Team Sonati decided to reflect on the design process immediately after the Curriculum Design Fair and post our fresh, unedited thoughts in audio form. Enjoy!
Catherine, Kelly, y Dean
Needs Assessment Reflection
The task of designing needs assessments for our curriculum design project was great learning experience for me. I had some practice creating needs assessments for the Language Teacher Education course, but was not able to pilot the assessments to see if the assessment design was successful in gathering the right kind of feedback. It was also motivating to create NAs that served a purpose of helping us to design a curriculum that would be useful to the program at SONATI.
We began the process of our NA by creating initial questions to ask through a Skype interview with one of the SONATI directors. We wanted to gather information that would help us create surveys that elicited detailed responses based on the initial interview. The interview was conducted in Spanish by Kelly and Dean. Since I don’t speak Spanish, I was a silent observer but was able to roughly follow what was being said. We used the information gathered during that interview to create three different surveys, one for the directors of the program, one for the volunteer teacher, and one for the students. We delivered the surveys via email and received feedback quickly. Receiving the feedback quickly was encouraging because it shows that SONATI is invested in this project and is excited to receive the final product.
Through the interview we gathered the following basic information about the course and the materials in the classroom:
From the administrator questionnaire, we received more information about the volunteer teachers who work for SONATI. Most of the Nicaraguan teachers serve for one year and the foreign teachers typically serve for three to six months. SONATI wants the curriculum to be broad and flexible enough to cover a one-year period, giving the teachers space to adapt the lessons to their own needs.
We found out that the volunteer teacher is a non-native speaker of English, but studied English for ten years, and practiced her English through traveling. She is not a trained teacher and has never taught English before. She is interested in teaching through environmental content and using games and projects to reinforce learning.
We received responses from eleven out of the twenty students who ranged in age from eleven to fifteen. There is a mix of the students’ exposure to English, but their levels are all beginner. They are interested in doing group work and learning English through studying nature. They are most interested in studying natural habitats and recycling. Some of the students responded that they are motivated to learn English because “it is very important for any future career”, “When I’m older I might need to work or study in English”, and “Because I like it a lot. I want to better myself, I want to be somebody in life, I want to be a translator”.
Based on our findings, we decided that we will create an environmentally focused flexible CBI program for classes that meet two hours a week on Saturdays for twelve months. We believe that SONATI will be pleased with the curriculum if it is aligned with the foundations mission to educate about the environment. There was some hesitation from one of the administrators about designing a content based curriculum for low level learners, but we hope we will be able to show that is possible to combine both English language instruction with environmental education at a level appropriate for the students.
Upon receiving the survey results and analyzing them, we realized we forgot to ask a few important demographic questions, like the name of the town where the new class is offered. We realized we should have asked someone outside of our group to review the surveys before sending it out. We might have received suggestions such as creating a likert-like scale on the student survey instead of having them just pick one answer. That way we would have gathered more information about students’ interests in topics to cover in the course.
This image is to accomany the audio post by Dylan titled “Pedagogical Trade Fair Audio Recap” linked here. 
Willem de Kooning image discussed in the audio file
Untitled V 1982 Oil on Canvas 
I watched an online class carried out through the use of Google Hangouts focused on a grammar lesson. The lesson is about the present continuous as presented by one teacher to about eight students. Because of the online class format, students sign-in and leave the hangout during the class, accounting for the approximate student count. The class lasts about fifty-eight minutes and mostly follows a formulaic initiation, response, and evaluation (IRE) pattern. The teacher asks a student, by name, to provide an example demonstrating their understanding of the sentence pattern, the student will answer, and the teacher will provide some sort of evaluation about their response and then ask another student to provide an example. The teacher is in control for most of the lesson, determining who will speak and about what. Towards the end of the lesson, I think once the students have developed more of a relationship with one another and the teacher, the students take a more active role in answering each others’ questions and clarifying things when the teacher can’t hear due to microphone issues with one of the students.
The teacher’s evaluation always comes in some combination of saying “good”, “very good”, or “perfect”. Towards the end of the lesson at minute 49:12, a student provides an answer to a question and before the teacher can respond, another student, Danny, says “perfect, perfect”, mimicking the teacher. Because rapport among the students and teacher has already been established, the teacher and the other students laugh at this exchange. Danny continues to enact the role of teacher by correcting other students’ mistakes and using the same lexical items the teacher used throughout the lesson. Danny rises in the hierarchy of powerful contributors to this discourse and often provides opportunities for the other students to use English outside of the IRE formula. This process of students taking more control of the class allowed them to have more natural interactions instead of sticking to the teacher directed IRE formula.
Danny also takes on the identity of “teacher” when he initiates and repairs other students’ mistakes. At minute 52, Orlando starts to give an example sentence but pauses. Danny offers words of encouragement and coaches Orlando by suggesting one word at a time to help him complete his sentence. After Orlando completes his turn, Danny says, “That’s good” and Orlando responds to him saying, “Thank you, thank you, Danny”. Danny laughs and responds by saying “You’re welcome”.
I have become increasingly interested in CMC and CALL classes. I’m taking Netta’s CALL workshop next semester and wanted to have a better understanding of what online classes look like. That is what motivated me to watch this lesson. I think it is important for a teacher to have a clear understanding of what role he or she wants to play in a classroom discourse whether it is face-to-face or online. It is not always necessary for a teacher to be in control of the power and to determine which student should participate or that their responses need to match a specific sentence structure. The first half of the lesson, when the teacher was at the center of the discourse, was repetitive and dull. The students provided variations of the same answer but were not using the target structure in context. The students even looked bored. When the students took more control and directed the conversations towards the end, the students were participating more and producing more varied sentences. From this, I have learned that, while repeated linguistic markers allow students to know what will come next in the conversation, it becomes static and deters the students from participating communicatively. I think the teacher created a space where the students felt comfortable and that is why they started to speak more which is another important take-away from this lesson. I also became more aware of the many technical issues a teacher must account for in an online class. It limits the type of interactions students and teachers have but can still be a successful medium to use allowing geographically diverse students to interact with one another.
-Catherine
I observed Peter Seilheimer’s beginning German BUILD class on 11/6. The class is from 6-6:50 and there was only one student for this lesson. Peter briefly explained to me what he had planned for the class was to look at movement verbs and he had a powerpoint and some interactive activities planned, but he scrapped those because the student wanted to practice reading and pronunciation so she can read German children’s books to her child.
Peter chose one of his favorite children’s books and had the student read the title and try to guess what it meant because the words are similar to English. Peter began by reading a sentence and then having the student echo read so she could imitate his pronunciation. As they moved through the book, they switch to reading every other sentence (turn reading), which moved faster and allowed the student to practice pronunciation more. After reading each page, they would discuss what was happening based on word knowledge and using the pictures to help when needed. At certain points during the lesson, Peter would stop and do a mini pronunciation lesson or vocabulary lesson on the board based on words in the text or pronunciation the student struggled with. An example of a mini pronunciation lesson was when peter discussed different vowel sounds and words containing those vowels.
Wien ie= “ee” Wein ei = “eye”
They discussed other vowel sounds and spelling patterns and would revisit those sounds in the text on the following pages.
Peter also was able to pass along some cultural knowledge of colloquialisms found within the text: “Ich muss für Königstiger” and “Ich muss für kleine Mädels” – these are polite ways for children to say that they have to go to the bathroom. It is like saying, “I must”, and it is more polite than saying the whole phrase in certain regions of Germany.
After reading the book, the student chose certain pronunciation problems she had encountered to review. Peter made a list of diphthongs and example words on the board for the student to write down and take home.
Peter is a very animated teacher in his demonstrations of pronunciation and explaining vocabulary words. He used very little English, mostly just to explain grammar or higher level concepts, and used expressive body language and drawings on the board to make certain meanings clearer. I can tell he is passionate about teaching German and German culture and I found it refreshing to see him use a children’s book to teach a successful lesson to an adult. I think what I learned most from observing Peter is that enthusiasm and animation are very effective tools when communicating in another language.
-Catherine
Class Group Activity for Project Based Instruction: Observation of in-class demonstration
1. Defining Terms – The groups were given envelopes with definitions and terms relating to project based instruction. Some examples include, task, lesson plan, unit plan, syllabus, etc.
2. Sorting Projects– We looked at examples of different projects and decided if they would fit as an in-class project, and in-class and community project, or a community project.
3. Selecting Appropriate Projects/ Apples to Apples: Project based learning – Given a set of parameters describing the students in a class and what their strengths and weaknesses were, we had to select from a pile a project that would best suit the situation.
4. Planning a Project – We reviewed the terms and project ideas from the previous activities and decided on a context to plan a project based syllabus (either unit based or course based). We had to decide on the students’ proficiency level, their needs and interests, and the focus of the course. On a large piece of paper, we planned the syllabus and noted the main activities and outcomes at each stage. This was a great opportunity to bounce ideas off one another and create a cohesive course design (a nice intro to curriculum design!)
5. Group Presentation – Each group presented their poster discussing the type of project (Unit based or Course based), describing the context and level of the students, and the specific components within the syllabus. Each syllabus design was unique in the topics covered and their context.
~ Our project is designed for an intermediate ESL class. The students are motivated by music and using social media. Incorporated into learning English through studying musical genres is a functional aspect focused on being a consumer (buying concert tickets and organizing transportation to a concert) and on promoting a music event (designing promotional materials that include the essential information). The students also have the opportunity to engage with the community by conducting interviews about music preferences and have the option to use social media for their final project, which is to promote a concert or other music related event.
| English Thrü Music | Composition and Accent: An Arpeggiated Ascent | ||
| Unit/ Topic |
Tasks/Assignments |
||
| Week 1 | An Historical Survey of World Music |
Short written report: students choose topic (musician, composer, singer, etc.) DUE: End of week 3 |
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| Week 2 | Continue with Historical Survey | discuss course syllabus and project deadlines | |
| Week 3 | English in Use: buying tickets, finding venues, arranging transportation | ||
| Week 4 |
Discuss oral interview guidelines DUE: End of week 6 |
||
| Week 5 | Sweuite (Sweet/Suite) Street Beats: Interviews about music | ||
| Week 6 | Music and Media: Programs & publicity in preparation for week 7 |
Begin final presentation: Program Design DUE: End of week 9 |
|
| Week 7 | Continue with Programs and Publicity | ||
| Week 8 | THE CONCERT | ||
| Week 9 | Final Presentation/ Magnum Opus | ||
Post by: Catherine Purdy, Phil Martin, Aaron Ensman
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
We discussed adapting the activity for advanced level learners. The different topics for multiple choice allow the students to collaborate with their peers and use prior knowledge to formulate responses and practice speaking in a conversational setting while moving around to keep the students engaged. This method utilizes kinesthetic learning, a learning style that we feel often gets neglected in higher level classes. Typically, higher level classes focus on course reading and written material, which doesn’t allow for authentic engagement with the material. Specifically, we felt this could be used to express creative, original thought, opinions, and for comparing/constrastic ideas. This activity allows students to tap into multiple learning strategies while addressing material that could have been covered in previous formal lecture style classes.
Catherine Purdy
Ben Carignan
Annabelle Royer
Phil Martin