences in my language.
 Another thing I often forget is that students' level of proficiency differ for each language domain. I used to assume if you could speak English you could write just as well. I have come to change this way of thinking. I noticed in my ESL 2 class a student who spoke very well and I asked why he was not in a higher level class and she showed me his homework. I would never have guessed his skills were that poor. I'm glad now that this has been brought to my attention and I will no longer overgeneralize. Even in retrospect, my Spanish writing ability is way above my speaking ability. I used to assume the speaking would come naturally without actually practicing speech. Needless to say, that's not how it works. This will help me in my future classroom so I equally focus on speaking, writing, reading, and listening.

Post 9 (lesson plan)

Kristina, Katie, and Cara's lesson plan: picture of man with buttons at a protest rally.

Introduction: background and other images from a women's liberation movement. Have them find other images relating to protests and discuss them.

Sociopolitical issues to bring up:
-protests vs. freedom of speech
-feminism: this photograph, others, personal opinions, connections to women's lives in other countries.

1) read an article about global feminist movements
2) find other images associated with women's liberation
3) discuss different points of view on the topic (possible debate)
4) make buttons expressing their opinion on the topic
5) write about experiences in a different country and how the culture related to women's roles differ.

Post 8 (video)

 I think this video showed a great way for teaching about the pioneers in relation to the students. In my opinion history is a difficult subject to relate to students when it should be. I recall plenty of times in school when I would complain about how boring my history class was. I think this teacher did a wonderful job of bringing the topic to life.  This way would easily help students remember the main focus of studying the pioneers. It was even better that they had a guided discussion afterwords. The questions were open enough for the students to have beneficial information to share. It was a great way to relate to the students and have them relate to each other. When young students can find a similar experience in their life the event becomes more meaningful. Also, when students can add onto knowledge they already know, it deepens their understanding. The activity at the end of the lesson included authentic materials, which was beneficial in this case. The students were learning about brochures as well as putting their knowledge about travel and relating it to the pioneers. This is a great way to have a project at the end of the lesson that ties in everything that has been discussed.

Post 7

 Before reading Kuma's chapter on learner autonomy I thought I knew all about it. I just thought it was common sense that the learner has a say in how they learn. I now understand more, that the teacher must influence the student to want to understand how to learn.  Metacognition is a complicated idea because it's weird to think about thinking, but if we set the oddness aside we can really focus on the important factors of what it takes in order to learn. I think it is important for students to understand the way they learn because this can help them self-correct. One of the 4 processes that enable learners to exercise control over their learning is evaluating.  In the book it says this is done at the end of an activity. I disagree with this. The example given was reflecting and thinking about what to do differently next time. While I think this is a good idea, I personally think it's better that the student correct himself in the process. I feel that they need to know that mistakes are okay and once they recognize that they have made a mistake the best thing to do is correct it. I feel this will actually facilitate learner autonomy because they will be self aware.
 I feel that this idea did not come into play until the end of high school, through college for me. In high school, like most others I feel, were just interested in finishing their work. Looking back on things I wish I would have known then what I know now. I think this idea ties in well with intuitive heuristic learning because it focuses on the learner knowing and understanding their learning process. I question whether high school students have the ability to think in this mindset. I wonder if the maturity level of the students needs to be higher in order to think of learning in such a way. Whether they can or cannot understand I think it's important to bring to their attention. Maybe once it is, they will be able to grasp the concept at least a little bit in order to start the metacognitive process.

Post 6

 After reading the articles I noticed how they carried over. First, the idea of a trilingual classroom is quite daunting. Then to think of how to create a curriculum for such a class adds to the intimidation factor. I have never really considered a trilingual classroom at one time. I do know that many younger children from other countries learn multiple languages at a young age, I just never thought they learned them at the same time.  I assumed after a student mastered a language enough to use it in  a class, then they moved on to a different language the next year. I do not know if this method is completely awful or if it holds true in some countries. I do find that trilingual classrooms can be beneficial. I feel this may be difficult unless a teacher that had grown up speaking the three languages and is fluent. Answering questions and hopping from one language to the next seems like a task that would be difficult to get the hang of. However, if the course carries out properly, then it can mean a wonder of opportunities for the student.
 The reason this can be difficult for the teacher is because of the curriculum that must be created for the classroom. I think creating a curriculum for one language is difficult, let alone three. I do not believe all the aspects would carry over from one language to the other. So, each language would have to be assessed and the skills the teacher is hoping for would need to be specified. I think about my time in the public school. During study hall students ask me questions about their Science homework. I have never been a fan of science nor have I been very good at it. I just think about how difficult it would be for me to create a curriculum about that and I compare that to creating three curricula.

Post 5

The article about studying abroad was interesting to me. I studied abroad in Spain and I loved every minute of it. There were so many opportunities that opened up once I landed in Europe I couldn't even handle it. I traveled and to this day want to continue traveling. I encourage all of my friends and people younger than me to study abroad no matter where because once they leave the US it's a whole different world. It does not surprise me what students are taking into account when looking at different universities. I obviously chose Spain because I'm a Spanish Education major, but the reason I chose Granada was because of the popularity of the university. The program guide that I was given made it seem more than worth it, and I'm glad. I think studying abroad really opens people's eyes to different cultures and a different way of life. It allows people to be more accepting and another plus is the opportunity to travel.

In terms of heuristics, and the battle of inductive versus deductive teaching in my opinion can never be solved. I believe that the student needs to be taken into account moreso than which method has more potential to be effective. There are different types of learners and some do well when explained how to use a rule or the definition of a word. These students would likely excel from a deductive teaching method. Students who have the ability to think critically and figure out reasoning for themselves would be more likely to succeed with an inductive approach. I do feel that both types of students have potential to learn language skills. I do not see one way as better or worse. I do find though, that the students who would do well with an inductive approach would be more likely to notice the gap because they think for themselves more than the students who need be told what do in a step by step process.

Final Project

I am typing a one page Word document reflection about each week of clinical experience in the classroom at Normal Community High School.

Post 4

 I have not decided yet if reading these articles should make me feel more confident about my teaching ability or question my desire to teach. We have been reading and studying the methods and strategies to teach but when it comes down to the real world, some people cut it and some do not. The Sleeter article discusses the effect of race in a classroom. It is important to know what different classroom atmospheres are like because of ethnic composition and it is also important to be aware of the differences one will encounter in a class.  Race is something that unfortunately is taken into account by others. I know we all had the issue with diversity hours required by the department. Well, as much of a pain that it would have been to complete the 50 hours, it is something that should be implemented in the program here at ISU. I do feel that they need to fix the kinks and get all the preparations done prior to enforcing the change to the curriculum. Race is going to be something we are all going to deal with, considering the fact that we want to be ESL teachers. Whether we are in a rural or urban setting, more and more schools have to ESL classes. It is always better to be aware of differences and be prepared to deal with a miscommunication or misunderstanding in the classroom that can stem from a cultural difference. I often wonder how to embrace a culture without being stereotypical when I'm asking questions about traditions or music for example. I would hope that the atmosphere created in the classroom allows for open discussion and the students would not take offense by my curiosity.

Post 3

 As I read for this week, what stuck with me was how important it is for teachers to grasp every opportunity to teach. Mostly this occurs in the middle of a lesson, which can sometimes mean teachers will not pause or stray from their plan in order to address an issue at hand. As the book said, there are learning opportunities everywhere and it is up to us as future teachers to know when to take advantage of such. I never really thought of it in that way before or how powerful a question can be. Another good point is that if one student is asking a question, there is a really good chance another student or even more than one, had the same question. This helps the teacher in a way to know what to focus on or to stop and return to a difficult, confusing topic or idea. As I read the examples of the opportunities, I found the transcripts a little hard to follow, but I think I pulled the overall theme out of the material. My question though, is how far off topic should we go if the question is unrelated. Is that something we can focus on after class or separately during individual work time? Or should we include it in the discussion at the time the comment is posed?

Post 2

 From my experience as a student of foreign language I recall a few different approaches being used. In high school much of the focus was on memorized dialogue, audiolingualism. This means that we were given a prompt and had to either create a dialogue of our own or we were just told to memorize a scenario from the textbook. I do not feel this is the best way to go about learning a foreing language. I do not remember specifically my teacher correcting my pronunciation of the words. I remember as a student being very nervous to have the whole script memorized. I do not think this facilitated learning. In fact I would say it impaired my ability to focus on the language because I was too nervous about saying each word in order. The cognitive approach was also implemented in high school. We focused on learning a grammar lesson and then putting it into practice. This was not the best approach because as I recall, the activities and exercises followed a certain formula. This lead to issues once a student had the opportunity to answer open ended questions and state their opinion. I remember the communicative approach more in the higher levels of the language. We were able to discuss in groups the language and have dialogues based on a role-plays and prompts. I feel that these approaches are comfortable to me because that is what I am used to doing. But, in college when there were other approaches used or even a lack of approach and it was lecture based, I had to adapt. I do not believe that one single approach can lead to learning in a student. There needs to be a combination of parts from different approaches in order to be a successful teacher. For example including dialogue in the classroom is very important. However, the memorization may not be the way to practice dialogue. A scenario with different options can perhaps assist the learning process.

 My first comment on the readings is on the first sentence. The saying that teaching is both an art and a sicence. I interpret this as the idea that we as teachers have a way of doing things that have specific reasons and purposes (the science) and the students can interpret the results (the art). The art can also be that there is room for creativity when creating a lesson. I disagree with the the sentence in chapter 1 which states that teachers are passive technicians just passing knowledge along. It is the purpose of the teacher to teach the knowledge. This cannot be done by simply passing on the content. The teacher needs to make lessons and organize appropriate activites in order to reach the objectives. The idea of a teacher being a reflective practitioner makes more sense because it is a conscious effort rather than a routine action done because it has been tradition. The other idea of teachers who are willing to reflect upon the ideological principles that inform their practice is a good thing. Teachers need to be aware of the social issues and other aspects that are taken into account once inside the classroom. In the second chapter the author discusses methods. The fact that methods is so loosely used in our field of education makes it difficult to define the term. We do know though, that methods are continuously being added to try and improve the way all teachers approach a classroom. We also know that not one single method is the end all be all. This is because the "methods are based on idealized concepts geared toward idealized contexts." This is a bold quote that has a lot of meaning behind it. I find this very fascinating because of all the variables that need to be taken into account. A classroom is an unpredictable place, and a set method is not going to be the way to deal with an extraneous situation.

Post 1

 I have two plans for teaching English. First, I would like to travel and teach English in other countries. Then when I feel like settling down, I hope to come back to the States and teach English in a high school. My first country of choice is Spain because I also speak Spanish and lived in Spain for a semester and would love nothing more than to return. I enjoy the culture of Spanish life and am excited that I get to embrace it once again. I have heard from others who have taught in Spain that they dealt with learners of all ages. This scares me a bit, but I feel the level of the learners is more important than the age. It is very important for us as teachers of English to speakers of other languages to be aware of the issues that will be faced on a daily basis in each classroom. There are going to be differences between each person that need to be taken into account in order to learn. For instance, one student may benefit from repetition in order to remember vocabulary while another student needs to memorize pictures associated with the vocabulary.
 As a language educator I hope to teach learners what they wish to learn, meaning, I'd like to make sure everyone gets to the level of proficiency at which they intend on performing. I hope to make an impression that sticks with the learners and help them to understand at least one new thing every day of class. That is what I hope comes from this class as well. I would like to learn how to be the teacher that I'd like to be. I want to be successful and make sure all learners benefit from being in my classroom. I am nervous that the material I choose may be to difficult for the level I am given. I would like to learn how to make difficult material easier to understand. Also, I'd like to learn a variety of ways to teach one topic. This can help make sure all students are reached.