Course assessment

Overall I found this class to be interesting and useful for my teaching accreditation. This is my first quarter and I really didn't know what to expect. I think I expected a lot more practical knowledge, not that we didn't get that, but not so much theory. But in retrospect I can see where this IS more of a theoretical class, as are most of the classes I will be taking for my ESL training at UCSD. After all we only have to take seven classes and it would unreasonable to expect that we would receive in one year the teacher training that most teachers go to college for four years to learn. And for those people who already have a teaching degree, that would be quite redundant. So after I made a mental adjustment and changed my expectations of what I was going to learn from the UCSD classes, I have found them quite useful.

So having this overview of what different methods of reading and writing were taught in previous decades and centuries for ESL students, and even L1 students, gave me an appreciation of how teaching methods have changed and what is important to keep in mind when teaching reading and writing. Also I now have a better understanding of what is different between teaching someone a foreign language, as in a high school requirement, and ESL, where people are learning English to use in their own lives for their own reasons, whether it be college training or day to day communication. I also like that along with the basic theory, there was practical applications of how to teach reading and writing to ESL students. It will certainly come in useful when I eventually have to get up in front of a class and put my knowledge to the test!

Reading assessment

I really liked Chapter 9 in our book. It had a lot of good ways to assess and test reading skills. I think you definitely need to use a variety of different methods in order to get a true comprehension of what is going on with each student. And also a lot of experience. Teachers who have been teaching for a while have, hopefully, developed the skills and instincts necessary to assess and understand where their students are in their knowledge. However for a beginning teacher it is all a great big mystery and any tools you can find that will help you are going to be beneficial in making you the best and most effective teacher you can be. Having these basic tools will definitely make me aware of what can be done to assess students and make me feel a bit more confident in my abilities to accurately assess them.

As for writing tests, I know that it can be hard. Trying to phrase a question that will adequately test the student's knowledge without being too confusing or too easy is a fine line to walk. Just in trying to create three choices for an idiom every day at work for my co-workers is stressful enough for me. I can imagine how difficult it would be to have to create a whole test! And already my co-workers are asking me if I'm going to test them on these idioms. I can also see where it may be easy to get misdirected in writing your test questions so that you aren't testing the right thing, i.e. what the students have been learning. And doing this for ESL students will be even harder when they don't have the basic language skills to let you know that your test isn't appropriate.

Writing, part 2

After our last class, I thought some more about the difference between writing by hand and typing on the computer. I think another reason I like typing is that I can type so much faster than I can physically write. That way my writing can keep up with my mental processes. If I was to rely on my written skills to get my thoughts on paper, I wouldn't be able to decipher my writing if I tried to write as fast as I thought. I suppose that is why shorthand was originally created; so people could keep up with their thoughts.

I also like typing because it doesn't appear to be just made for righthanded people. The keyboard is equal opportunity, and I don't end up with my hand smeared in ink after typing a paragraph.

Another reason I like typing because it is so easy to make corrections as you go along, change a word here or there, and it catches misspellings or poor grammar. That is a lifesaver for some people. Although I do not like it when I receive emails which are poorly written. If you have the access to an online dictionary, there is no reason you shouldn't be using it!! I don't think haste is an excuse for sloppiness. I am a bit of a spelling/grammar snob, so am easily irritated when they are misused. This probably developed from my college years when I wanted to be an English teacher. Or maybe I just like it because I'm good at it.

Conversations

I had a great time talking with your students last Tuesday. It was interesting to see the different levels of comprehension they had. The young Korean girl (Claire?) was very competent in speaking, even though she had been in San Diego for a shorter period of time. I think a lot of it has to do with the sociocultural and strategic competences we learned about in one of our other classes. Because she has traveled around, she had to learn to communicate quickly. Some of the other students who have not traveled or who are bit more reserved, are having a much harder time developing their oral skills, although their listening skills might be better.

Also it might depend on their living situations. If you are living with someone who speaks your native language, you are probably less likely to practice English in your home. And the one Korean man didn't seem to interact much with his host family at all, except for meals, whereas Claire did a lot with her host family.

It was also interesting to watch the students from our class interact with your ESL students. Some tried to keep the conversations light, others tried to focus on a more academic level, and others talked on political topics, which in my opinion, were a bit too personal for the students. I think that is where you have to be cognizant of the cultural boundaries of your fellow speaker.

All in all, I thought it was a valuable experience and I enjoyed getting to know some of your ESL students. I think it was probably good for them to practice their conversational skills and meet with some Americans in a different setting, where there was a lot less stress than trying to negotiate a sale or bus route.

I lived abroad for two years and when I got back to the US, people would ask me where I was from because I had changed my way of speaking English to reflect the patterns of the speakers where I was living. This was necessary to be understood. I wonder does that happen with teachers here, who are teaching ESL?

Bloggin

I won't be bloggin on my own blog this week as I have a midterm in my other exam. See you Tuesday!

Reading content

I like what the authors have to say in Chapter 4 about learning to read for content. I think sometimes we take for granted the skills that we have developed, such as scanning, skimming, reading the introduction, etc. I can't even remember learning them, it was so long ago. But I must have been taught by my teachers back when I was in school. When you are reading for knowledge, it is important to be able to understand from the introduction what the text is going to be about. Otherwise you may be disappointed by the content.

You definitely have to prepare your ESL students so that they can get the most out of the texts they have to read, whether it is a newspaper article, book, or cooking directions. I can see the merits for both the intensive and extensive approaches, depending on what the reading is for. But in all things, they should be used in moderation. Complete usage of one or the other will probably not benefit your students.

Writing

Writing is difficult. I like Garrison's theory on writing where you get to interact with your teachers one-on-one as you develop a paper or story. I can only imagine how much easier it would have been to get some feedback along the way when I was writing in high school and college that my paper was not clear or heading in the wrong direction, rather than finding out after it was done, evidenced by a poor grade.

Even in this day and age of computers and email, you still need to be able to write clearly and effectively. Otherwise you end up sending several emails back and forth in order to ge the information you need. And you risk angering or hurting someone's feelings if your message is not clear.

Teaching someone in high school to write a clear and effective paragraph is an important skill that every future employee could use, no matter what their position is. And it especially becomes necessary as you move upwards on any job ladder or just to communicate with your co-workers on a daily basis.

Reading

I like reading for pleasure. Which got me thinking about what the textbook chapter said regarding how you read different types of material differently. With the novel I am reading, I read fast and it isn't necessary to understand every word or even to read every sentence. It is more about relating to the characters and the overall feeling you get while you are reading. You can visualize what is happening and are excited to see what happens next. Burroughs is a good writer in that he writes short, crisp, clean sentences. You do not have long convoluted sentences with a lot of information. It is easy to picture what he is writing about as when he describes putting tinfoil on the dog to make her shiny. He does that in a few short sentences and because of my cultural background, I know what a dog and tinfoil are and can immediately picture the scene.

This is unlike reading our textbook, where it is important to understand the various concepts which are new and to focus on every sentence. I read slowly, highlighting important words and phrases, and think about how the information is going to be useful and how I will be able to incorporate it into my teaching. And that is the difference between reading a novel for pleasure and reading for knowledge: whether you are consciously actually trying to learn while you are reading. Not that you don't necessarily learn from novels, as perhaps I will have a better understanding now of what it is to live with someone who is bipolar, but that isn't the book's main purpose, unlike a textbook.