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.

Paper ideas

- I have no idea what I'm going to write about!!

Lesson Planning.

I cannot stress enough how important lesson planning is. I agree with the text in that it makes me feel more confident, helps me learn the material better before I present it, and makes everything just go so much more smoothly. The reason is because you have a plan, know exactly what you are going to do once you finish an activity, have the materials you need to implement the lesson, and most importantly, you have the lessons set up in an order that is of benefit to the learners. Just this summer, I had a cooperating teacher who did NOT plan anything at all before she came to class. Literally, she would arrive 5 minutes late in a rush and ask me what we did in the first class, then ask me to go make copies of any of the work sheets we used during the class period. It drove me crazy, because she had no idea of how to teach the material that she was presenting because she wasnt sure of the validity of what she was saying since she did not even know the rules to the material she was teaching. Also, you could tell that the students knew and realized that she did not have anything planned at all for the period, they knew that she was just winging-it every single day. You could tell that this took a toll on the kids, because they probably thought, "Why should I come to this class prepared and put in time and effort, when you are not even coming here prepared and putting in time and effort into educating us." And I could not believe it because it was a 3 hour class period, and she did not come prepared with a thing to do, she choose to just wing-it instead. Not only did it make the students have no respect to pay attention to what she was teaching, it made the material she taught extremely boring because she did not come up with creative and engaging ways to teach it. Instead it would LITERALLY be her giving around 50 vocabulary words from the reading, writing the definitions of each and every single one on the board, forcing them to copy in their notebooks each definition, and then MAKING them for homework write sentences using each word word correctly. It was the most boring hour and I could imagine it was the most boring homework for the students as well. I would walk around and try to get them to work, but I couldnt blame them: I would be dragging on getting to work if I had to write 50 sentences with words that I never used before.

So whenever it came for my turn to take over the instruction, I always made sure that I was prepared. I did do lesson planning, and it truly helped my lesson to go as smooth as butter. In the beginning, I even did scripted lessons so that I wouldnt get lost in what I wanted to get across. There was a goal, there was a target for the students to reach, and the ways of getting to that target. It also made it easier, because I was able to come up with activities to do in class before hand, meaning I could buy all the materials (posterboard, tape, markers, rulers) etc. before coming to class and have a clear idea of how I was going to execute the project. Lesson planning truly made my day go by better. Even though part of my internship was not to make and implement lessons, I felt it necessary because how could I just sit back and watch the poor students go through learning in the way they were from that specific teacher, day in and day out? I almost needed to do it to stop even myself from going crazy. And actually, whenever I taught, the students all payed attention and participated in the work. Maybe because it was more meaningful that just regurgitating 50 sentences of words that had no meaning to them. Half the time they would just make horrible sentences that didnt even make sense because they just wanted to get the completion points for having what appeared to be 50 sentences on their paper. It just wasnt an effective way of teaching or an effective way of learning for the students, and it drove me crazy.

This lesson planning that I did was day to day. I mean, I did not come into the internship expecting to plan lessons. I guess I just did so anyways because I was an over achiever and neither of my cooperating teacher had any idea what the AP Exam for Spanish was like, so I felt the need to teach the grammar necessary to take it.  When I become a teacher in the future, however, I plan on making my lesson plans for the entire year, so that the material can be taught in a natural flow that is natural to the SLA of the students, and that is organized in a manner in terms of themes, etc, etc. I am somebody who prefers to be prepared, and on top of that this is MY profession. I have no idea how somebody can just not care enough to even plan what they are going to be teaching for THEIR OWN job. It just inspires me that much more to be ready to teach in urban areas, because I know my dedication and determination will really make a difference on these kids lives since I actually care about their education.

9/22

I really found the article on Sheltered-Instruction to be interesting. In the section labeled background, it states that LEP students have a higher tendency to receive lower grades, get judged by their teachers to have lower academic abilities, and also to score lower on standardized tests. This section, hit home for me, because in much of the observation that I have done in classrooms, as well as just from observing teachers actions at my high school, I have realized how much teachers do judge LEP students to have lower academic abilities. In my high school, there was many LEP students who could not understand the teacher very well. I would help some of them to get the material, but it was almost as though the teacher would ignore them. I feel bad for these students because it is unfair to them. The teacher's know that they have limited English, but does not try to differentiate their instruction to better fit their needs. The article and research state that it takes 4-10 years for the students to develop a proficient level of Academic English. This time span however is not met, because teachers do not wait until the students are proficient in the language before they enter them into regular classes in which the subject matter is taught in English, but more importantly it is an Academic English in which the students need to be able to write persuasively, express analysis, draw conclusions, make hypothesis and conclusions, and other activities that require a high level of English proficiency. How can students accomplish this list of activities required in almost all of their classes, if they have had such a limited amount of exposure to the English language? What many teachers do not understand, is how second language is acquired. "Ideally, all content teachers would be trained in areas such as second language acquisition and ESL methodology although often that is not the case" (Echevarria, Vogt & Short, 9). I am not saying that all teachers need to become masters in the subject as we are studying to be, but I am saying that they should really have an understanding of the diversity that there can be among their students. Many teachers do not realize how diverse their classroom is in terms of language and culture. This can have an effect on the classroom because there are many differences in the students lives such as their educational backgrounds, their expectations of school, their socioeconomic status, the language that they speak, and their social customs. Therefore is one student is from another country and they do not understand the classroom expectations of participation, turn-tasking and established routines, then they are going to struggle significantly in the class. Sheltered Instruction is an amazing way to reduce such problems. Even if a school does not implement such program, teachers should keep in mind that some students have limited proficiency and need a differentiation of instruction to help guide them through. Something as simple as giving them a sheet of a list of vocabulary words that they may not know could help them significantly. Just today, in doing clinical hours, I helped a student who had LEP. She was doing her science homework and explained to me that she did not understand more than half of the words on her worksheet. I then took a look at the work sheet and realized that she was required to read a paragraph and answer the following questions. I must admit that there was many science specific words and large words in the sentences that I could understand why they would be difficult for her. It took us the whole hour for her to complete the worksheet because I had to explain each sentence by using simple language that could be comprehended by her.

9/20

I am honestly so happy that I decided to take on a TESOL minor. The reason is because I have never learned so much about second language acquisition, and how second languages are learned. You think that with me becoming a Spanish teacher that people in my major would have to take more classes similar to the ones that I am taking right now, but they are not required! This blows my mind, because without some of the material that I am learning, I am uncertain whether or not I would be a successful language teacher. I mean, I know I would be great either way, but the reason that I will be successful is because now I have an understanding of WHY teaching a certain way works, WHAT it is called, and HOW it is or is not effective to the learners. Sometimes, from doing the readings, I find myself a little overwhelmed with all of the terminology and all of the explanations of different types of approaches. Although, I find that I can understand some of them because it was the way I was taught. This summer, when I was teaching in Little Village, I found myself using methods that I did not know the names for, but I only used them because of past experiences of because they were what I felt would best be understood by the students. My CT's did not seem to use any differentiating types of methods, espically one who just stood in front of the class and talked the whole time, never giving the students to practice using the language. It drove me crazy, and I could not wait until the time came when she would let me take over the class for an hour to give instruction. It is very clear that my style of teaching was completely opposite of that of her own. While she liked to be the dictator of the classroom, I truly enjoy getting the students engaged and working in pairs. I myself like many tasked-based activities which allow the students to go above and beyond the normal fill in the blank worksheets. I feel that they benefit so much more when the activities they are doing are engaging and problematic, versus just filling out a worksheet. It makes so much more sense to use the language in meaningful contexts than to just fill out a blank on a worksheet. When the material that the students are learning is meaningful to them, it makes much more sense that they will remember that material better.

Communicative Language Teaching

When I think about what I am going to teach in my own class, a million things come to mind. Not only am I going to teach how to use the language (grammar), but I am going to teach how to use the language in every day context and with other speakers of that language. What does this mean? This means that in teaching the language, I also have to teach mannerisms and competence of the target language. Cross-culturally speaking, each and every language varies in terms of how social deixis is seen, what is acceptable and non acceptable when communicating, and the list goes on. For example, in Spanish there are two forms used when talking to someone directly. You may use 'tu' which is used for more informal situations, or you can use 'Ud' which is used for formal situations. It is important to incorporate such material into your classroom and explain why it is important to know such things. Also, I plan to teach how  to reply to requests, how to compliment, and any other variation of language that is different from their own. Obviously, the mannerism of the United States are not the same to those of other countries. For example, just simply giving a compliment may be acceptable here, but it may not be so in other countries. It is important for the students to know not only how to use the language grammatically, but it is even more important for the students to know how to use the grammar socially and communicatively.

Yes, they can learn the cookie-cutter "Hello" "Hi" "How are you" "I am fine". But is this going to be the  how the conversation goes every single time that they run into someone in the target language? No. The students need to learn the variety of greetings they can hear in a variety of contexts: "What's up" "Yo" "Hey" etc. can be some more useful greetings for the students to learn, although they should also be learning when it is appropriate and when it's not appropriate to use them. Nevertheless it is important that they learn them and the context in which they are used communicatively. 

Chapters One+Two

I really liked how in chapter one the author described teacher education to be an ongoing process. Even though I am going to graduate in a year, I feel that I will never be done learning. I will also be doing continuing education throughout my career, but I feel like even after I get my masters and everything else, that I will continue my learning process as the years go on. One important part of this ongoing process is reflection. In being a teacher, one must constantly be reflecting: reflecting on how the students reacted to material, reflecting on you delivered the material, and whether or whether not each of these things was successful or not. If one activity did not work or the way in which you delivered material it is important that you go back and modify the lesson so that the next time it will be successful. This is reflecion-on-action as the book states it. But more importantly, I believe that a conscious and reflective teacher should have the ability to reflection-in-action, that is having the ability to locate and identify problems that may occur on the spot, and modify them in that exact moment.

Also, in the section about Transformative Intellectuals, I truly agree with the notion that teachers should also be critical pedagogists. I also agree with Freires idea of the effects that sociopolitical factors have in the classroom. For example, in being a teacher it is important to understand and know your student. Not just understand the behavior that they have in the classroom but also truly understand their life at home. That is, their cultural background, their income, their family structure, etc. etc. All of these factors that were just listed make up a student and how they act in school. Some teachers may see 'Johnny' as lazy, doesnt want to work, never listens, etc. But what most teachers fail to do is understand what is happening at home. Johnny may be from a family that lives in poverty which means that there may not be a stable source of food that comes to the family. For this reason, Johnny may be distracted in class because he is wondering when he is going to eat his next meal because he has not ate in a whole day. Taking in to account every aspects of each students life can create a better understanding of their behavior in class.

Tesol Approaches

I think that it is so interesting the history of education. I mean I really wish that I could be there back then when teaching was really just getting started. Although in history there has always been a role of an educator and a learner in that they used to teach others. It makes me wonder if people are born with this virtues and the ability to teach. I for one feel that yes I was born to be a teacher, I feel that teaching just comes to me naturally and I enjoy being a leader in almost all situations. So this article was interesting to me because it allowed me to see how education has changed thourought history and how each approach led to the creation of another approach because the previous one did not work. I really like what the article says about how each approach is grounded on a slightly different theory or view of how people learn second languages or how people use languages. It's interesting that throughout the history of second language learner, there has been many different needs for the use of the language, in that in history at some times there was not a need to use oral skills of the language but instead there was only a need to know how to read the language. I like all of these approaches and plan to use them in my future teaching classes when the material that I present can be made clearer by using such approaches. But as we have discussed in class, there is absolutely no one size fits all approach that will always be successful in the classroom. As future ESL teachers we need to learn to differentiate instruction and make sure we are not just using one approach but rather that we are incorporating all of the approaches in the appropriate times.

One thing that I really want to criticize about the Comprehension-Based Approach is the third explination of the approach- it says: "Learners should not speak until they feel ready to do so; this results in better pronounciation that when the learner is forced to speak immediately. When I read this I was like, WHAT? That is so stupid. As we discussed about in class part of learning a language is taking risks in using it even if we are unsure of the proper way to do so. Just by listening to the language you are not going to learn anything, through actual use of the language students can test their hypothesis's that they have on the rules of grammar and continue to learn from their mistakes. Also, if you are going to tell students that they do not have to use the language in oral form until they are 'ready', then the majority of them will probably say that they are not ready and push off using the language allowed because they do not feel comfortable. Learning to use a foreign language orally is uncomfortable and that is something that the students have to know from the beginning. The more and more they practice using it allowed the more the will become comfortable in using it and then their competence will grow. It is important for the teacher in the classroom to establish an environment where the students are respectful and courteous to those who are brave enough to practice using the language in front of the whole class, and the class can learn from the mistakes of others. Furthermore. that part of the approach just truly shocked me and made me kind of mad because I just thought to myself how can teachers in the past think that would really work.

Chapters 1+2

I really like that Brown uses the term pedagogy instead of the term methods. I like how the book explained it also, where it says methods "implies a static set of procedures, whereas the latter (pedagogy) suggests the dynamicc interplay between teachers, learners and instructional materials during he process of teaching and learning." To me that just made perfect sense because it is important to keep all of these things in mind when you are teaching students.

There was a lot of material to digest in this chapter. A lot of new terms that are all so important for my future in teaching. I found the first chapter to be interesting because it kind of took you through the history of how teachers taught a foreign language in the past. I do not know why they would ever think that there was one way to teach everything, or specific method that will be effective enough for the students to learn. Now I know from many classes that I've taken that there is a variety of practices you can use to teach and some work better for different material.

One thing that I really liked from the first chapter the quote at the bottom of page 11 that says "the cycle goes on". The article is explaining that in being a teacher you must constantly be taking risks in teaching in the classroom, then assessing how they work, and understand their effectiveness. If something does not work then the teacher is then able to reshape what they did and modify it for next time until they get it right and it becomes effective.

8/25: Cultural Diversity in the United States

"Immigration has brought the world into the US schools." -Diaz-Rico & Weed

I found this article to be extremely interesting. The United States is constantly changing it's identity due to the large amount of immigrants that have come to this country. Many say that the United States is like a melting pot, but I do not agree with this because there is not one culture here in the US but rather a mixture of different parts of different cultures all together. Therefore I believe that it's more of like a salad bowl, or a kaleidoscope as the article says, in that there are very many distinct parts of it and that they are constantly changing. What really intrigued me about this article is that it explained all of the different contributions that each race brought to America. It's weird because you do not think of what life here would be without some of those things had they choose not to move here. 

When I think about how the topic of this article will effect me in my future teaching, it just makes me realize that once I begin to teach I need to understand that I am going to have a variety of students all from many different cultures, races and backgrounds. Therefore it is necessary for all pre-service teachers to have a strong understanding of the different cultures and customs of our future students. Just as the quote from the article says, immigration brings the world into the US schools, meaning that inside my classroom I will many students from different backgrounds of the world.