I just realized that I had to write journals to record my volunteer teaching. OK. From now on, I will put whatever here just in case I got nothing to turn in for Teaching & Observation as well as the Portfolio.
On Feb. 9th, Tue., it was my turn to be in charge of teaching the whole class (or 20 students or more) in Arlington Library. Although I had very rich experiences of teaching EFL in Taiwan, that was the first time for me to teach English to a big class in USA!! I was kind of excited about it because it sounds very strange for a Chinese to teach English in USA. Haha.....
I also asked my husband to record my whole teaching process so that I can turn it in as my first ESL teaching video to Dr. Park. (If Dr. Kilpatrick is interested in evaluating my teaching, I could turn it in to her, too.) Basically, I taught according to the material created by some educators hired by Texas government. The material is very good, very practical (job-oriented). However, I was kind of doubting whether the educators took reference from the most frequent 1000 or 2000 English vocabulary lists or not because we encountered a lot of TOEFL vocabulary like: categorize, purchase, synonym, antonym, perishable, consumable, durable, etc. Most of my students cannot even spell: milk, beef, shampoo.... I really wonder how they can learn those higher level vocabulary. There must be something wrong. Either the placement tests are not accurate, or the educator didn't consider the appropriateness of the levels of vocabulary. They told me that my class is a level 3-4 class. How come level 3-4 cannot pronounce: soap, alarm clock correctly?? Well, I am just a volunteer teacher; I don't complain. I teach.
According to the material, it only differentiates English vowels into: long vowels and short vowels and the geniuses created the symbols by putting a straight line or a curve line on the top of "a, e, i, o, u" and that's it. On Feb. 2nd, when my supervisor was teaching that part, even I, an eighth-year Linguistics & TESOL majored student, got confused very much, not to mention those Hispanic & Vietnamese level 2-3 students!!(I highly doubt that some of the students are just level 1!!) I was thinking: OK, you create a new way of teaching English vowels, but will any one see those strange vowel symbols on any versions of English dictionaries in the world?? If the system is so unique that no one can see it anywhere else except for on this material, can you be responsible for their loss?? How can they themselves connect this system to IPA or other symbols frequently used in English dictionaries in the world?? Can anyone successfully learn English without looking up vocabulary in dictionaries in the world?? I know someone will not be happy about it (and that was the case in the end, Haha......), but I made up my mind to use my expertise in English Phonetics to teach them the 11-12 vowel chart according to "A Course in Phonetics" by Peter Ladeforged (because students deserve a fair opportunity!!). Suddenly, I recalled one of my undergraduate phonetics professors' words. She said, "Everybody can teach English as long as they can find some students to teach in Taiwan, but what makes you guys different from those self-qualified English teachers is: you know English phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and even pragmatics and sociolinguistics. It is LINGUISTICS that makes you different from other English teachers in Taiwan!!" I used to hate the professor because she was very very arrogant and rude, but now, I think what she said makes sense at this moment (although it is SEVEN years later)!!
I emphasized pronunciation very much. Since our supervisor got different teaching philosophy about correcting and drilling students' pronunciation, I do what I can because somebody has to do it!! On that day, my teaching was base on Audiolingual Method and Communicative Teaching. I asked students to repeat after my pronunciation on vocabulary as well as sentences. I negotiated meanings with students a lot and I also asked students to communicate with their classmates a lot. Basically, students felt kind of excited about getting a teacher willing to correct their pronunciation on words they cannot get them right. A lot of students came to me to express their appriciations to me and tell me that they liked my class individually. Although I will not take TESOL as my life time career, it is always a happy thing to help some people around me in my life.
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Thanks for posting, Ruby. I’m happy to hear that you had a productive lesson with your students!
ReplyDeleteAs for the "IPA symbols" for the tense vowels, indeed those should have been very familiar for the Spanish-speaking students. In fact, they're virtually the same as written Spanish. Even Vietnamese is now a “Romanized” language. You had success using the IPA symbols since it was familiar to your students.
As for the American phonics notations, these are most appropriate for teaching L1 English-speaking children who are learning to read English. In fact, some dictionaries do include the “straight lines” and “curved lines.” I have the American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition (2001) which uses these symbols for “long vowels” and “short vowels,” respectively.
Let’s look at the words that you specifically cited as being difficult for your students: milk, beef, shampoo. If I were trying to teach the spelling and pronunciation of these words to children in the US or Taiwan, I would certainly go with the “curved lines and straight lines” of American phonics.
However, I’ve also seen a LOT of confused faces in Taiwan when I’ve tried to share the American phonics system with teenagers and adults in Taiwan (of all levels of proficiency) who have already become familiar with the KK system. (KK is virtually the same as IPA.)
The key point is that we must always consider WHO we are teaching before we decide WHAT or HOW we are going to teach. This idea was presented in an Educational Psych book that I read back in 2003—I think the author was Woolfolk.
Also, I was glad to see that you wrote: “Students felt kind of excited about getting a teacher willing to correct their pronunciation on words they cannot get them right. “ As I mentioned before, having fun in class and learning to pronounce words correctly should go “hand in hand.”
Hi, Clint:
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your informative sharing. Your sharing made my post more meaningful. I can see eye to eye with you on your points. I am glad to have you in the class who knows so much about the EFL situations in Taiwan.
Happy Chinese New Year!!
Ruby
Clint notes: The key point is that we must always consider WHO we are teaching before we decide WHAT or HOW we are going to teach.
ReplyDeleteEverytime I step into the classroom, I need to say this to myself - or maybe write it on the palm of my hand - before I begin class. All of my classwork, reading, and preparing really come to very little when I have failed to get to know my students and to take the class' dispersion of strengths and, um, developing strengths into account. I feel most useless as a teacher when I do not keep that awareness with me.
Thanks for reminding me ...