Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Learning???
This past week as I've been reading your reflections, it's been interesting to see what everyone is getting out of their volunteer experience. As a comment to this post, I'd like to see more specific details of what YOU have learned (not what you have observed, or what you have done, but what your own personal take-home message has been) so far in your service learning. The things that you are learning may be important for other students as well, and may lead your classmates to look more closely at different aspects of their own experience.
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My supervisor told me that if I could give one example like: "I buy perishable goods like: milk, egg, fruit, fish... from WalMart every week." on the board so that when students find it hard to write down what they want, they can just copy my sentence pattern and fill in the items they want. I guess that is something I forgot to do in my class today.
ReplyDeleteActually, what I forgot was their ability of spelling and writing. As I mentioned before, although their test results show that they belong to level 3-4, but I think some of them belong to high beginning level something. They cannot even spell "milk" or "beef."
ReplyDeleteDuring the course of my service learning (from last October) I have learned several things that have helped me to redefine my definition of what it means to be a teacher. In Japan my student base was fairly homogeneous, and the students shared the same problems. Now my student has different problems, one of which is quite severe in modern society. During my teaching I have focused almost completely on this problem (how to read) and I have developed a new respect for people who have problems with illiteracy in their native language or second language.
ReplyDeleteI realize that the struggles I face as a second language learner may be completely different from someone else. This is something I find to be increasingly important as my teaching shifts further away from what I feel is important and closer toward what the student feels is important.
It's essential for teachers to keep their students needs and difficulties in mind, and be willing to be flexible depending on their students. I hope others feel the same!
I began volunteer work with Arlington Reads! last semester and I found the flexibility and freedom of the program's structure to be both stimulating to creative classes and frustrating for lack of structure. As an individual, I have never been great at "coloring inside the lines" - I like a measure of flexibility and responsibility for creating a program and materials that address the needs of the students. This is especially true at Arlington Reads! where the student's need for conversation over reading, or practice with vocabulary and grammar over conversation can be accommodated.
ReplyDeleteBut. This semester I am taking the Certificate Practicum (the MA TESOL Practicum will follow, this summer). I am finding that this is requiring that I structure and document my volunteer teaching activities to a greater degree than required by AR! I have combined that with volunteer work facilitating a pilot conversation group program with UTA's ELI, and suddenly I am feeling the structure very intensely. There are times that I am concerned that I am "on the right track" and though I find conversation classes very interesting and challenging, there is still not much structure through either the program or with assigned materials to use.
Additionally for the Practicum, I will have to be observed .. either by the instructor or by a video camera. I know that observation and evaluation is necessary to assess what I am doing 'right' and 'not so right'. However, I find that I get very tense, stressed, and feel separated from the class and like I am teaching in a very wooden way. So, a big task at hand is for me to get used to the observation and learn to embrace it as a normal part of teaching or any professional activity ... knowing that in the end it is one important way that I can learn to be a better teacher, and learn to develop more interesting, suitable, challenging and creative material for my classes.
Since mid-2007, I've been making the transition from teaching EFL in Taiwan to ESL here in Arlington, Texas. Since I lived in Taiwan for almost 10 years, I used Chinese quite a bit with my students--in and out of the classroom.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I thought I'd never be able to teach one group for two hours in a hour without using the students' native language.
I've had to change my style and persona somewhat. I tend to use simpler jokes and non-verbal gestures instead of the students' native language of Chinese.
Now, I feel more like the "new" teachers who were arriving in Taiwan after I'd already been there a few years. I've had to become more patient as a teacher--since it's impossible to just directly translate things for my students.
I've probably become more aware of students' body language and non-verbal gestures, as well. I feel like I'm talking more than I used to during class, since I often need to repeat things for my students--or perhaps ask questions in different ways.
However, if I were to be around a class of all Chinese speakers, I'd likely revert to my EFL techniques and habits. Is this a bad thing?