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.