Final Project Progress 2

After a lot of stress and hard work I have almost completed my website. Here is an updated version!!

Any suggestions would be great!

http://adrieneseslcorner.yolasite.com/

Week 11- "Waiting for Superman"

I thought this movie was excellent, shocking, and saddening. These feelings arise because you can choose to watch it from separate points of views such as a parent, students, or a professional. Because I am not a parent, it would have been difficult for me to view it in this way, but having experienced the public school system for myself and embarking on my professional career in teaching shortly, I found myself justifying my feelings from these two points of view. One of the topics we discussed after the movie was that it glamorizes charter schools and that is the only way a child will get a good education. Charter schools also choose who is accepted into their program and do not have to take students that have learning disabilities, ELLs, or other students that need added help. Charter schools also don't have tracking and expect everyone to be learning at the same high level. It is clear to see that charter schools have both positive and negative aspects, but I think instead of trying showcase these aspects, the film was trying to show the things we can learn from these succeeding schools and incorporate into the public education system rather than saying your child needs to be put in a charter school. All charter schools are not great schools, as the movie clearly states, but they are stepping outside of the box and trying innovative ways to engage students and experimenting ways that will improve the education of students. Success schools such as KIPP, Aspire, Yes, etc. bring 90% of their students through graduation and to college, which clearly shows teaching techniques that work bringing myself and hopefully others to ask why not? Why not bring these types of ideas, techniques, theories into the public school systems? Why can't something new be introduced to these already failing public school system?

Week 10 Blog and Poetry :)

Module 2-

I thought this video was incredibly interesting and I couldn't agree with it more! The very beginning states how the "traditional" way in which language is taught through rules, exercises, memorization, and drills is showing to be ineffective, and when thinking about it seems unnatural. Being aware of the language includes being aware of the target language the learners are most likely to use along with conscious effort and reflection of their practice. In order to achieve this type of learning, it is important that teachers present their lessons through meaningful activities including authentic materials in a variety of contexts to reach all learners. Learners should be able to associate new information to previously learned information, participate in group work, and use authentic sources as research materials. In other words, focusing on aspects of language use within a given context can be even more effective.

Poetry-

Never being to any type of poetry event before, I found this one to be interesting and an experience that will be difficult to forget. The host of the evening was very entertaining and held my interest. Most of the topics discussed had a central theme of identity and figuring out yourself, "who I am". I realized that I have always recognized racism and definitely believe it still exists within this country, but when hearing real-life examples of issues they have dealt with in their lives really hit me hard. bell hooks discusses her issues with racism through her life experiences and how it is difficult to pull away from it, just as the poets have done. I think it is funny that bell hooks states how people believe racism doesn't exist anymore, but with the poets examples and everything else that is present in the news, movies, tv, etc. clearly shows it is still very much in existence.

Week 9-Kuma Ch. 6 & 7

For this week's readings, both chapters had an abundance of information, so for my own sake I am using this blog as a study guide for myself as well as including a few questions I had about both chapters.

Chapter 6-

Chapter 6 begins with what an autonomous learner is along with the psychological foundations associated with learner autonomy.

**A fundamental longing for freedom of thought and action in personal, economic, social, political and other aspects of life. These types of learners are able to think independently and act responsibly.

**Cognitive- Learning is effective when integrating knowledge and personal framework.

**Humanistic-Emphasizes the promotion of learners' self-esteem through personal ownership of learning.

**Educational- Suggests a strong connection between learner autonomy and learner motivation. (I agree with this completely; From my experiences, most students will only WANT to learn when they have interest in the topic which causes motivation, leading to a want of learning the subject matter.)

L2 education is filled with diversity dealing with learner involvement and teacher engagement. A few terms include self-instruction, self-direction, self-access learning, and individualized instruction. Definitions and examples can be found on page 132 in Kuma.

Chapter 6 also discusses two complimentary views of learner autonomy and those are a narrow and broad view.

**Narrow View- This involves enabling learners to learn how to learn which includes equipping students with the necessary tools to learn on their own and training students to use them appropriately. If this is a students first time using tools like the examples suggested on page 133, it can allow for them to discover what type of learner they may be and what works best for them to comprehend and remember information. Through these strategies learners can gain a sense of responsibility for aiding their own learning and develop a degree of sensitivity and understanding toward other learners who may be more or less proficient than they are (140).

**Broad View- I didn't really understand this portion of the text, so a clarification would be wonderful, but what I think I understood was the broad view is a type of rationale as to why the narrow view of learning is necessary as well as an opportunity for students to find their own potential in learning. If anyone could clarify this section for me that would be wonderful!!

The final section of chapter 6 discusses the degrees of autonomy and how it has been a struggle for teachers to determine the degree that is appropriate for their specific learning and teaching context. In order to guide teachers, different researchers have compiled a 3 stage system in which autonomy can be used to teach objectives, tasks, materials, etc. Depending on the classroom, these stages do not have to follow sequential order.

**Initial Stage- Raise learners' awareness of the reasons behind the teacher's choice of goals, tasks, and materials.

**Intermediate Stage- Emphasize allowing the learner to choose from a range of options given by the teacher.

**Final Stage- Learner determination is emphasized on his/her own goals, tasks, and materials.

Basically, learners have to decide, with guidance, the degree of responsibility they are willing and able to take in in specific areas of learning and teaching.

Chapter 7-

This chapter was rather confusing to me as well...I'm not entirely sure why though.

Two main types of language awareness movements were mentioned: The British Movement and The American Movement. The British movement is concerned with developing pedagogic principles and practices with the view to promoting language awareness among school-children. The American movement is concerned with providing a rich language experience for school-children by integrating the 4 language skills of listening, reading, speaking, and writing, and by introducing language related activities in content areas across school curriculum. In other words, no matter the subject being taught, teachers should be trained to consider how the language is used in their own field and create a double agenda (pg. 159). As of right now I am not sure if I fully agree or disagree with this, but I do know that, in my opinion, it may seem pointless to have a double agenda of language and thought, language and culture, etc. in certain content areas such as mathematics or science, or maybe I am interpreting the text wrong too.

The main purpose of this chapter is that language awareness should form an integral part of language education as well as content education.

Week 8

This week had read on the importance of process and product based learning and what it means for us to personally use it in the classroom. Process-based learning focuses on the process of learning a new language and the skills needed to aid in that, and product-based learning focuses on the learner learning knowledge that is most likely taught directly from a test. Although these definitions are very general, I have put them into my own words in which I can comprehend them best. This is also what should be done with our students in order to promote independent learning. With this way of thinking, a teacher would be moving away from the product of what is learned and more concentrated on the process it is taking the student to comprehend vocabulary in their own words. From this point, the teacher can give an example of what could possibly be on a test, but not directly teaching from or for the test.

I fully believe it is the teacher's job to give each student every learning opportunity possible and the experience of being able to learn material "on their own" or with guidance, opposed to spoon-feeding information and material to them.

Final Project Progress

Well all I have right now is a basic page that I plan to work on more, but currently am crazy busy with homework. So far I have set up the homepage where you can access my teaching philosophy, a page for students, and a page for parents. Within these pages I plan to add more information of myself, activities, tools, and other resources for students, and a way for parents to learn about how an ESL program could benefit their family and ways/tips to finding a good program.

This is all I have for right now, but I will be working more on it soon!

http://adrienesellresources.webstarts.com/

Week 7- Kuma Chapter 8

"...give free play to those creative principles that humans bring to the process of language learning...(and) create a rich linguistic environment for the intuitive heuristics that the normal human being automatically possesses." This was said by Noam Chomsly in 1970 and is also the epigraph to chapter 8, and it is something that I fully agree with.

Prior to reading this chapter I was aware of the deductive teaching style because I have experienced it in my own language classes as well as being aware it is a style that most teachers generally seem to use. I don't necessarily disagree with this type of teaching style, but I always wondered if there was another successful way of teaching a second language. Kuma explains in this chapter the meaning of heuristics is to help students find their own answers and create their own conclusions opposed to having a teacher constantly and consistently giving them the information. From this I concluded that I am more in agreeance with the inductive teaching style which allows for students to discover the language more on their own.

I know that one style isn't the only style that should be used which is why I would attempt to use a combination of both in my own classroom. From my experiences it was always easier for me when the teacher allowed us to form groups and speak to each other on certain topics, situations, etc. and then would give us more information on the lesson. This allowed me as a student to encounter a certain language expression or grammatical context just as the text suggests happens. I was also very successful sitting through a lecture of information, but only with specific items such as vocabulary. With my experiences I can conclude that most of my other peers probably felt the same, and I am going to assume that my future students will be thinking and feeling some of the same things I felt while in my language classes.

Having these teaching styles and activities Kuma provides available to me will aid me in teaching my students properly one day in the future, hopefully being able to engage all students and have them gain their own understanding of material opposed to me spoon-feeding it to them.