week 8

I thought it was extremely insightful of Toohey to analyze the practicalities of the education system and how the help or hinder the learning of ESL and ELL students.  Toohey explains how making children sit in an individual seat, with individual work actually goes against the sociocultural aspect of second language learning in that the students are actually discouraged to communicate and help one another.  I thought this was a surprising aspect of that teacher's classroom because it seems awfully independent for such young students.  I would have thought that these students should be encouraged to work together because they have such a similar, important goal: learning and acquiring the English language.  I thought it was surprising to read about Toohey's argument that having individual sets of items, instead of class sets, encouraged the idea that some student had "better" resources than others.  I felt that this was kind of a stretch, unless I read it wrong and it was only meant for a metaphor of the resources to speak English.  It confused me a little.  Toohey ends the article with quite a profound statement.  "My research suggests that the everyday, almost invisible practices of classrooms beginning very early might contribute to...long-term effects" (82).  The long-term effects Toohey is referring to is the student who did not want to work in a group or with a partner because he wasn't native.  He felt that he would be a burden on a native speaker, which is quite sad.  Learners need to feel comfortable in their environments, lowering their affective filter which, as Toohey proved, begins very early in the classroom.