Monitoring Your Own Teaching

Teaching involves an on-going process in which the educator is constantly reflecting on their teaching in order to ensure that they are meeting the needs of the students. This process is achieved through analyzing the student’s progress in their competence of the content material. Therefore, in teaching one must think critically about what the students accomplish in their learning. By doing so, the educator is better able to differentiate instruction to assure that each student achieves the correct understanding of the material. For this reason, I see the teacher as the learner and the learner as the teacher. In being reflective, the teacher is able to learn from the students what is effective in their teaching and what is not. If the teacher realizes that something is not working and the students are not understanding, the teacher should then consequently make changes to make certain that the learners to acquire the material.

It is so necessary that we are constantly observing ourselves and our students, or have another colleague observe our classroom for a different perspective. When I begin teaching I would love t have this happen as much as possible, because I feel like my first year will be so overwhelming with getting the hang of everything, that my time to reflect will be intruded upon since I will be focusing on other tasks. As the years go on, I am sure that my observing will be much more accurate since I will already be used to the schedule of the day, however, I still believe that it is necessary to bring in multiple perspectives to the classroom.

There is a program that is called Response to Intervention (RTI) and it is a great program in which the teacher is constantly monitoring each students progress through data collection. They collect data about how well the student is doing on tests, how many words the student is reading a minute, how well they are comprehending what they read, etc, etc. In RTI, the teacher is constantly differentiating instruction to meet the needs of the student. I feel that RTI would be ideal for the ESL classroom, especially since there is often not a large number of students in each classroom, and I believe that it is an effective way to monitor the students progress, but as well as the effectiveness of my teaching approaches and methods.

Assessment

When I hear the word assessment, I automatically think of an exam that is multiple choice, or an exam in which I have to respond to short answers or write definitions. I found these chapters to be extremely resourceful, because there are more ways than one to assess and evaluate your learners. Assessment can and should occur in the classroom daily, in that the students are producing output of what they have learned, and in that the teacher is evaluating their output either through observation or through reviewing the students' work. It is imperative that the teacher is constantly assessing the learners knowledge, to ensure that each learner is gaining an accurate understanding of the material. More importantly, the teacher needs to be a 'reflective practitioner' in which they are constantly responding to the the students success or failure of each assessment. Assessing the students can occur through a simple conversation that the each student has with their partner where they review the vocabulary (for example) that they have just learned. Assessment does not have to be in written form, in fact, a teacher can assess their students through observations or in an oral manner in which the teacher is reflecting on the students responses. This summer during my internship, I learned a lot about RTI (Response to Intervention), and part of this 'program' is that the teacher is constantly collecting data and monitoring each student's success or failure, and then differentiating their instruction for those students to ensure that each learner effectively learns the material. Assessment is key in education, because it allows the teacher to gain knowledge about how each student is doing in the class and in learning the material.

I really like the questions that the chapter presents about how to make sure that the assessment the teacher is implementing is valid, reliable and objective.
     -Does the test measure what it is supposed to measure?
     -Is the test consistent in its measurement?
    -Is the test unbiased?
These questions are all so important, and each teacher needs to make sure that they are answering YES to each question when they implement their assessment.

I really like the idea of nontraditional forms of assessment for my ESL learners, specifically because it allows for creativity and use of the language. However, I believe that in my teaching it is important to introduce them to the dreaded multiple-choice and D) none of the above assessments because they indeed will be faced with such tests. I feel that I can prepare them and develop skills in them that can help them overcome these tests that they are so unfamiliar with. One of my main goals as an ESL teacher is to educate and prepare my students to succeed in the regular classroom, and unfortunately these multiple tests are part of such environment. Does this mean that my assessments will always be multiple choice? NO, not at all, as I've said before there are a million other ways to assess my students learning. However, I wish to expose them to such formats of testing to ensure that they are prepared when the time comes to take one.

I really enjoyed reading about the different ways to assess the students writing in chapter 34. I believe that student writing should develop as a partnership with the teacher, rather than the student just writing for the teacher's eyes to read. I also believe in positive reinforcement in that I would never mark all over a students paper with errors, I would much rather prefer to point out the things they did right and then ask them questions about how they think they can improve their writing. By doing this, the student is active in the process of writing, and can much develop their writing skills with a sense of ownership over their work, rather than just the teacher telling them what to fix and what is wrong.

Raising cultural awareness

I really like this chapter and article about Culture by Kuma because I truly believe that teaching language and culture go hand in hand. As I have said before, in teaching language, it is appropriate to teach the proper use of the language in a communicative setting, and this has to do with how others in a given language community use the language itself. This has to do with topics such as illocutionary forces, in which there is a socially acceptable way to carry out a compliment for example. Such illocutionary forces, such as compliments, requests, etc, vary from culture to culture, therefore it is necessary that we teach such things to our ESOLers. This is problematic, however, because culture in the United States is not as defined as it is in other cultures for example. Before I studied abroad, I felt that there really was not an American culture, and when I told people I was from the United States, they asked me if ate hamburgers and pizza everyday and watched football. This is obviously not true, and I do not do those things everyday. So to me the question still remained, what is American culture? I still find this very hard to define, however I feel that it can be defined and taught through explaining the history of the United States. For me, I followed the ICTFL standards of what culture is, in that culture can be defined by the practices, products, and perspectives of a language. Practices would include such things, such as practices of celebrating, practices of behaviors, and practices of everyday life. Products would include such things, such as literature, music, movies, television, and artifacts that contribute to the everyday life of the United States. And finally, perspectives would consist of things such as values and beliefs, and views on a variety of issues. How do we teach all of this in our ESL classroom. It is hard, however as I said before, there is a need to raise cultural awareness on these issues, so that the students can think critically about the environment and surroundings that they now belong to. We can teach culture by teaching students about certain speech patterns that exist in the language, and it is important to teach the different linguistic codes that there are in different areas of the country. Many times, race and gender for example, create differences in how the target language is used. It is important to inform our students of these differences to ensure that we are not only preparing them to be successful in the academic community, but also to be successful in a communicative manner outside of the classroom.

The article also talked about how ESL teachers may stereotype their students, depending on what their cultural background is. This is problematic, yes because not always do these stereotypes hold true, however I believe that it is not a bad thing to stereotype your students because I feel that it gives me a way of understanding their behaviors or perspectives in terms of how they learn and think. However, putting a stereotype on each students is wrong, because when the given stereotype is not true, then we the teachers remain at fault. I believe that we stereotype students to feel more comfortable in understanding them, because it is not always ideal that we understand each and every students and all of their quirks and ways of understanding. It is more important that the teacher understand the culture differences that exist in their students, especially in the differences that the students experience in their school in their home country vs the demands of schooling in the United States.

Again, I sincerely believe that one cannot learn a language without learning the cultural context in which they will be using the language. My question is, Can one be successful in using a target language in a different country if they are unaware of the cultural issues, global and socio-political, that surround that language? I believe the answer is NO! Therefore, it is more than necessary to give the students knowledge about the culture, so that they may implement their language use in appropriate ways.

Chapter 9+10

In thinking of everything that I need to incorporate into my lesson plan-there is so much! The input that I provide for the students needs to include: English grammar, content, communicative practices, the 4 skills, and on top of that it is necessary to include meaningful discourse that demonstrates:

1) the use of Academic English in the language

2) the use of the language in terms of the sociolinguistic factors that are important for the students to know

And thats not even everything! There is so much to be taught and so little time to teach it. All we can do is jam pack our lessons with meaningful material that can serve a purpose in our ELL's academic life and life outside the school walls.

Chapter 9 talked about the importance of teaching communicative competence to the students. This is so important, because they need to understand the differences that there are in social norms when comparing their culture to the American culture. The students need to understand that how they use illocutionary forces, such as make requests or give compliments, in their native language/home country is NOT wrong, however if it does not follow the social norms of the US social cultural norms, then it is possible that student will create a meaning that is misunderstood or inappropriate due to this difference in cultural norms. As I have said many times before, it is important that we do NOT only teach the students the simple 'cookie-cutter' dialogs that they may hear in everyday life, because in reality-they will most likely not often hear these simplistic dialogs but instead hear other phrases that they are not familiar with. 

The chapter also talks a lot about context a lot. It is so important to help the students develop strategies to determine the meaning of the context, even when it is unclear to them. This will help them academically as well as communicatively when they are outside of the school walls.

Chapter 10 discussed the 4 language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. The book also said that this is the strict sequencing in which the skills are acquired, however I feel like I developed all of my skills simultaneously. The order in which I dominated the skills would probably go in this order: Writing,  Reading, speaking and listening. Many of the skills go hand-in-hand. Although, I was able to recognize words and understand them, I developed my writing skills much earlier than I developed the ability to read a long paragraph and understand it's meaning. Next, I feel that I dominated speaking, much earlier than I dominated listening- because it was much easier for me to talk and know what I was saying, then to listen and understand what the speaker was saying (especially when they were native speakers). So actually, it would appear that I developed the skills in an order that is backwards to the 'strict sequencing' of the 4 skills. The strict sequencing, I wish to argue, is wrong. I believe that all the skills go hand and hand and I believe that each skill continues growing simultaneously as the others do and that they do not come in and specific order.

Grammar

Do I think that teaching grammar is important in an ESL classroom? YES! How can you teach English as a Second Language, if the students do no first have a strong foundation in the language first. Do I think that grammar is the only subject that should be focused on in an ESL classroom? NO, however I believe in the early years that yes, that is what the students need to focus on in order to grow their language skills. For one of my courses about teaching Spanish as a FL, we had to read an article that discussed some of the similar topics about grammar-focused lessons and teaching. The students admitted that they dreaded learning grammar because it was "boring" or blah blah blah. But at the end of the day the students admitted that they thought that learning grammar was important, and even more so that they were eager to learn it because they wanted to make sure that they could communicate properly in the language. and isnt that one of the goals of ESL? To prepare the students to use the language properly so that they can do well in their school? How can they do that without learning grammar first?

10/11

I found these sections on learning strategies to be very interesting. To admit, in some of my clinical hours I experience these learning strategies in the classroom, and they seem to be quite effective. I believe that it is important to teach these strategies to our ESL students, because (as the chapter in the book explained) many of them may not be use to the independent learning that is required by the students in high school and especially college. Just as in the study, the students were used to the teacher being in charge in the classroom. Similarly as we know, how the structure of the classroom is varies from culture to culture, therefore we need to make sure we are preparing ESL to be proficient in the language, but also to develop academic competence and strategies.

I loved all of the activities that were happening in Mrs. Chens' classroom. I have never heard of the two terms strategy-to-content or content-to-strategy. I really like how Mrs. Chen uses content to teach the strategy or to reinforce it. I love content-based instruction, I believe it is highly effective because it is so easy to choose themes and units that appeal to the interests of your students. However, if you do not make the connection of content-to-strategy effectively, then it almost seems as if the learning is ineffective. The unit that Mrs. Chen planned around planes has so much action that is happening at the same time. Students are learning content, while practicing their competency, while using their strategies that they have previously learned, while using their second language to achieve tasks. It's almost flawless! It just seems like such a great way to get students hands on their own learning and practicing the strategies that they will use in their second language inside and outside of school. What is different in the ESL classroom vs any regular classroom is that the strategies that the students are expected to learn are implicit in that the teacher really explains what the strategy is called and when you use it. Whereas in an ordinary classroom such strategy would just be infused in the material they are learning, and the students just naturally pick it up self-consciously.

To avoid using the content-to-strategy ineffectively, one must think of the content that they want to teach first, and then most importantly think about the WHAT the students need to know and LEARN (declaritive knowledge) and WHAT the students needed to DO (procedural knowledge). By using content based instruction in an ESL classroom, there can be endless benefits. For example, teachers can create units around the students' interest to further their motivation in using and learning the second language. This can give the students a feel of power in what they learn. I really liked Mrs. Chens classroom, and I would love to involve such content and units in my future classroom, it really seems effective.

SECTION 12

Teaching reading to ESL students to me seems like a very huge challenge and goal to overcome. It is absolutely essential that the students develop reading skills in their L2 in order to be successful in other classrooms that may not be ESL or sheltered. Many of the dilemmas that are presented in 26 present an array of problems that I feel can all be solved. For example, not having enough vocabulary for reading is not always a problem. To give an example, when I was learning how to read in my L2 I was taught that it is never necessary to know every single word that you read. In other words, my teacher told me, "Put the dictionary down, stop looking up every single word that you cross that you do not know, and just try to read the sentence and understand it without using the dictionary." This is exactly what I did, even when I was not very proficient in the language, I would just read the sentences without barely using a dictionary. She taught me the skills that I needed to infer what some of the words meant by looking at the other context of the sentence in terms of words that I already knew. This technique proved to be very successful to me in my second language reading abilities. Other dilemmas presented in this section present a problem that I believe has a solution that can be achieved in the classroom.

Strategic Reading is also very important in an L2 setting. I guess that what my teacher taught me could be described as stategic reading. Although it is much more than that. It is important for the students to know that they must read with a purpose: that is to infer, predict or to understand what the author means; rather than just simply reading the words on the page. I strongly believe in doing pre-activities that can help the students get a better idea of what the reading will be about is so important. Even now, in college, I prefer to know what the reading is about before I read it, because just having that little background knowledge helps me to understand while I'm reading. Otherwise it is just me diving into this chapter that I have no idea what it is about, or what to keep in mind and look for while I am reading.

I really like the idea of Extensive Reading. I think that this can be extremely useful while learning a second language. It helps build vocabulary quick rapidly and also provides the students with an array of genres that they can explore. However I believe that in L2, ER may not always be the best tool, because I believe it also important to provide the students with authentic discourse that they may need in their communicative use of the language.