Curriculum Design and Lesson Planning
Brown Chapters 9-11, Kumar Chapter 13
Brown chapter nine discussed curriculum design. He explains the development process for any given curriculum, that is, situation analysis, needs analysis, and problematizing the curriculum. Also he discusses goals ("broadly based aims and purposes in an educational context") and objectives("aims and purposes within the narrow context of a lesson or an activity within a lesson") for a curriculum, and what to consider when choosing textbooks and materials and how these materials will fit into a curriculum. Finally, he explains the importance of program or curriculum evaluation, and how to evaluate. I thought this chapter was awesome. It might be a little nerdy but I don't care: in my spare time I often thinkt about how to design a curriculum for a TESOL course. It is just something that I am really fascinated by. Some questions I have are: How do you structure a course? How will the structure of the course operate to the benefit and detriment of the students learning? Before this chapter, I only had a rough and inexperienced idea of how a curriculum could be put together. Now I feel like I can better imagine a curriculum supported by functional theory, even if this chapter is only a broad overview. One thing I had not considered about curriculum design was the integral nature of the lesson plan as a building block.
Brown chapter ten discussed the nature of a successful lesson plan. Brown defines a lesson as "a unified set of procedures that cover a period of classroom time, usually ranging from 45 to 120 minutes." and "are practical tangible units of effort that serve to provide a rhythm to a course of study" (164). Lessons should have both goals and objectives, and these should contribute or factor in course goals in some way. Brown distinguishes between two types of objectives; terminal and enabling. Terminal objectives are final learning outcomes, while enabling are interim steps within a lesson that build upon each other and ultimately lead to a terminal objective (165). Brown explains what else goes into a lesson plan, materials, procedures, and assessment. He then gives some guidelines for lesson planning, which I thought will be highly valuable for the upcoming teaching demonstration. He also provides a sample lesson plan.
Brown chapter eleven discussed techniques and materials. It was helpful for me to think of techniques as building blocks to a lesson. Brown writes that technique is "a superordinate term to refer to various activities that either teachers or learners perform in the classroom... techniques include all tasks and activities." (180). He then talks about different ways to classify techniques, how to possibly adapt a textbook passage to utilize different techniques, and finally other ways to incorporate texts and visual aids in a TESOL classroom.
The last chapter of the reading for this week was Kumar's chapter 13, Monitoring Teaching Acts. In this chapter Kumar discussed the importance of interpreting what goes on in the classroom from multiple perspectives, the teacher's, the students', and an observer. Through the multiple perspectives, Kumar argues that we will be able to better interpret what happened in the classroom. Kumar provides an observation scheme called the "M & M" scheme. It is a three stage activity, he writes. First, preobservation, observation itself, and post-observation, "in which the observer and the teacher select a few episodes for detailed treatment, analyze classroom input and interaction, interpret their analysis, derive pedagogic implications, and put all this experiential knowledge together to develop a personal theory of practice."(location 3342)
Monday, November 12, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
ENG 345 Methods and Materials Wk 11
Week 11 Blog Response
Integrating language skills
"While insights from L2 acquisition research has been sparse, experiential knowledge has helped language eduactors realize that linguistic input to learners should be presented in units of text, or what we now call discourse, so that learners can benefit from the interactive effect of various components and contexts." -Kumaravadivelu
Brown chapter 17, Kumar chapters 9 and 10
These chapters focused on language integration across the four traditionally defined language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing. Both Brown and Kumar note the recent trends in segmenting these skills, and also the counter-trend toward integration of these skills. Kumar points out a number of studies that show the benefits of skills integration in the ESL classroom. Brown discusses five different models for integrating the skills.
There are content-based instruction and it's weaker form, theme-based instruction. The former focuses on content specifically (perhaps at the expense of explicit language instruction/objectives), while theme-based instruction places a greater emphasis on language objectives within the framework of content themes. Brown also discusses task-based language teaching, experiential learning and the episode hypothesis. "Experiential learning includes activities that engage both left- and right-brain processing, that contextualize language, that integrate skills, and that point toward authentic, real-world purposes." (Brown 291). The episode hypothesis argues that successful language learning and teaching occurs when language is presented in an easily followed storyline (Brown 293).
Kumar also discusses in chapter 9 how to contextualize linguistic input. In this chapter Kumar talks about the way language "invokes context as well as... provides context". He then discusses how language joins these realities, which are: linguistic, extralinguistic, situational, and extrasituational.
Linguistic context is "the immediate linguistic environment that contains formal aspects of language required for the process of meaning-making."
Extralinguistic context refers to "the immediate linguistic environment that contains prosodic signals such as stress and intonation."
Situational context requires that "one goes eyond the linguistic and extralinguistic contexts in which it occurs and considers the situational context as well."
Extrasituational context explores, according to McCarthy and Carter (1994) "the ways in which forms of language, from individual words to complete discourse structures, encode something of the beliefs and values held by the language user."
The readings for today helped me to realize that it is important to integrate multiple language skills when teaching. In my mind I had it made up to focus on a particular form in the language, separate in a way from the context it is used. Say, a lesson on the past tense inflection in English. I would talk about how it is used to convey something that has happened in the past, and provide a few sentence examples likely in the form of written text on the board. But from the readings, it seems like a.) I would want to contextualize the form in a text that is appropriate (or meaningful) and b.) use multiple forms of presentation for the students (read the sentence aloud, write the sentence down, have the students speak the sentence). Using or integrating multiple language skills into a lesson not only appeals to a wide variety of learners, but it also strengthens the bonds between all the language skills and this increases the "communicative competence" of the students through creating what I understand to be opportunities for more meaningful learning than the traditional or more widely accepted methodologies.
-TfM
Integrating language skills
"While insights from L2 acquisition research has been sparse, experiential knowledge has helped language eduactors realize that linguistic input to learners should be presented in units of text, or what we now call discourse, so that learners can benefit from the interactive effect of various components and contexts." -Kumaravadivelu
Brown chapter 17, Kumar chapters 9 and 10
These chapters focused on language integration across the four traditionally defined language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing. Both Brown and Kumar note the recent trends in segmenting these skills, and also the counter-trend toward integration of these skills. Kumar points out a number of studies that show the benefits of skills integration in the ESL classroom. Brown discusses five different models for integrating the skills.
There are content-based instruction and it's weaker form, theme-based instruction. The former focuses on content specifically (perhaps at the expense of explicit language instruction/objectives), while theme-based instruction places a greater emphasis on language objectives within the framework of content themes. Brown also discusses task-based language teaching, experiential learning and the episode hypothesis. "Experiential learning includes activities that engage both left- and right-brain processing, that contextualize language, that integrate skills, and that point toward authentic, real-world purposes." (Brown 291). The episode hypothesis argues that successful language learning and teaching occurs when language is presented in an easily followed storyline (Brown 293).
Kumar also discusses in chapter 9 how to contextualize linguistic input. In this chapter Kumar talks about the way language "invokes context as well as... provides context". He then discusses how language joins these realities, which are: linguistic, extralinguistic, situational, and extrasituational.
Linguistic context is "the immediate linguistic environment that contains formal aspects of language required for the process of meaning-making."
Extralinguistic context refers to "the immediate linguistic environment that contains prosodic signals such as stress and intonation."
Situational context requires that "one goes eyond the linguistic and extralinguistic contexts in which it occurs and considers the situational context as well."
Extrasituational context explores, according to McCarthy and Carter (1994) "the ways in which forms of language, from individual words to complete discourse structures, encode something of the beliefs and values held by the language user."
The readings for today helped me to realize that it is important to integrate multiple language skills when teaching. In my mind I had it made up to focus on a particular form in the language, separate in a way from the context it is used. Say, a lesson on the past tense inflection in English. I would talk about how it is used to convey something that has happened in the past, and provide a few sentence examples likely in the form of written text on the board. But from the readings, it seems like a.) I would want to contextualize the form in a text that is appropriate (or meaningful) and b.) use multiple forms of presentation for the students (read the sentence aloud, write the sentence down, have the students speak the sentence). Using or integrating multiple language skills into a lesson not only appeals to a wide variety of learners, but it also strengthens the bonds between all the language skills and this increases the "communicative competence" of the students through creating what I understand to be opportunities for more meaningful learning than the traditional or more widely accepted methodologies.
-TfM
Monday, October 15, 2012
ENG 345 - Methods and Materials Week 9
Topic: Teaching of Reading and Writing
SUMMARY
Brown Chapter 20
This chapter was about the teaching of reading. In it Brown opens with some research that has been conducted on reading in a second language. He discusses schema theory and background knowledge. This section made me think about how much we bring to a text to help ourselves understand that text. A reader brings a wealth of experience to a text upon reading, and I think as a native speaker I take that for granted, or rather, didn't see how much content and formal schemata I actually have and bring to each text. Brown then presents a list of different genres of written language, and then discusses some general characteristics of written language, such as permanence, processing time, distance, orthography, complexity, vocabulary, and formality. Brown then provides strategies for reading comprehension, types of classroom reading performance, and then the following principles for teaching reading skills:
-Don't overlook a specific focus on reading skills
-use techniques that are intrinsically motivating
-balance authenticity and readability in choosing texts
-encourage the development of reading strategies
-include both bottom-up and top-down techniques
-follow the 'survey, question, read, recite, review' technique
-plan on pre-reading, during-reading, and after-reading phases
-build an assessment aspect into your techniques
Brown Chapter 21
This chapter was about the teaching of writing. Brown opens this chapter with a section of research in second language writing. He points out a lot of things I had not really considered before in this section. This chapter in particular made me reflect on my own writing practices as a student. Brown pushes for more process writing rather than product writing. The early focus, he argues, should be on how to write and revise and self-edit, rather than reaching some ideal error-free product of a paper, but hopes that this process will help students work toward that ideal. Brown also talks about Kaplan's contrastive rhetoric, and I like how he dealt with this: "you would be more prudent to adopt a 'weak' position in which you would consider a student's cultural/literacy schemata as only one possible source of difficulty." (394). Brown then discusses types of classroom writing performance, and then gives the following principles for teaching writing skills:
-incorporate practices of 'good' writers
-balance process and product
-account for cultural/literary backgrounds
-connect reading and writing
-provide as much authentic writing as possible
-frame your techniques in terms of prewriting, drafting, and revising stages
-strive to offer techniques that are as interactive as possible
-sensitively apply methods of responding to and correcting your students' writing
-clearly instruct students on the rhetorical, formal conventions of writing
Article: "Myth 5: Students Must Learn to Correct All Their Writing Errors" by Dana Ferris (2008)
This article aims to debunk the myth that ELLs NEED to learn to correct all errors in their writing. Ferris discusses her own experiences with teaching writing in the ESL classroom and then discusses what the research has shown regarding writing and the ELL. There are three observations she makes: (1) SLA takes time, (2) second-language writers' are different from native speakers', (3) even diligent correction and student editing does not lead to error-free production. She then goes on to talk about her experiences with altering the writing program she teaches, and how moving from a more display-writing oriented process to a more process-writing oriented process has dramatically improved the success rate of students in the program. She provides a number of tips and strategies that will be helpful when teaching writing in a classroom. I really enjoyed the idea of portfolio assessment (both as a student and as a future teacher) rather than an in-class writing essay.
SUMMARY
Brown Chapter 20
This chapter was about the teaching of reading. In it Brown opens with some research that has been conducted on reading in a second language. He discusses schema theory and background knowledge. This section made me think about how much we bring to a text to help ourselves understand that text. A reader brings a wealth of experience to a text upon reading, and I think as a native speaker I take that for granted, or rather, didn't see how much content and formal schemata I actually have and bring to each text. Brown then presents a list of different genres of written language, and then discusses some general characteristics of written language, such as permanence, processing time, distance, orthography, complexity, vocabulary, and formality. Brown then provides strategies for reading comprehension, types of classroom reading performance, and then the following principles for teaching reading skills:
-Don't overlook a specific focus on reading skills
-use techniques that are intrinsically motivating
-balance authenticity and readability in choosing texts
-encourage the development of reading strategies
-include both bottom-up and top-down techniques
-follow the 'survey, question, read, recite, review' technique
-plan on pre-reading, during-reading, and after-reading phases
-build an assessment aspect into your techniques
Brown Chapter 21
This chapter was about the teaching of writing. Brown opens this chapter with a section of research in second language writing. He points out a lot of things I had not really considered before in this section. This chapter in particular made me reflect on my own writing practices as a student. Brown pushes for more process writing rather than product writing. The early focus, he argues, should be on how to write and revise and self-edit, rather than reaching some ideal error-free product of a paper, but hopes that this process will help students work toward that ideal. Brown also talks about Kaplan's contrastive rhetoric, and I like how he dealt with this: "you would be more prudent to adopt a 'weak' position in which you would consider a student's cultural/literacy schemata as only one possible source of difficulty." (394). Brown then discusses types of classroom writing performance, and then gives the following principles for teaching writing skills:
-incorporate practices of 'good' writers
-balance process and product
-account for cultural/literary backgrounds
-connect reading and writing
-provide as much authentic writing as possible
-frame your techniques in terms of prewriting, drafting, and revising stages
-strive to offer techniques that are as interactive as possible
-sensitively apply methods of responding to and correcting your students' writing
-clearly instruct students on the rhetorical, formal conventions of writing
Article: "Myth 5: Students Must Learn to Correct All Their Writing Errors" by Dana Ferris (2008)
This article aims to debunk the myth that ELLs NEED to learn to correct all errors in their writing. Ferris discusses her own experiences with teaching writing in the ESL classroom and then discusses what the research has shown regarding writing and the ELL. There are three observations she makes: (1) SLA takes time, (2) second-language writers' are different from native speakers', (3) even diligent correction and student editing does not lead to error-free production. She then goes on to talk about her experiences with altering the writing program she teaches, and how moving from a more display-writing oriented process to a more process-writing oriented process has dramatically improved the success rate of students in the program. She provides a number of tips and strategies that will be helpful when teaching writing in a classroom. I really enjoyed the idea of portfolio assessment (both as a student and as a future teacher) rather than an in-class writing essay.
Monday, October 8, 2012
ENG 345 Wk 8 - Teaching of Speaking and Listening
SUMMARY
Brown Chapters 18, 19
Chapter 18 was entitled "Teaching Listening". Brown talks about input and uptake according to Krashen (1985). He also discusses types of spoken language. Brown also discusses what makes listening difficult and points out eight characteristics of spoken language that attention needs to be paid to (p 304-306). He then discusses listening performance in the classroom (p 308-310). And finally some principles for teaching listening skills (310 - 312).
Chapter 19 was entitled "Teaching Speaking". In this chapter Brown discusses some of the theoretical foundations of teaching speaking in the classroom. He then talks about some of the difficulties of speaking, and the types of speaking that happen in the classroom. Finally he provides some principles for teaching speaking skills in the classroom (331 - 332). Brown then discusses the role of feedback and in what ways it can be utilized for enhancing students' speaking skills.
Kumar Chapter 5
This chapter was entitled "Facilitating Negotiated Interaction". In this chapter Kumar discusses three different types of interactional activities. He borrows these from Halliday: textual, interpersonal, and ideational. Kumar then discusses the foundational theory behind these activities (Krashen, Vygotsky), and provides some classroom interactions for examples. Lastly, he provides four microstrategies to help demonstrate some of these points in action.
Cary 2008 - "How do I support a student's first language..."
This article discussed a woman named Delores' ESL classroom in California. It demonstrated a multitude of ways that an ESL/EFL teacher can be supportive of their students' first language. This involved a lot of code-switching activities, having presentations from the students' parents, and utilizing other community volunteers for assistance. I really enjoyed how she involved many members of the community to take part in the classroom activities.
RESPONSE
The Brown chapters were really practical and provided a wealth of information on how to approach teaching speaking and listening in the classroom, for all levels of learners. They will be invaluable resources going forward. The Kumar was a little less practical, or perhaps a bit more wordy than the Brown. One thing I noticed from one of the classroom examples in the Kumar was that a teacher asked a student to stop referring to their dictionary. This made me wonder, to what extent should we allow students to refer to a dictionary in class? The way I see it is that the dictionary is a resource that helps to facilitate understanding, (and probably in situations where I cannot provide a good explanation of a word [i.e. translation]) so why should we say "No don't use a dictionary."
The way I saw it was that the teacher inhibited the learners' autonomy for learning by asking for the student to stop. I think I won't mind students using a dictionary in class. I would just have to pay close attention to the way in which the students are using it. On one hand, I don't students to become over-reliant on dictionary translations, but on the other hand I want students to be able to understand a topic. Hmm...
TfM
Brown Chapters 18, 19
Chapter 18 was entitled "Teaching Listening". Brown talks about input and uptake according to Krashen (1985). He also discusses types of spoken language. Brown also discusses what makes listening difficult and points out eight characteristics of spoken language that attention needs to be paid to (p 304-306). He then discusses listening performance in the classroom (p 308-310). And finally some principles for teaching listening skills (310 - 312).
Chapter 19 was entitled "Teaching Speaking". In this chapter Brown discusses some of the theoretical foundations of teaching speaking in the classroom. He then talks about some of the difficulties of speaking, and the types of speaking that happen in the classroom. Finally he provides some principles for teaching speaking skills in the classroom (331 - 332). Brown then discusses the role of feedback and in what ways it can be utilized for enhancing students' speaking skills.
Kumar Chapter 5
This chapter was entitled "Facilitating Negotiated Interaction". In this chapter Kumar discusses three different types of interactional activities. He borrows these from Halliday: textual, interpersonal, and ideational. Kumar then discusses the foundational theory behind these activities (Krashen, Vygotsky), and provides some classroom interactions for examples. Lastly, he provides four microstrategies to help demonstrate some of these points in action.
Cary 2008 - "How do I support a student's first language..."
This article discussed a woman named Delores' ESL classroom in California. It demonstrated a multitude of ways that an ESL/EFL teacher can be supportive of their students' first language. This involved a lot of code-switching activities, having presentations from the students' parents, and utilizing other community volunteers for assistance. I really enjoyed how she involved many members of the community to take part in the classroom activities.
RESPONSE
The Brown chapters were really practical and provided a wealth of information on how to approach teaching speaking and listening in the classroom, for all levels of learners. They will be invaluable resources going forward. The Kumar was a little less practical, or perhaps a bit more wordy than the Brown. One thing I noticed from one of the classroom examples in the Kumar was that a teacher asked a student to stop referring to their dictionary. This made me wonder, to what extent should we allow students to refer to a dictionary in class? The way I see it is that the dictionary is a resource that helps to facilitate understanding, (and probably in situations where I cannot provide a good explanation of a word [i.e. translation]) so why should we say "No don't use a dictionary."
The way I saw it was that the teacher inhibited the learners' autonomy for learning by asking for the student to stop. I think I won't mind students using a dictionary in class. I would just have to pay close attention to the way in which the students are using it. On one hand, I don't students to become over-reliant on dictionary translations, but on the other hand I want students to be able to understand a topic. Hmm...
TfM
Monday, September 17, 2012
ENG 345 Methods and Materials - Week 5
Bax - The End of CLT
"Here we have the main problem of CLT-- by its very emphasis on communication, and implicitly on methodology, it relegates and sidelines the context in which we teach, and therefore gives out the suggestion that CLT will work anywhere--" p 281
"Any training course should therefore make it a priority to teach not only methodology but also a heightened awareness of contextual factors, and an ability to deal with them--" p 283
"Good teachers naturally take account of the context in which they teach-- the culture, the students, and so on-- even when they hold that CLT is essentially the answer." p 284
Stephen Bax in this article argues that the CLT methodology overlooks or marginalizes the issue of classroom context, and then goes on to suggest an alternative approach to CLT called the Context Approach. As the name implies, the approach places at the forefront the context of the ESL/EFL classroom.
In the context approach, the teacher is responsible for understanding "individual students and their learning needs, wants, styles, and strategies... as well as the coursebook, local conditions, the classroom culture, school culture, national culture, and so on, as far as is possible at the time of teaching." (285)
The teacher then "identifies as suitable approach and language focus" (285) which is reliant upon the context analysis.
Response: I agree with Bax when he says that the profession needs to move beyond CLT and focus more on context. It seems intuitive that there should be no one Method with a capital 'M', free to be used anywhere regardless of the context in which it is being used. This article was written ten years ago, I wonder how the profession has responded Bax's intended paradigm shift away from CLT. The only thing that concerns me is the amount of responsibility that is placed on the individual teacher. Like, I wonder if I am even completely aware of my own context as a student in this very class*, so how would I even begin to assess the context of the classroom I'll supposedly be teaching in? So much, I feel, goes into being aware of all the things Bax suggests that a teacher be aware of, that it seems like an overwhelming task. Perhaps teachers should also be trained on how to look at context/culture.
*and further I wonder if this lack of awareness of context is in fact a result of the context I am a product of.
Hu - Potential Cultural Resistance to Pedagogical Imports
In this article Hu argues that transplanting CLT into the People's Republic of China ELT programs is problematic. This problem arises due to the differences in education philosophy between the origins of CLT and the traditional or mainstream attitudes toward education held by people in China. There are certain different expectations for how a classroom should be run in either (CLT vs. Chinese pedagogy) system. This does not mean however, Hu argues, that there are not parts of the CLT method that could work within a Chinese ELT classroom.
Response: This seems to me like a good example of how being unaware of the culture and context that you work in can be detrimental to the sort of ELT teaching you wish to do. Being aware of these classroom expectations is very important, it seems like. I just wonder what sort of information is out there like this for all the cultures, or if this research still needs to be done and organized and presented to local teachers in an efficient manner.
Skehan - Task-based instruction review
"The teacher, in other words, has to be prepared for learners to take interactions in whatever direction they choose. Then the teacher has to be ready to provide the unpredictable help that will be required." (p 11)
This article discussed the finer points of the theories that influence task-basked instruction. The author is very well read (to an overwhelming degree sometimes). The article covers the origins of task-based instruction, the prevailing perspectives on task-based instruction (cognitive, sociocultural, psycholinguistic, etc), how performance is measure in task-based instruction, how tasks are used in a classroom, and then finally some critiques of task-based instruction. It is a lot to cover in a short article. Very densely packed.
Monday, August 27, 2012
ENG 345 - Methods and Materials; WEEK 2
H. Douglas Brown Teaching by Principles
Chapters 1 and 2
Chapter one deals with a brief observational study in a private language classroom in Seoul, Korea. The author describes the setting and the lesson while providing other pertinent background information. Brown then goes on to analyze the lesson, asking questions regarding why the teacher would choose to do something a certain way or another. He writes "For every tiny moment of that classroom hour, certain choices were made, choices that can for the most part be justified by our collective knowledge of second language acquisition and teaching." (pg 8). Brown asks the final question too, "As you look back over the lesson you've just observed, do you think the initial objectives were accomplished?" (pg 10). I think this is a very important question to ask. It encourages teachers to consider and reflect upon their own methods and their usefulness.
Chapter two deals with a bunch of different methodologies that have been used in second language acquisition since teaching a second language became a thing. Brown provides some definitions of some words that may be useful going forward.
As defined by a number of scholars (pg 15):
Methodology - Pedagogical practices in general.
Approach - Theoretically well-informed positions and beliefs about the nature of language, the nature of language learning, and the applicability of both to pedagogical settings.
Method - A generalized set of classroom specifications for accomplishing linguistic objectives.
Curriculum/syllabus - Specifications for carrying out a particular language program.
Technique - Any wide variety of exercises, activities, or tasks used in the language classroom for realizing lesson objectives.
Brown then goes on to explain a number of different methods used historically. I will not pass judgment on all of them here, in this section. They are : Grammar translation method, the series method, the direct method, the audiolingual method, cognitive code learning, community language learning, suggestopedia, the silent way, total physical response, the natural approach, functional syllabuses. A detailed explanation of these methods can be found on pages 36 & 37 in Brown's book.
N.S. Prabhu - There Is No Best Method -- Why? pub. TESOL Quarterly, Vol 24, No.2 (161-176)
In this article the author discusses the current state of the discussion involving methods in TESOL and whether or not there is an objectively best method. The author notes that what often ends scholarly discussions about what is the best method is the comment that each context will require a slightly different method. But the author counters :
"If the theories of language teaching (that is to say, methods) that we have at present fail to account sufficiently for the diversity in teaching contexts, we ought to try to develop a more general or comprehensive (and probably more abstract) theory to account for more of the diversity, not reject the notion of a single system of ideas and seek to be guided instead by diversity itself. Pointing to a bewildering variety of contextual factors as a means of denying the possibility of a single theory can only be a contribution to bewilderment, not understanding."
The author then goes on to argue for the truth in each individual method contributing to a larger, more theoretical truth, and then argues for a re-envisioning of not only the arguments for the theoretical underpinnings of TESOL methods, but also the validity of the methods themselves.
Chapters 1 and 2
Chapter one deals with a brief observational study in a private language classroom in Seoul, Korea. The author describes the setting and the lesson while providing other pertinent background information. Brown then goes on to analyze the lesson, asking questions regarding why the teacher would choose to do something a certain way or another. He writes "For every tiny moment of that classroom hour, certain choices were made, choices that can for the most part be justified by our collective knowledge of second language acquisition and teaching." (pg 8). Brown asks the final question too, "As you look back over the lesson you've just observed, do you think the initial objectives were accomplished?" (pg 10). I think this is a very important question to ask. It encourages teachers to consider and reflect upon their own methods and their usefulness.
Chapter two deals with a bunch of different methodologies that have been used in second language acquisition since teaching a second language became a thing. Brown provides some definitions of some words that may be useful going forward.
As defined by a number of scholars (pg 15):
Methodology - Pedagogical practices in general.
Approach - Theoretically well-informed positions and beliefs about the nature of language, the nature of language learning, and the applicability of both to pedagogical settings.
Method - A generalized set of classroom specifications for accomplishing linguistic objectives.
Curriculum/syllabus - Specifications for carrying out a particular language program.
Technique - Any wide variety of exercises, activities, or tasks used in the language classroom for realizing lesson objectives.
Brown then goes on to explain a number of different methods used historically. I will not pass judgment on all of them here, in this section. They are : Grammar translation method, the series method, the direct method, the audiolingual method, cognitive code learning, community language learning, suggestopedia, the silent way, total physical response, the natural approach, functional syllabuses. A detailed explanation of these methods can be found on pages 36 & 37 in Brown's book.
N.S. Prabhu - There Is No Best Method -- Why? pub. TESOL Quarterly, Vol 24, No.2 (161-176)
In this article the author discusses the current state of the discussion involving methods in TESOL and whether or not there is an objectively best method. The author notes that what often ends scholarly discussions about what is the best method is the comment that each context will require a slightly different method. But the author counters :
"If the theories of language teaching (that is to say, methods) that we have at present fail to account sufficiently for the diversity in teaching contexts, we ought to try to develop a more general or comprehensive (and probably more abstract) theory to account for more of the diversity, not reject the notion of a single system of ideas and seek to be guided instead by diversity itself. Pointing to a bewildering variety of contextual factors as a means of denying the possibility of a single theory can only be a contribution to bewilderment, not understanding."
The author then goes on to argue for the truth in each individual method contributing to a larger, more theoretical truth, and then argues for a re-envisioning of not only the arguments for the theoretical underpinnings of TESOL methods, but also the validity of the methods themselves.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
The class is over, but the posting continues.
I find it interesting that Microsoft Word spellcheck does not allow a pluralization of the word "English".
How does this reflect the cultural attitude toward English?
How does this reflect the cultural attitude toward English?
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