Week 6 Response 2: Plans for Final Project

For the final project, I was hoping to create a website... before you said it was your least favorite option on the list.  Hopefully, I will be able to convince you otherwise.  I have created many websites before, so I am well-versed with the "how" of web design.  And while I do enjoy writing papers, my best work is usually a consequence of hands-on, artistic endeavors.

For the past year and a half, I have been teaching adult ESL classes for native Spanish speakers at Western Avenue Community Center.  The philosophy we use is "teach what the students want to learn" in what we call "Survival English" classes.  This is for immigrants who need basic linguistic knowledge for very specific purposes (e.g. making a doctor's appointment or applying for a job).  Therefore, my lesson planning has always been very minimal.  No textbooks are used and learner materials are scarce.

With that being said, let me outline my plans for this project.  My vision is to create an interactive website for future teachers (I am graduating at the end of this year, after all) and students/members of the community.  This website would compile relevant activities, reading materials, websites, articles, videos, and other resources in one place for a very specific audience.  This website is intended for Western Avenue's Hispanic Outreach Program, or programs similar to it.  Thus, materials will focus on learning the differences between a specific L1 (Spanish) and the target language (English), as well as the differences (style, motivation, investment) of adult immigrant learners.  Over the past couple years, I have saved websites and materials that I have found useful for my students.  This project would allow me to expand upon this knowledge base and almost augment it with research.

Since I am not going into the educational field--in the traditional sense of the word--but instead will be working as a social worker in a community setting, my classes are fundamentally different than the ones structured in the classroom.  I feel that this experience, and the final product that will result, will be far more beneficial to me and will also be a lasting resource for WACC long after I am gone.

Week 6 Response 1: Lesson Planning and Curriculum

On page 69, the authors raise a valid question, namely, can a language realistically be taught within the classroom setting?  This seems like an absurd question to pose to the reader, who obviously believes such a proposition to be true--to be the basis, or at least an element, of their profession.  Yet it's a question worth asking, because many people will argue that it is impossible to teach a language at all.  I think this directly relates to our teaching philosophy and value systems, as mentioned in this chapter (e.g. classical humanism, reconstructionalism, and integrated approach).  Overall, I think the goal of every teacher--content or language--should aim to maximize learning opportunities that focus on the process of learning, as opposed to the product-oriented curriculum.  This will serve our students far better than giving them prepackaged, cookie-cutter English dialogues.  Instead, they will be prepared to apply their linguistic knowledge (grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic) in a variety of settings and situations.

Planning such a lesson must take many things into consideration, and evaluating its effectiveness undoubtedly is a challenge.  On page 35, a list of criteria is offered to evaluate a teacher's lesson plan, which gives the following as evidence of a successful lesson, according to Ur:

(1) the class seemed to be learning the material well; (2) the learners were engaging with the foreign language throughout; (3) the learners were attentive all the time; (4) the learners enjoyed the lesson and were motivated; (5) the learners were active all the time; (6) the lesson went according to plan; (7) the language was used communicatively throughout.

In what perfect world does this ever happen?  This simply is not feasible most of the time.  I'm not saying that these things should not be objectives to strive towards, but I don't think a lesson must meet every one of these objectives for every lesson.  Nor should these be expected of every student on a regular basis.  There is simply too much variability among students.

Week 5 Response 2: Sheltered Instruction

ELL* students are often predetermined to be less capable of academic success on the micro (classroom-based) and macro (standardized tests) level (2).  Obviously, these assumptions and generalizations are going to impact the way we, as teachers, treat them as students and language learners.  In addition, things that we take for granted in the American school system--such as sitting in desks, raising our hands, taking standardized tests--are culturally determined (4).  Our students, coming from distinct countries and backgrounds, may not be accustomed to these practices.  Adjusting to these characteristics of the American school is another factor that will influence the student's amount of learning, compounded with their language learning goals.  This topic is further developed later in the article, which mentions "the explicit socialization of students to the often implicit cultural expectations of the classroom" (8).  Clearly there is more than just learning grammar or vocabulary that takes place in the ESL context.

I prefer this term over Poole's choice of LEP.  Labeling students as "Low English Proficiency" learners only focuses on what the student lacks as opposed to the various other skills they bring to the table, linguistic or otherwise.

Consider also this statement from Poole's article: "Research has shown that it may take students from 4 to 10 years of study, depending on the background factors described earlier, before they are proficient in academic English" (5).  The first thing I thought of was my own L2 experience and how depressed I would have been to hear the amount of time it might take for me to meet proficiency levels required by certain schools.  My next thought was about the amount of variability in that piece of data.  There's a big difference between 4 years and 10 years of language learning.  This just reiterates the learner diversity that we will encounter in the ESL classroom.  Can we ever appeal to all students at the same time?  Of course not, and we'd be fools to think such a goal could ever be reached.  We can, however, vary the way we present and evaluate material so that we at least attempt to satisfy the multiple and diverse needs of our students.  Similarly, the amount of time needed to reach proficiency can also be attributed to teacher instruction.  Learner preferences and instructional practices go hand in hand, ultimately working collectively to assist the student or competing against one another to the detriment of the learner.

As a result, many have advocated the use of SIOP when planning instruction.  After reading exactly what this was, I wasn't all that impressed.  The entire things seems like standard lesson planning to me, at least from what I experienced during my pre-teacher coursework here at ISU.  Furthermore, the SI model is based on the assumption that language learning increases through meaningful interaction (11).  It seems that this approach shares the main tenets of CLT, but there are important differences.  Unlike CLT, the SI model attempts to maximize language learning opportunities through instruction in the "core" subjects--math, science, language arts, and social studies.  CLT does not place this emphasis on these subjects but instead focuses entirely on the acquisition of the language through "real world" activities.  The role of the teacher in these two approaches is also distinct.  It seems to me that the SI model gives the teacher a far more dominant role in the classroom than does CLT, based on its reliance of visual aids, demonstrations, and "native language support" (11).

Week 5 Response 1: Task-Based Language Teaching

Even after discussing these topics, I still do not feel that I completely understand the definition of a task.  Loosely defined, a task is an activity that requires meaningful language use (Skehan 3).  However, I find that most activities in the language classroom are centered around meaningful language use, especially in light of CLT's dominance in the field.  On a different but related topic, I wonder what it means to be "meaningful" the context of language learning.  Certainly there are established notions of what this means, but I think it can be argued that, within the classroom setting, language use cannot be consider authentic the majority of the time.  What we create in the classroom is psedo-authentic situations that paralel--but do not encapsulate--"real world" realities.

One thing I am still trying to figure out about Task-Based Teaching is whether or not it is teacher-dominant.  In one section of the Skehan article, he references Long (1989) by stating "convergent tasks ... would produce more negotiation of meaning than divergent tasks" (4).  This struck me as a statement that emphasizes the role of the teacher over that of the students.  By forcing the students to come to an agreement, you are placing their conversation within boundaries and limiting their individual interpretations or conclusions from an activity.  This, then, directly relates to the nature of student interaction and discussion.  Later in the article, Skehan reviews another study by Van Lier and Matsuo (2000) that looks at interstudent relations and language learning through discussion.  I found this section to be very interesting, because it highlights the challenge proposed by discussion-based classrooms--especially language classrooms--of maintaining balance and authenticity.  As teachers, we want to ensure that every student finds their "voice" and invests themself into the classwork, but we also hope to create true discussions led by the students themself.  We also have to know when, or if, to intervene to provide feedback.  For example, another study concluded "a significant amount of teacher intervention was needed to wean learners away from simpler expressions" (7).  These are difficult and controversial topics that impact a teacher's planning and implementation of lessons.

Week 4 Response 3: The Global Context and Relevancy of CLT

Preservice teachers in the United States today seem to be immediately indoctrinated into the CLT framework and convinced of its underlying principles and resulting methodologies.  This is, after all, where research and progress has brought us, and thus anything that does not fit within this framework is rejected and denounced as "backward" (Bax 279).  The reality is that regardless of methodology or approaches to teaching a language, there will always be students who learn to be proficient and those that don't.  CLT isn't some miraculous method that guarantees language learning, although the way it is promoted makes it seem that way.  Stephen Bax's article attempts to downplay the importance of CLT and instead give emphasis to context--"understanding of individual students and their learning needs, wants, styles, and strategies... as well as the coursebook, local conditions, the classroom culture, school culture, [and] national culture" (285).

It's hard to argue with his claims, yet I am left dissatisfied with the article as a whole.  How, exactly, do we modify CLT in order to take into account all these individual variables?  He states, "context will be the very first thing to be taken into account before any methodological or language system decisions are taken" (284).  This statement would be a lot more powerful and convincing if he actually followed it by giving explicit examples of ways to do this.  It's easy to philosophize and theorize, but in the end, it's all talk.  I think teachers can get trapped into thinking they are being sensitive to context when in reality they are still adhering to the tenets of CLT.  The Context Approach is never fully developed in this article, and it left me wondering what I could take from its content that would be of practical benefit to me.

Context, however we choose to define it, largely impacts the way we teach and how we are received in the classroom.  Hu's article raises the question of whether CLT can be transferred to any context and provides convincing arguments to the contrary.  He uses the example of China to demonstrate the contrasting views--or assumptions--of learning, teaching, and student-teacher interaction compared to those of CLT.  I particularly like the use of word 'assumption' because it brings to the forefront the issue of language and power relations.  When we make assumptions about teaching and learning, without considering the context in which they occur (or don't occur), we are at a severe disadvantage.

Hu is attempting to challenge our (i.e. the Western) way of thinking about education by examining a cultural context different from what we are accustomed to.  CLT, according to Hu, is unlikely to be adopted by China because it is in direct conflict with their educational assumptions.  I see the paradox in this argumentation, namely that it asks us to rethink our own assumptions about CLT but never asks Chinese pedagogues or theorists evaluate their own.  This automatically leads me to question whether or not we should challenge our assumptions, and to me the answer is obvious.  Without critically viewing ourselves as byproducts of the system we live in, we become complacent and content with these underlying assumptions, if we even recognize them as culturally-biased assumptions.  It is this type of thinking that led to Bax's article in the first place.  So how can we say that the Chinese educational system should not also analyze its own system of education?  I'm not advocating they ignore student and teacher preferences with the goal of implementing CLT.  Rather, I am arguing that a critical perspective be adopted, as it should by all educators.  After all, if we only ever did what was within our comfort zone, what numerous educational opportunities would be lost?

Week 4 Response 2: CLT and Learning Opportunities

As Kuma states in chapter 3, it should remain clear and obvious that a teacher's role--regardless of practice or theory or methodology--is to maximize learning opportunities.  However he also argues that "learning is primarily a personal construct controlled by the individual learner" (44).  Thus, to a large extent we determine what we want to learn and what we will remember from what has explicitly or implicitly been taught to us.  Does this negate the value of teaching as a profession?  Certainly not, as students will not likely seek out information on their own without having been raised to place importance on knowledge and awareness.  Teachers, therefore, become necessary proponents of education in a broader sense--the type of education that occurs outside of the classroom, especially in regards to a foreign or second language.  We must provide learning opportunities but also manipulate the situation in front of us to create more learning opportunities.  This, I think, is what determines the role of the teacher and helps us to understand the type of relationship needed in the language classroom.

In order to maximize learning opportunities, we must be acutely aware of our students' strengths and weaknesses as well as the unique characteristics and experiences that distinguish them from each other.  This is achieved through listening.  Teachers so often want to talk and be heard, but we must learn to be quiet and consider the "voices" of our students instead.  By doing so, we can form more meaningful questions or comments and, consequently, create a more authentic and meaningful environmental for language use and practice.  In esssence:

"the classroom teacher is only one of the participants--one with greater competence and authority, of course--but only a participant nonetheless, and as such s/he cannot afford to ignore any contributory discourse from other partners engaged in a joint venture to 'accomplish lessons'" (54)

The teacher is a facilitator and an adviser, but must perform these tasks only as needed, allowing greater freedom and creativity from the students themselves.  This is such a hard balance to achieve, compounded by the numerous demands placed upon us by the curriculum, achievement tests, and time restrictions.

These two readings also made me think about the cooperation-competition dichotomy and how this impacts student motivation, participation, and overall learning.  How does CLT or Critical Pedagogy affect these differently?  I believe CLT places more emphasis on competition than CP does, simply because the goals of these two frameworks are different.  Surely, they both aim to promote language learning and proficiency, but CP has the added objective of transforming society, which tends to overshadow its language goals.  How will students react to either of these styles of teaching?  I think each will be met with some level of resistance by the students, because they do advocate for collective achievement.  This can lead to stifled motivation, lack of participation, and less learning in general.  Why is this so?  I believe such results are a consequence of the educational system and its objectives as they are defined by the society we live in.  We constantly strive to be the best in every aspect of the word, and this transfers to our educational philosophies as teachers and students alike.  If we began teaching our children to think collectively from an early age, perhaps this resistance would not be so strong by the time they began learning a second or foreign language.

Week 4 Response 1: Investment, Oppression, and Critical Pedagogy in the ESL Classroom

Popular Research and Social Transformation: A Community-Based Approach to Critical Pedagogy
by Klaudia M. Rivera


One interesting aspect included in the article, although not stately explicitly, was the particpants' investment in the program.  Many of the women involved were required to attend the ESL class to keep their public assistance, used to raise their families and maintain their homes.  Although it may seem harsh, we can bring out the best in a person (or in a community) through the worst situations.  I believe that because they had financial investment in the class, they were more committed to achieving the curriculum goals.  There is a similar problem that I face at Western Avenue Community Center, where I teach adult ESL classes to native Spanish speakers.  The classes are offered for free, and yet we see minimal attendance and little longevity in our roster of students.  My boss and I have discussed, at length, the various reasons why this could be.  Yet one of the most enduring arguments he made was that people aren't coming because the classes are free.  What?  This seemed counterintuitive to me, and the thought of charging people to learn English seemed awful to me.  The more I think about it, the more I see reason behind his claim.  Perhaps with a small monetary contribution, we would have more students in our ESL classes--but with each decision, we must compromise with our values and ideals.
relation to WACC

Reading this article and seeing how the curriculum was implemented, I wondered, can bottom-up processes ever be inspired by those "outside" of the target group?  This, to me, is a very relevant and worrisome question.  My goal in life is to work alongside both the Spanish-speaking and English-speaking population at a community center setting, creating positive change through educational and spiritual programming.  This is especially important for the Spanish-speaking clientele who are often marginalized in English dominant communities.  As a middle class caucasian woman, will I be deterred from achieving my goals?  Will I be rejected by the community I hope to help?  This is something that particularly interests me and which I would like to study further, reading any scholarly work that deals with this issue as exposed in Paolo Freire's theories of rebellion against the oppressor.  Am I the oppressor?  From my experience working with Spanish-speaking families and individuals in Bloomington-Normal, I have to believe there is truth in both perspectives.  I have seen the walls of race and ethnicity break down as a consequence, yet there may also be evidence of the contrary that I simply do not see.

Week 3 Response 2: Being Critical of Critical Pedagogies

The article begins by reiterating the concerns we discussed in class, namely that of theory v. practice.  Many have come to the concensus that theorists are too distanced and removed from the real world contexts in which teaching occurs.  Why, then, do we rely so heavily upon these sources?  Pennycook also raises the issue of politics within the publishing realm by reminding us of the heavy-handed influence of English in the TESOL and applied linguistic arena and beyond (330).  I think these two points are interesting introductions to what Pennycook later goes on to explain: critical pedagogy.  This notion of critical awareness is not only applicable to our teaching practices, but also important to us as consumers of published scholarly work.  As I have stated in precious posts, we must always be challenging and analyzing the sources of our information--whether it is personal bias or results of our research or education.

Later in the article, Pennycook argues that "critical approaches to TESOL are fundamentally political" and "must necessarily take up certain positions and stances" (334).  He also raises the concern that 'politics' is synonymous with 'leftist' and how this may stigmatize the framework or pin teachers against one another.  I believe this is a key concept to the "transformative intellectual" philosophy and presents a controversial dilemma in thought: how do we define 'leftist' ideals, and are they always best as the basis for educational practice?  Many times, the issues involved are polemic, and the subject becomes murky as we attempt to prescribe what is worth learning in our curricula and what is not.  On a related note, Pennycook asserts that critical thinking should not be confused with critical approaches to TESOL.  However, I personally do not see the difference.  He claims that "[c]ritical thinking is generally an apolitical approach" (334), but I disagree.  How can critical thinking be apolitical?  On what do we base our questioning if not on political matters?  How can we critically analyze a text without being political?  Critical thinking involves considering all sides to an issue and stepping outside of the box--so wouldn't we automatically begin thinking about 'political' topics.  To me, everything is political.  That's just the way I see the world.

One of the most resounding quotes from the article was the following: "A critical approach to TESOL is more than arranging the chairs in a circle and discussing social issues" (338).  How often do we do just that and call it collaborative learning?  I doubt that I'm the only guilty one.  A professor of mine once told me that most "discussion" in the classroom is actually just the teacher prodding the students with predetermined questions to gain a prefabricated response.  I find this largely to be true, but also am curious to know exactly how we can promote true, bottom-up discussion in our classrooms?  The article does a great job at pointing out the problem, but I find it does little to offer a solution or practical suggestions for teachers wanting to take that next step.  What can we do as instructors, and what role does "teacher intervention" play in the critical approach to TESOL?  Personally, I am a big fan of Paolo Freire's work and the critical pedagogy framework, but by attempting to avoid methodology, fails to give teachers concrete examples of how to achieve its transformative goals.

Week 3 Response 1: Teaching Philosophies and the 'Method' Mentality

One statement in the first chapter that seems incongruent with effective instruction is the notion that a teacher's common sense is synonymous with their theory (18).  This may be true for certain individuals, but I strongly oppose the acceptance of such logic.  Teacher's common sense should not constitute their teaching philosophy.  People's common sense is based upon their personal experiences, mostly formed by their own time as a student.  Yet what works best for them may not be what works best for their students.  Therefore, I believe a teacher's philosophy should constantly be challenged by those within the profession but also, and perhaps more importantly, by those outside of the traditional educational system.  What do community activists, parents, international scholars, and marginalized individuals of society have to say about how or what students should be taught?  Gathering these different opinions will drastically change the way a teacher functions within his or her classroom.

The more we study the accepted methods in TESOL, the clearer it becomes that "[m]ethods are based on idealized concepts geared toward idealized contexts" (28). Like Kumaravadivelu, I see postmethods as more of a framework as opposed to methods, which attempt to act as a rigid template for learning and instruction.  The postmethod theory gives the teacher much more flexibility--by providing guiding principles or developmental objectives of learners that may be fulfilled according to the classroom environment, subject material, resources available, and teacher personality (39).

This reiterates the importance of recognizing one's own teaching philosophy and, in turn, his or her vision of what it means to learn.  In chapter 1, it proposes that building a repertoire of critical thinking skills is much more valuable than broadly exploring various content areas (20).  This reminded me of Paolo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, in which he argues that critical thinking skills are what is being demanded of future generations.  I whole heartedly agree.  Never did I buy into the logic that memorization of specific knowledge would do me any good in life.  Instead, I see far more value in learning how to analyze different situations and pieces of information, because that is what we will face in the "real world" beyond the classroom.  Students are not "empty vessels" that need to be filled with our expertise but rather individuals within a critical dialogue (Freire).  This is how I hope to conduct any classroom, thereby creating an environment of meaningful discussion as the basis for learning English (or any other language).