Chapter 3: Vocabulary
1. The textbook describes effective vocabulary presentations and subsequent practice. List the characteristics of effective presentations.
2. List the ways to effective practice the vocabulary after you present it.
3. Consider 2nd graders, 6th graders, 11th graders. How would the theme of "Talking about school life" look different with each of these grades?
Chapter 4: Grammar (Secondary)
ReplyDelete1. While you read through the chapter, compile a list of "do's and don'ts" in constructing grammar lessons.
2. Summarize the differences and the positives/negatives of the student-centered and inductive/implicit approach.
3. Write out the steps of the PACE model. Compare/Contrast this model to the ones in #2.
4. How does TPR enter into the discussion of grammar instruction?
Chapter 3:
ReplyDelete1. The characteristics of effective presentations.
The activities done are: interactive, include multiple senses and different forms of media, follow a theme, make associations with previous knowledge, use authentic language, and are realistic to the student.
2. Effective practice techniques: repetition, use of music/songs, word associations, student manipulation of the words, labeling, and physical movement.
3. Provided that they all started at the same time. 2nd graders would have more simplistic language use. They would talk about playing outside, reading a book, talking in Spanish (but it would be very simple and probably in broken sentences). 6th graders should be able to form sentences, but they would still be fairly simplistic. They may be able to talk about "I go to English, I read a book and write", "I go to Science, I study the earth and animals". 11th graders are going to be able to form more complex sentences and build more elaborate paragraphs. "I go to English at 11:00 in the morning and read a book of poems by Emily Dickinson. Then I go to Chemistry at 1:00pm where I learn about the elements and do fun experiments. It is very exciting. At the end of the day I go to practice and play volleyball... etc." It the students where to start at the same time speech would get more and more complex as they grew up, but students at the same level of learning are going to have similar speaking methods. Older students are going to understand the rules of grammar better while younger students will not know the rules (though they likely may use them).
1. DO'S
ReplyDelete*Only teach one grammar aspect at a time
*Make it meaningful
*Build on the knowledge - words to sentences to paragraphs
*Use both oral and written input and output
*Have the learner do something with the input (keep it task based)
*Keep in mind the strategies that the learner uses.
*Keep a balance between teacher-centered and student-centered
*Use a combination of deductive and inductive methods, and a variety of methods in general.
*Make the rules explicit
DONT'S
*Decontextualize the material
*Make random lists to be memorized
*Rely on communicative or drill and practice activities.
2. Positives to the student centered approach and inductive/implicit approach
*Students get to formulate their own hypothesis about the rules.
*It is taught in context.
*Students discover patterns on their own(they learn better this way according to Bruner, 1961).
Negatives of the student centered approach and inductive/implicit approach
*Student discovery cannot be guaranteed.
*When they are discovered they are not always correct.
3. PACE stands for Presentation, Attention, Co-construction, and Extension.
*Presentation is how the student gets the information, in this case the information is given in context similar to the implicit (student centered) method.
*Attention is how the teacher calls the attention of the student to the specific grammatical rules they are teaching.
*Co-Construction is how the teacher goes in depth about the concept. This is when it is fully explained and the uses are explored.
*Extension is how the teacher goes beyond just teaching the concept, this is where it starts to return to the more implicit model.
This is different from the methods in 2 because it has both a top down and a bottom up format.
4. TPR can effectively be used in learning grammar, however it is often best when it is paired with another activity because it in order to appeal to all students the concept needs to be displayed in more than just auditory and physical modes. TPR is best when used in the input phase and works very well for students when paired with rule noticing and guided discovery.
Culture Chapter 9 Blog questions
ReplyDeleteAs you can see, teaching culture effectively and profoundly, though very important, has many challenges, also. What do you see as the challenges for yourself in being successful in teaching “culture?” What do you see as ways to meet the challenges?
Select a piece of realia (authentic material or “stuff” from the culture) and describe how you would use it from awareness to deeper understanding of the culture.
How would you use a fantasy experience in your classroom?
What other ideas do you have or see from the reading for the incorporation of culture into your classroom related to the age of your students?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCulture comment (Fabian Zuleta)
ReplyDeleteChallenges at the moment of teaching culture:
- Make students be intrinsically interested on the culture content.
- Knowing what kind of information (culturally speaking) fits in a better way with the student’s proficiency level.
- Make sure that students learn language content along with culture information.
Ways to meet the challenges:
- Finding out what do students like about the target culture (movies, music, art, sports, etc
- Using appropriate content for culture classes (e.g. cartoons for kids and TV news for adults with a high proficiency level)
- Planning the classes in order for them to rehearse what the students already know about the language or prepare them for the language contents they will see in the next classes.
Realia: Sayings (I know it is not on the list of the text but I would really like to talk about this resource. In spite of this it might be well used with pictures of scenes in the target language. See examples at the end).
Even though Spanish and English have very different historical origins, the two of them have something very important in common. Both of them are two of the world’s most widely spoken languages and they are the reflection of two different cultures and societies that, in spite of the distance and the boundaries that separate them, they have more in common that we would normally think.
Teaching culture through language is one of the most difficult things to do when you are just using the resources that the language itself offers to you. Even though I would like to "go for it" and try to teach culture through language itself.
(to be continued)
In English, when we talk about a situation in which is convenient to get up early in the morning we say “the early bird catches the worm” and in Spanish we say “al que madruga, Dios le ayuda”, that directly translated* would be “God helps the one that gets up early”. Even though, both of these sayings communicate that it is very convenient to get up early in the morning, the words used to tell the message are very different. When we say “out of sight, out of mind” we mean that when we do not know about a certain fact or situation we basically do not care about it, while in the Spanish “ojos que no ven, corazon que no siente” that directly translated will be “eyes that do not see, heart that does not feel” we refer to the same situation in which we are not aware about a fact or situation and, therefore, it can’t affect us. In spite of this, when we think of our life as not one of the best we would say we have “a dog’s life” or “una vida de perros”, if we are somehow intimidated or scared about something we have “the tail between the legs” or “la cola entre las piernas” and when someone gives a gift we remember that “you shouldn’t look at a gift horse in the mouth” or that “a caballo regalado no se le miran los dientes”. But it is fascinating to think that in English you say “I am twenty years old” and in Spanish you say “Yo tengo veinte años” which means that in English you “are” your age but in Spanish you “have” your age. It is also interesting that in English cats have nine lives while in Spanish they have only seven and in English it is the cat that gets our tongue when we don’t say anything while in Spanish it is the mouse.
ReplyDeleteThings like these are the ones that, as a translator, you have to be aware of while trying to express an idea from one language to another (e.g. from Spanish to English). What most people do not know is that a translator translates ideas and not words from one language to another. What would you think if, for some reason, you say “I don’t like to get up early for classes” and someone else says: well… “God helps the one who gets up early” (example of fantasy experience). Learning a language that has interesting differences from the one you speak as your first language allows you to understand and also learn about a different culture and society. Sometimes, we don’t even realize that some aspects of our language communicate and carry with them little pieces of what our culture is and what we really are as a society.
(to be continued)
Anyways, as we can see, we can teach culture by only using language and we can make it be interesting and profitable for students of any age and proficiency level (e.g. using easy examples for low proficiency students and more complex examples for high proficiency students). We can use real life situations using the above examples:
ReplyDelete- Asking the students to find out when is it appropriate to use some of the sayings listed above.
- Asking the students to think of a translation for some of the sayings and compare both of them.
- Asking the students to directly translate some of the saying and see if they make in the target language.
- Asking the students to find out what are the general differences between the sayings in each language and see what can it tells us about the culture of each country.
- After having students learn some of the saying they can role play a real life situation in which they can use some of them and reinforce what they have learned during the class.
- We can give the students some pictures of scenes in the target language and they can guess when it is appropriate to use some of the sayings listed above in some of the scenes or...
- We can give the students some pictures of scenes in the target language and some pictures with some sayings written on them so students can try to match scenes with possible sayings.
*A direct translation is a translation based only on the words of the sentence so they make sense in the target language, while in regular translation we translate the main idea of the sentence so it fits not only in the grammar of the target language but also in the culture where this language is spoken.
PD: Im sorry but I had to split my comment into three parts because I was having problems to post it since it was to extensive
I see my biggest challenge being the fact that I have not lived the cultures. Even after traveling abroad and trying to immerse myself in the culture, I do not know and/or understand many cultural things, and even those that I am familiar with I have not lived them and therefore cannot relate the true perspectives only my own.
ReplyDeleteThe best that I can do with this is to be honest with my students. I must first learn what I can about the culture, and then teach it to them, making sure that I preference it with the fact that I have not lived it and there are certainly other perspectives. I think it would be wonderful to either have someone visit the class or to take the class somewhere where they could talk to and see, touch, smell, and taste that culture.
I think it would be neat to bring in handmade tortillas that I have learned to make from a sweet Mexican lady for the class to try. I would then talk about the types of food, the role that food plays in the society, and even when and how things are prepared and served. Then if possible I would have her come in and talk to the class about how she and her family views food, and maybe even have the class make tortillas with her. Afterwards I would challenge the class to eat the kinds of food at the times that the people in the culture would eat them. I would have them essentially live through the eating experience of the people of that culture (this case Mexican). It would of course be a challenge and not a requirement. Finally I would have the student talk about their experiences and possibly even have them creatively/reflectively write about what they feel/felt/found.
I may have my students prepare to take a trip, and or take a trip (for pretend). I would have them research the area they are traveling to, and things that they need to know. Then I could have them change roles and become a travel agent (expert) and tell the others in the class what they could do and what they would need to know if they were going to take a trip to that location.
The age of the students is defiantly important. For younger children I may take some stories, nursery rhymes, fables, and tall tales and have the students read them. Depending on their level in Spanish or English.
For older students I may do something similar, but have it not only the read it part but have them talk about it in a more abstract manner. Have them look at what these things are teaching the children and maybe why they would be necessary. I would also have them compare/contrast the stories etc to ones that they learned when they were younger.
For younger students I would likely introduce the culture and lightly brush the surface of meaning and understanding for older students I would go much more in depth.
Just like with our stories, fables, etc we learned them long before we learned that they were written/told to teach us lessons like don't talk to strangers, or wander in the woods alone.
Chapter 10 CLT
ReplyDelete1. Enhance the list from #2 above to describe principles of successful assessments.
Successful assessments have clear grading and evaluation criteria, take the learner’s anxieties into consideration, present the instructions in a written and clearly understandable format, the test must be objective, and the students need to be evaluated immediately after the test, the students are prepared for the test, the teacher evaluates the test and makes changes as necessary.
2.Describe the differences in achievement, proficiency and prochievement test formats.
Achievement tests almost always written, paper pencil, tests. Proficiency tests have to be given by someone who is trained, and look at speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Prochievement tests are similar to a performance test. They show that the students know and can apply the information and skills that they have learned.
3. In your own words, describe how “different tasks types correspond to different assessment types.” P. 389
Essentially depending on the type of task that they student needs to perform to show that they know/understand, can apply/use, and are ready to build upon the type of assessment is different. If the task necessary is writing verses speaking verses doing, it will change how one could assess the task and there for the type of assessment.
4. What issues do you identify in terms of test development, grading and scoring?
First off I think the hardest part will be to write or create tests that truly measure what the student has learned as opposed to what they don’t know. Creating rubrics, to assess things that are not black and white, that are specific enough that there is not room for bias will also be a task that will take a lot of work and could be an issue, if one is not very careful to do so. Finally making certain that the test is both reliable and valid is very important and may prove to be an issue.
Should you teach to the test?
Kinda, you should actually ‘test to the teach’ in other words, you should test what has been taught. So yes you are teaching to the test, but really it is more that the test assess exactly what you have taught.
Chapter 7 LC
ReplyDelete1. Explain the statement: The most powerful assessment tools are performance tasks that allow students to use the language they have learned in a meaningful and purposeful way.
This relates to the idea of task based learning. If students can use a skill that they are learning they will better learn and/or solidify the skills that they are working on. When a student can see the importance and usefulness of a skill they all so get more excited about it.
2. What are the steps you need to do to plan a successful performance assessment?
The task for a performance assessment: must be in context, it needs to be meaningful and not just relevant or practical, it should be a performance not a drill, and students need to know the target and the standard in advance.
3. How do checklists fit in this assessment concept?
Checklists can be used to say “yes” the student knows this part or “no” the student doesn’t know this part. These are probably most useful in a performance assessment. This should be used when you are looking at if they have or haven’t learned something, not to what extent.
4. How does a rubric differ? When would you use one tool over another?
ReplyDeleteA rubric allows you to have different levels of completion, not just yes or no. It allows you to chose between they completely get something, they don’t understand as well as you would like, they kinda have the idea, or they have no clue.
5. What do you think of the “boxes” strategy?
I think it would be good in that students that need help would get it, but I also think that it could really be detrimental to the students. If a student guesses the right answer that gets them out of trying another question and you don’t know if they really learned it or if they just guessed right.
6. List the guidelines for successful achievement testing.
The test shows that the students know the information.
The test shows that the students can use the information.
The test has a similar format as the way the student was taught.
It is measurable, a value can be given to the results.
It can be used, and is used, as feedback for the students and the teacher.