I found this chapter incredibly interesting and found that it can apply to many types of classrooms. I have often sat in a class and wondered why the teacher continued to explain a topic that seemed irrelevant or was over taught. After reading the chapter I now wonder if there was a mismatch in perception on the material between the teacher and myself. Kumaravadivelu states on page 77 that often this type of situation occurs where the perceptions of the teacher and learner are mismatched. Kuma also states that this can increase the gap between teacher input and learner intake. Input refers to the written data of the target language and intake is what goes in and not what is available to go in. In other words, if the student does not see the usefulness of the teacher input, the chance of the student retaining that information is lowered. Something I might do to avoid this in my own classroom is to give meaning to each lesson and examples of how that lesson would be useful in real life situations. I would also make each class period different so the students would stay alert and expect to learn in situations that were not necessarily planned.
In chapter 4 there were also studies that were done on learner perceptions which all concluded that there are definite mismatches between teaching objectives and learner outcomes, but mostly between the material that teachers find meaningful and the material that students find meaningful. It's interesting because it seems as if the student has lost respect for the teacher and education and they only want to learn what they think is important, not what the person who has studied the material thinks is important. But then again, who is to say what is and isn't?
I also found this chapter about mismatches interesting because I too have sat in class and wondered why a teacher was teaching a specific topic. This chapter also helped me realize this could have been due to mismatches. I like the suggestion you had for possibly avoiding some mismatches in your classroom. It is great to think of things you can do to prevent mismatches from happening. At the same time it is also important to realize you can't prevent them all and need to be able to identify them when they occur in class and manage them. I am sure you will do that well since you are already foreseeing some that can occur and how you would manage them.
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