Blog 4- Course Reflection
The Course
The art of
second language never ceases to amaze me. I have attempted to learn a second
language myself and have taken a Second Language Methodology course. Both of
these have taught me a lot about the depths of second language. However, after taking
this course, Second Language Acquisition, I can see that second language has so
many subtopics that I never knew about. For, there is a lot of research behind
how we as humans best acquire a second or additional language. This information
helps me better understand how my ELL students learn English. For example, I learned that “…learners who begin acquiring the L2 before a certain age, which
these studies locate to be around puberty, will tend to exhibit intuitions that
are very close to those of native speakers of that language” (Ortega, 2011). This
explains why some of my third grade ELL students do not have an accent. This is
just one example of the many topics that I have learned in SLA, which include
language influences, interaction, input, output, and motivation, etc.
In regards to the logistics of this online course, I
thought that the workload was manageable. I greatly appreciate this, for workload
makes or breaks a course. Nevertheless, even in my own teaching, I find that there is
always room for improvement. I feel the same way about this course. There are
two things that come to mind, which in my opinion, need refinement. The first
are the videos for the blogs. I found
that my interviewees did not want to be videoed. I, myself, would have rather
not been videoed. Videoing makes situations more awkward than they need to be.
I think it would be nice to have the option of a simple voice recording. The
second aspect of this course that I think could use refinement, are the tests.
I am thankful that we made the change to having several days to take the test
instead of one. However, due to my student teaching schedule, I am not able to
complete a test on Thursday or Friday. Therefore, my only time to take the test
is on the weekends, which is not ideal. It would be nice to have a Sunday to Tuesday
timeframe for testing since the course work is usually due on Tuesday anyway. I
also found that there were some questions on the test that I didn’t feel were
productive toward my learning. For example, if I were teaching my students
about the Mississippi River, I would want them to know all the who, what, when,
where, and why facts about it. However, I don’t think asking them to know the
name, date, and place of study of the scholar who published the findings in a
textbook determines whether or not they know anything about the Mississippi
River. All that proves is that my students are able to read the tiny
parentheses in a textbook, which most people don’t do and can’t remember if
they did read it. This is how I felt as a student about some of the questions
on the tests, but it might only pertain to me.
The Blog
Blogging
was my favorite aspect of this course. I enjoyed being able to have student
choice in my blog assignments and communicate with my classmates. I also
thought the idea of physically interviewing someone furthered my understanding
of second language acquisition, for I got to talk with people who experience
SLA first hand. This made SLA feel more real to me. It was neat to see the
blogs of my fellow classmates, for everyone had something different to share,
and I learned a great deal from them. Not only this, but also seeing my peers’
blogs made me feel like we were in this course together through thick and thin.
Therefore, I did feel a sense of community through the blog. If I were to teach
a 5th or 6th grade class, I would definitely use blogs
with my students. It gives the students the spotlight instead of the teacher,
which I believe is conducive to learning.
How this Course
Impacted My Teaching Philosophy
I have been
working on being less controlling as a teacher in my student teaching. It is
easy for me to want to have my students do what I want them to do. However, I
have learned from this course and others that student choice is crucial to
student learning. Noels states, “…students who perceived their teachers to be
controlling showed noticeably less intrinsic motivation” (2011). This statement
has impacted my teaching philosophy and me as a teacher. I want to incorporate
student choice as much as possible in order for my students to learn as best
they can. The reality is that when students are in control of their own
learning, they learn far more.
Reference
Ortega, L. (2011). Understanding second language acquisition.
London and New York: Routledge.
Picture
NoGreaterLove2 2011. (1970, January 01). Retrieved April 04,
2018, from http://selahonthemic.blogspot.com/2011/03/nogreaterlove2-2011.html
Kaela,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. I think you hit on a very important subject mentioning how this class should be compared last semester in SLM. Leading up to this class, I kept thinking it was going to be like last semester with the difficulty to stay on task and be able to follow along because often times I was highly confused. However, this semester went a lot smoother and I was much more at ease. I think if I took the class prior I might have had an easier time. I also like how you related this course with “patience”. I couldn’t agree with you more. Teaching can be so strenuous and challenging, not to mention if you have a student that has a language barrier. According to Ortega, “about 65% of the population is bilingual”. Meaning teachers need to do everything possible to teach and learn the best way to communicate with these students. Students need to know their teachers are patient and understanding to their needs.
Yes, Jolie. I think that patience is also plays apart in motivating our ELL students. If we are not patient with them, then they will most likely not be motivated. No one wants an impatient teacher getting frustrated with him or her all the time. As I quoted in my blog, “…students who perceived their teachers to be controlling showed noticeably less intrinsic motivation” (Noel, 2011). An impatient teacher is similar to a controlling teacher.
DeleteHi Kaela. I agree with you that the acquisition of a second language is amazing, based on the many subtopics, including the research on how we as humans acquire an L2. I like the point that learners who begin at about puberty tend to show intuitions close to that of the native speaker, including not having an accent. Like you. I find that blogging was enjoyable to communicate with everyone in this course of studies, as it encourages much learning to take place. For me it also created that community feelings whereby we all shared for the common good of understanding SLA. Ortega (2011) points out that genuine integrative motives indeed strive among individuals who may have familiarity orientation and want to learn the language. This means that there is much empathy and desire to become familiar with the other participants in the community. Nice job. Good post.
ReplyDeleteReference
Ortega, L. Understanding second language acquisition. London and New York: Routledge, 2011.
Susan, I liked the quote you shared from Ortega. In my classroom, we have morning meeting every morning. This is like a community circle where we focus on growing together as a class. We have time for greetings, sharing, and group activities. This is helpful for my ESL and non-ESL students because it makes them feel like they belong regardless of background, culture, language, etc.
DeleteHi Kaela, I enjoyed your posts throughout this semester, and you wrapped it up very well with your reflection. Something I would like to highlight is your statement that if students are in control of their own learning, they learn far more. I am a huge advocate in a student-led environment, and I feel as though it goes hand in hand with motivation. Ortega says it best when he mentions that "highly motivated students...[are] in favour of increasing investment of material and human resources for the improvement of second and foreign language education," alluding to the fact that motivation is a huge factor when teaching English language learners. Not only do I believe in this for teaching any student, I feel as though second language learners especially need to be motivated, and this can be done though giving students choices in their learning. On another note, I agree with you about the tests. Most online courses allow a longer time period to take an exam due to scheduling, and I did feel like some of the questions on the test were asking for minute details that did not necessarily benefit my learning.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment, Shelly. I like what you said about how ELL students need to me motivated even more so because they are learning a second language. I had never thoughtfully considered this point, but I completely agree with you. It must be so difficult to be in an environment that speaks a language other then your L1. ELL students need lots of motivation in order to learn the L2. If the motivation is lacking, why would they even want to try?
DeleteKaela, the blog was also my favorite part of this course. Even all the time I was putting in into making the blogs was worth it. Yes, they were time consuming, but it was a wonderful experience. The whole process was great, especially getting to learn from you all! Not only do I feel like I learned a lot from my interactions with teachers, but I learned a lot from all of our classmates. I was truly interested and invested on the blogs everyone in this class posted and I made sure to watch them all. I like your idea of using blogs in your classroom if you had 5th and 6th graders. I was actually thinking about that and how I can implement blogs into my 4th grade classroom. There are others way to do so, I thought about assigning a wall from my classroom to act a blog. The students’ writing could go up there and it would be just like creating a blog. This would be a great resource in a writing classroom. This can also act as a way to motivate students since their own writing would be posted, it is a way to positively and actively engage in their learning (Kaboody, 2013). Hope this is of some help! I have enjoyed your blogs throughout this semester. Good luck to you!
ReplyDeleteKaboody, M. Second Language Motivation; The Role of Teachers In Learners’ Motivation. Journal of Academic and Applied Studies. Vol. 3. Pp. 45-54. 2013.
Maisa, I like your idea of creating a class bulletin “blog” board to post student writing. Something that is similar to a blog but more age appropriate for younger grades is “Seesaw.” This is an app where students use their school account to take pictures of their work and upload them to the class’ wall. They can also type responses and upload them to Seesaw for the class to see. Students who are below the age of fifth grade shouldn’t have a g-mail account, in my opinion, so I don’t think they should be maintaining their own blogs. Seesaw on the other hand is more confined to just the classroom where the teacher can accept or reject posts if needed. Nevertheless, using any form of technology is motivating and engaging for students.
DeleteKaela,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog and could have not agreed on majority of the things you had stated. I agree how certain blogs we had to do were time consuming and required almost a whole day to work on the certain class assignments. However, you are right at the end of the day once we are student teaching in the field all the hard work and blogs were worth it. because when it came to working ELL students and differentiating instructions for them, it wasn't as challenging as others may think. Since we were aware of certain things and have taken tests and blog entires. And sometimes doing certain blog entries and replying to classmates was a very engaging activity for us to do. Because just like students within the classroom, we wouldn't have looked at each others blog entries if it wasn't to reply to them. Also when replying and commenting on many blog post it also helps learn new things from peers. Researchers have stated, "Specifically, there was suggestive evidence that, under stressful conditions, the introverted participants achieved higher lexical richness and more explicit language but at the expense of engaging in more hesitation-marked lexical searches and in more disfluency." (Ortega, 2011, Pg. 198). I think throughout the time we would really end up more stressed than focusing on the certain materials being told to us. However, by working together and staying motivated to graduate had really encouraged us to learning new things and becoming a step closer to professional teachers.
Seemin, thank you for your comment. I also liked the quote that you shared from Ortega. It is interesting to know that introverted ELL students tend to participate more in stressful situations. However, the fact that it is stressful might cause the ELL to stumble in his or her speech. I personally don’t want my students to feel stressed in my classroom, but I do want every student to practice speaking. In my own classroom, I have found that if you spend one on one time with the introverted students, they will eventually come out of there shell and talk with the class. I also know this from my own experience because I am an introvert too!
DeleteKaela,
ReplyDeleteI really like the blog as well and was thinking about the implications it could have between a network of students. I neglected to think about how it could be used in my classroom as a way for students to interact between each other as a way to have intelligent discussions. Do you think that this idea would still be applicable for a math grade classroom?