TESL-0130 - Unit Two Reflection
Summarizing
the readings in this unit
The
first reading this unit is a selection from a chapter of the class text by
Brown and Lee (2015). The excerpt comes from Chapter 17, called “Teaching
Reading,” and lists principles for teaching reading skills. The assigned
reading focuses on principles two and three. The second principle is about
incorporating relevant, interesting, and meaningful reading texts into lesson
planning. The authors stress the importance of selecting and teaching texts
that are authentic and that students will encounter in real life. In addition,
texts that will help students achieve their reading goals should be included in
class activities. The third principle says that texts are useful if they are readable—if
they can be understood by students who are at a particular skill level. The
authors state that teachers can choose to modify texts so that they are easier
for their students to understand. However, they explain that simplifying texts
can remove helpful features like natural redundancy (which involves the
repeated use of words and phrases to highlight important words and their
meanings) and humour (which makes texts more interesting). As such, the authors
argue that simplifying texts can actually make texts more difficult to
understand, despite the intentions of teachers (Brown and Lee, 2015).
I
definitely agree that it is important for teachers to include reading texts
that their students will come in contact with in real life. At first it seemed
strange to me that the writing found on labels, signs, and greeting cards could
be useful in the classroom. However, despite not being dense in information,
these texts illustrate real ways that language can be applied and what
information they convey. My Spanish teacher incorporated the use of modified
menus in our unit about food. Some of the language used was completely new to
us but we worked in groups to try to translate the menus. I was surprised how
much could be inferred from context and the physical attributes of words and
sentences. In the ESL classroom that I volunteer in, the teacher has
incorporated texts like an advertisement for a flu vaccination clinic and price
tickets on clothing. These texts built on previous units about health and
clothing for practical applications of learned vocabulary. As such, I think
that the list of forms of reading texts is very helpful for teachers using a
task-based approach since activities are designed and chosen for their
applicability.
This
discussion of reading texts reminds me of debates about translating classic
literature into English. Although there are many classic novels written in
languages like French and Russian that are well-known in the English-speaking
world, there is much disagreement about if and how they should be translated.
Some people believe that you can only understand the subtleties of novels when
you read them in the language that they were originally written. Other people
believe that the subtleties of books can be intact even after translation, but
that translation should be done strategically. There are disagreements about
how much needs to be preserved from the original text, including the style of
prose and humour. In addition, there are questions about whether there should
be abridged versions of books where sections that editors feel are unnecessary
for understanding books can be removed for simplicity. However, abridged
versions arguably alter the style of writing and other features. These debates
mirror the disagreements about simplifying texts and retaining features like
redundancy and humour that were described above.
The
second excerpt is from the “Teaching Grammar and Vocabulary” chapter in Brown
and Lee (2015). It provides information about the history of teaching
vocabulary to English language learners and the strategies that teachers can
use in the classroom. The authors write that vocabulary teaching has shifted
from an explicit focus on lexical forms to an implicit focus where vocabulary
is featured indirectly in communicative tasks. It is explained that current
research has shown that students benefit from lessons that focus directly on
vocabulary because they learn language features that they overlook when they
are not told what to look for in reading texts. The textbook states that
students must encounter vocabulary terms between 7-16 times before they will be
committed to memory. The authors argue that the best way for students to
internalize vocabulary is for teachers to introduce them within reading texts
because it allows students to mentally associate them with meaningful context.
Sometimes vocabulary teaching is unplanned and results from engaging with texts
in the classroom. Teachers can also teach students strategies to decode and
learn new vocabulary outside of the classroom. These strategies include
understanding the parts of speech that are used to create words and word
families, clues in text that can help students to determine the meaning of
words and identifying word associations. This is important because the amount
of vocabulary that can be covered in lessons is limited and students require
reading strategies to develop their skills independently.
This
portion of the chapter has helped me understand some of the arguments for and
against teaching vocabulary directly in the classroom. I think that it is
important to teach vocabulary in the classroom, especially with lower level
learners, because they need to be introduced to and learn a variety of words as
a foundation for understanding and communicating in a new language. This has
been the approach in my experience volunteering in a literacy level classroom.
The units incorporate the use of new vocabulary in a variety of activities with
the intention of teaching words that the students can use in their everyday
lives. It is also relevant to my experience volunteering to help students
complete their homework. I worked with one student who was supposed to complete
a worksheet about sunsets. She was supposed to form sentences using her own
words. However, the amount of words she knew was very low and it made this
worksheet very difficult for her. I tried to ask her questions. (e.g. Do you
like sunsets? What do you like about them?) I also made suggestions about the
types of describing words that she could use. (e.g. What colours have you seen
in sunsets?) My teaching strategy was not helpful in this situation because of
how little words she knew and how difficult it was to identify words that she
knew to build from her vocabulary.
Teaching
vocabulary at lower levels can be frustrating because students often forget
words if they have not used them for a while. This has happened while learning
in the ESL classroom and requires the repeated use of activities. The reading
also says that students can also be taught reading strategies to learn new
words. They can be taught to look at parts of words (e.g. roots and prefixes),
definition clues (e.g. synonyms), inference clues (e.g. context), and word
associations (e.g. words that are commonly used together in phrases). This is
something that I have run into when working with newcomer children who need
help with their homework. I remember one occasion when I was helping a girl
read a short story. She was having trouble with following the story and reading
comprehension. One of the things that I helped her with was looking at what
some words had in common. She looked at sentences with words in a list and
learned that they were used to describe the values of the characters to the
reader.
The
third reading is similar to the excerpt about modifying texts. It is a webpage
created by the organizations Teaching English, the British Council, and the
BBC. The article is called “Adapting materials for mixed ability classes.” The
article recognizes that classrooms have students who vary in their learning
speed and development of learning skills, even at the same grade level. As
such, some students may have very good speaking skills and prefer to do
activities that allow them to use them, but the same students may really
struggle with learning to read. The article advises that teachers modify
activities to provide support for “weaker students” and to challenge “stronger
students.” However, the author points out that modifying activities on a
regular basis is not realistic because of how time-consuming it can be and that
struggling students may recognize that they are receiving easier work and
become less motivated.
Even
in the TESL certificate program, I have learned that lesson planning is a very
demanding and time-consuming activity. Despite wanting to plan very detailed
and customized lesson plans, teachers have lives outside of the classroom and
should not let their jobs to interfere with other responsibilities and their
self-care. I thankfully have not run into problems with different level
worksheets when volunteering in the ESL classroom. The students seem self-aware
and recognize that some of their classmates need extra help with assignments
and/or are still learning the basics. However, I have heard of this becoming a
problem in higher level classrooms when newcomers have been in Canada for
longer periods of time than others but have learned at slower rates. They have
been criticized by students who learn at faster rates. In these situations, it
is important to stress that we all have skills that we are better at and that
it is okay that we learn at different rates.
Summarizing
the activities in this unit
The
first activity in this unit was considering how I might adapt the Foreign
Exchange Emails Exercises text for students that I work with. I would not use
this text in the ESL classroom because the adult students that I work with
would probably not find this text particularly interesting or applicable for
their own lives. The text would also require too much adapting for it to be
useful and would cease to be authentic. However, I could adapt it for the teen
homework help group. The teens would likely find this activity interesting and
suitable to focus on for an activity. It is possible that some of them might have
online friends who live in another country that they chat with. This text is
also highly exploitable because it introduces new vocabulary and definitions,
and tests comprehension. As such, I could do activities like these with similar
texts available online. I think that the easiest skill that I could combine
with the reading exercises is writing, so I would have the students reply to
Fran as Simon. I think that this text would be quite difficult for most of the
students who I work with, but I would keep the text as it is because I want to
keep its authenticity and avoid having it sound scripted. I think that would be
both less interesting and useful for the students.
The
second activity in this unit was the screencast activity. My recording can be
accessed here.
I think that it was useful as a stream of consciousness exercise to express a
reaction to a new text. The text that we examined was a collection of
testimonies provided by survivors of residential schools in Canada. We were
instructed to think and talk about whether it could be used in an ESL
classroom. Even if I modified the text, the reading level and vocabulary
knowledge required to understand the text is much higher than the foundations
level that I am most familiar with. However, the text is recording of
survivors’ experiences in their own words and I feel like it is important for
people to share their stories, especially those who are marginalized. I think
modifying the text would make it lose its authenticity because it would give
the power to the person doing the modifying instead of the survivors and allow
them to decide which words are important and which are not. As such, I do not
think it is appropriate to edit their testimonies to make them more accessible
to lower level students.
Reflecting
on authenticity in English language teaching
One
of the ideas that I found interesting in this unit is authenticity. The idea
was discussed in one of the Brown and Lee (2015) readings where the authors
discuss what makes texts authentic and meaningful for learners. Authenticity
has also been mentioned when describing the types of tasks that teachers should
include in their lesson plans to reflect actual situations that learners can
expect to encounter in their real lives. The concept of authenticity interests
me because, as a teacher, I want to create meaningful lessons so that my
learners can use and develop their language skills outside of the classroom.
This is applicable to both teaching English as a Foreign Language abroad and
working to teach English to newcomers and as part of the resettlement process.
I decided to research this topic so that I can reflect on it further this week.
Gilmore
(2007) informs readers that the definition of authenticity and its role in the
classroom is a contested subject among language experts. The debate surrounding
this subject is complex because it involves the theoretical perspectives and
the findings of studies conducted by researchers from many domains within
academia, including discourse analysis, cognitive and social psychology, and sociolinguistics.
The author explains that authenticity can be used to describe a text itself,
the participants, in a social or cultural situation, and the purpose of the communicative
act, or a combination of these contexts (Gilmore, 2007).
This
means that both texts used in the classroom and the tasks and lessons that a
teacher uses them in can be described as authentic. Authentic texts replicate
texts that learners can expect to encounter in their daily lives and reflect
the real-life use of language by real people in an accurate and substantive way.
Similarly, authentic tasks replicate real-life situations that learners can expect
to encounter and allow them to practice their language skills so that they can
successfully complete these tasks. However, opinions of what authenticity is and
how much differentiation there can be between the texts and tasks inside and
outside of the classroom is up for debate.
Gilmore
(2007) writes that the literature on the subject provides the following definitions
for authenticity:
1.
The language produced by native
speakers in a particular language community.
2.
The language produced by a
speaker/writer for a real audience, conveying a real message.
3.
The qualities bestowed on a text by
the receiver, in that it is not seen as something inherent in a text itself but
is imparted on it by the reader and/or listener.
4.
The interaction between students
and teachers and is a personal process of engagement.
5.
The types of tasks chosen.
6.
The social situation of the
classroom.
7.
Assessment.
8.
Culture and the ability to behave
or think like a target language group in order to be recognized and validated
by them.
Gilmore (2007) states that a definition that incorporates all of
these factors is too broad. The author argues that it is more meaningful to
define an authentic text the way that Morrow (1977) did—"a stretch of real
language, produced by a real speaker or writer for a real audience and is
defined to convey a real message of some sort” (as quoted in Gilmore, 2007, p.
98). Using this definition allows us to begin to distinguish the characteristics
of authentic discourse and to evaluate the degree to which materials created
for use in the classroom and learner output resemble these characteristics.
However, the author acknowledges that some texts may be more useful for
teachers than others, regardless of whether they are authentic. This is because
texts have different discourse features, of which some may serve as better
input to stimulate language acquisition in learners than others. As such, the
author writes that teachers are free to
use any methods at their disposal, regardless of the source of the materials or
tasks and their relative authenticity or contrivance (Gilmore, 2007).
I think that the definition of authenticity provided by Morrow is
particularly precise because it incorporates the form and use of language, as
well as the author, audience, and purpose of an individual form of
communication. While it is important for texts and tasks to reflect what
students encounter outside of the classroom, I think that modifying texts can
be justified depending on context. I think that the use of authentic texts is
helpful for students because they can recall what they learned in class about a
text or situation when they run into it again. However, they may lack the appropriate
knowledge and familiarity if they did not understand what was taught in class.
As such, modifying texts can allow learners to be exposed to the gist of texts
and situations and they can build from this foundation with further educational
and personal experience.
Gilmore (2007) says that one argument for using authentic texts is
that they are more interesting than modified texts. This is because they go
beyond demonstrating the structure of the target language and instead communicate
messages through the text and are usually more likely to contain features that
add detail and uniqueness. They can also increase the level of motivation that students
have because they can be selected to meet their specific needs and interests.
Others argue that authentic texts are often too difficult for students and
weaken their levels of motivation. This is because they contain unfamiliar
vocabulary and can assume that learners understand the context and cultural
knowledge they are based on. The author reasons that the success of authentic
texts used in the classroom and whether they increase the motivation of
students depends on various factors, including their appropriateness, how they
are exploited in class (i.e. used in learning tasks), and whether teachers are
able to effectively mediate between the materials and the students (Gilmore,
2007). These factors are also listed in the Brown and Lee textbook and the
outline for this unit.
Guariento
and Morley (2001) write that most language experts agree that using authentic
texts in the classroom is important but there is a debate about how these texts
should be used and incorporated into lesson plans. The authors point out that texts
that are too difficult can cause students to become frustrated and confused. As
such, the use of authentic texts can demotivate students if teachers do not
select texts based on simplicity and familiarity. The authors state that the
simplification of texts can be justified for lower level students, but it is
difficult to do in practice and can make texts more difficult to understand. -
The authors address this problem by changing the goal of having total
comprehension to being satisfied with partial comprehension. They argue that
total comprehension it is neither required or necessary for all students. As a
result, the same reading texts can be used with a variety of learning levels by
incorporating them into different tasks. With the focus being on creating tasks
that are appropriate for different types of texts and learning levels, task
authenticity should be the primary focus. The authors stress that lower level tasks
should not be considered less authentic than complex tasks (Guariento and
Morley, 2001).
Gilmore
(2007) explains that the current focus on authenticity is rooted in the shift
from finding the perfect method for language teaching to an approach called
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). Previous teaching methods focused on
linguistic forms and grammatical structure. In contrast, authentic texts were
reintroduced in CLT and were regarded for their communicative value and ideas
instead of their forms (Gilmore, 2007). This type of teaching formed the foundation
for current instructional methods and approaches to teaching like the Canadian
Learning Benchmarks. Here, the focus has been on building language and
communication skills for the purpose of helping newcomers adjust to living in
Canada and to participate fully in society.
I
think that grammatical structure can be difficult to teach in a way that
learners will be engaged and motivated. Although forms can be helpful in
learning the building blocks of a new language and improving leaners’ writing
techniques, what works for writing will not necessarily help with speaking. As
a result, students may learn forms but not be able to communicate in a way that
seems genuine and fluent to native speakers and may instead sound robotic or
unnatural. In comparison, CLT allows teachers to incorporate different types of
learning tasks that focus on improving the communication skills of students so
that they can use what they have learned to express themselves, interact with
others, and interpret forms of communication that they encounter in real life
situations.
Guariento
and Morley (2001) add that the Communicative Approach has also helped teachers
become more aware of the role that affective factors have on language learning.
Affective factors are emotional aspects that impact learners’ abilities to
learn. They include personal trauma, emotional and physical tiredness, and
previous educational and social experiences. These factors affect students’ levels
of motivation, their expectations about their own abilities to learn language,
how language should be taught, what to expect inside the classroom, and their
level of comfort when interacting with native speakers (Guariento and Morley,
2001).
References
Brown, H. D., & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching grammar and vocabulary. In Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (4th ed., pp. 462-486). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.
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.
Clipart Library. (n.d.). [Newsletter]. Retrieved
November 23, 2018, from
http://clipart-library.com/data_images/492705.gif
Gilmore, A. (2007). Authentic materials and authenticity in foreign language learning. Language Teaching, 40(2), 97-118. doi:10.1017/s0261444807004144
Guariento, W., & Morley, J. (2001). Text and task authenticity in the EFL classroom. ELT Journal, 55(4), 347-353. doi:10.1093/elt/55.4.347
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