Author Archives: Jerry

Reflection on the overall curriculum designing

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Early in the semester, we began the course with a discussion of the wicked problem. If we agree on both problem and solution, then the problem is rather simple. The problem becomes more complex if we do not agree on either problem or solution. Curriculum design is actually like a wicked problem because we often disagree on both problem and solution. I think that this analogy clicked right away at the moment because we need to perform needs assessment in order to find out what the problem exactly is, and then designing an effective curriculum is the solution to the needs of language learners. One interesting thing that I remember from this discussion is that the needs assessment must account for different stories, not different versions of different stories.

Another interesting discussion was horizontal segmentation. Of course, there is neither hierarchy nor one perfect / ultimate product on curriculum, syllabus, and lesson levels. Thinking back to the spaghetti sauce analogy, I recall that having about 3 to 4 clusters within a class actually produces a higher rating of learning satisfaction than running an entire class as one cluster. It is also important to have several choices for students to choose from.

The needs assessment interviews were conducted using the following 4 types of questions: descriptive, structural, contrastive, and explanatory. The questions I asked to the student interviewees consisted of all 4 types, while the interviews with a Korean teacher and a BUILD administrator were conducted in a semi-structured manner. Although my group of interviewees was really small in number to adopt the Wave Model, the set of questions were revised a couple of times before they were used for the interviews. An ample amount of data was still collected for meaningful analysis.

The second half of the course started with a discussion of current language education and classical tradition of language education. The current language education favors differentiated instruction, flexible syllabus with light details, reflection on self or peer assessment, and autonomy including projects. The traditional language education, on the other hand, promoted deductive training and grammar translation that were intertwined with economical / political motivation (social reconstruction). The brief history of how group work and bilingualism came about was an interesting transition to curriculum designing.

In class, we created sample curriculums / syllabi in a specific context such as Mercian problem and content-based syllabus design. Selection and grading make up an important process together, for teachers must make choices of what to teach in what order within a given time frame. I had to go through this exact process when I was designing my horizontal curriculum for MIIS B.U.I.L.D. Korean.

On the whole, I learned a great deal about the complicated, but fun, steps of designing a language curriculum. I never imagined that a curriculum can be related to so many analogies that my perception on curriculum designing has totally changed; it is no longer a boring subject. In fact, I now look forward to designing a Korean language curriculum for my future students! This course will be missed.

– Jerry Kim –

Jerry – Reflection on Dr. Roy Lyster’s Talk

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First of all, I like how Dr. Lyster begins his presentation with cognitive advantages of bilingualism and selective attention. He makes an interesting point that having to manage two languages and switch between them allows learners to hone cognitive skills, but this “two for one” ability does not come to learners for free. According to Dr. Lyster, attention of learners must be drawn to their L2 that is well manipulated and enhanced through content-based instruction. So, based on this idea of attention, I think that language teachers must consider psychological aspects of learning and then come up with effective ways for their students to fully concentrate on language learning before choosing appropriate contents.

The second interesting point Dr. Lyster makes is that L2 learners in French immersion curriculum demonstrate high communicative abilities and confidence as well as native-like comprehension skills but low production skills in grammatical accuracy, lexical variety, and sociolinguistic appropriateness. In other words, separation of language and content allow students to bypass grammar and lexicon. Just as Dr. Lyster proposes systematic integration of language and content over decontextualized language teaching, I believe it is imperative that teachers think about flaws of traditional language teaching such as subject-matter instruction and transfer-appropriate processing.

Third, Dr. Lyster introduces integration of language and content through what is called counterbalance. The crux of this concept is that there must be a proportionate influence of content and language in ways that reinforce connections in memory as well as increase depth of processing. I think it makes sense if teachers look at it from a psychological perspective because something can be remembered for a longer period of time if learners take more time to focus on it and then mentally process it. This idea of counterbalance seems to be the basis for Dr. Lyster’s proactive and reactive approaches to content and language integration.

Fourth and the most interesting point of all is Dr. Lyster’s instructional sequence for integrating language and content. To explain the noticing and awareness steps of his instructional sequence, he shows the video of a moon-walking bear that walks through two teams passing balls among the same team members. The first time I encountered a video of awareness test was in the cognitive psychology class back in my undergraduate, and I learned from the course that most of the viewers would not notice another object or person changing or moving if they did not know about selective attention in advance. Thus, it is interesting to see Dr. Lyster labeling certain grammar points like conjugation and gender as moon-walking bears, which can be learned more attentively to learners through guided and autonomous practices.

My last comment is on the notion of corrective feedback (CF). Dr. Lyster makes a rather surprising remark that teachers are reluctant to provide CF assuming that students prefer not to be corrected. Honestly, I feel uncomfortable to know that there are teachers who hesitate to correct their students. If CF is verified to be effective by four recent meta-analyses and even most effective during interaction among students, then I would strongly argue that after receiving proper training and information of CF types, all language teachers should at least consider trying to give CF to their students and then observe for its effectiveness. Personally, I would like to learn more about scaffolding functions behind recasts as well as output hypothesis and skill acquisition theory behind prompts.

Overall, I truly enjoyed listening to Dr. Lyster’s presentation on proactive and reactive approaches to integrating language and content. I must say that this topic makes me realize how much I have missed studying psychology ever since I got my Bachelor of Science in psychology. In this sense, language acquisition intrigues me very much as it connects two fields of study that I love the most: language and psychology.

Jerry’s Korean Vocab Review Game

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4x4 Square Board

Description

  • This fun activity is designed to help Korean language learners practice and memorize previously learned Korean vocabulary with other peers on the similar level of fluency. Because of its simplicity, it is suitable for beginners who pair up with one other partner.

Instructions

  • Before the game:
  1. Set up the square with a partner (each side has all the new words).
  2. Roll a die to decide the play order (whoever rolls the highest goes first).
  • During the game:
  1. Take turns rolling the die and then moving one’s own piece clockwise.
  2. Give meaning and pronunciation of a word on which one’s own piece lands and then take the word if he or she answers them correctly (the other player can answer if he or she misses either one, and the word is removed if no player answers them correctly).
  3. Four blanks at each corner of the square are free to take with no answer.
  4. The players continue playing until all the words are cleared.
  • After the game:
  1. The player with most words wins (each blank is counted as a word).

Bloom’s Taxonomy

1st Level: Remembering

  • The participants exhibit memory of previously learned Korean vocabulary by correctly recalling meaning and pronunciation of each Korean word.

Crabbe’s Learning Opportunities

2nd Concept: Output

  • The participants produce previously learned Korean words in spoken form.

3rd Concept: Interaction

  • The participants communicate with each other in this simulated situation.

4th Concept: Feedback

  • The participants receive information or correction about their performance.

5th Concept: Rehearsal

  • The participants deliberately repeat previously learned Korean words.

Monterey Way Precepts

2nd: Output and Interaction

  • The participants are provided with a chance to practice previously learned Korean words in this interactive task.

5th: Positive Affect

  • The participants build and maintain individual confidence and motivation by appreciating and supporting each other through mutual help.

Pedagogical Variations

  • It can be used as either a warm-up exercise at the beginning of class or a review exercise at the end of class.
  • It can be played by more than two people as individuals or in teams depending on class size.
  • It can be applied to practicing and memorizing vocabulary of other languages as well.
  • It can include as many words for each side of the square as needed; if there is # number of words to be learned, then the square will be formed in #×#.

Trifold

Short Observation on the In-Class Model Lesson: Recipe for Murder

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Jerry Kim

Professor Shaw

EDUC 8500/8505

10-17-2015

In the last hour of yesterday’s class, Professor Shaw introduced a model lesson for the class to try out in groups. This lesson was based on a reading task, which consisted of six sections. The section 1 was a first pre-reading exercise about content background, and the students had a chance to review their knowledge of 20th to 21st century French history by matching the dates from the given box to the listed events. The section 2 was a second pre-reading exercise about vocabulary, and the students played the Concentration game: in groups, each member selected two of the cards that were faced down and then showed them to his or her group. If a word and its matching definition were both faced up, then the member kept them. If not, then the member had to either give a definition of the selected word or guess a word from the selected definition before returning the two cards faced down to the original place. The game continued until all the cards were matched. The section 3 was a third pre-reading exercise about pronunciation, and the students had an opportunity to practice in their teams French words and phrases that would appear in the reading later on. The section 4 was a fourth pre-reading exercise about discussion, and the students discussed in their groups two profound questions that would have relevance to the reading later on.

After the four pre-reading exercises were done in teams, Professor Shaw distributed the first half of “Recipe for Murder” to the class. For reading, each member was paired with another member in the same group, and each was assigned the character of the story to read aloud. The section 5 was a mid-reading exercise about prediction, and the students answered mid-reading questions with their partners after reading the first half of the story. Once the students had enough time to note their responses briefly, Professor Shaw distributed its second half to the class. The section 6 was a post-reading exercise about comprehension plus analysis, and the students again answered post-reading questions with their partners. Finally, the class did not have time to do it, but this reading task was originally planned to have a differentiated learning workshop afterwards. The students could choose one or more of the following activities: writing, role-playing, language awareness raising, personal writing and art.

I must say that overall, this model lesson is really interesting and instructive in a sense that each section of the task has its specific purpose as to help readers understand better about the story before, during and after reading it. The lesson simply does a very good job in turning the reading into a comprehensible input for English learners; the first four pre-reading sections are well planned to prepare the readers in advance for what may potentially be difficult parts of the reading. For instance, the readers may hardly have any knowledge about the history of France between 20th and 21st century, so they may have trouble picturing the setting of the story. Some of the readers, especially English learners, may lack knowledge of English vocabulary, so they may not understand sentences here and there regardless of the content. Also, those who have no knowledge of French language will have no idea how to pronounce French pronouns or borrowed words from French while reading the story. Lastly, discussing questions that are relevant to the story beforehand allows the readers to expect possible themes. All of the four sections mentioned can help English learners facilitate the reading more smoothly.

In addition, I like the instruction that each student is paired with another and then assigned a character to read aloud. I remember taking my time to read my lines in class because I usually find this style of writing somewhat difficult to follow along at a normal reading speed even though I consider myself fluent in English. Thus, I can definitely imagine how hard it can be for English learners to make sense of the story that may seem foreign to them. One more thing worth mentioning is the mid-reading section, which actually divides up the reading into two at its midpoint; it allows the readers to check what they understand from the first half and what they predict of the last half of the story. Of course, although post-reading questions are nothing new, they are necessary for testing how well the readers comprehend the entire story and guiding them to analyze it more effectively. As a concluding remark, I think that having a learning workshop with differentiated tasks at the end is a brillant part of the lesson plan since it lets the readers make use of what they understand from the reading as to consolidate their learning.

Spanish lesson with Professor Shaw

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Today, Professor Shaw demonstrated the Total Physical Response (TPR) method in class. He asked 10 student volunteers to participate and worked through many exercises in Spanish. He only employed a few parceled phrases in English to clarify directions.

The exercises included: standing up, sitting down, turning circles; recognizing body parts by touching them (nose, foot, head, elbow etc.);  walking  and dancing with specific body parts (Juanito Cuando Baila); recognizing four colors and three shapes; and employing prepositions by demonstrating specific placement of blocks; and exploring sentiments expressed by pictures.

Jerry was the participant, and Aaron was the observer. Jerry has never had a formal Spanish education before, so he was actually a perfect participant. After the exercise, Jerry shared how he felt about it. At first, he was confused between the two colors “amarilla” (yellow) and “Azul” (blue); he thought that “amarilla” was blue and “Azul” was yellow. However, through several repetitions, he eventually learned them.

Professor Shaw introduced ideas of color with the blocks, and reinforced the idea by reengaging ideas of color in relation to number (cup game), shapes (triangulo Azul),  and the demonstration of prepositional phrases. It could also be done with clothing, where students ought to stand or remain sitting depending on the color of their apparel.

Jerry also said that his previous knowledge of French helped him remember certain words like “roja” and “verde” because in French, they are “rouge” and “vert”. One interesting thing to note is that even though he knew French, he actually misunderstood “serio” as “sad” in English rather than “serieux” in French because he thought that the picture of Bill Clinton that he was holding appeared to have a sad expression on his face. Despite the difficulties, he was able to comprehend most of the Spanish sentences that Professor Shaw was using since they were comprehensible inputs.

There was ambiguity. For example, Jerry thought serio meant sad and brusquely memorized it as such. Without a system of backtracking, his misinformation might have lingered. A simple homework exercise linking (with actual lines) definitions to pictures to words all scrambled would make sure the students learn what you think they’re learning. We perhaps preposterously assume that they would check their work against an online dictionary.

Kathy mentioned that she used Brianna  (someone who has studied Spanish) as a model for what to do/when to place the pictures on the table. It is worth being aware of and appreciating how people of varying levels can work together to accomplish a task.

Professor Shaw mentioned that students can develop their own little folder of tools that teachers can employ for language exercises. They might include name tags, animal cards, True/False, or numbers. Then, the teachers can describe a picture in the target language to make students work on their auditory skills/understanding. The teachers may describe a mammal with fur and talons who lives in the jungle and roars and has a mane (exercising a lot of ideas), which the student interprets by holding up their personal lion drawing.

We think it is worth mentioning that Professor Shaw used the pictures to describe the guitar and hat as well as emotional states. Though it can be overdone, working from pictures has a lot of potential.

  • Written by Aaron and Jerry.

 

 

 

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.

Short Observation on In-class Activities: Effective Group Work

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Jerry Kim

Professor Shaw

EDUC 8500/8505

09-12-2015

Yesterday, the class began with each group being given three individual roles and having to come up with one or two more roles on its own. Before the roles were assigned to members of each group, we discussed about the social learning strategies, which were very much related to how the group members interacted with and supported each other. Later in class, each group assigned the prepared roles to its members and then did two activities in a row: “Agree/Disagree” and “Alligator River.” For the first activity, everyone in his or her group took turn writing down ways to express agreement on one paper and disagreement on another paper within a given time. Then we as an entire class divided whatever expressions we had come up with into categories of formal + gentle, informal + gentle, formal + strict and informal + strict for both “agree” and “disagree.” Next, we listened to the story of Alligator River, for which everyone individually had to rank the five characters from most reprehensible to least reprehensible. After individually ranking the characters, each group had to rank them again as a group. Finally, each group shared its ranking with the rest of class.

In the beginning of class, although we only had a brief discussion in groups about the social learning strategies, I realized after the class that the following two activities really required social techniques such as active listening, involvement, negotiation and problem solving. Also, when the professor asked us at the end of class how well we thought we fulfilled our assigned roles, I learned that having individual roles within a group was indeed an effective group work. For example, there were five people in my group and at first had trouble reaching a consensus on ranking the five characters from the Alligator River story. But one of my group members had a role as an “announcer,” and he announced to the rest of group members that the fairest way to settle the dispute would be simply tallying up our individual scores and then the math would take care of the group ranking by itself. So I believe that group works that consist of the social learning strategies and role assignment can be very effective in language learning as well since language learners can help each other in their target languages by actively listening, getting involved, negotiating and solving problems together while maintaining efficient group work by taking active roles in accordance with their strengths and weakness.