Week 6 Dialogue Journal

Congratulations everybody! We made it through the language components. For some of you it may have been wonderful and for some of you.... well - a necessary evil. Over the next week you will read about communicative competence, interlanguage, and the role of the native language in L2A.

Communicative competence and interlanguage are two concepts that you need to master. They underlie everything we talk about in our course, and are also very central concepts in Meth and ICC.

The Gass chapter outlines the role of the native language in L2A and is the starting point from which we'll dive into L2A theory. From this point forward, the readings may be a little bit longer; however, I believe you will find them easier to read and personalize.

This week you will use the Gass reading for the dialogue journal. After a brief summary, group leaders should address one of the following questions in the comments (from Gass).

Andrew, Evan, *Swati, Sean 

Young, Justin, *David

Greg, Michael, *Julie

a    As described in this chapter, beginning second language learners produce sentences such as He comed yesterday where regular rules are extended to irregular cases. What does this suggest about the formation of early interlanguage? Can you think of cases in your own language learning where you have tried to impose such regularity improperly? Relate your characterization to the strengths and weaknesses of the contrastive analysis hypothesis.

b    Consider the process of looking at structures across languages. Do you agree that one can easily note similarities of structures and differences of structures? Do you agree that these cannot equal ease and difficulty of learning? In what circumstances might similarities/differences be compatible with ease/difficulty of learning?

c    Consider the two types of interference discussed in this chapter: retroactive and proactive. In terms of the former, under what circumstances might it be possible to lose some of your native language fluency? What parts of the native language might you predict would be most affected? Have you had this experience?

Reading: Are you teaching it or testing it? (optional)

Hey everyone,

This week I've been reading a lot about reading. I've been reminded of all of the subskills involved and what "good readers" do while negotiating a text. They definitely are not circling words and translating. Reading to answer questions kills the writer's original purpose. 

Reading our L1 is so easy that we sometimes forget the complex processing skills are involved and what strategies we use to comprehend a text. All of you are good readers, but do you ever consider how to pass along your skills to your students? I'm guilty of not taking the time to teach my students how to actually process a text using these strategies (inferring, questioning, predicting, personalizing, visualizing, summarizing, etc). Sometimes our students mistakenly consider L2 reading as "finding answers" or "filling out workbooks." That is in direct conflict with the reasons people write. People write to convey ideas, not to be a measure of grammar skill or a source of comprehension questions. 

Here are a few articles to help give you some alternative ideas about teaching reading. 

The first is an overview of several frameworks for instruction. I like this article because it is easy to read, full of examples, and hits a lot of popular reading tactics.

Comprehension Frameworks

This next one lays out the START framework in detail. I like START because it is user-friendly, and it seems pretty easy to implement in any class that allows time reading instruction. 

START

This last one is a bit more unconventional. This is based on Reader Transaction Theory, which assumes that readers interact with the text to construct their own meaning. This may be somewhat more difficult to implement because the focus shifts from accuracy to meaning-making. It more closely mimics actual reading, but good luck telling that to your boss or students' parents. Sigh...in a perfect world...

A Transaction Approach

Week 4 Dialogue Journal

Hello everyone, this week we'll be talking briefly about syntax, summarizing theories of acquisition, and prepping for the week 5 quiz. 

Week 4 Reading: Lightbown & Spada. How Languages are Learned. Chapter 2 (HLAL_Chapter 2.pdf)

Directions:
**This week you will read summaries of several L2 Acquisition theories. Choose one to support, summarize it and share learning and teaching experiences that support your choice.

Attention!! Group leaders: If your name has an * in front of it, you are the group leader for the week 4 journal. Please get your summary and comments posted by Wednesday.

Andrew, *Evan, Swati, Sean

Young, *Justin, David

Greg, *Michael, Julie

Week 3 Dialogue Journals -- Morphology

Week 3 Dialogue Journals (due before week 3's class)

Hello everyone, this week we'll be covering morphology. The West reading covers the basic concepts/terms related to morphology and the Carlisle reading focuses on morphological processing and word learning.

Attention!! Group leaders: If your name has an * in front of it, you are the group leader for the week 3 journal. Please get your summary and comments posted by Wednesday.

*Jeff, Amy, Jasper, Liz

*Sammy, Kevan, Lawrence, Dee

*John, Laura, David

Summary guidelines: KEEP IT SHORT! A good summary is a shorter version of the original that includes only the main points. Try to keep your summaries limited to 200 words or less.

Comment guidelines: Comments should demonstrate your ability to personalize the material. Whenever possible, share your own experiences as language teachers and learners that relate to the assigned reading. This should be longer than the summary.

Week 3 Reading: 

West, Morphology: The Inner World of Words

Carlisle, J. Fostering Morphological Processing, Vocabulary Development, and Reading Comprehension.

**Read 'west_ morphology' first to get a handle on morphology, then read Carlisle. Summarize and comment on the Carlisle article only. Questions related to the readings can be posed to the community.

Personalize! Share your experiences teaching/learning vocabulary.

Note: Group leaders should post summaries and comments as replies to this post

Creativity and Assessment

I'm not sure how I feel about creativity in the EFL classroom. Of course higher order thinking is a great thing, but it doesn't seem to be in many job descriptions or part of assessment goals. Having said that, here's a brief article to get you thinking about the message our assessment is sending to students. You might consider this idealistic, but I think it is good practice to consider our students' perspectives. (I promise I'll start posting more practical/method stuff, but this is what I'm reading now)

Beghetto, R. A. (June 06, 2005). Does Assessment Kill Student Creativity?. Educational  Forum, The, 69, 2, 254-263.

I couldn't find a free version from my home computer, so...

Summary in ppt form

The Age Factor

Going back to last class' discussion about age, here's a brief overview of the research. This looks like a couple of grad students' project, but they do a nice job of explaining ideas, and most importantly, citing research. This could be a good place to start for anyone interested in researching this topic for later study or for any soon-to-be/current parents.

The Age Factor

Autonomy, Motivation, and Humanistic Teaching

Hi everyone, 

I wanted to share a few videos on learner motivation. Although these are not directed at second language learning specifically, researchers are beginning to apply these ideas to our field. 

This is Ed Deci, one of the co-founders of Self-Determination Theory. As you watch, think about your own motivation (or lack of) related to language learning or anything. Do you think his ideas apply to our students?

Is learner autonomy possible in our classroom? If not, what hinders it? Do you believe in learner autonomy? Do our students even want it?

 

This is a video by Dan Pink, a more dynamic speaker. He focuses on how rewards actually demotivate students. Citing a lot research, he makes a good case. What is your gut reaction?

Do you use rewards with your students? Do they always work? Do you respond well to rewards? If not rewards, what can we do to motivate apathetic students?

And finally, here is some Alfie Kohn, journalist turned education critic. I included him just because he is awesome. On punishment:

A Humanistic/Positive Psychology approach to education:

Thoughts?