Week 15 Response

I used to be a Secondary Teacher Education major, so I've spent a good amount of time talking about lesson planning--everything from how to format it to how to implement it (and roll with the punches when it doesn't quite go as planned).  The C&I department at ISU also attempts to instill the value of self reflection in every teacher candidate.  Kuma's chapter reiterates this aspect of lesson planning and instruction and provides examples of how to effectively assess one's own methods and materials in the classroom.

There were three topics that really stuck out to me, namely a) teacher intention and learner interpretation (289); b) observational practices; and c) learning opportunities.  From my own teaching experience, I have seen the mismatch between what I want to transmit to the students--in terms of content, attitude, perspective, or instructions--and what they actually glean from it.  I find this to be one of the most frustrating aspects of teaching; misunderstanding is rampant in educational (and non-educational) settings.  As human beings, we are subjective and biased.  Sometimes we are trapped in our own mentalities and mindsets, and it is extremely difficult to separate these from those of our students.  This happens a lot in daily interaction, when we make illogical jumps in conversation--or at least 'illogical' to the listener, not to us, because it made sense to us when we said it.  I think the same thing often happens in the classroom but to a broader extent.

That's why it's important to be self-reflective and be observed by someone else.  The "team" approach, characterized by the M&M Model (292) in which coworkers observe fellow teachers, really appeals to me.  It reminds me of a tactic that would likely be used in the middle school setting, where interdisciplinary learning is emphasized and cooperation among "teams" of learners and teachers is prioritized.  There are many benefits to such observational practices, and I think they should be implemented by more educators.  Teachers can gain more insight into their own biases and instructional practices by having an outside perspective.  It helps them to be as objective as possible in regards to their own teaching.

These biases and mismatches between the teacher and the student can many times lead to missed learning opportunities (300).  As teachers, we often feel restricted by our own lesson plans and forget to capitalize on naturally occurring learning opportunities presented by the students themselves; we are distracted by our own learning objectives.  Observation helps us become more aware of these learning opportunities, and hopefully make use of them in the future, through discussion with a peer and with the students as well.  We like to believe, or we try to convince ourselves, that the classroom is the realm of the teacher and is perfectly under control.  In reality, we must recognize the cues of our students and adapt our instruction to best meet their needs and their curiosities--after all, isn't this what learning really is?

Week 13 Response

First of all, after exploring the topics of reliabilty and validity in great depth in ENG 346, I have a problem with Huerta-Macias' anecdotal remark that second language acquisition cannot be asessed in "a valid and reliable way" through traditional testing methods (338).  Although I'm not a personal fan of high-stakes, standardized testing, there are certain situations in which it is the best, indeed the most valid and reliable, measure of student's progress or proficiency in the L2.  Her argumentation (and claims of "all the problems found with such testing") leads to more misunderstanding about traditional testing--which believe me, I was very biased about it, too, before this semester of coursework--and creates a dichotomy between traditional testing and alternative assessment (339).  Some of the points she makes are flat out wrong, like saying alternative assessment is more free of bias (339).  Alternative assessment, such as observation, can be equally as biased as the traditional testing methods.  Also, alternative assessment can, in fact, take time out of the classroom, or take time outside of the classroom, in the form of student-teacher conferences or interviews.  The truth is that these methods are not in opposition but rather two sides of the same coin that must be used concurrently in order to make the most informed decisions about our student's ability in the L2 as well as our own teaching practices.

In chapter 34, Peñaflorida brings up some very valid and pertinent issues/"malpractices" in alternative assessment in terms of L2 writing (345).  She also recognizes the shortcomings of alternative assessment and provides a more balanced review of it compared to Huerta-Macias.  This chapter really highlights the tension between content (substance) evaluation and grammar (form) correction, which is a particular challenge for all English teachers, but especially ESL/EFL teachers.  Before continuing past the introduction section, I tried to brainstorm some solutions to this issue.  Could we assign papers with a different focus (e.g. grade one paper only for substance and the next only on forms)?  This seems problematic, as incorrect forms remain and may become fossilized in the writer's work or the student could write a grammatically flawless paper with little depth or insight.  As teachers, we want it all: substance and form.  So then I thought that maybe we could always grade for substance but grade for errors in form in a different way.  Instead of using the dreaded red ink pen, perhaps we could use highlighters to draw the learner's eyes to the form and then make suggestions or give tips that could lead them to the correct use of that form.  For example, the teacher could write "What time frame are we in?" if the student uses the wrong verb tense.  This was just an idea that came to me, but I still recognize problems with this method.  Personally, I think I'd rather receive a paper that is really marked up than receive one with little feedback or, sometimes even worse, inconsistent feedback.  If teachers make certain errors but not others, this is confusing and misleading to the L2 writer.

Week 12 Response

My own culture awareness began to take form during my Spanish coursework in high school, where we would talk about ancient civilizations of Latin America or present-day celebrations practiced in Mexico or Peru.  From there, I started to understand that there was another world, very different from my own, and I was fascinated by its 'otherness'.  Since high school, my mindset has changed a great deal.  Through my TESOL coursework and various literature and "culture" courses through my major and LALS (Latin American and Latino/a Studies) minor, I'd like to believe that this sense of 'otherness' has been diluded, although I doubt it can ever entirely be erased.  As Robinson (1991) claims, we can learn to see the world through a lens (red) different from our own (blue), but to expect that we can ever negate our ideological upbringing, to me, seems unreasonable (Kuma 270).  We can simply expand and build upon what already exists, creating a new way of looking at the world that combines aspects of our own "culture" and that of anyone else.

But still I have a hard time using these terms, because I feel that the world "culture" inherently creates an Other.  In attempting to homogenize a group of people, it automatically stigmatizes another as different or dissimilar.  At the same time, I cannot deny that differences--political, social, historical, linguistic--exist between certain populations.  Thus, a person could be considered ignorant if they fall on either end of the spectrum of trying to negate culture or overemphasizing it (e.g. stereotypes).  This is what I feel often happens when we talk about "culture", is that we simply refer to stereotypical notions of people magnified to a much grander scale.  Each person is so complex and multidimensional that it seems impossible to group sets of people together and label them.  So yes, I believe we can attempt to categorize people based on similarities and differences--as this is the tendency of the human brain--but this should never be taken as the absolute truth nor should it be used to make sweeping generalizations about any group of people.

If every person is so complex, I think the first step any educator should make in raising cultural awareness is to cultivate a sense of self-critique and reflection in each student (271).  How can we ever hope to "understand" (or at least empathize with) anyone else if we don't first comprehend the hidden ideologies, values, and biases within ourselves?  This is a powerful realization for the student, and a necessary one in language learning (and all learning).

After reading the two pieces by Kuma, I am still skeptical as to how culture can effectively be taught.  Even as I wrote that sentence, I wondered, what does effectively teaching culture even mean?  He presents a list of microstrategies at the end of chapter 12, but they all seemed fairly superficial to me.  Can culture ever be taught in a way that's not superficial?  Perhaps only when the student experiences it--whatever "it" may be--in the native context, such as a study abroad experience.  Otherwise, I think culture must be treated differently within the classroom, and what is typically regarded as Culture can be analyzed, based on the self-reflective cultural knowledge, to determine underlying beliefs or assumptions.  This oftentimes happens in literature classes, and I think much can be learned through historical exploration through current events.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that maybe culture shouldn't be as explicit in the classroom as Kuma presents it, but rather explored through the products of the culture itself.