The two main points that I got from this article were that good ESL teachers should be patient, and let the students do the work.
The article began by saying that communication is a key part to language learning. As I’m sure all of us who take foreign language are aware, if you don’t use the language you quickly lose fluency. Studies have been done that show that students who communicate more learn the language better, but most classrooms are dominated by teacher discussion. Like all of us are used to in our college classes, often the teacher goes up to the front of the room and talks at the students. This is obviously problematic.
The article listed some of the benefits of having increased interaction in the classroom: brain stimulation, increased motivation, reduced risk (students who get freaked out by interrogation style questions), more processing time, and increased attention. Basically, if the students are talking and engaging in the material, they won’t zone out, and they will actually learn! Hooray!
To demonstrate the difference, the article provided a transcript of the same lesson from one teacher who teaches in the mainstream method, and the other who uses the SIOP. There was a clear difference in student participation, which for me was demonstrated clearest by the difference between “student: mumbled replies” and “student: multiple enthusiastic responses”. The first teacher would finish the student’s sentences for them, talk over students, and was ok with partial responses. Later the article said that most teachers are uncomfortable with silence, so they fill it in themselves. I think this is really common, because we feel like we are the experts so we should be the ones presenting the information. Also, if we hear silence, I think we sometimes equate that with the students not thinking. Obviously if we think they aren’t paying attention, we will just give them the answer.
There were a few strategies the article listed for improving the ratio of teacher to student dialogue within a discussion. Most of these I thought were really good, and while they are important in a regular classroom, they are especially important in an ESL classroom because the students need practice with the language. The one that I know will be most difficult for me is that the teacher should go slowly through the material, and make sure the key concepts are understood instead of blowing through the material. I tend to get really excited about what I’m talking about, and I’m sure that I will have to fight the tendency to go monologue-ing and straying off of the main objective. One thing that can help this tendency is if different groupings and activities with multiple arrangements of students are built into the lesson. It’s a lot harder for the teacher to take over the classroom if the students are all in small groups working. The article said that certain configurations should only be used in certain scenarios, but I feel like it would depend on the class and each activity. I’m sure that there are certain tasks that could be done with any size group, depending on the objective. The biggest thing though was that there should be a variance in group size in each class, and that the it is best to stay away from homogenous groups. Especially for ESL students, it’s good for them to be with their peers to help scaffold their language learning.
The strategies given for overcoming the urge to talk over students basically boiled down to just being patient. It can be hard, especially when the student is struggling to find the words, but it is important to give them a chance to make a complete thought. The mainstream teacher did a really bad job of this, and would be content with one word answers. It was slightly comforting that the article said that this takes time to become comfortable with, because I know that saying “Could you elaborate on that?” “What are you trying to say?” or “Can someone tell me more?” don’t come quite as naturally to me as just asking for information. A lot of times I think teachers stop when they see that students understood the main points, without giving them the opportunity to actually engage in the material.
Task: Think about teachers that you have had in the past (language or otherwise). What was one teacher that did a good job of having students interact with the material? How did they do this? Contrast that teacher with one who did a poor job. What could that teacher have changed about their teaching strategies?
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I enjoyed reading your summary along with your feelings on parts of the article.
ReplyDeleteMy Spanish teacher junior year of high school did a very good job with having the class interact with the material we were currently learning. When we started learning about a new topic we would discuss vocabulary that went along with the topic as well as discussion words and questions. For example when were learning about sports we were given vocabulary words like Soccer, Basketball, Football, etc. along with questions and discussion topics like, did you win? did you lose? We tied the game. Did you play well? Did you have fun playing? etc. After we practiced saying them aloud in class repeating the teacher we would break up into partners and have a dialog using our new words. This way we could practice pronouncing the words and listening to them being spoken, hopefully recognizing them and making the connection of what the word meant.
My teacher sophomore year would just give us the words and have us practice on our own. It was difficult to remember how to say them properly when you are at home with no one else there from the class. She could have improved her lesson by following up with some active that involved interaction with the words to help us memorize the words and connect them with there meaning.
Like the Angela Bennett, the 7th grade science teacher in the SIOP video, I had a science teacher in high school who would demonstrate all the labs before we did them. It was oftentimes a lengthy process that took a majority of time from the class period, however, we knew what was expected from us and exactly how to complete the lab prior to even beginning it. The teacher didn't expect us to know exactly how to perform the lab, but how to comprehend the objective and overall concepts of the lab. When we were free to not worry about how to conduct the lab, it was easier to comprehend.
ReplyDeleteI had another science teacher in high school, however, who expected us to know everything, including how to conduct the lab and comprehend it. Although I can understand that this is merely a different approach than the first teacher, this teacher was not open to questions of any kind, and seemed rather put out place when anyone asked questions pertaining to how to conduct the lab. I always perceived this as rather annoying, because if we were unable to conduct the lab, how was comprehension of the objectives of the lab even possible? I feel that as teachers, especially of ELL students, it should be a "no-brainer" that approachability is a necessity within the classroom; if students need to ask questions, no matter how "dumb" (there's no such thing as a stupid/dumb question) they might seem to us, we need to be able to accept it and answer it immediately, because comprehension is the ultimate goal of any lesson.
I had two very different Spanish teachers in my high school career. My senior year teacher was amazing. He had all sorts of creative ways of getting his students to learn and stay attentive. If he noticed a class falling asleep he would yell out "dulce" meaning sweets in Spanish and throw candy in the air and to his students. He would work on all different sorts of learning from speaking (we had to put a play on for elementary school children which helped us conquer our fear of speaking in a large group in a different language and helped us learn that simple language can work as well as complex) to hearing while he told stories about his past that were always so funny you wanted to pay attention and understand them. He made his students feel comfortable in his classroom and you never felt stupid if you messed up. He was very approachable and always understanding which i feel was a main factor to why he was such a great teacher. Being there for your students and making them feel comfortable is so important when teaching a different language. He understood us and listened to us unlike another teacher i had.
ReplyDeleteMy freshmen year on the other hand i had a horrible teacher. She was the polar opposite of the teacher mentioned above. She would yell at us for not understanding the material, speak to us in different languages then Spanish, make us feel inferior because she knew so many language and whenever she tried to talk about her past it felt like she was gloating. She taught straight from the book and really didn't care about the different types of learners. It was also obvious she had favorites in the class and the happiest day of class was when she couldn't teach for a month and we got a sub who we actually learned with. While she may have been fluent in the language she was not a good teacher. She didn't make us feel comfortable in the class and therefore not comfortable with the language. Making your students feel welcomed in the classroom can have such a huge affect on them it is amazing. There are so many little things that go into helping your students learn and many of them don't even involve the actual teaching.
Right now I have a teacher who elicits discussion in the classroom. Often he starts with questions, directing the conversation and students respond. Often times where the discussion goes is determined by our responses. We are encouraged to share our opinions, bring in prior knowledge and experience to enrich the material. After someone shares there response the teacher will often reiterate what the student said, such as "So what you are saying is this..." and from there he will either ask the same person or pose a question to the rest of the class to expand on the first statement. It seems that by restating the students' response it validates it. The teacher does a wonderful job drawing the material that he wants us to know from students, thus we are learning from each other instead of just listening to him.
ReplyDeleteI have found that the teacher I have described above is a rare find. Many teachers that I have had in the past are very good at talking at students as mentioned in the article. I had a biology teacher in high school who was fabulous at this. She would lecture all hour. Often she would pose questions, but instead of having students answer them she would often answer them herself. By doing this she was only interested in teaching the material and ignoring the fact that many people did not understand any of it. She set herself up in the classroom as being superior over the students which made for a very uncomfortable learning and perpetuated the lack of participation by students.
I really liked this article and you did a great job summing it up. Essentially, if a student is saturated with material that is coming from all angles and forms, they will pick it up quite easily. If one method fails, eventually one or three of the other approaches will make an impact on them. There is definitely a difference between understanding material then right away moving on and spending time with that learned material to really engrain it in the student’s head. However to elaborate on each and every subject manner would be time costly, therefore choosing what is important is needed which can be hard. Also when going over the material, pace as you said must be paid attention to in order for your students to understand anything. I totally agree that breaking the teacher center classroom setting and moving it more so to a student based classroom is beneficial because students learn more/better. Just from my experience alone, I learn better when I am in groups, communicating with classmates, projects, etc. anything that allows myself to engage in class. This is because students are forced to participate and work together rather than sitting back and zoning out while the teacher is lecturing.
ReplyDeleteWell since my German teacher in high school just did okay at incorporating strategies, I’ll chose my forensic science class I took my senior year in high school. This class was really neat, interesting, and entertaining- I loved it. My teacher lectured, used power points, and we took notes. Then there were homework assignments and fun worksheets such as crossword puzzles dealing with definitions and such. The really neat stuff was the experiments, like murder investigations and we even discovered our own blood type. We would watch investigation shows based on real cases and filled out worksheets and also predicted the murderers/bad guy. In addition we had presentations, quizzes, and exams like any other class. The material I learned in this class was brought to my attention in a number of fun and interesting ways which really helped me learn the subject. It definitely helps to have a teacher that is passionate about what they teach too.
A class that was awful was my ISS I took freshman year. The professor stood in front of the classroom the entire time lecturing and would go off tangent which really through everyone off. He did not write a single thing down, just talked so it was extremely difficult to figure out what was important to write down. People would be falling asleep left and right because he was absolutely the most boring professor ever. The texts were written by him, which were just as scatter brain and disorganized as his lectures. Then when it came to the exams he would have a lengthy study guide and the class would perform about an average of 65%. Also your grade was only based on 4 exams so there was really no other way of testing us to see if we even learned the material until the exam. This class was terrible and he really should have given some sort of quiz to check for understanding or collect homework. Also he could have at least given a power point for his lectures or point out what is highly significant in the lecture for that day. He needs to work on staying on task with the subject manner being presented in addition to being more organized. I think group projects would have been useful so we would be able to discuss the material with other students and compare summaries/ideas of the chapters, etc.
I had an amazing teacher for 8th grade Social Studies. She was constantly looking for ways to help us understand and interact with the curriculum material. I remember one particular lesson in which we were learning about world economies and supply and demand. To show us how everything is connected, she had us split into groups and make necklaces. We had a lengthy list of instructions and each person was responsible for a task, i.e. measuring and cutting the string, counting out the beads, stringing the beads, attaching the clasp, etc. The main idea was that if one person fell behind, or ran out of supplies, then the entire production was affected. We had a quota we needed to meet and if we ran out of string or beads, we obviously couldn’t complete the “order.” Needless to say, this activity was very effective in giving us a real-life, hands-on example of the lesson content.
ReplyDeleteThe teachers who do the worst job of having us interact with material can usually be found in a college class. I have multiple professors who run their classes the same way every day: read an article, split into groups to discuss/answer questions, discuss/answer questions as a whole class, repeat… It often results in the same 3 or 4 people sharing their ideas while the rest of the class just sits and listens. I think it would be more beneficial if students were asked to create discussion questions or supplementary materials such as videos were incorporated into the classes.
I most definately agree with the opinion that it is hard to be patient and allow silence in the classroom. I often struggle with that even when giving presentations in some of my classes now. If I ask the group a question and am waiting for a response, I have to keep telling myself that one minute isn't always enough time to think of something when you are trying to come up with an answer, but it feels like forever when you are the one waiting for a response.
ReplyDeleteI am currently taking a horse judging class and our professor is very good at getting us to talk with him about what we are doing in the class. He is very intentional with his questions so it is easy to tell when he wants us to respond to him (in comparison with a rhetorical question). He knows how to wait for us to say something and how to prod us to give him an answer by making his questions more specific if we need it. He also has a way of looking you in the eye to see if you're trying to think of something to determine if we just need more time or if we really just don't get it. If all else failed, he would ask us a yes/no question which most people didn't have a problem answering.
I can't say that I have had many professors who didn't know how to handle a class discussion, however I have had several experiences with student presentations where it was obvious that they didn't have the patience to wait for an answer. For example, in one of my Spanish classes, we were giving presentations about pieces of literature and the students presenting would ask us a question and try to get a discussion going, but they would only give us about 2 seconds to respond. If no one responded immediately, it was a lost cause. One strategy would be to simply wait longer and allow the other students to take the time to think and organize their thoughts. In language classes, sometimes it isn't that the students don't have a response, often it is just that they are trying to figure out how to word their response.
I think the best example of a teacher who had the biggest influence in me learning by allowing me to interact with the material would be my physics teacher in high school. I am not a science person, I usually get through a semester of science kicking and screaming. However, my high school physics teacher made the material very engaging. I remember going experiments in class before we ever read the material. We would make predictions based on our schema, and then we would watch the experiment play out. This was followed by a discussion. Then we would read the material followed by a more complicated version of the original experience that we would have to do on our own. I think this was such a good example of good teaching instruction because the teacher modeled the experiment before we did, incorporated our prior knowledge and allowed us to interact with each other and the experiment, instead of just the book.
ReplyDeleteA contrast to this type of interaction would be my experience taking college physics. I find it interesting that I could remember most of the information that I had learned almost 4 years prior to taking it in college, but could not get a firm grasp of the class the second time around. By the nature of being a college level class, this physics course was much more difficult than the class I took in high school. Even with the lab, I was mostly confused. Our physics’ TA clearly had not had any formal training on how to teach. He would give us the lab assignment, explain what each material we would have to use was, tell us what our end result should look like and then let us loose with the lab manual. He could ask him questions during the experiment but most of the time, when we had difficulty understanding what he was telling us, he would just give me the answer. His teaching instruction left much to be desired, but most of all, simply modeling the experiment and explaining the process could have gone a long way.
It took me a long time as a teacher to accept that the best teaching I could do at times was to stay away. Working with technology in the classroom has helped me see that more clearly. When I let my students blog/chat etc. I often see so much more of their capabilities and they co-construct knowledge together a lot more effectively than if I just lecture at them.
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