Monthly Archives: October 2015

Content Lesson

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I would have loved having a Spanish lesson like this in the seventh grade. Even in high school, language classes were about the language rather than content in the language. It would have made class much more relevant and enjoyable. It’s also a great way of diminishing student stress and anxiety since the material is drawn from other classes and past knowledge. The only difference in the medium (language) used to teach it.
However, I would have liked to see a more student-centered approach as well. While we did not get to finish the video and such activities may follow after, this is after all a Spanish class, and students should be given the opportunity to produce output in the TL. We do get snippets of this when the teacher asks a student a direct question, but I’m thinking more along the lines of discussion. This way, students must be novel in Spanish just as they are in English. Surely there will be mistakes and questions, but that is how we learn a language, including out first languages. It’s great their listening comprehension is so high, but it would be a shame if they can’t produce a sentence.

Spanish Lesson Demonstration

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I love a lesson given only in the target language, but it has to be student centered. Even beginners are capable of producing the language if given the chance. While this method may be effective for some, it may not produce spoken fluency. Even over time, if the students are not given the opportunity to work, make mistakes, and self-correct in the TL, they will not reach fluency. Or at least not very quickly anyway.
I think this style of teaching would be more effective if a workshop/group work followed. For example, after receiving the input for shapes, colors, and simple commands, students could then be led into a activity in which they must create output. Since it’s TL only, the teacher could demonstrate, perhaps using an advanced learner for assistance, and then monitor the students’ efforts.

Brieanna

Direct Method: Reflection on Critical Language Scholarship

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Today in class we talked about the “Direct” method of teaching language in which the focus is on pronunciation, oral production of the language, speaking in full sentences, no use of the L1, and communication.

In 2012, I participated in the Critical Language Scholarship program in Beijing, China. There were 30 of us placed in Beijing. We all took placement tests. I got a 9 on the placement test. Yes, a nine. This meant I should be in the 100 level (I got a nine because I was illiterate).  My speaking skills however, were pretty good. So, the professors instead of putting me in the 200 level (because they didn’t offer 100), put me in the 300 level! Logical, I know. We lived with host families and we signed an infamous language pledge. The pledge basically said something like, “I will henceforth use only the target language (Mandarin Chinese) in all aspects of communication (written and spoken). If I am caught breaking the language pledge, I will receive a warning. If I am caught again, I will be sent back home and I will owe the US government the equivalent of their investment in me.” AKA, speak Chinese or go home and owe about 5,000USD to the government. No thanks.

Class time was relatively easy for me, though. We had classes that were completely orally based (unless you took notes). Remember, my spoken Chinese is better than my illiteracy at this point. The teacher would do some of that point and flick technique that we saw in the Greek video. But she also constantly yelled “说句子“ (speak in full sentences) when we just answered with “yes” or “no”. But maybe she should have not asked dichotomous questions?

Outside of class however, it was a struggle. I was illiterate and I some how had to manage to learn all the characters from 100 level and 200 level while simultaneously learning the 300 level characters for our weekly exam.

Regardless of all this, this was the most positive experience of language study that I have ever had. Class time was spent practicing with someone who would actually correct my pronunciation and explain grammar patterns and make us speak to each other. The language pledge (while not ensuring we don’t think in our L1s) made sure we kept practicing all the time. But we did make our own “Chinese Slang” because we were, in fact, still thinking in our L1s. We wanted to be able to say “duh” and “word on the street is” so we made it up in Chinese. Which, although cool, isn’t necessarily the purpose of the Direct Method. Outside of class, I got to work on things that could be done independently, that took more individual time, I didn’t slow anyone down or impede their learning based on my lack of character knowledge.

I think if the Direct Method is used in combination with techniques that teach grammar and writing and reading skills, it can be very useful. And while, the language pledge didn’t switch our brains from one language to the other, it did help us consciously recognize the need to TRY speaking and practicing what we had learned.

Contextualized Input: Beyond the Realm of Understanding

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We know you’re expecting something grand, as the above title would lead you to believe. But this actually going to be pretty straightforward. For today’s class we read Gibbons and Freeman’s articles on comprehensible input – in this case reading and listening.

Active listening is an important foundational skill to develop that will aid in the development of other language-learning activities.  Listening develops in both one way and two way encounters and Gibbons offers several activities teachers can use to help scaffold active listening in different contexts.  Some of the activities are Spot the Difference, Information Extraction, Interviews, Jigsaw Listening, and Oral/Aural Cloze activities.  In an ESL context it is important to provide listening activities that fit naturally into the curriculum in authentic situations to aide comprehension.

When it comes to reading, the content is just as important as the language concepts you are trying to get across. Bland texts with no substance don’t relate well to the reader, so there is no underlying motivation to complete the reading and actually retain the information. Having a small information gap will keep learners interested and engaged throughout the reading. The article also discussed before and during activities. Things like vocabulary “webs” are useful tools for students to determine meaning during a reading. These webs take words like “animal” and branch them out to more specific words like “dog.” This type of active reading is important for students to retain information.

Finally, there is a research about how multimedia input have significant effects on comprehension of a story. As Krashen mentions about the importance of comprehensible input, the research reports that it is effective to have additional inputs such as audio recordings and video recordings to understand a story better for second language learners (in this case, English language learners). It is discovered that video recordings are the most effective inputs, but audio recordings are still more effective than simply reading without any inputs. So, additional media input can be very helpful to language learning.

Overall, these are quite useful techniques to have in your pedagogical repertoire, whether you are teaching children or adults.

Catherine, Ben, Phil, Jerry

Meeting Kentaro

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On the 2nd of October our language observation class had the opportunity to meet students from the University of Osaka. It was a rewarding experience and I’m glad to have been part of it.  The purpose of their visit to our class was for the Japanese students to give presentations on various subjects related to the research they have been conducting at their university.  We were told that we would have one of the Japanese students sit with us and that during his or her presentation, we would have to evaluate the student’s performance during the presentation.

I was initially a bit skeptical about this assignment because I felt a little uncomfortable about the concept of “evaluating” someone else’s ability to perform.  At the beginning of class I questioned my right to be able to judge a Japanese student’s presentation because I’m far from an expert on cellular biology (our Japanese student’s presentation topic) and giving speeches.  I was worried about the prospect of having the student potentially perform badly and then having to explain to them what he or she did wrong.  Fortunately, this did not happen as Kentaro (the student that joined our table) performed amazingly well.

Before and after Kentaro’s presentation I had the opportunity to have a conversation with him.  I asked him if his presentation was going to be difficult to understand for those that are not scientifically inclined.  He laughed and informed me that it would be more like a TED talk and that all the presentations would be geared towards a general audience.  I was relieved at hearing this information and began to feel a lot more positively about the exercise.  Kentaro told us that he wanted us to focus on his eye contact and use of hand gestures.  After the presentation one of the other students in our group pointed out that it would be best if Kentaro would have spoken more loudly.  During the presentation I didn’t notice any issues with the volume of Kentaro’s speech but he was definitely the most soft spoken compared to the other students.

Kentaro received the suggestion positively and thanked the student for his help.  It turns out that Kentaro had received similar advice in the past from others so it is something that he continues to work on.

Any time I meet an ESL student here at MIIS I try to talk about neutral subjects and the ESL student’s home culture to get the students more comfortable interacting.  It can be somewhat awkward to be forced to sit at a table with four Americans and expected to carry on a conversation as soon as possible.  I also had the opportunity to practice my Japanese a little bit with Kentaro and was grateful for that.  I hope we get to continue this type of activity in the future.  I really enjoy interacting with other students from different countries.

Osaka University Students’ Presentations

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Narrative:

Today in class we met with 5 students from Osaka university. They were part of a four week immersive language course focusing on public speaking. We divided the class into five tables. There were five TESOL/TFL students per Japanese student at a table. My table sat with Shinji who focused on virology and veterinarian (which he had to teach me how to spell) science. We had a conversation about what he was nervous about in regards to public speaking. He told us to focus on his rate of speech, word choice, logic/thought processes. The students then took turns presenting and taking questions. After all presentations, we gave him feedback based on his requested areas. Then Brandon (one of their teachers) explained the process that led them to the presentation stage today.

Reflection:

I was really happy to apply things we learned in phonology in Language Analysis with the pronunciation aspect. Although it wasn’t something he asked us to focus on, I still picked up on it. There was a moment where, during introductions, we heard him say he studies biology. However, during his presentation we realized, because it was written on the screen, that he studies virology. We then had to figure out where the mistakes were (the r/l blends happening in Asian languages, the intonation, the variations of the pronunciation of virology, etc.). We also got a chance to glimpse the final result of a curriculum and to get insight into the process that led there. I also realized how much I miss teaching.

Osaka U. Bio-medical Presentations

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Graduate students from Osaka University have come to the U.S. for a four-week intensive English immersion program designed for field-related needs.  This is otherwise known as English for specific purposes (ESP).

One important component of the program is that students have the opportunity to practice public presentations on their topics of expertise.

Each student was grouped with five TESOL candidates.  We were asked to identify what specific feedback would be valuable to the student.  Our student Kentaro Yamamoto, who presented on health habits in cells, asked for feedback related to eye contact, choosing  vocabulary appropriate for the audience’s level of understanding.  He was also concerned with the effectiveness of his presentation’s visuals.

After his presentation, we shared feedback with him related to his topics of concern.  We were all very impressed with his presentation, specifically his ability to teach us new cell-related terminology and to describe biological processes effectively.  His graded vocabulary, body language, and visuals all contributed to this effectiveness.  One piece of advice we offered was that he increase his speaking volume.  While his speech was well paced, and pronunciation clear, we felt that increased volume would lend itself to clearer communication.  Kentaro mentioned that his peers had also commented on his low volume.  One of the TESOL students said that higher volume would make the speaker appear more confident.  The other group members however, felt that he was confident in his presentation due to his familiarity with the subject and relative fluency in English, the volume was simply too low.  This could be remedied with a microphone or a simple effort to project more.

We also asked him how he felt about the presentation.  He said that he felt good apart from volume.  After that, we all began to talk freely about his topic.  It was clear that Kentaro was comfortable spontaneously sharing his knowledge in small unrehearsed group conversation.  The notion of comfort relates to the Affective Filter hypothesis which we have been discussing in class.  We can theorize that the group conversation was beneficial to his language acquisition because the environment was less formal and structured.

More important than the presentation itself was the weeks of peer collaboration that preceded it.  Brandon, one of their instructors, mentioned that peer review was a critical strategy for both teaching presentation skills and facilitating L2 use.  Peer review is communicative in its approach, it promotes student to student communication over teacher talk time.  This diverges from what we’ve learned of Krashen, who emphasized that language acquisition was a product of input more than output.

Our mentor 3rd semester students hosted a discussion about what is useful about Krashen’s theory and what of his theory does not lend itself to teaching practice.  What is useful is to be mindful of notions such as comprehensible input, monitoring, natural order, and acquisition vs. learning.  The problem is these notions are not thoroughly explained and therefore resist application in the classroom.

We found the experience with the Osaka students valuable because it exposed us to a real-world ESP program.  We enjoyed their visit and hope to have similar opportunities in the future.

This post was written by Dylan and Josiah

Observations on the Presentations of Japanese Students from Osaka

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From observing and discussing Japanese students’ presentation today, we have found useful information on how to give feedback on our future students’ presentation and prepare them for presenting their work in public:

– The feedback should be given in an organized way. In other words, we should give comments and suggestions in different categories like visual aids used in the presentation (effective or distracting), verbal language/ speaking skills (vocabulary, specialist terminology, sentence patterns), non-verbal language (body language and/or facial expressions), etc.

– We can notify the presenter at the outset of their presentation which areas/aspects of a presentation they wish to have feedback on because they may have individual learning  needs that the teacher/audience is not aware of. In this way, the presenter can receive more precise and constructive feedback that help them improve their next performance.

– One more thing that we realized from observing the Japanese students’ presentation today is the audience needs to have the ability to have an objective assessment of a presentation about which they normally barely has background knowledge of. Regarding this point, the presenter also needs to think about what they should bring up in their presentation that can help bridge the knowledge gaps of the audience (many listeners may not have sufficient knowledge of what the presenter has been working on despite their shared disciplines) . As a result, the presentation can be delivered more smoothly.

– It is also important to keep in consideration the goals of adult English learning students. These students may have specific reasons for learning English (such as these future scientists from Japan) which is the pursuit of the sciences. Therefore, it would be helpful and very considerate on the part of the English teacher to provide authentic materials within this context.

– Another thing we noticed was that all of the Japanese students had a strong Japanese accent that prevented the audiences from understanding their presentations well. But the fact that they took time to deliver their speeches allowed the listerners to make sense of what they were saying. Also, they seemed to have practiced their body language in a way that it was not too disruptive during their presentations and only made minimum gestures that were necessary to get attention of the students. So pronunciation and body language are important components of successful presentation as well.

– In addition, while they did a good job explaining their concepts to a non-scientific audience several students exceeded the time limit. In a professional presentation setting where these students would be defending their research before a scientific audience, time management would be essential. Therefore, it is another responsibility of the English teacher to teach presentation expressions in order for their students to save time.

Team members: Minh, Brieanna, and Jerry.

Proper, Prolific, Pragmatic, Professional Presentation Practices

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Today, we had the opportunity to view and respond to a an ESL student’s presentation on a professional topic.  Our presenter was a Japanese IESL student presenting on new methods for contrast imaging, specifically focussed on cancer research.

We took away several different impressions from the presentation.

Responses to the presentation-

Our feedback was focused on the clarity of the presenter’s speech and the comprehensibility of their content expression.  Before starting the feedback, we made efforts to integrate the presenter into the group and build rapport by discussing travel history and experience with the presenter’s hometown.  Rapport is critical for providing accurate and well-received feedback, and helps to move the recipient of feedback from the hidden to open self (according to the Johari window framework).

We tried to focus on both positive and critical aspects of the presentation.  This included reviewing the relative success of the presenter’s exposition regarding complex scientific terminology in simple terms.  Our group found the presenter to be quite effective in this regard.  It is critically important to provide honest, improvement-focused feedback. As such, we also worked with the presenter to improve his pronunciation of particular, high-frequency words. Our group felt like some mispronounced words negatively impeded the reception of the presentation; words like molecular, carbon, variation, and method are commonly mispronounced by Japanese EFL learners.  We provided feedback focused on awareness of the issue, and also suggested mitigation strategies to help improve.

Strategies to implement/activate presentation skills in the classroom:

Speaking skills-  Focusing on improving oral fluency before a presentation would be helpful.  Presenters would also likely benefit from some guidelines on note-taking, which could help provide them with some structure when encountering unexpected questions during a presentation.

Content & Vocabulary- Peer review/group work can be an effective technique for helping students master the vocabulary related to presentations.  Mind-mapping can also serve as a tool to explore synonymous terms for complex scientific terminology.

Body Language & Eye Contact–  Learning about body language and eye contact is important.  Completing practice presentation in small groups, followed up my a reflection/feedback sessions would help students become more comfortable when presenting.  This could be followed up by a full, intraclass presentation with the focus on implementing this feedback.

Pronunciation- As we mentioned above, working with students on especially important/high frequency words to ensure proper pronunciation is important. Eliciting repeated versions of these words, alongside an explicit review of certain common phonetic errors could be helpful. If, (as in this case) the students largely from a particular L1 background, covering common errors made by learners from that particular L1 would be useful.

Benjamin, Annabelle, Aaron, Andrew, Ivanne