Task 1:
Pre-Posting – Read all of the Freeman & Freeman, Chapter 4 (How Do People Learn and How Do They Acquire Language?)
Posting – From all of the questions at the end of the chapter (pg 101), Key Points, identify 2 you would most want to explore/take up/discuss. What theories or research supports resonates and could be used to bolster your teaching philosophy? What is your own personal and professional rationale for choosing these questions?
2 Key points that I would most like to explore would be:
ReplyDelete-Three functions of language are referential, expressive and integrative.
-Language learners use various strategies to communicate in a second language.
Vygotsky’s theories, Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), and the distinction between spontaneous and scientific concepts are both areas that will help my teaching. ZPD is especially interesting to me in that the curriculum of Social Studies lends itself to much group work and small group discussion. By paying attention to group formation a teacher can put students together to best challenge them and move them to the next level of learning. So often students relate to and emulate peers much more quickly than the authoritarian figure of a teacher. I think mixing students into ever more challenging situations, in low risk atmospheres, will propel them ever onward. The distinction between spontaneous and scientific concepts will be vital to a Social Studies classroom. All areas are language driven, I understand that, but Social Studies in all branches are language intense. Beyond the concepts, the subtleties and nuances of language lend to deeper understanding of the material. For example, the American Civil war was a fight over slavery. A true statement, but the war was about so much more. The conflict of lifestyles from an agrarian south to an industrialized north, the fight for state rights versus the federal government, to understand that the bedrock of the Civil War conflict has roots that reach into Europeans thirst for rum, and to understand that the north did benefit from slavery in many ways not the least of which was socioeconomic. Mixed in all of this are ideas that use spontaneous and scientific language, to have a grasp of both and synthesize those ideas to form reasonable conclusions are skills that will benefit the students in and out of the classroom.
I selected the 2 key points for various reasons, although none were bad or wrong these 2 resonated with me. As described above being able to use language to reference, express ideas and to integrate language to form conclusions are life skills that once granted, can never be taken away. Having a grasp of language to use these three skills independently and interdependently will allow students to flourish and have their voices heard today and perhaps across time. Language learners using various strategies to communicate in a second language struck me as being a very basic and at the same time a very profound thought. It instantly brought me back to when I had to take Spanish as an undergrad. I took it as a summer class, back to back. First summer session was Spanish 1, and second summer session was Spanish 2. I was blessed with a very caring and understanding professor. Truth be told, his reputation proceeded him and that is why I took his class. It was through his hard work and patience I was able to navigate through the process of finishing the course. I had never been so frustrated in my entire life. I had success in school as long as I could remember. There was no subject area that could ever completely befuddle me. I had met my match with trying to learn a second language. From that experience I am very aware of English Language Learners and will do whatever possible in my classroom to help, encourage, and support those learners. I am always struck by someone that apologizes for their lack of English skills, I understand it is most likely a way to deal with their own frustration. My stock response to their concerns is to quickly point out that their English is far superior to my Spanish/Korean/Japanese/etc. so if they keep trying to communicate in English, I will work as hard or harder to receive that communication. I do appreciate their efforts and applaud their tenacity to learn another language. The portion of the chapter that dealt with idioms was wonderful, of course there is more than one way to skin a cat, but why would you ever need more than one?
I like your idea of how students sometimes connect better with their peers than with the teacher. I do think that if you get a good group put together they can have really great discussions. I felt like we had this with our grad class group. You will get lots of practice with the ELL students at Burnsville. It is good that you can relate to them based on your experience with Spanish.
DeleteI understand where you are coming from learning a second language. It is difficult and frustrating - or at least it was for me trying to learn some Russian. I wasn't brave enough to enroll in the class even though I was in a Russian choir and was encouraged to take the course. Just learning the phonetics was difficult enough. I too have had people apologize for their English skills but in all honesty - they were doing GREAT! It's amazing to see how peers can help each other learn. They have more of an effect on each other than they realize.
DeleteBrown and his colleagues explain that learning is a kind of cognitive apprenticeship.
ReplyDeleteBecoming an apprentice member of any culture allows one to gain knowledge based on doing and interacting. People who are immersed into the English language (or any language that is foreign to them) learn by hearing, seeing, speaking, association, and of course reading. Gee makes the same points as Brown in this chapter as he refers to the ways in which people learn a language through social groups and networking. Vygotsky's theory of learning new concepts through cognitive apprenticeship is applied through Brown and his colleagues. When people engage in a culture, they learn many aspects of the language. People then take their prior knowledge and add in the new concepts they have learned and can use it to learn the language through experience. I think that learning a new language is very difficult and can be overwhelming for people especially if they aren't experiencing the culture as they learn the language. When I studied Russian, it was extremely helpful to be around the people and visit the country. Seeing the sites and associating words and the various phrases and expressions put things into perspective for me. Instead of just looking a the phonetics, I could see objects or sites and correlate with the words. It was much easier to hear people using the language in the context that I was learning. Once in an elevator this woman was fanning herself saying "tak ti plo". I recognized the phrase from a song we sang all the time but I didn't realize until that moment that the phrase meant warm! Experience and integrating oneself into the culture is so important and helpful but for many ELL students I'm sure it can be very frustrating as well.
I was substituting one day and had an interesting experience. The teacher had her students doing presentations about different careers. There were many ELL students in the class and the one thing that I noticed was that while their pronunciation may have been a bit off, they did a better job using the English language than the English speaking students. I am sure they worked a lot harder than the mainstream students as well. It was good to have the reminder from that situation and what you wrote here about how they are basically just thrown in and are constantly having to figure things out as they go.
DeleteTeachers can mediate through direct instruction, modeling, and scaffolding.
ReplyDeleteIt is the job of all teachers to help students understand the materials presented as well as the concepts in all content areas. We do so by modeling and demonstrating but also by having the students repeat after us. Saying words and demonstrating what they mean can be difficult but for simple words gestures can be used to show or emphasize the meaning. As the book points out, teachers that mediate learning are providing a new understanding for the student. It is important to provide good learning activities so that students understand the process or get a visual of the idea first. They need to know the definition and all the details before they can put the words together to form a concept. They need to understand the concept before they can master a skill. It all works in steps.
As for direct instruction, teachers are modeling and asking the students to demonstrate their use of the skill. The goal is to encourage students to use the language in the correct context. Later in this book Chomsky talks about children/students learning to speak but not saying the phrases in the correct order (p. 108). He give the example of "the book is on the table" versus "the book is the table on". The students need to learn the appropriate order in which to speak and write the sentence. The students are often taught how to sound out words first and then later how to put the sounds together to form the words which trickles into whole phrases and then sentences.
Goldenberg and Coleman conclude that direct instruction is effective for teaching decoding skills. Reading skills use decoding methods as students will need to break down words to figure out the pronunciation and then take it further to put the words together and make sense of an entire section. I do this with my music students all the time. They are learning simple phrases of music by decoding or breaking it down so they can understand how each phrase is supposed to sound. I will go through the analyzing process and then play a phrase for them. They will then go back through looking at the phrase and telling me what is happening, what notes are involved, what expression is written or implied, and then will start to play the phrase. It's the same process with reading words. Students/people in general need to learn the basics, they listen to the example, they experience things that help them remember, and they build knowledge and skills so that they can progress to the next level. Modeling and explaining procedure as we go helps the students to see exactly what we are talking about. The book gave a great example with Sandra and her overhead projector (p. 82). She pointed out the capitol letters and the indentation of the new paragraphs while she was teaching the students how to write a paragraph. Demonstrating or modeling helps many students to learn. We always need to keep in mind that we have multiple learning styles within any given classrooms so the more ways we can show, explain, experience, and learn concepts, the better.
Scaffolding is another great way of teaching as it involves building the concept step by step as the students are encouraged to participate and be a part of building the layers. Gottlieb states how she feels using visual scaffolding is important as it gives students the option to see information and build on it in various levels. Visual scaffolding provides multiple ways for students to see the information. They can build on concepts and add on to the complexity as they go, plus they can look back at various levels that make sense to them as this will help them understand the concepts sooner. Another form of scaffolding involves breaking the students into groups to utilize the more proficient language learners. The students who are further along can assist the slower learners. Again, I do this in my music classes especially when I have an activity with reading or rhythm exercises. I often have mixed age groups so to mix an older child with a younger one works well. Most of the time the older or more proficient students will help the younger ones with sounding out words or spelling words. The more proficient students often model a rhythm sequence which helps the younger or less proficient students tremendously. The less proficient students are often more engaged and more eager to participate when they see their peers demonstrating a skill. They often build upon the skill by adding a more complex rhythm or if it's a reading activity, we will add a longer paragraph or more complex words.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I do these things already in my teaching but it is great to get more ideas and really define the methods!
great take on scaffolding...I think this could be one of the most important things we could do as teachers. Learning via repetition, but not wrote memorization, using knowledge again and again in various activities to deepen understanding is something I hope to do much of in my classroom.
DeleteI completely agree, Kris. Scaffolding is really the foundation of learning and I have learned through my field experiences the importance of scaffolding on what the students have already learned because when you don't do that, you see results and I know that I failed to do that some of the time and I saw the flaws of not doing this successfully.
DeleteThat was frustrating... does anyone else have an issue with having to separate their comments into sections to fit all the text in??
ReplyDeleteI try to keep my comments brief, so I don't have that problem. I love your writing though, thanks for all the good insights
DeleteI am going to talk about personal invention in the context of social conventions and Fisher and Frey's four stage teaching model.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to personal invention in the context of social conventions, I immediately thought about a Food class. Students will come into a Foods class at many different skill levels. It would be in my best interest to ask the students about their cooking experience before I divide my students into groups. I can then match the inexperienced students with those that have more experience. This will benefit those students that do not have as much experience because they will be able to learn skills from their peers. We can learn a lot from our social interactions. In a family class, everyone is going to have a different experience based on how their family is. By having students share and discuss in class, the other students will be able to learn what it is like in their situation. We can also learn just through our social interactions on a daily basis. Every time we experience something new we are able to pick up on social cues to know how to behave. I am excited that I have such an opportunity to utilize this type of learning in my classroom.
Fisher and Frey's teaching model popped off the page for me as it is something that I can use in many of my lab classes. Again going back to the foods lab, the students can observe me as the teacher teaching them knife skills. They can then have a day to practice them in a large group. After that they can make a recipe in their lab groups that allows them the opportunity to put those knife skills into practice. The last part of the teaching model then would be to let them go home and make the same meal for their families on their own. I really like this model as it uses scaffolding and really lets the students learn a new skill well.
What a great way to bring theory to practice. Your insights truly helped me bring into perspective something from the textbook. Not that ideas and theories can't live within the text, and understanding can come from the reading, but always a real world example and another's take on the notion is always helpful to me.
DeleteI was wondering, when you have the students prepare the meal at home do you then ask them to bring something back to you? Pictures, videos, survey from the eaters of the meal? Not that it would need to be done, just curious.
Thanks again for a very cogent synthesis of a model. Go Blaze!!!
Good question...yes they will usually bring back a picture as well as an evaluation of the meal by their family or whoever ate it with them. There usually has to be a signature of someone to know that the assignment was really done.
DeleteWhat a great and fun way to bridge school and home, specially for those families that might otherwise not be as engaged. I can only assume that you had great feedback on this project.
DeleteThat's great! It's always helpful to pair more experienced students with less experienced. I do the same in my music groups. The older or more experienced students help the less experienced figure out musical notation or rhythm patterns. It gives the more experienced students a sense of success as well.
DeleteI liked your idea of having them go home and prepare a meal and then asking for feedback. I'm sure you get many interesting stories and fun pictures!
I completely agree with this model in FACS because students need to see a task done to do it successfully. Certainly, I think this applies to many other content areas, but I do think that it especially works well in areas that dependent on an element of craftsmanship. I see this used with shop classes and in the arts and I think it's really the most effective way to accomplish your goals. As we've learned in our KSP classes, modeling is useful for all teachers in some way or another, but there are simply some things that can't be explained--they need to be shown.
DeleteAs an ESL/ELL educator, I think a lot about this question and it makes up much of the work I've done in my content area, so I'd like to think I'm pretty informed on the subject. As for the theories and models that I support, I tend to agree with Chomsky and his theory of universal grammar. I believe that this is mostly true because I think that humans are programed to communicate and they do it through organization and this organization is both culturally developed and innate at the same time. By this, I mean that people have several different ways to organize their thoughts and how one organizes them is established through cultural needs. I think that everyone, no matter what culture they come from or what language(s) they speak can adapt to new vocabulary and grammar structures in a relatively short time, but it takes a high level of intrinsic motivation to be accomplished in this way.
ReplyDeleteI also find myself drawn to Krashen's innatest model because it is consistent with Chomsky's theory, however it dives even deeper in what may be root cause of language acquisition. As I've become more active in the classroom, I've seen what happens in the minds of ELLs as the work through acquiring English and it seems to me that this is an innate process of adaptation much like you might discuss in a socioDarwinian context. It is our desire to communicate and be social that drives our adaptation in language acquisition and when we use this force, we see amazing results because it is the strongest intrinsic motivation a human-being can have and this is our very nature. Students can thus be motivated by using their desire to connect with others and through meaningful interactions they will become proficient quickly and they will feel a great sense of accomplishment since they will have reached this goal with their peers and friends as additional educational resources.
In addition, by using what the students know and learn through their communications with others, you can begin to scaffold more complicated vocabulary, content knowledge and skills which is the goal of ESL. Obviously, as others have pointed out, scaffolding is important and needed in all content areas, however, I do feel that it is even more vital to ELL educators because beginning to teach a non-literate ELL requires building and scaffolding from scratch. That is not to say that students don't know or understand the content concepts, hover, without a knowledge of the language being used in the classroom, one cannot participate. I have seen this a lot in my experiences with non-literate ELLs and I know that scaffolding when communication isn't even possible yet, is extremely challenging and it requires a great deal of understanding on the part of the teacher. Often it can be frustrating and discouraging, but when breakthroughs start to emerge, there is no greater feeling of accomplishment.
This is great information that you have put together here. I applaud your want to teach ELL, what a potentially satisfying career path. I really liked your take on using the communications with others to build upon. I do have much empathy for ELL students as I constantly remember my struggle to learn Spanish, as an educator if you can build on whatever skills they demonstrate will be helpful beyond belief.
DeleteI was wondering if you had any success even using the current slang of the day that the ELL students are sure to pick up from their peers as a starting point in your lessons? Keep up the good work, any ELL classroom in the state will be lucky to have such a dedicated professional!
It is interesting to hear your view point working with ELL students. I'm sure it is a great challenge to get them to comprehend vocabulary when you need to start from scratch. The interesting part is the cultural background. I'm sure you have many complications in teaching when the students are at different levels and come from various backgrounds of communication. Your positive outlook is awesome! I am sure you will have great success!
DeleteYou both bring up some great points about the challenges of ESL education and you also draw attention to the reason that I love ESL/ELL education. It is an amazing feat to learn a second language and be able to use it at a highly academic level and this is what is so rewarding about working in ESL. As for the differing levels of fluency and trying to fill the gaps, this is much of the daily life of an ELL educator and while the assessments are designed to categorize students into the various levels, it just isn't that simple in reality. If you think about your own education, there are times where you are in courses that have learners at your level and there are times that you feel out of your depth and this exists for ELLs as well, which can be difficult to navigate.
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