The second part of this entry discusses the resources that I chose to read and to develop my lesson plan for the culture conversational class. The resource that I used for my fourth lesson plan is an article that was published by an organization called Teach Overseas. It is a Canadian organization that provides training for English language teachers and posts job opportunities for those who want to work abroad. It also has a blog that publishes EFL resources and ideas.

The article is called "Best Methods to Improve Conversational English and is about language teaching methods for improving conversational English within the EFL context. I chose this resource because I wanted to see how I could make the activities in my lesson plans for the cultural conversational class more effective and engaging. The course outline for this class outlines a variety of target language for each week and the textbook includes several practice dialogues in each chapter. I have found these practice dialogues a good way to teach cultural differences and to allow students to practice using language in a useful way. Part of the reason why students decided to take this program is to be in an environment where they have more opportunities to practice using their English than compared to their home countries where most people speak their L1s. As such, I feel like teaching dialogues and conversations that students are likely to encounter in Canadian society is important.

This resource helped me to understand some of the challenges that English language learners have that prevent them from fully participating in conversational activities and ways that teachers can support them in the classroom to help them become more confident students. The article frames conversation as a process involving listening, mental formation of meaning, and speaking. I think that these terms are pretty straightforward and do not require definitions. The article states that students must perform all three tasks to fully participate in conversational activities. However, most students face challenges that inhibit this process and discourage them from participating in these activities. The resource provides the following list of factors that cause or reinforce the reluctance that learners have for speaking in English:

1. The topic is irrelevant or completely unfamiliar to the learner.
2. The learner does not have an opinion or anything to say about the topic because it is not interesting or important to them.
3. The learner does not know how to articulate an idea and is afraid of making mistakes and being ridiculed by their conversational partner, teacher, or class.
4. The learner is intimidated by the high skill level of their classmates and wants to avoid being compared to them even if they have something to say about the topic.
5. The learner is self-conscious about their accent when speaking English.

After observing the classes and beginning to teach students, I have seen the negative effects that most of these factors have on the students' levels of engagement in the lessons and classroom activities. Sometimes it is difficult to gauge whether students are disinterested in lessons because the teaching methods and activities are not engaging or whether the topic is not applicable or is unfamiliar to them. For example, one of the weekly topics was about dating in Canadian culture. This topic might not be important to some students because they do not intend to date while studying in here or they prefer to date someone from their own culture and the materials covered in class would not be applicable. The resource also includes a few social factors that explain why students might be reluctant to participate. I think that these factors are particularly relevant for the students in my practicum placement because most students come from Asian countries where their cultures focus on saving face. As such, it can be challenging to try to get these students to participate more in class when they are afraid of losing the respect of teachers and other students. However, as we discussed in previous courses in the TESL program, it is essential for language teachers to get their students to speak English and practice using the language in different ways in order to learn more effectively.

This resource says that English language teachers should address these factors as soon as possible because they prevent learners from becoming more proficient in their speaking skills. Teachers must address these factors so that students can become active learners and participate in a meaningful way in conversational activities in the classroom. The resource provides a list of ways that teachers can support students in the classroom by addressing the problems that were discussed above. I will outline these methods below, along with ways that I tried to incorporate them into the fourth lesson plan.

Teachers can align their lesson plans with the appropriate socio-cultural contexts and subjects that are relevant and familiar to their students. This will help their students form ideas and opinions and encourage them to participate more in communicative tasks.

The topics for this week's culture conversational class is eating and restaurants. The textbook provides activities that draw attention to the similarities and differences between American/Canadian culture and other cultures regarding these topics. I think that these topics are relevant to students because they will likely eat out during some part of their stay in Canada. As a result, I think that the students will want to be informed about these differences and will be receptive towards the information covered in class. It is less clear whether students will form ideas and opinions about this topic since, in my opinion, there is nothing to be opinionated about. As such, I think it is even more important to create activities that are engaging and meaningful for the students. I am hoping that creating dialogues that simulate realistic conversations between customers and restaurant personnel will be engaging and meaningful for the students.

2. Teachers should get to know their students on an individual level and their particular interests so that they can develop lesson plans that are meaningful to students.

The students are still new to me because I have just started to teach and interact with them at this point in my practicum. As such, I do not know most of the students names or their interests. I think that it is difficult to get to know students on an individual level in this context because the courses are only eight weeks long. This makes it difficult to know what is meaningful for students and creates more of a trial and error teaching scenario, especially for new teachers. However, my sponsor teacher has more insights into what the students might find meaningful and what their interests might be because she has been working in this teaching context for several years and has additional experience working with students who are in the same age and cultural demographic. This makes her a great person to consult for feedback and suggestions for my lesson plans.

Teachers can provide their students with pre-determined roles or opinions so that there is less pressure to come up with something to say and they can focus on how to communicate effectively instead of how to generate content.

I have tried to implement this concept into the fourth lesson plan by using the textbook activities to show how conversations and interactions between customers and restaurant staff typically work in restaurants here in Canada. The textbook offers examples for several types of restaurants (including casual and formal restaurants) and situations. These textbook activities serve as models for students to practice interaction and create their own dialogues. It should be clear what language content they should include in the dialogues since we examine the content in the textbook, sample interactions included in the course outline, and brainstorm details that should be included during different stages of eating at restaurants. As such, students do not need to come up with new ideas and can instead focus on using the information that has already been provided.

Teachers should create a learning environment where students are able to express themselves freely and understand that it is normal and inevitable that they will make mistakes.

I think that this is the most difficult factor to address since there is usually a heavy emphasis on error correction in classes that are in an academic setting. The saving face factor can result in students anticipating that attention will be drawn to their mistakes and then choosing not to participate. As a teacher, and particularly in this context, I will try to gently point out mistakes and to explain that it is normal to make mistakes during the learning process. I will try to put more emphasis on fluency and the use of language rather than on grammar. I think it will be easier for students at this level to understand what I mean when I say that mistakes are normal and inevitable than when I volunteer in the newcomer literacy ESL classroom.I hope that I can foster the sort of classroom environment for the students where they will feel comfortable sharing and participating in my activities.

Teachers can balance activities that encourage competition as a motivator for success and collaboration where students can work together for the benefit of the whole group.

This is also a difficult factor to address since most of the content of this course is new to students. Normally, teachers would sequence tasks and/or activities so that they model what students are supposed to do, practice doing the task and/or activity, and then produce language that reflects their learning of the target language. As such, I think that this context is not ideal for competitive activities when introducing new language to students and that it is better suited for review classes. However, I think that having students practice both as a class and in groups, along with feedback about what they did well and what information they might want to include next time, fosters a classroom where working together benefits the whole class.

Teachers can avoid overemphasizing the importance of speaking English without a foreign accent. Instead, teachers should focus on whether students can be understood and can communicate effectively.

I don't think that this will be an issue in my class. I understand that students may be self-conscious about their accents and that they may be reluctant to speak in class. However, I do not focus on correcting accents because I believe that English is an international language and that there generally is no such thing as correct pronunciation. I think the focus should be on fluency and whether students can be understood. Although this can sometimes this means correcting pronunciation errors and grammatical mistakes, I am more concerned with whether I can understand the messages that students trying to convey and express. In addition, I think it is helpful for students to have their teacher interject when they come across new words that they do not know how to say or what they mean.

Overall, this resource has helped me understand what the goals of conversational English classes are and the obstacles that prevent students from becoming engaged and participating in classroom activities. After reading this resource, I was better able to understand what students are looking for and expecting in this teaching context and the methods I can use to make my lessons more engaging. I feel like I am prepared for my teaching hours now since I understand better how to encourage students to participate.


References

Teach Overseas. (2016, January 10). Best Methods to Improve Conversational English [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.teachoverseas.ca/blog/best-methods-to-improve-conversational-english