Answers to Methodology week 4

Methodology Week 4. Johnston Chapter 2

Question 3.

When I taught adults, I’d come frequently come across attitudes that were different to mine. I had the student explain his reasoning. Normally it’s a cultural context that makes them have that view. As a foreigner in their culture I accepted it but also explained what would have happened in the country I came from. If I didn’t know (or remember) the student’s mother culture then I would ask why. If I did know then I would understand better and explain to the class why he made that statement. Jackie could have had the student explain why. Possibly to the her and if it wasn’t too embarrassing to the class, who obviously found it an abnormal response.

With reference to Mary’s experience with a Korean learner, yes I have. In the past I’ve done a visual survey of who is able to answer the question, and who is not able to, for whatever reason. If the same situation happened, I normally would take the example of ducking her head and reading the textbook as avoidant behavior. Avoiding and ignoring the question, which I would have considered extremely rude. If it’s a conversation class, why don’t they try? But I know now that the affective filter and other facts have raised the students stress levels to a point where they cannot/ or will not answer properly. I know now as a teacher to distinguish between avoidant behavior and just plain larking around.

Question 5

The textbook I’m using is the current textbook that all Elementary schools use. It mirrors the current curriculum laid out by the Korean board of Education. The level of student participation it expects, provided that you use the book as is, is minimal. Given that way a teacher could you it and get from the students, rote memorization, with a little bit variation. As for the moral messages encoded within, it presents learning in a rather fun, ‘can’t be taken seriously’ way. As far as writing practice goes it presents little chance for writing and no chance for the student to write in an unstructured way. It presents typical American stereotypes with in my opinion horrible pronunciation. The functions presented are of reasonable standard as found in any ESL book, but frequently the tasks presented in the book are over used (within the lesson) and are tired. Model conversations or dialogue supplied with the book are not pronounced in a way that is natural, and in fact are preferred that way by the editors.

An evaluation of two classes

Reading, speaking and writing citing examples

Speaking

Background: I teach at an Elementary school. This school is academically aligned, with a majority of the students that have parents that work for Samsung electronics. I will refer to my fifth graders in this answer. Of the better classes, most of the students are able to produce formulaic speech. When asked on something that was outside of their body of knowledge, they were unable to answer. As far as being able to give an opinion on what was the better handset, a Samsung S3 or an iphone, the question was meet with silence and a nervous grin. On the ACTFL scaling I would rate these students at the novice level, though at an intermediate level. The less able students have a poor if non-existent vocabulary with incomplete utterances.

Writing

In the context of Elementary school, even the higher level students aren’t able to produce more than a few sentences from the textbook. I cite these students being at a high novice level. Grammatically, on the whole most sentences are influenced by their L1. "Can you come to birthday party" would be an example of the better sentences. In contrast, the lower level students cannot produce sentences, but are able to copy phrases and sentences from the textbook. Generally speaking, the higher level students handwriting is neat and well printed, while the lower level students have very poor execution of letters. In both cases, both groups of higher and lower level students would have poor or non-existence punctuation but with one or two exceptions. Punctuation marks like commas, and question marks would be missing.

Listening

Generally the higher level students are able to understand spoken, classroom instructions. Relating to the tasks of the functions of the lesson, for example, "do you want some more?" Most of the high level students will understand that question and answer accordingly, albeit, in the way the textbook has given it. Lower level learners will understand words such as ‘textbook’ or ‘classroom’ but not any long phrases. It is possible for a low level learner to understand but only after extensive elicitation. Lower level students may also understand basic questions from the textbook; "how old are you" for example.

Reading

Higher level students are placed at Novice, high level. They are fully able to understand what is written in the textbook. They are also able to understand short sentences relating to the textbook, and some shorter sentences that are not in the textbook, for example, and invitation. The lower level students on the other hand could be rated at Novice intermediate. Where, they are able to read some sentences from the textbook, albeit with some help in the form of pictures or explaination.