Learning to teach ESL: October 2018

Summarizing the readings in this unit

The first reading this week came from a website called English Club. The website provides information for both teachers and students. The information is about developing the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and improving grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. The information is contained in articles and learning activities. The article that we were assigned this week defines reading as “the process of looking at a series of written symbols and getting meaning from them” (English Club, n.d.) The symbols include letters and punctuation marks and are converted into words, sentences, and paragraphs that our minds understand as language and derive meaning from. The article explains that reading is a receptive skill because we receive information when we read and that it is a productive skill since transmit the received information. Reading is important because it improves other language skills by increasing one’s vocabulary. My friend is an example of this. He credits most of his success in learning English to the amount of reading he did while growing up. One thing that I had not considered was the relationship between speaking and reading. The article states that speaking skills are important for reading because it helps us pronounce the words silently in our minds when we read. This has been true in my experience. I think that everyone has had experiences when they have tried to pronounce unfamiliar words in their minds as they read but do not have a point of reference since they have never heard the correct pronunciation in real life. This can lead to embarrassment if they try to pronounce the word incorrectly while engaging in conversation with someone else.

The next reading was written by Gretchen McCulloch (2016) in her blog called “All Things Linguistic.” The blog has articles about linguistics that are written for a general audience. It contains links to similar blogs, YouTube Channels, news articles, and articles in other sources that are written by the author. Many of the articles comment on other sources and integrate current events to appeal to readers who are unfamiliar with linguistics or its cultural relevance. Teaching English to speakers of other languages relates to the study of linguistics through concepts that include language acquisition and the building blocks of language. The original article that McCulloch comments on is written by Marco Benevides and provides a visual demonstration about what it is like to read in another language when you have a limited vocabulary. The article has examples of written excerpts at 98, 95, and 80 per cent comprehension. McCulloch (2016) relates the exercise to her experience trying to learn French. She writes that she often used a language dictionary to look up unfamiliar words but that doing so made her reading experience less enjoyable. She also relates the exercise to reading A Clockwork Orange, where even though it is written in English, it is a challenging read because it contains many words that the author created. As a result of this experience, McCulloch started to read chapters in French books without referring to a language for every unfamiliar word. She made educated guesses about the meanings of unfamiliar words and focused more on reading as an activity. She only looked up words that were used multiple times (McCulloch, 2016).

I thought the reading exercise was helpful in creating empathy for students learning English because they were effective at creating the frustration that readers of any language feel when they are trying to read materials that contain large amounts of words that are unfamiliar to the reader. I have had similar experiences with reading academic articles and books when I first started university. Each discipline contains its own specialized language and is written for different audiences who are accustomed to the use of certain language and texts. It took several years of study before I felt like I was able to understand the literature and develop a foundation of knowledge that I could connect different concepts and ideas to in my mind. The blog article also helped me to understand the importance of extended learning for English language learners. The high school students who are part of the homework help group that I volunteer with have had trouble with assignments that require reading. Many students avoid directed reading and try to guess the answers to assignments based on what they have discussed in class. This reading has made me consider the level of frustration that they might feel when they try to read their books. As someone who is hoping to become a teacher of English language learners, this has made me interested in finding ways to inspire students to read. I want students to see that reading is fundamental to learning a new language and that it becomes easier as their vocabulary grows and as they become more familiar with different types of reading texts. I want them to enjoy reading and not feel like it is time-consuming and tedious.

The last reading was a chapter within the class text by Brown and Lee (2015) called “Teaching Reading.” The chapter provides information about aspects of written language and texts that are important for English language teachers to know and understand before trying to instruct and develop lesson plans to help students read in English. The first section discusses research that has been conducted over the last 50 years about reading in a second language. The research includes information about information processing and how people learn by breaking down complicated subjects into specific examples and by connecting a variety of inter-related concepts into broader ideas. The authors argue that good teaching methods combine both types of information processing. The research also shows that readers make sense of texts by comparing and contrasting the information contained in them with their own knowledge and beliefs in a process known as schema theory. This means that two individuals will likely have different understandings of the same text. Likewise, students may understand reading texts in ways that differ from how the teacher anticipated when they created their lesson plans based on factors like culture, beliefs, and personal experiences. This is also related to the role of affect and culture and how they affect learning. The authors explain that successful language acquisition goes beyond cognitive factors and is affected by emotional factors like ego, self-esteem, self-motivation, empathy, and cultural attitudes towards learning. In addition, students improve on their reading abilities when they gain enjoyment from reading and have healthy self-esteem. This portion of the chapter has helped me understand the way that information is processed through reading and some of the factors that affect students’ reading abilities. I plan to use this information in my volunteering and work as a teacher by taking into account their unique backgrounds and perspectives and encouraging students to share their understanding so that we can all gain from their insights.

This section of the chapter also discusses research about instruction and metacognitive strategies for efficient reading. These strategies include students being taught to use self-planning and monitoring techniques and to evaluate their own approaches to reading. Anderson (in Brown and Lee, 2015) argues that fluency is a “combination of both reading rate and reading comprehension” (p. 394). It includes using reading strategies like skimming, scanning, predicting, and identifying main ideas. There is also research that advises students to read without employing the use of reading strategies. Students should expose themselves to different types of reading texts and read for leisure in their L2 so that they can improve their language abilities. This is called extensive reading and helps students acquire new vocabulary and increase their language proficiency. However, barriers exist for some students learning an L2 who are unable to use these strategies and who are not at the language level in which they are able to read on their own. This is common for adult students at the literacy level who may also lack literacy skills in their L1.

This is true for the students who I volunteer with who are at the foundations level in the literacy program. It is difficult to teach language skills like reading to students who we do not know how much education they have received and the level of language proficiency they have in their L1. As such, they probably lack reading skills that they can apply to learning a new language. It can also be difficult to locate reading texts for these students to read for the purpose of learning new words and expressions in English. It also applies to the teenage students who I volunteer with in a homework help group for newcomers. These students will come across the reading strategies and often need someone to help them apply them to the reading texts they have been assigned for homework. In one experience, I suggested a student to re-read a story she was assigned and to look through her questions that she was asked to answer to see what information she needed to focus on. I helped her skim and scan the text and to underline information that answered questions, so she could refer to it later. These tips helped her take away more from the story. I will try to incorporate these strategies and knowledge of learning obstacles into my experience as both a volunteer and as an English language teacher.

The last part of the chapter lists genres of written language that English speakers will encounter. It includes reading texts that are fictitious and non-fictitious, as well as written, printed, and digital. Each of these genres has their own characteristics and purpose. Fluent English speakers are familiar with these genres and understand their structures and the messages that they convey. Sometimes these genres are unfamiliar to English language students because they are less common in their L1s. As such, English language teachers are advised to explain these genres, how they can be recognised by these features, and their purposes so that students can understand their messages and when they are used. The chapter also contains strategies that English language teachers can incorporate in their lessons to improve their students’ reading skills. These strategies include the following:

Sharing the purpose of reading activities with students; teaching spelling patterns and silent reading techniques; training students how to skim texts for main ideas and scan texts for specific information; using semantic mapping and identifying discourse markers to draw connections between concepts and ideas; instructing students how to make educated guesses about meaning and use word analysis when they encounter unfamiliar words; and teaching students how to distinguish between literal and implied meanings.

I think that it is important to teach students about different types of texts so that they can recognize, understand, and use them when they encounter them in real life situations. I did not realize that some types of written texts might not exist in other languages and cultures, so I feel like the textbook has helped prepare me for teaching in an ESL classroom and equip students with skills that they can use in their daily lives. I also found the teaching strategies very useful for developing my own methods for when I volunteer and move further into my teaching career. I think that this will be particularly helpful as a volunteer who works with high school students who often encounter new words in reading assignments. I already try to help them scan texts for specific information to answer questions in their assignments and to try to infer the meanings of these words by looking for root words and context. However, it is difficult to teach students how to skim the text for main ideas when they are unfamiliar with a large percentage of words within the text. This problem was also illustrated in the blog reading that was used to simulate what it is like to read when vocabulary is unfamiliar. I have suggested that students look up unfamiliar words using their phones, but they do not see the need to do so. Hopefully the ideas presented in this chapter will be something I can incorporate in ways that these students will be receptive towards.

Summarizing the activities in this unit

In this unit we were introduced to a website called Coggle that allows people to build mind maps and other visual diagrams. Mind maps are a way that people can visually organize information and show relationships between concepts and ideas. Coggle users can connect bits of information without worrying about structure and order. These connections are indicated using colours, lines, and other shapes. The website also allows users to incorporate other forms of media such as pictures, videos, and links to other websites. It is particularly useful for people who are visual learners who process information more efficiently when it is presented in visual forms like charts, tables, and graphs. It also helps with both top-down information processing where users work to expand from major concepts and ideas to specific examples and bottom-up information processing where users connect specific examples to larger concepts and ideas and the overall course. I find Coggle to be a good tool for summarizing and drawing connections between the main ideas and concepts of the course. I plan to continue using it as a way of reviewing and recalling information that I have read and shared with my classmates. I also think that it can be used by teachers in ESL classrooms to create webs to visualize connections between ideas.

The other activity instructed us to choose one of four scenarios where we would find and assess written texts that we could potentially use in an ESL classroom. The scenarios included teaching different age groups including adults and university-aged students. They included newcomers, international students in a university, international locals, and nursing students. I chose the first scenario where I was supposed to find vocabulary and other information pursuant to newcomers who are beginner level English learners and are looking to buy or rent different forms of housing. I chose this scenario because it is the one that is the most relevant to my volunteering experience and long-term teaching goals. I found websites, guides, and other publications that were written for newcomers looking to buy or rent housing, classroom activities, and websites that list housing available for rent and to purchase. The scenario involves teaching newcomers in a LINC level 3 classroom. I discovered that the reading level in LINC level 3 is the same as the reading level in CLB level 3. As such, I assessed the resources according to how well they corresponded with the CLB Can Do Statements for this level. Some of the resources used complex and specialized language and were better suited for higher level English language learners. These resources required different types of modification to be suitable for the students in the scenario. I learned that it is quite difficult to find resources specific to adult tasks that are written for lower level English learners and contain simple English. I also learned that it can be challenging to modify reading texts to use in classrooms for newcomers at this learning level, especially in a way that goes beyond the basics and prepares students for these tasks. I hope that the material in this class will teach us more about adapting reading texts since I expect to do this often as an ESL teacher.

Reflecting on the role of self-esteem in learning a new language

One of the ideas that I found interesting that I came across this week is the role of self-esteem in learning a new language. This idea was discussed in the Brown and Lee (2015) reading where the authors claim that instruction is more effective when students have high self-esteem. This idea interests me because building healthy self-esteem is something that I have struggled with personally and I had not considered how it might affect students who are learning a new language. I decided to research this topic so that I can reflect on it further this week.

Rubio (2007) states that low self-esteem causes imbalances to one’s emotional and social wellbeing. Students with low self-esteem may avoid taking risks in a classroom setting that are necessary for building competence in a new language. The author argues that addressing self-esteem in the classroom requires more than having students reflect on their own worthiness and competence. He asserts that teachers need to have a broader understanding of the components of self-esteem and model it for their students. An effective understanding of self-esteem can be found in Reasoner’s model, which includes the concepts of security, identity, belonging, purpose, and competence. The author says that the components in a self-esteem model must be integrated into language learning curriculums (Rubio, 2007). I have trouble picturing how these ideas would translate into tangible lesson plans.

I think that English language teachers can address needs for security and belonging by creating inclusive classrooms where students feel free to make mistakes. Teachers can stress that mistakes are to be expected and are part of the learning process. The need for identity can be supported by incorporating a variety of activities into lessons to reflect the different skills and abilities of their students. Teachers can support their students’ needs for competence and purpose by helping them reflect on their goals and the progress they have made to achieve them. However, I think that Rubio was advocating for the tangible integration of these concepts. I have trouble picturing how this would work, specifically with government-funded ESL classrooms where they need to follow specific-guidelines. Aside from private classrooms, I think this type of integration would require the redevelopment of curriculum by researchers which might not be feasible.

Habrat (2018) connects the concept of self-esteem to attitudes, beliefs, and motivation. The author states that a learner’s beliefs about themselves reflect the confidence they have in their L2 abilities and competence. Supportive and positive beliefs help students overcome difficulties and motivation. Students who place value in academic achievement will be highly motivated to do well at language learning. In comparison, the author says that negative beliefs can produce anxiety, frustration, and decreased motivation. She argues that negative beliefs also make it more difficult for students do achieve their potential since their energy is split between working on language learning tasks and their preoccupation with self-doubt. In these situations, the author suggests that one strategy that teachers can try is to reframe the negative beliefs that students hold about themselves and their language learning abilities (Habrat, 2018).

I think that this shifts the responsibility from students to teachers, which undermines the self-agency of students. I think that it would be extremely difficult for teachers to reframe the ideas of language learners, particularly those who have minimal English language skills. These students have difficulty expressing themselves in English and understanding spoken instructions. I do not think it is realistic to expect English language teachers to address these negative beliefs that some students hold. I think it would be more effective for teachers to show students the progress they have made over time to build their confidence and help them question whether the negative beliefs they hold about themselves are true. Teacher and student-directed assessments are one way that this can be accomplished.

References

Brown, H. D., & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching reading. In Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (4th ed., pp. 389-425). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

English Club. (n.d.). What is reading? Retrieved October 26, 2018, from https://www.englishclub.com/reading/what.htm

Habrat, A. (2018). The role of self-esteem in foreign language learning and teaching (Second language learning and teaching) (M. Pawlak, Ed.). Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.

McCulloch, G. (2016). What 80% comprehension feels like [Weblog post]. Retrieved from https://allthingslinguistic.com/post/155043761501/what-80-comprehension-feels-like

Rubio, F. (2007). Self-esteem and foreign language learning: An Introduction. In F. Rubio (Ed.), Self-esteem and foreign language learning (pp. 2-12). Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

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Some of the concepts covered in this course have changed my views about teaching English. One example is the use of language assessments. I had a narrow perspective and assumed that they were only conducted by teachers and by institutions like universities and resettlement agencies. I had not considered other uses for language assessments and the roles that students can have in their own education. I learned that students can conduct their own assessments that will help them set and achieve their own educational and personal goals. The student assessments can also help teachers to plan lessons that will incorporate material so that they can meet these goals.

Another example of a concept that has made me reconsider my views about teaching English is the decision to teach or not to teach pronunciation directly. We do not teach pronunciation directly in the ESL classroom that I volunteer in. This is something that I have wondered about since many students have only learned to recognize words visually and have limited reading abilities. They have trouble understanding the sounds that letters make and sounding out unfamiliar words. Sometimes I think that specifically teaching pronunciation would help improve their reading abilities. This is the way that I learned to read. I did not realize that there was a debate on this topic and that the issue is often only addressed when pronunciation and letter sounds become obstacles in learning activities. I think this decision about teaching methods depends on the ages and educational backgrounds of students in the classroom and the level, purpose, and goals of the class. As such, this decision is something that I need to continue to consider as I get a better idea of the types of students I will teach. I must also go beyond my own formative experience of language learning to look at what current literature says on the topic.

Perhaps my biggest takeaway from this course is learning the roles that listening skills play in language acquisition. I had assumed that listening was the least important skill in learning a new language prior to taking this course. However, this course has taught me that listening skills are incorporated into most learning activities. They play a role in everything from understanding instructions for activities to hearing models of sentence structures and from distinguishing between letter sounds and pronunciation to forming responses to the questions and statements of other people in conversations. As a result, it could be argued that listening skills are actually the most important skills in language learning and I will be sure to incorporate listening into my lesson plans.

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Unit 4 has helped me understand the usefulness and limitations of assessments. The unit focused on ways in which listening and speaking skills can be assessed. The outline for this unit explained the differences between diagnostic, summative, and formative assessments. Diagnostic assessments are used to determine the skill level of students and usually are presented in the form of a standardized test. The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is an example of a diagnostic assessment and is often used to evaluate language proficiency and to decide the placement of students in advanced language training programs and post-secondary education. Summative assessments are used to determine the amount of language understanding that students have after the completion of a unit, course, program, or grade level. They are usually structured in the form of a test or exam. Formative assessments are used as an informal way to determine the current level of their students’ language proficiency. The information gained from this type of assessment acts as a base for teachers to plan appropriate language lessons that suit their students’ abilities and goals.

Teachers can construct assessments once they know which of these outcomes is most appropriate for achieving the goals of their course or program. Teachers must make sure that they are accurately measuring and evaluating skills in a meaningful way. Sometimes teachers are limited regarding which assessments they can use due to time restrictions and the amount of resources they have access to. Teachers who have large class sizes and have students with diverse educational backgrounds and abilities will have more complex factors that they will need to consider when planning how they will conduct assessments of their students. In addition, some schools and other education facilities may have specific expectations for teachers regarding what that they teach and how they should teach it. Considering all the elements involved in planning and conducting assessments has made me realize that deciding which assessments are the most suitable is a subjective process and much is left to the discretion of the teacher.

I found the videos on listening and speaking assessments very helpful in understanding the varieties of assessments teachers can use and their strengths and weaknesses. I experienced an “aha!” moment when one of the videos explained that assessments are used to measure and evaluate students’ abilities to use skills in real life situations. As such, it only makes sense to use a type of assessment that mimics a real-life situation and setting. This resonated with me because of my own experiences volunteering. The students who I have worked with seem to grasp aspects of sentence structure while the lessons are being conducted. However, they seem to struggle with simulating conversations with other students and during tests when they are asked to answer questions. This has made me consider how I could try to remedy situations like this and help my students to retain this kind of information in the future. I have also thought about the benefits of incorporating other types of assessments. For example, I could periodically give students a self-evaluation sheet where they can assess their own abilities and skill levels so that they can track their progress and retain their motivation throughout the length of the program or year.

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Unit 3 focused on the strategies that English language teachers can teach and encourage students to use when they need to complete a listening task either inside or outside of the classroom. Wilson (2008) identifies three different types of strategies that English language learners can use for listening activities—cognitive, metacognitive, and socio-affective strategies. It is explained that cognitive strategies are what we use to complete immediate tasks, that metacognitive strategies are used for general learning to improve skills, and that socio-affective strategies involve relationships with others and a learner’s attitude towards learning. Successful attempts to improve speaking skills often use two or more of these types of strategies (p. 34).

Wilson (2008) argues that students are not always able to use the same listening strategies that they use with their L1 to develop their L2 and that teaching strategies to students can help them when they are challenged with tasks that are above their language level (Wilson, p. 34). This reflection will expand on the use of listening strategies with English language learners. It will focus on my volunteer experience with improving students’ listening skills and which strategies have been most helpful, as well as my own experience as a student taking a Spanish learning class and the strategies that were used for listening activities.

My experience with listening activities in an ESL classroom has centred on listening for phonemes to pronounce words and to recognize vocabulary in different types of learning activities. One of the favourite class activities that involves recognizing vocabulary is bingo. Students associate words with the images on cards and listen to the teacher as he calls them out. It can be difficult to tell whether students are using cognitive strategies, like using information from their L1 to complete these kinds of tasks. This is because we are not familiar with their languages and the students are unable to answer questions that require detailed answers. However, students do use socio-affective strategies when they check with other students who share their L1 to confirm their level of understanding. Sometimes the teacher will ask about words that he hears when students are conversing with each other to encourage students to remember words by associating them with words in their L1. In addition, it can be hard to tell if students are using metacognitive tasks to expand on what they learn in the classroom since we do not know what they are doing outside the class to enhance their learning.

The Wilson reading also helped me recognize how my Spanish teacher tried to encourage my class to use learning strategies to improve our listening skills. The lessons that the teacher provided us with were in English and Spanish, so we could associate Spanish words and phrases with those we were already familiar with in English. Much of the listening activities centred on listening to recordings of vocabulary words and questions that we had to record our answers to. We also had to listen to lectures and recognize the aspects of language that changed with verb tense. Then we had to use what we observed in the listening exercises to both correct sentences we were given and also in group activities. As such, we primarily focused on using cognitive strategies to complete immediate tasks and socio-affective strategies to check our understanding with classmates and practice using Spanish to encourage our feelings of competency. In addition, the teacher urged us to use additional studying methods outside of class that could be categorized as metacognitive strategies, like watching tv shows and movies in Spanish that had subtitles.

This unit has helped me understand the role of listening skills in the acquisition of a new language. Based on my experiences as a student and volunteer teaching assistant, I have realized that it can be difficult to teach these types of skills in English to people with different L1s. For the most part, English language learners must develop and use strategies up to a certain level before they can understand instructions from English language teachers on additional methods. This is a bit discouraging to me. However, it is important not to overlook capabilities of English language learners and the strategies that they use. Everyone has utilized some kinds of strategies when they learned their first language and many students can learn from example without necessarily needing explicit verbal instructions about how to improve their skills.

References

Wilson, J. J. (2008), Chapter 2: Listening Texts and Listening Strategies. In Wilson, J. J. (Ed.). How to teach listening (pp. 25-39). Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education Ltd.

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We were instructed to create a pronunciation activity for Unit 2 in our Listening and Speaking class. We were told that the activity should address a pronunciation problem that we noticed in a speech sample that we were given to analyze. One of the problems I noticed was that the speaker had was distinguishing between vowel sounds, especially the sounds /æ/ (-ah), /e/ (-eh), and /eɪ/ (-ay). I think that this activity is suitable for English language learners at the beginner level because this activity involves differentiating between vowel sounds that are often confused.

When I was looking for resources that I could use for this activity, I came across a concept called "minimal pairs." Minimal pairs are words the the same syllables except for a single sound. This gave me the idea to find words that share consonant sounds but have different vowel sounds that also match the sounds that the speaker has difficulty distinguishing between. I found one video on YouTube that lists several activities that can be used in an ESL classroom to teach this concept and help ELLs distinguish between sounds. The video can be found here. However, the example given in the video is used for consonants, so I have modified it to use the vowel sounds that I listed above.

I have created three charts that all include two of the three vowel sounds. Each chart includes 10 words for both vowel sounds that are divided into column A and B and share consonant sounds with the words across from them. For this activity, the teacher is to divide the class into groups of two. The teacher then instructs students to choose and pronounce one word from each of the word pairs and have their partner say whether the word stated was from column A or B. The teacher can explain this activity by going through the first chart as an example and have the class give an answer for each pair. After, both partners in the class groupings can do one chart where they are the speaker and another where they are the listener.

I chose this activity because it seems relatively simple and because I recognize that pronunciation itself can be rooted in not being able to hear the differences between sounds. As such, this activity addresses both the pronunciation and listening aspects of the problem.

I have included a template in the attachment for this post.

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Unit 2 focused on the decisions that English language teachers make about whether or not to specifically teach pronunciation to their students. Harmer (2001) discusses this topic and the strategies that teachers use to teach pronunciation. She explains that some teachers choose to teach pronunciation directly by focusing on sounds and intonation in their lessons while others teach it indirectly by addressing pronunciation errors when they arise during lessons (Harmer, p. 183).

The decision about how to teach pronunciation interests me because it has come up during my experience volunteering in an ESL classroom. My teachers in elementary school specifically focused on pronunciation so I expected language to be taught similarly in the ESL classroom. However, meeting the objectives outlined in the Canadian Language Benchmarks within the areas of developing listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills have maintained the focus in foundations level classes. As such, the discussion in the assigned chapter has helped me understand some of the reasons why teachers choose direct and indirect methods of teaching pronunciation and how these methods might impact students’ language acquisition.

Harmer (2001) explains that some English language teachers choose not to specifically focus on pronunciation because they think that many students are able to acquire acceptable pronunciation over the course of their studies without directly focusing on it (p. 183). However, I think that some students require this type of teaching, particularly when their first language does not share the same sounds as English. Harmer (2001) states that students will not be able to produce speech sounds if they cannot distinguish between them and have difficulty hearing the sounds and features they are asked to produce (p. 184-185).

This seems consistent with my experience in the ESL classroom where I have worked one-on-one with a student who has been trying to learn the alphabet for over a year. After reading the chapter, I have wondered whether his difficulties are based on trouble hearing the difference between sounds and pronunciation rather than a lack of knowledge. For an example, I have gone through the alphabet with him and he will respond the same way to letters that sound similar. I think that he might benefit from more direct forms of pronunciation teaching.

Harmer (2001) says that teaching pronunciation provides students with extra information about spoken English and helps improve their comprehension and intelligibility. It helps improve speaking skills by making them aware of different sounds and features (p. 183). Developing listening skills is also important because students can hear and notice how English is spoken. Teachers can do so by drawing attention to sounds every time they appear in conversation (Harmer, p. 185).

I agree with the idea that pronunciation exercise that include learning letter sounds and diphthongs can help students with developing their speaking skills. I think that sounds can blend together and make it difficult for students to differentiate between words and process meaning. As such, learning about these features of English can show students what to look for and to hear individual words. Furthermore, specific learning activities that allow students to focus on these aspects will enable them to practice listening and speaking skills outside of the classroom.

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One of the topics that was covered in this unit that I found interesting is teacher intervention. Teacher intervention occurs when a teacher provides feedback either during or following language learning exercises, usually to correct students’ errors. Harmer (2001) discusses this topic within the context of communicative and non-communicative activities in the ESL classroom. This entry will focus on the discussion of teacher intervention and its effectiveness, or lack thereof, at achieving the objectives of communicative and non-communicative activities. I will also reflect on the use of intervention in my volunteering experiences and how it has changed my perspective and approach to teaching.

Harmer (2001) explains that communicative and non-communicative activities serve different purposes. Communicative activities include speech activities and are intended to improve fluency. Speaking activities help learners transfer learned language in their short-term memory to acquired language in their long-term memory. This is accomplished by forcing students to think about how to use the language they have learned to best express their thoughts and the meanings they want to convey. As such, fluency improves over time as students learn how to integrate what they have learned in the classroom into their speech. Teacher intervention during communicative activities interrupt the language acquisition process and causes the activities to change their focus from the use of language to aspects of the language itself, like sentence formation and word meaning (Harmer, p. 104-105).

Harmer (2001) states that non-communicative activities also include speech activities but are intended to ensure accuracy and correctness. Non-communicative activities help learners understand the language itself so that they are equipped to express themselves in written and verbal forms of communication. Students can benefit from teachers intervening by pointing out and correcting mistakes when they happen during non-communicative activities before they become learned habits (Harmer, p. 105).

My experience with speaking activities in an ESL classroom has centred on using vocabulary words in descriptive statements and as responses to questions taught in class. Sometimes students grasp vocabulary but struggle to incorporate it into sentences. This article has shown me that this struggle is common and that making mistakes does not defeat the purposes of communicative speech activities. However, it is also important to correct students’ mistakes before they become learned habits. As a result, it is sometimes difficult to determine whether I should or should not intervene if students make mistakes in communicative activities since doing so turns it into a non-communicative activity where the focus is on vocabulary or sentence structure rather than practicing using language. This is something that I will need to continue thinking about through the rest of the TESL program.

Harmer (2001) adds that the effectiveness of teacher intervention depends how it is done and who it is done to. This is because it requires rapport between the teacher and their students. Without it, students may feel intimidated by or frustrated with the teacher if they are told they have made mistakes. As such, it is important that students understand the purpose of teacher intervention and know that making mistakes is okay and a normal part of the learning process (Harmer, p. 105).

This idea is consistent with my experience volunteering in an ESL classroom and as a tutor for high school students whose first languages are not English. Many of the students who I worked with in the classroom a year ago have returned to the same classroom and language level this year. As a result, there is familiarity and rapport between the teacher and students. Where as many students were hesitant to raise their hands to answer questions, they do not have the same hesitation this year. It has been rewarding seeing them grow as students and for them to feel comfortable seeking help from me when needed. In addition, we were taught during the training for tutoring to take interest in the lives of students and to ask them about their classes and interests. However, I have just recently started to volunteer in this position and have not yet been able to develop professional relationships with the students. I hope that the students will reach a similar level of familiarity and trust as has happened in the ESL classroom.

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