On peer editing...

Just wondering if anyone would be interested in doing a bit of peer editing within our class. I'm not sure when the trend started in other parts of the country, but I can't recall ever having done any peer editing. (I graduated from high school in 1989.)

We have two more reflective papers to do, so what do you think? The upcoming due dates are April 6 and April 20. Since Cindy probably can't change the course requirements officially, perhaps we could just do this on our own--even via e-mail.

As Bobbi mentioned, some of our content may be somewhat personal since these are our reflection papers. Certainly, we could leave out a few details in the "rough draft" if necessary.

I think it would be helpful to let us know how our students may feel when asked to do peer editing. Any thoughts on this?

Tuesday 03-30-10 class postscripts

I just wanted to add one caveat to the recommendation that interesting prompts be used. My children, over the course of their school years, were given some prompts which I consider "too personal" or "too revealing" to be used for a composition that will be subject to peer review. The appropriateness of the topic for sharing needs to be considered as well as how interesting the prompt will be.

Hansen and Liu (2005)

I just emailed you an article by Hansen and Liu (2005), called "Guiding principles for effective peer response". It has some interesting ideas and points in it that you may want to take a look at. If you do, tell us what you think!

Last Rubric(s) from Thursday's Handout

I forgot what Cindy said the rubric is from (maybe the TASS for high schoolers?), but it's the one on the final page of our handout packet from last Thursday's class. This 'little' rubric seems somewhat hard core. It's out of 4 Score Points, labeled namely as an INEFFECTIVE, SOMEWHAT EFFECTIVE, GENERALLY EFFECTIVE, or HIGHLY EFFECTIVE presentation of the writer's ideas. To me, these categories could otherwise be called bad, ok, sort of good, and really good respectively.

There are five categories in each Score Point reflecting focus and coherence, organization, development of ideas, voice, and conventions. In my opinion, focus and coherence (did the writer stay on topic?), organization, and conventions (spelling, grammar, usage, etc.) are relevant points with fairly valid explanation. I do, however, think that the categories of development of ideas and voice could be crunched into one, namely creativity, and maybe left off completely. Or maybe it should be left for the higher point values. I know creativity is a good thing in writing, but it seems that you're penalized if you fail to 'approach the topic from an unusual perspective....or make interesting connections between ideas.' I mean, what does 'interesting connections' mean anyway? And what if the reader (that specific reader sitting and reading the essay) doesn't appreciate the writer's ideas? Bummer for that writer....he/she won't get the cool check mark for that section.

Basically, I think some of the rubric is really good, but I also think some of it is not quite as relevant for that level of writing. Maybe the 4 or 5 boxes under development and ideas and voice could be collapsed into one box. That way, if the writer is strong, focused, organized, and makes few errors, yet lacks some creativity, he/she can still score a bit higher on the essay.

Rubics

I haven't made any rubics but I have used many. It seems that many have some simularities in their descriptions. For example, level 1 (worst), no performance in the task, level 2, some performance but still lacking, level 3, reasonable performance, level 4 good performance, level 5 excellent usage.
It seems as though the best rubics will work on outlining and highlightening so that it is easier to use. I notice that most rubics don't play with fonts to make them more usable. To be honest, once you have used rubics enough, you really just need the sections. Or is it beneficial to be verbose in outlining each section?

Confident vs. Relaxed- by Ruby

I got some opinions about the rubric of ACES. It seems that the designer believes that the more relaxed you are, the more confident you perform. However, in one of the most serious domains in the world, an academic conference, I do not consider "confident" equals to "relaxed." How "relaxed" can you be when you stand on the stage presenting your research to other scholars? If you are "exceptionally relaxed", does it mean that you are extremely "confident"??

I even do not agree on grading some body's confidence. I will suggest grading "oral expressing skills" which can include the manners, the language used and the interactions between the speaker and the audience. All in all, I don't think "confidence" should be an item for grading. Even if it is, I don't think "relaxed" is the appropriate scale for measuring whether a speaker is "confident" or not.

Classroom Management!!- by Ruby

I was in charge of teaching the whole class in Arlington Reads again this afternoon. I also had my 2nd teaching demo recorded during the two hours of teaching. Today, I felt very frustrated about the classroom orders. Some of the students kept on talking loudly while I was teaching on the stage. My two co-workers also talked loudly with students when I was teaching. I knew some of the students concentrated on what I taught, but I must say that the classroom orders today were the worst in my whole teaching career so far.

Actually, I have never encountered that kind of problem in my life. In Taiwan, no student dares to talk privately in the class, even 6-year-old kids. Even if I got some students doing that in my class from time to time, as long as I told them to be quiet, they didn't dare to do that anymore. If someone was especially "out of order", it was perfectly OK to ask the student to get out of the classroom in Taiwan. However, in USA, when facing the adult ESL learners who are much older than me, I found it very hard to exercise the discipline in my classroom. I tried to remind the students to pay attention to what I said, but they kept on talking privately and loudly in Spanish while others really tried very hard to concentrate. I tried to control my temper because I was just a volunteer teacher (who paid US$2,000 in advance to teach them) and all I want is just my diploma. I would like to know whether anyone of you got any good ideas about how to control those kinds of situations in USA ESL settings or other academic settings like my Chinese classroom. I need your advice because I don't know your cultural convention about that kind of situations. Tks!

Assessment Design

I just took another trip to OK this past week for the seminar class that I am in where we were working with the Comanche language. Sean and I actually worked a lot together on this past trip designing assessments, as well as some extensive reading material. Although this was for the Comanche language, we actually designed all of our assignments in English to be translated later by a fluent speaker. So, again, this is more of a second language teaching experience, but I still thought it applicable to reflect on it here. (I'm sure Sean will have more to add.)

I found our TESOL classes, both this semester and last, very helpful in the tasks we were given. The language program director had designed a curriculum based on ACTFL (not sure if that's the exact acronym) guidelines and vocabulary themes and then asked Sean and me to design a pre-test and post-test for the first level of curriculum. First of all, it was a very big assignment for someone who knows no Comanche and who is trying to design something that the program director already had in his mind but took a while to articulate clearly. I found Sean and myself asking several clarifying questions, such as: What is the goal of each test? What are your goals with this curriculum? Is this a stand-alone curriculum or is it a classroom supplement? Where will the students be taking these exams? What is being taught in the course of the semester? What is it that you are trying to test?

Sean and I made a plan of attack to go through all of the curriculum, sort it into nouns, verbs, grammar concepts and stock phrases. We then set out to design the pre- and post-test. Throughout the process, we often came back to the idea of "Is this test valid?", "Would the students see it as valid?", and "What is this really testing?" While we did not get to see the final product, I feel like we did give them a good starting point. And, I think it made me even more aware of the questions I should be asking myself as I design assessments.

To be or not to be- a reflection on error corrections- by Ruby

As an EFL teacher from Taiwan, it is very difficult for me not to correct students' errors, no matter in pronunciation, grammar or writing. Although I know there will always be struggle between accuracy and fluency, I still find it hard to decide when to correct students' errors and when not to do that.

After I read Dr. Park's evaluation on my first teaching demo recording, for the first time, I take that issue into my serious consideration. I always want to be a responsible English teacher, so I feel responsible to correct students' errors whenever I find any. My philosophy is: if professional English teachers do not correct students' errors, how would they know they did something wrong and how could they make any progress if they do not know where to improve? However, after I study TESOL for so many years, I realize that too many corrections might interfere students' learning motivation because they would be discouraged very much about their errors, especially when there are so many!

Dr. Park gave me some advice about if the errors do not cause the communication to break down, we do not need to correct them one by one. That is exactly my blind point. I admit I am very enthusiastic to correct students' errors as soon as I find any and I will never get tired of doing that when I taught English. However, it is time for me to change my teaching philosophy about error corrections. Sometimes it is good to correct students' errors, but sometimes it is also good to ignore some of their errors. It is a great challenge for language teacher to judge the timing and necessity of correcting errors. I guess it is a kind of wisdom and philosophy for language teachers.

Therefore, I make up my mind to tolerate some of students' errors if those errors do not interfere the communication or comprehension. Next time, I will take a deep breath and count from 1 to 5 to relax myself whenever I find any error. I will pause a little bit to give myself a minute to judge whether to interrupt the fluency to correct the errors or not. Yes, that is what I am going to do about it.

Retention- by Ruby

I remember we talked a lot about retention. We raised a lot of ways to keep our students back to our classrooms. Recently, I got some deep feeling about that.
I remember in Feb., we got more than 22 students in the class. However, after two new teachers (without ESL teaching experiences)took turns to teach the whole class, this month, we only got 12 students left. At first, I thought they would come back next time. However, several weeks passing by, we still got only 11 to 12 students left. I suddenly realized that even students with very limited English proficiency can tell who has teaching experiences and who has not. Although no one was born to be an ESL/EFL teacher and everybody deserves his/her first chance of teaching, the reality is very cruel: once students begin to doubt your expertise, it will be very very hard to get them back to your classroom.
I always thought native speakers of English got the privilege when it comes to teaching ESL. However, recently I found that many Americans cannot explain the basic grammar issues correctly no matter it is phonetics, phonology or syntax. I have never thought that it is the academic studies in Linguistics and TESOL that make the non-native speakers (like me) much more professional than those who speak English for their whole life if they are not TESOL or linguistics majored.
When they were teaching English vowels, even I could not understand what they were talking about. They even asked the students to read aloud the rules of pronunciation with them, hoping that the low intermediate level students can get the epiphany of how to pronounce English vowels automatically. On the very next week, ten students were gone and I guess they will never come back.

Life is cruel. Reality is cruel. TESOL is cruel.

Product vs. Process Oriented Writing- by Ruby

I don't know about you. Basically, I was taught completely in product-oriented approach in terms of writing, no matter my L1 or L2 writing. The teacher gave us topics or rarely he/she would allow us to decide the topic we wanted to write. It was us ourselves that had to write the whole articles without any explanation or guidance. We turned in the writing work and when it came back, there would be a score and some comments like: "Too many spelling mistakes (wrong characters)." "Not coherent.", "Not smooth." or just "Good". I don't know about you. Very often, I felt that I just wrote the best article I could write in my whole life and when it came back, the score was much lower than those which I myself did not like very much. A lot of time, I highly suspected whether my teachers could really understand what I wrote or not. (Students' talents and skills of writing are not necessarily worse than the teachers'.) Basically, I have been a good writer in Chinese since I was in the elementary school. I did not suffer a lot from the writing teaching system in Taiwan, but I saw my classmates always struggle a lot about that because they just did not know how to write anything that could appeal to the teachers, the graders. (Is that all writing about? To appeal to the grader??)

I remember I began to write in my L2, English, when I was in high school because there would be a writing part in the English subject of college entrance examination in Taiwan. At first, I could not do it very stably. Sometimes I got very good scores, but not rarely, I got not-so-good results. I felt very frustrated from time to time, but no one had ever taught us how to write in English. All we had were the topics, the results and the bloody grammar errors revisions done by our teachers. I was very lucky that before I graduated from high school, my English teacher required me to write an English article every week to mail to her and she would give comments and revisions and mail it back to me when I was studying for the college entrance exam at home (That was much earlier before the existence of internet). At the end, my English writing score turned out to be very good in the exam.

The first time when I heard and read about process-oriented writing was when I was studying Linguistics and TESOL in my undergraduate program about eight years ago. At first, I could not understand or accept it at all. I thought it was just some tricks invented by Americans. However, as time went by and as I got more and more familiar with student-centered teaching and communicative approach, I understood that process-oriented writing is a very good concept. Traditionally, in writing classes, teachers only look at the final works and students only got the results and comments. Students have never got the chance to discuss or develop the ideas with others. Each of the students counted on his/herself to accomplish the writing. Everybody was so helpless and so alone; whereas in process-oriented writing classes, the teacher will guide the students to explore the possibilities of all concepts that come to their minds. Even the topic itself can be a part of students' creativity. In student-centered and communicative approach language classrooms, teachers share the power with the students. It will be the students themselves that decide what they like or what they want. The teachers just provide the basic rules for brainstorming, drafting, peer editing, revision. It will not be the product itself that matters, but the whole discussing and learning process that really matters. When students are getting used to this process-oriented writing class, gradually, they will develop their confidence of expressing their own thinkings and they will develop independent thinking competence little by little.

As a TESOL graduate student and an experienced EFL teacher, I highly value process-oriented writing. The teacher takes the responsibilities of guide students step by step and the students learn to generate ideas and thoughts and put them into logical writing among peers naturally and gradually. Although it takes time and experience for us to learn how to teach process-oriented writing class, I believe with the appropriate textbooks or other materials, even novice ESL/EFL teachers can do a good job with the students if we know for sure that it is beneficial to students.

flashcards and memorization

Based on some of the reading we have done, about read and look up activities, and my own experience in my class practicum, I am starting to re-evaluate my perspectives on the role of memorization in language learning. So I have practiced a new language recently to see if memorization might be effective. I combined it with lots of reading. Although, I used flashcards and read several different materials. I have been making good progress when combined with reading activities. In particular, the DS language coach series flashcard games also seen effective when combined with reading. I have not been speaking the language. Currently, I am going through what Krashen refers to as a "silent period". I also have several different listening resources I have been using. I have been aiming to find reading material that I have mostly reviewed in flashcards. While I do believe interaction plays a vital role in language learning, I have become increasingly interested in the vitality of it or the necessary percentage of it.

In response to Lori and Pre-Writing

Lori, I really like that you brought up the importance of knowing when to use pre-writing. If we end up teaching in an ELI or university situation where our students are preparing to take exams and write in academic situations, the idea of knowing when to pre-write and when not to pre-write (or at least when not to spend too much time on pre-writing) and strategies related to the two would be a great topic for in-class discussion and practice.

I have thought a lot about the way I write and whether or not it is productive and efficient. I used to worry that my hatred for "pre-writing" as described by previous teachers meant that I am not a good writer or that I do not write "correctly". All these years of self-consciousness about my writing style all because teachers forced me to use diagrams, etc. to pre-write. After coming home from class when we talked about pre-writing, I realized that I had written an entry on my personal blog about my writing style only a week earlier. To quote myself: "Outlines and pre-written thesis statements just aren't my style. I always wondered why I found the writing process such a torture. You write the thesis, you write the outline and you're stuck in a box of unchangeable topics. It works for some but somehow not for me. (And, yes, I know the topics are changeable but an outline somehow seems like a jail to me.)"

That's the way I felt as a student and looking back on that I never want to make my students feel tortured or jailed or blocked from writing by the very process I am using to help them write. While I believe that sometimes we as students need to be made to do things we don't like so that we can grow and learn, I believe that teaching students to pre-write is one area that needs to be approached with extreme caution and forethought. I really, really benefited from our conversation in class about pre-writing. I have come to realize that any writing that happens before the final draft of a paper is pre-writing.

I have spent so much time trying as hard as I could to not call what I do pre-writing because of the bad experiences I have had pre-writing in classes. It really does feel like a jail when a teacher grades you for pre-writing in one set way. However, just as every student learns differently and studies differently every student might have to write differently. I really like the idea that we discussed about practicing with and encouraging students to use different pre-writing methods. It may take more class time but might avoid years of frustration on the students' part. I think it is also a good idea to make sure our students know what the real purpose behind all the pre-writing practices. It seems a lot of the frustration on the students' side comes from not understanding why the teacher is making you jump through all these pre-writing hoops. Why can't I just turn in the final product? After approaching my highschool senior English teacher, completely frustrated because I felt like each sentence had to be perfect before I added it to my paper, he said only one phrase to me: "Get it down, then get it good." So simple, but knowing that all these processes and tricks and methods were there just to help me get out all my thoughts so that I could make them perfect later somehow opened the flood gates to let my writing flow.

I am very excited to learn as the years go by how to help each student find their own writing style, pushing them to grow without putting them in a box.

Library Journal "Teaching English with Technology"

Found in Feb. 2010 journal of "Teaching English with Technology: A Journal for Teachers of English IATEFL Poland Computer Special Interest group" a couple of articles.
http://www.iatefl.org.pl/call/callnl.htm
The first concerns "blended learning" where the classroom is supplemented with email pen pals in English. The article used as its basis Nation, "
The blended approach also encompasses all the processes necessary for establishing
vocabulary knowledge, namely noticing, repetition/retrieval and generative use (Nation,
2001)"
Of particular interest to me was the article's preference for controversial topics. Although the article doesn't cite studies to back up the assertion. My preference is to not encourage controversial issues in class. See the mention to controversial issues below:
"In order to make the research meaningful for both sides the participants chose the topics which were a combination of controversial discussion provoking subject matters and those which demanded a comparison between the two cultures, introduced cultural differences and raised cultural awareness."
...
"Additionally, they had to be controversial enough so
that they kept the participants engaged in the conversation."

One of the topics they gave was:
Why we believe Americans are
stupid.
And with the video below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6r1IcY1pv0&feature=PlayList&p=4CBF1FEE217056E9&index=1
I think examples above are why I tend to stay away from controversial topics in the classroom. I don't want to be a kind of teacher who misuses the bully pulpit.


Although the journal also has some lesson plans which don't meet the criteria we aim for assessment of student language outcomes. Here is an example,
Aims:
To expand students’ knowledge about different countries
To encourage students to use the Internet while searching for a specific information
Objectives:
Students know countries’ names
Students know how to form country adjectives
Students practice stress patterns
T tells Ss to match 10 flags with the names of the
countries they present using the following website:
http://3dflags.com/world/index.html
Pairwork Handout - reading for detail
- to practice browsing
the Internet
5 min

The Digital Games article in the same issue does have a lord of the flies game, which I thought was interesting given our discussion earlier in the semester on this topic. Although, once again, I wasn't sure the game they gave would provide any benefit to the student:

http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/literature/golding/index.html

Pre-Writing

So, after class last night, I don't want people to think that I am a pre-writing hater. I actually do think it is really valuable and a great skill to learn. My objection was merely to the instances when students are forced to employ a particular pre-writing strategy & are graded on that pre-writing. I wonder if my bad experiences with clustering were because it was the hot, new thing at that time that every teacher thought essential to a good essay. But, on the whole, I do believe that pre-writing, including clustering, is an important skill to teach, and I especially like the ideas of trying each technique in a group setting so that students can become familiar with all types and then choose which one suits them best.

However, I wonder how much time some of these strategies take to use. While I think all of them could be valuable, some of our students on an academic track will also be in timed-writing situations where they may not have time to draw out a cube & try to remember which details to include. Therefore, I think that it is important for them to find a strategy that works best for them in writing, but also a strategy (possibly the same one or maybe a completely different one) that works best in a timed-writing situation. I think that our writing is better when we think about it a little bit first before diving in, but if you only have one hour to write in a timed essay exam situation, you should not spend more than 10 minutes at most in pre-writing in my opinion. I welcome your comments on this!

Stopping a runaway vehicle

This clip has absolutely nothing to do with this class (or does it?), other than perhaps helping someone arrive safely, but I think with the current media attention on runaway vehicles, this may help one of us.

As I think about it, the clip could also be used in the classroom as both informational and perhaps as a pre-writing exercise involving emotions.

Show the clip and then ask, "How would you feel if the car you were in suddenly started going faster and faster?" then write ....

Or perhaps the reverse, pose the question have brainstorming, write some quick impressions and then show the clip.

(Because not all ESL students drive, I avoided using "driving" and substituted "were in.")

http://video.consumerreports.org/services/player/bcpid1886192484?bclid=0&bctid=48234862001

Essay prompt (for Freshman History class)

Here is the essay prompt that I mentioned in class:

"By the 1920s, American progressives--both reformers and politicians--had done more good than harm in the US."

I would love to hear your comments...

Clint Taylor

response to TPR in Chickasaw

I decided to ‘report more’ about our Chickasaw service learning trip last weekend. As Lori mentioned, we had the privilege of observing lots of things over the weekend, including a language club for kids as well as a high school Chickasaw class. As Lori also mentioned, the class used Total Physical Response (TPR) and Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS). Basically, the high school class was full of hyper teenagers just as we might expect, but these strategies of teaching take a lot of energy from the teacher and the students, and it went well overall.

The class began with the teacher reviewing and teaching some phrases to the students in general. Then, along with the help of American Sign Language (ASL), the teacher taught some ‘question words’ in Chickasaw. I’m not sure what I think about bringing ASL into the mix. On one hand, it helps the learner put a gesture with the target word (i.e. the teacher would say a word in Chickasaw and complete the sign to help give the students a cue about the word without having to speak in English). On the other hand, not all the signs are simple, so it’s like the students are having to learn two things (the Chickasaw word and the sign) for every one English word/translation. Any ideas/suggestions about this? Anyway, the last part of class was made up of the students helping ‘tell’ a story. The teacher asked questions (using the words they learned), and the students answered and the story was born and went on and on. At the very end of class, the teacher asked five comprehension questions (in quiz form) to see if the students understood the story.

Overall, I thought the class went well (though I have to say my classroom management style would be quite different) J. Not all the students were ‘there’ and participatory, but most were. And they really were comprehending well! The main thing I noticed (and I assume it’s like this with any TPR class) is that the students didn’t produce much. I’m not sure if they weren’t able to produce or if they just weren’t producing during the class, but almost everything out of their mouths was English. Interesting. How can we get students to produce, even in a TPR classroom? Is it even possible?

Direct use of IPA for teaching

In the last class we had a discussion about use of IPA symbols to teach sounds, the book I mention in class HEADWAY has activity after each unit focusing two or three sounds e.g /i:/ or /i/ and then a list of words is given having the target sound and students are asked to choose words from the list and put it under the IPA symbol which corresponds the sound in the word, e.g the word 'beat' goes under /i:/.
I also found another interesting website which is full of interesting activities with direct involvement of IPA symbols. When we use IPA symbols directly it does not mean they are taught without or before the knowledge of conventional letters, I think the knowledge of conventional letters should come first and then the IPA knowledge, as it would not only enable them to understand the correct sound but would make it easier to understand the gap between spelling - sound correspondence and the learners will be able to see the same letter could sound in different manner.

response to Nation Ch. 7

In chapter 7, Nation makes the point that we as teachers should strive to bring the learners' experience into a writing task. In this way, the learner is sure to have the experience needed before even asked to complete a writing activity.

For example, you could use the writer's own experience of something to prompt a writing task such as family, weekend activities, etc. If you're wanting the class to write about something different (that is not yet personally experienced), prior to the writing task, consider a number of activities to ensure experience. Just as in teaching reading, you could pre-teach some vocabulary items that they need to be familiar with. You could take the class (or your student) on a field trip (grocery store, to the movies, a book store, etc. And maybe read an article or story about it or watch a film in class. By using one or more of these 'experience' activities, the student will have the background knowledge (and probably much more confidence) about attempting to complete a writing task. Nation (p.98) talks about a writing activity called 'Linked Skills', wherein the student uses all four skills (wholistic learning!). Here, the writing task is the last activity following speaking, listening, and reading activities about the topic. To me, this sounds like the most ideal strategy to take toward writing. :)

The learner I am tutoring through Arlington Reads is working more on listening and reading, but if he's interested in writing, I'd like to try to use some of the activities above to make sure he knows what he's writing about before he starts writing. Nation also talks about an activity called 'Draw and Write' where the student actually draws pictures of his/her experience, then uses the pictures as a cue for writing. I think this could be a good beginning writing activity given that the learner would have something tangible and visual to look back at in the midst of the writing task.

Writing for pre-literate students?

I recently had a student in another class share a piece of writing from a pre-literate student of hers, who reversed and flipped letters upside down, and copied things out of order, etc. Some of these kinds of things are common with children who are learning to write (for example, reversing 'b' to make 'd', or writing 's' backward), while others are not. If you've worked with either children or pre-literate adults, what types of errors have you seen?

On another note, in elementary school, much of what children do is simply copying or tracing of letters. Do you think these are appropriate for an adult as well? What kinds of other writing activities can you think of for adults who are just learning to read and write (in any language)?

Nation Chapter 7

So we are moving into the Ferris and Hedgcock book as we begin to talk about writing, but I wanted to encourage you to take a look at chapter 7 of the Nation book if you are looking for some different kinds of writing activities. We will discuss some of them in class, but Nation provides many different kinds of writing tasks that work in different ways and meet different needs. So take a look if you have a chance - see anything new and interesting that you want to try?

ESL learner video

http://www.learner.org/resources/series71.html#

I haven't watched the whole thing yet but the first episode had some really funny scenes in it (including a coffee scene). I don't know what others think of this kind of learning video but it is available for viewing on demand from the website.