Teaching the Language System - Grammar and Vocabulary

Wrap up:

• Learnt how to incorporate learning strategies for students for both grammar and vocabulary. Discovered how the two are linked and their important roles in learning English. As a strategy I liked the use of student vocabulary journals in which they are taking an active part of their learning process. 
• Learnt repetition and practice is key to automisation but lesson plans should be taught in context and not to teach grammar points in isolation. Appreciated the lesson plan checklist, helped with keeping a communicative approach to teaching grammar. Learnt that it is during the focused practice phase that you can interrupt students and correct them for accuracy and to keep the communicative phase fluid.
• Surprised me that explicitly teaching grammar rules speeds up the learning acquisition and that accuracy when using a language is also very important to being intelligible during communication.
• Surprised when creating a "schemata" for a single word on how it branched out to so many meanings and associations of that one word. It put into perspective the complexity of teaching vocabulary.
• Struggling with the inductive approach to teaching grammar and putting it into practice. Need more work on how to provide opportunities for meaningful communication through which students can discover the rule.
• I am still struggling with the grammar itself and not being comfortable with the contents of the material. 

Teaching the Language System - Grammar & Vocabulary

Module 5: Ways of Presenting Grammar

As a new teacher I would be more inclined to teach grammar deductively. I believe this strategy would be best considering my low comfort level with grammar rules. I might know instinctively how to write or speak grammatically correct texts and phrases. However teaching grammar principles would require on my part more familiarity with the rules and vocabulary of grammar to become a content expert for the students. If using an inductive approach I feel because of lack of experience I could get confused in guiding learners to achieve an accurate formulation of the rule.

One of the advantages of a deductive approach is it gets straight to the point. This appeals to my preferred teaching style since I'm not big on lectures. I prefer to keep my explanations clear and concise and then have lots of practice time for the students. I do believe adult learners need to perform the task in order to learn rather than listen to an instructor go on and on. One of the reasons I would hesitate to choose teaching grammar inductively is because of the time taken to work out a rule takes away from practicing communication skills.

I can understand if teaching only with the "chalk-and-talk" approach as cited by S. Thornbury lesson plans can become dull and boring. This type of approach might not appeal to everyone's learning style either, for example as in young students. How can I encourage myself to be more comfortable with the inductive strategy? I myself am a visual learner. S. Thornbury's sample lesson of teaching the present simple using realia (Beginners) appealed to my senses. I like the idea of using objects and keeping students interests high by using detective work as the activity. This seems like a fun activity, which focuses on the meaning rather than the form of the rule making it less dry as a lesson. When trying a new approach I would like to get feedback from the learners and act accordingly to their opinions on how the lesson went. Learning from experience and building confidence I would like to plan lessons using a generative situation. I like that this type of presentation offers a wide variety of visual media. If you don't have diversity in your lesson plans you risk tuning people out and you might even get bored by not challenging yourself from time to time. 

Teaching the Language System - Grammar and Vocabulary

Day of the Girl - Toronto Oct. 11

"If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls." 
Creg Mortenson, 
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . .   One School at a Time

Module 4: Developing a Grammar Lesson

I believe when there are clear goals established in your lesson plan it creates a path to learning that flows. When the objectives are focused on what adult students need and want they are more engaged in the process. It is very important to know students' backgrounds, prior learning and reasons for wanting to learn a second language because it determines the context you use in planning lessons. Participants appreciate when goals are introduced at the beginning of the lesson plan. When both teacher and students are heading towards the same goals learning becomes a joint effort. For adults the lesson plan activities need to be relevant and authentic to hold meaning for them. Students want to transfer their learnt skills and be able to communicate with others in the real world. 

As a new teacher in grammar I would use a lesson plan checklist to conduct a grammar lesson that flowed. I find a plan would be a better way for me to go instead of facilitating a project then finding the teachable moments for grammar points. My knowledge of grammar isn't high enough to go that route. I liked the format: Background Information - Presentation Phase - Focused Practice - Communicative Practice. I found there were several activities for learners to practice the language both in a structured-focused and communicative-focused methods. I like the way the form precedes the function giving students a base to build from. With this plan there is a variation of activities which keeps the interests of your participants. By applying different learning styles and by using a variety of single, pair and group work you are bound to involve your students and their preferred method of learning. You may even introduce learners to new ways  of learning communication skills, which they might appreciate instead of only the grammar translation method.

I find immediate feedback valuable but you must consider the timing. I think the most practicable time is during the Focused Practice phase. First you don't want students to carry over repeated mistakes into the next phase. Fellow students can be part of feedback during this phase and correct each other. During the communicative phase I don't believe feedback should be given during the activity. When you interrupt to give feedback you are interrupting the flow of the activity and learning. Since the goal is for the use of communicative language at this stage it seems counterproductive and maybe even discouraging for the participants. When I instruct safety training and we are at the final activity of role plays during emergency response procedures, I never interrupt the flow of their role plays. I wait until they are finished and then we begin feedback. I begin with the person giving themselves feedback, the group and lastly myself if I need to clarify any points. I don't know what a person is thinking while they are problem solving and acting in their emergency situation. I don't want to interrupt their train of thought while they reach for their goal. In language class I would give general feedback at the end of the activity as a group and not target any one individual at this stage.

I think an activity becomes "autotelic" when the students are stimulated and the activities challenge their skill level. The teacher needs to know the skill level of students to arouse their interests but not so high as to frustrate learners. That is why I like the lesson plan checklist since students' backgrounds are the first on the list. This information would be acquired during a needs assessment for the course.

Teaching Grammar and Vocabulary

Module 2: Why do we teach grammar?

"A student in your class approaches you and tells you she is very bored with the grammar lessons, and that she feels she can learn English without learning grammar separately. What would you tell her?"
I would tell her that it very important to be accurate as well as fluent in speaking and writing a language to have meaningful communication whether for academic advancement, work, or social interactions. Betty Azar "Goal - Create an inter-language that is increasingly fluent and accurate in the use of English structure in meaningful communication" The Naturalist Movement, Krashen (1982) believed grammar would be learnt naturally from meaningful interactions in the classroom. Research has showed that when grammar is included in the program students show accelerated learning and substantial gains in usage ability. The written example Betty Azar gave of a University student was quite astounding. There were so many fossilised mistakes in the text it was even hard to believe they had passed high school. For this reason grammar has returned into the curriculum and communicative methods can be integrated into grammar based teaching. I would say to the bored students that the solution is not to eliminate grammar but to find a more interesting methodology in teaching it to keep their interests high.
     In preparing lesson plans and activities I would do things differently depending on the group of students. I would consider perhaps the age of the students in the class and also consider different learning styles. Hedge 5.2.2 Reasoning and hypothesising "Adult learners in particular tend to use their capacity to analyse a new language." I think adult learners like to learn the rules and figure out the patterns in a language and compare it with the L1. Also by having explicit grammar knowledge learners can monitor and check their language. Perhaps younger learners would find all this analysis boring. In both cases I believe a communicative approach is a better way to teach rules and structure especially with students who find it boring.  I think it would be fun to have activities where the class is moving as in blackboard races for kinesthetic learning styles. I would tell my bored student there is value in learning grammar and we can work on the approach to make it more interesting for them.

Thinking About Theory

• My views of language learning and teaching changed after the module: Comparing Language Teaching Methods. My own experience of 2nd language learning was grammar translation and audiolingualism approach without very desirable interest or results. I was introduced to a variety of methods throughout history each with strengths and weaknesses. I learnt not to discount some approaches because of my past experience but think creatively and consider drill activities fun when used in songs. When defining communicative competence I learnt about form and function and that language knowledge comprised both organisational knowledge and pragmatic knowledge. Bachman and Palmer

•  I found the most interesting was the module on Communicative Classrooms. I liked the idea that language in the classroom should be as real as possible and unpredictable. I prefer the idea of using pair and group work in cooperative learning activities. The advantage is that students interact (talk) more amongst themselves than teacher-led activities. I found the information-gap activities great for authentic language use, unpredictability in communication and enjoyable. I did learn that there still should be a balance between fluency and accuracy with communicative activities. A disadvantage to the communicative approach surprisingly comes from the students themselves.  They dislike this approach mainly because of sociocultural or past educational experiences and do not feel inclined or equipped to work in groups. Their preference is teacher-led activities.

• I was surprised to learn of strategic competence and that it was also teachable. I found it interesting that you can teach students how to use strategies such as paraphrase, guessing, repetition, avoidance of words when there is a breakdown in communication. I liked that strategic competence included non-cognitive aspects to learning such as self confidence and risk taking.

• To continue on my learning journey my next step is grammar. Professionally I would like to develop language vocabulary and activities towards Business English. I think teaching with the Communicative Approach would be a good fit in the business world. 

Thoughts on Language Learning & Teaching

Thinking about Theory: Communicative Classrooms

Communicative Classrooms: "Guide at the side"

Thinking about Theory

    Key characteristics of communicative activities are that language should be real, spontaneous, focus on meaning not form, and be interactive.
    Authenticity in the classroom is important for students to be able to transfer their knowledge and skills to real life situations. Learning slang, gambits, idioms, catchphrases, and social formulas to help discourse competence.
    Example of an information-gap activity for speaking/listening:  Two handouts of same map but Student A has different locations to describe than student B. Take turns in asking and giving directions.
    In task based learning language production starts immediately, students engage in meaningful communication and develop strategic competence. At the end of activity structured elements are addressed and practiced.
    Pros & Cons: Balance of form-focused and meaning-focused activities is necessary to develop communicative competence. Authentic language might overwhelm students at beginner level. Teacher must equip students with sufficient skills or revise the task to make it manageable. In communicative classroom management teacher guides students with pair and group work.


   

Understanding Language Skills: Learning Objectives

Learning objectives role are to keep focus on specific goals and are made to keep courses accountable to both the students and institutions funding the programs. Learning objectives can be modified when performing ongoing formative assessments throughout the course. These assessments can provide essential information on a student's strengths and needs. This data can alter the learning objectives or confirm that they are meeting the goals of the learners.
Teaching attempts to transform learners by students Knowing new things, demonstrate and apply new Skills, and maintain and develop positive Affect towards themselves and learning. B. Bloom identified 3 domains: cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills when planning educational objectives. Most common focus is on the cognitive domain: what students know and are able to do. Learning objectives can also address cultural issues and values which fall into the affective realm.
S.M.A.R.T. method used to develop learning objectives. Specific: accurately describe purpose Measurable: solid evidence that objectives are achieved Achievable: good match between what's intended and what's possible, consider students skills & knowledge, consider resources - space, equipment, staff... Relevant: real purpose Timely: achieved in available time.
B. Bloom use of measurable verbs to help describe and classify observable knowledge, skills, attitude, behaviour and abilities. Knowledge - Name, Comprehension - Discuss, Application - Demonstrate
Critical Thinking Analysis - Debate, Synthesis - Design, Evaluation - Assess. 

Understanding Language Skills: 4 Skills

The integration of all four language skills with multi-lesson and multi-level activities considers learning as a whole language approach. Communication consists of sending and receiving messages. Production (writing & speaking) and reception (reading & listening) are interrelated. Practicing one skill strengthens the other. Multi-level activities should be considered when designing practical lesson plans. Lessons should reflect real-world situations, be functional, and also consider the socio-cultural context. Even if the main focus of an activity is not grammar it can still be an incorporated component of a communicative activity.

Reading the World

Reading Skills:

• Skill which opens the doors to the world, language, culture & ideas
• Knowledge: Syntactic (grammar rules to form sentences) Morphological  (relationship of words ie. kind unkindness) General World, Sociocultural (context) Topic (subject,theme) Genre (particular style)                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
• Schematic knowledge: concept of prior knowledge, able to make  connections and give meaning to unfamiliar words and ideas
• Reading strategies: For comprehension first scan, read article quickly for context. Underline unknown words, read again then use dictionary. Guessing words and then verify. Summarise by paragraph, reread and then summarise by article. 

Writing up a Storm

Writing Skills:

• Like reading the advantages of literacy as in the context of education where students are tested on writing proficiency.
•  Process of writing is not linear. Recursive process means writers plan, draft, edit, re-plan, re-draft, re-edit like a wheel before they have written a final version.
• Writing & Speaking: Both are products of a language. Written word tends to be permanent, speaking is often transient, unless text messaging which resembles informal speech. 
• Aspects to consider when writing: Purpose, genre, text construction, cohesion, coherence and register.

Pardon Me, What was that?

Listening Skills:

• Prominence of English such as access to the world (BBC), pleasure (music), travel/tourism (lingua franca), work purposes and academic requirements (international English)
• Some difficulties in learning to listen are mishearing messages, accents in delivery, affective characteristics of listener (tired), defective equipment, overload of input.
•  Strategies: predicting, note-taking, use of gap-fill exercises, phrases asking for clarification.
• Features to consider in a good recorded text: interest, cultural accessibility, discourse structure, density, language level, length, quality of recording, speed, number of speakers, and accent.

Keep the Conversation Going

Speaking Skills:

• Most important of four language skills in communication for daily interaction, work purposes, creative expression and travel.
• Three stages to verbal communication: conceptualisation, formulation, and articulation.
• Speaking serves either a transactional function such as service encounters or an interpersonal function such as a conversation between friends.
• Strategies for speakers to achieve fluency is the use of chunks such as idioms, phrasal verbs, sentence frames, social formulas and discourse markers. 

Thinking about Theory: Pros & Cons of Assessing for Learning Skills

PROS:

• Metacognitive knowledge of ones learning style and applying appropriate strategies to facilitate the process. 
• Matching teaching and learning styles for successful outcomes.
• Awareness of different learning styles of individual students and creating diverse activities. Variety in teaching techniques to address different senses used in learning.
• Gaining knowledge of other learning styles and taking the risk of applying new strategies to keep learning fresh and exciting.
• Understand other students' styles and learn to incorporate with their own style to work as a team. Balance each others weaknesses and strengths as a group.

CONS:

• Research is non-conclusive on reliability and accuracy of assessments.
• Rely too heavily on style and not enough on relevant and meaningful content.
• Some assessments far above the beginner level of comprehension of a second language learner. 

Understanding the Language Skills: Listening Skills

Three people were on a train in England. As they approached a station, one of the travelers asked, "Is this Wemberly?" "No," replied a second passenger, "it's Thursday." Whereupon the third person remarked, "Oh, I am too; let's have a drink!"

How much time should we spend developing listening skills?
We seem to concentrate on speaking a language but I think we should learn to listen and understand a language also. Looking at the Natural Approach and Total Physical Response there is a "silent period" given where a substantial amount of oral input is given. Just like children learning a 1st language students are listening to language which is just beyond the learner's ability. The stress of speaking is eliminated until the student is ready to do so. However I don't think adult learners have the luxury for a long "period of silence". I believe there is a need for adult students to communicate from the beginning.
 Even though the apparent language speaking skill is the product of communication, listening skills should not be overlooked or underrated. Along with teaching skills you are also teaching strategies for students to become good listeners. Companies are training employees in "active listening" for soft skills in the customer service industry. There are points such as having eye contact, body language, focus on what the person is saying, don't think of a rebuttal while the person is speaking, acknowledge you're listening with "really" "uh uh" etc.
Whether an adult is learning a language for pleasure, travel or business there are many components involved with listening skills. After assessing the needs and level of students there are many points for a teacher to consider in choosing a good listening text: content, delivery, length, quality of recordings, speed and number of speakers and accents. These considerations reflect what the student faces in real life. In a multicultural society like ours there are varied accents to listen to besides a Canadian accent. Perhaps your students want to keep up with current affairs by listening to a dense news cast. The reason for learning listening skills for some students is to take notes for academic lectures. The content should have relevance and meaning for the students if following a Communicative Approach to teaching.
By teaching listening strategies to your students you enable them to become independent learners away from the classroom. You can teach learners strategies for effective listening. You can teach how to listen for the general gist of a conversation and predict what a speaker will say due to the context of the discourse. You can teach how to ask for clarification and guess the meaning or listen for key words. You can practise these strategies in the classroom to develop confidence and competence in your students.

Understanding the Language Skills: Teaching shortened forms of written communication ?

I disagree with the statement: "that we should overlook errors in written communication and teach shortened forms that are used in technology." I think there is more of an advantage to teach students grammatically correct writing. In my opinion this genre of writing can easily be picked up on one's own through the social media. While I think it is acceptable to communicate amongst friends in this style, I would never send my employer a smiley face. I think people need to think of their audience before they write in a freer style that resembles the spoken word because once written...
I agree that language is constantly evolving. To keep up-to-date Merriam-Webster is constantly adding new words to reflect our society. There are new words related to technology such as social media and tweet, popular culture has bromance and family dynamics has boomerang child. Try explaining those terms to your parents or grandparents.
I know I'm old school, writing are instead of r and later for l8r. Maybe there is value in shortened forms, my colleague has already sent several text messages while I struggle (place emoticon here).

Thinking about Theory - Teaching Methods

After reading the discussions the two methods that stood out for me as being the least appealing were Grammar Translation and Audio-lingual. Grammar: *use of mother tongue. *structural *no focus on pronunciation. *drill & practice *rely on lesson & textbook *focus on written word. *teacher centered. Audio: *use of target language. *structural. *focus on pronunciation. *drill & practice. *rely on lesson & textbook. *focus on spoken language. *teacher centered. There were good arguments on the beneficial aspects to these methods. In the grammar translation method students might be familiar with it and have a comfort level learning by this method. Since it is teacher centered the instructor can be flexible and as said by my colleagues adapt to the needs of the students. In audio-lingual method I was reminded how drill and practice need not be boring. Using songs and rhymes are a fun and creative way to teach and don't become tedious even if repeated over and over.

Understanding the Language Skills: Needs Assessment

A needs assessment is a starting point in the planning of lesson/course development. Course curriculum should focus on students' needs and wants. By gathering information from our learners we can identify their needs and tailor the course to meet them. It is also important to find out what the goals are of the students, the reasons why they want to learn a second language. We might also have to consider any goals and needs imposed by an institution that would be combined with the students hopes that would affect the curriculum. In developing the course objectives should match with the goals and needs of the students.
By acquiring background information on students we learn of their past learning experiences whether formal or informal. We can learn preferred learning styles and plan our lessons including a range of tasks and activities to keep the motivation to learn high. In the needs assessment we can measure the level of proficiency to set an appropriate level of difficulty in our lesson activities. We may also be informed on any concerns and personal barriers of the students which could influence our teaching style.
A needs assessment may be carried out midway through the course to refocus on students needs and goals. Opportunities for student  feedback should be encouraged so they feel in control of the learning process.

Thinking about Theory: Competence

"Competence: the knowledge that enables a person to speak and understand a language — compare performance: the ability to speak another language"  Merriam-Webster


After the readings I learnt that to include knowledge of the sociolinguistic perspective alongside linguistic competence helps learners to become competent communicators in real-life settings. The nature of communicative competence is not static but dynamic, it is more interpersonal than intrapersonal and relative rather than absolute. It is also largely defined by context. (Savignon, 1972:8) There can be a complexity to language because it conveys the complexities of adult's thoughts and feelings. When people want to talk of abstract ideas such as love and hate they need more than linguistic skills. Linguistic competence is limited because of its literal meanings in a language. Linguistic competence is too absolute and misses out on the nuances and subtleties in language communication. These are definitely the first steps in language development but not the end of the journey for an adult learner. For example: When someone sees a movie they not only want to say"I saw The Artist last night at Grant Park theatre." A person also wants to communicate what they thought and felt about the movie. This is when a conversation becomes dynamic when the other person agrees or disagrees with your perceptions of the movie. Hymes belief in sociolinguistic competence of appropriate comprehension and language use in different sociolinguistic and sociocultural contexts is interesting. I can see bringing these concepts of appropriate responses in a social context to the classroom as challenging considering the number of ways language can be interpreted. You can take this idea even further with sociopolitical influences in language development. A national language policy and national standards could have a great impact on your curriculum and assessment of student performance and proficiency.

A concept new to me was Canale and Swain, strategic competence to compensate for breakdowns in communication. These strategies include paraphrase, guessing, avoidance of words and are related to adult learner's ability to deal successfully with lack of competence in other fields. Self-confidence and willingness to take risks were part of these strategies. I find the role of instructor is to build up a student's self confidence by effective feedback and recognition. Also it would make sense to start with easy tasks and move on to harder tasks building on self esteem and competencies. An instructor role is also to create a classroom atmosphere where it is okay to make mistakes when taking risks. Hopefully this helps students to transfer their knowledge and skills in real-life situations and they become competent communicators.

Understanding the Language Skills

My thoughts to describe Communicative Language Teaching are that this approach involves learners to focus more on the meaning rather than the form of a second language. Teachers, like Savignon, lead their learners to take risks and speak in other than memorized patterns. I understand the importance of role plays and simulations have on more spontaneous communication between learners. This type of classroom interaction, even if guided by the instructor, becomes more realistic and meaningful for real life. This social aspect of communication through pair work and group work enables learners to be able think and speak on their feet. I really like the idea of classroom trips so that learners not only experience the language but also the culture. I think an important part of communication is listening (receptive) whether to a native speaker or not. For learning the writing skills (productive) I can see using pragmatic examples as ie. requesting a letter of reference. I found of interest in the article when mentioned the opportunities for computer-mediated communication(CMC) will increase dramatically in the years ahead. I look at our recent history and how social media has had such a profound influence in changing society.
I do have some concerns on how the competence in learning is measured and by what standards? I would also think that you need some form of grammar. I don't know if this learning should take place at a beginner stage or when learners have a stronger vocubulary?

Thinking About Theory

My name is Josanne. I am taking an on-line Teacher Certificate Program in English as a Second Language. The courses I will be taking are Thinking about Theory & Understanding the Language Skills. This blog has been created to jot down my thoughts and feelings regarding the material in these courses. Also this journal will help me track my progression in learning the teaching skills and theories. I believe in life-long learning and hope I can translate my reflections here into the classroom for teaching adults English as a second language in the future.

"Let ignorance talk as it will, learning has it's value." Jean de La Fontaine


As in the article "Principles of Adult Learning" by Stephen Lieb, I agree with the key principle that an effective instructor recognizes the value of adults prior experience in learning. Everyone brings some knowledge or insight to the table. I find when the tone in the classroom is respectful of everyone's life experiences learning takes place and not always necessarily from the teacher. I believe learning is to take chances and to try the unknown. I feel people learn better when they have the freedom to express themselves without the anxiety of making mistakes and appearing foolish to others. I can see how this could translate to an ESL class where fear or shyness of speaking with an accent could inhibit one's learning a language. I can see where it would be the role of the facilitator to remove such barriers in a classroom.

As a learner I am very goal-oriented and must feel the need that what I am learning has relevance. This applies to me both in my profession and on a personal level. For instance with this course I have a goal in mind, I would like to teach English abroad.
In my profession we are now learning how to use Blackberries on the job.  The goal of the corporation is quite clear, that all employees learn this technology. The 1 day training session introduced employees to the technical procedures to be put in use. To assist with the learning we were given job aids. I learnt from the instructors and also fellow workers in the day session. However I learnt even more on my own following the job aids, because I was working more on my own pace. I even further transfered my learning on the job when with fellow colleagues, we continued the learning process through trial and error. It is relevant that I learn these skills for my profession and that I remain of value within the corporation.

Thinking about Theory

First test blog