The readings this week really summed up the information that we have learned throughout the weeks in Eng 344. Lightbown and Spada went through several ideas and myths present in TESOL, and explained several different outlooks on them. Because we've learned all of this information before, I found it extremely useful to read summaries of what we've covered and talked about in class.
I really enjoyed reading the Canagarajah article. I found the pedagogical shifts most interesting because they still pertain to our future classrooms. I found the argument on World Englishes to be the most interesting because I plan to write my paper on the consequences of accent reduction and the idea of intelligibility in our classrooms, which is very near to my heart. I can't imagine telling a student that the way they pronounce something is "wrong," probably because of the information I've learned on critical period and how pronounciation will never be native-like (whatever that means now...) after adolescence.
Another important topic that I would like to discuss in a future TESOL class was brought up in this article. Digital technologies! I'm interested in talking about how to teach the newer and growing context of the internet. Digital technologies have led to new genres of communication, new conventions of language use, new vocabulary and definitely new grammar rules for English. How can I possibly teach that? As the types of texts have changed over time, so have our practices of reading and writing them. There are hundreds of thousands of possibilities on the internet and other digital technologies. We simply cannot ignore them in the classroom. I'm hoping you all can give me some of your thoughts for teaching such a prominent and growing context of language!
Digital technologies is a topic that I am excited to talk about in the future as well. There is so much to talk about, such as shortcuts when IMing people like LOL, Omg...
ReplyDeleteIt is so crazy that language changes so much over time, but I definitely agree. I believe we should introduce internet discourse to our students and explain when that type of discourse is used (i.e. not when you are writing a paper).
Digital technologies... if you are teaching a ESL class you can use video chat with native speakers to give them practice with others. There is so much that can be done with technology I am so interested in the subject as well because there is so much out there that can increase our teaching abilities. Another idea that I really like is blogging, as we are doing here. Although in an urban setting or grade school setting it may not be that good of an idea because not all students may have a computer at home or in the classroom and younger children on the interenet is not always a good idea because of other factors. Nevertheless, there are endless possibilities out there that we can use to incorporate technology into our classroom and I want to find out some of these ways as well!
ReplyDeleteexcellent points amy!
ReplyDeleteI really like that you brought up digital technologies! I think that this isn't just a question for ESL teachers, but for every teacher! One of our aims in teaching should be the push for literacy, and that should include computer literacy. One way that I think you can use digital technology in an ESL, ELL, ENL, whatever it might be, classroom, is by having the class participate in classroom chats. These can be very beneficial to students because they practice their computer literacy, reading and writing, and it gives the shy students an opportunity to "speak up" without having to actually speak to an entire classroom.
ReplyDeleteSomething interesting that I once observed at U-High, was something called channeling. This is where there was a smaller group of students sitting in a circle in the middle of the classroom having a conversation, while the rest of the class sat in a large circle outside of them, and used an online chat to talk to one another about the conversation.