Eng 345: week 3

Celce-Murcia's article, I found, was the very user-friendly.  It was easy to read and understand the brief history of language teaching, and I found the bullet point chart quite useful to organize so many methods.  I was able to recognize many bullet points of the later methods from my own high school language learning.  Some of the more recent theories can still be partially found in classrooms!

After reading both of the articles, I couldn't get one image out of my head.  Reading about how each method replaced another reminded me of fad diets.  Researchers find one method and see that it works.  Then they find out that certain aspects aren't being adequately tended to, and they find another one to replace it.  It seems like a money-making market to the researchers and the theorists to me.  And all this time I'm wanted to yell, "What about what's best for the students!"  I feel that now the theorists are still leaning towards a best method (whatever that is...) to teach students quickly and efficiently, even though many authors of the articles we've been reading swear against it.  Which is why, at the end of the Kumaravadivelu article, when he stated that task-based learning is the newest non-method approach to teaching and a sort of awakening toward language teaching, I wondered what is coming next?  Surely this is another fad, as it follows the same pattern as the previous ones, replacing the seemingly outdated methods of teaching.  The author made it seem as if this approach is the end-all.  But I took a different view: Is task-based teaching really the total potential of language teaching and learning?  TESOL seems too new to have already figured everything out.  Or is this a new method hiding under the fact that it claims NOT to be a method, and just part of the research (or fad) stage?  If that is true, then what will come next?

Eng 345: week 2

The first two chapters of the Anthology were helpful in an introduction to this course.  It was informative and helpful to read that methods of teaching are somewhat outdated and seem to rigid, so the term approach has become more popular.  It was encouraging to read that approaches are typically less prescriptive and not as static as a method of teaching.  Sometimes, as a pre-service teacher, it can be intimidating and daunting to be furthering a group of students' education in terms of speaking English.  It seems as if a lot more responsibility is placed on us than on other teachers, especially in terms of high stakes testing and other forms of standardized tests.  To read that the best teachers assess students frequently and change what isn't working makes it sound less intimidating.  It's always helpful to hear that even the best teachers have to change their curriculum, sometimes even in the middle of it, to meet the needs of the students.

Reading about the theories of teaching a language was also helpful.  It was informative to read about the different types of theories and that mixing and matching them will create the best learning environment for students.  The bullet points at the end of the chapter really summed up the theories and allowed me as a pre-service teacher to think about what I'll try to implement into my own classroom.

eng 345: week 1

The readings this week, though seemingly disconnected at first glance, really set the pace for this class.  Having already completed a research project on intelligibility and Jennifer Jenkins's work, I really felt the importance of one central question: What is considered standard, correct, English?  Having so many different students will allow us to truly see the diverse Englishes we need to embrace.  As teachers, we must strive to teach intelligibility, because being understood and being able to negotiate meaning is of utmost importance.  Accent reduction, then, would not only be a waste of time, but may even damage our students' identities and foster negative feelings toward learning English.  Tolerance, in these two articles, is the main theme.

Tolerance can mean many things, really.  It includes understanding of other cultures, breaking down stereotypes, raising awareness in social change, creating a safe environment for everyone, understanding the home lives of others and truly realizing that everyone you meet has their own problems, successes, thought processes and opinions.  Tall order for us teachers.  But we have to start somewhere.  By creating and encouraging many different Englishes, while encouraging home cultures, we can start to get the ball rolling towards more tolerance in the world.  TESOL educators really have an important role in the start of such a large movement, and continuing to work towards different methods of teaching and understanding one another, we can be a powerful influence in the lives of our students.