I remember the first time I met them and did an activity with them, they were very shy and they weren’t confident in their English abilities. Most of the time they would speak in Japanese. When they did speak English it would be one or two words or simple sentences. I was always the one to ask them questions and begin conversations. During this past week, however, they’ve been very talkative and their English has improved a great deal. Maybe because it is their last week, but I think the main reason is that after a month of constant exposure + class activities, they are now much more confident than they were a month ago. I know that I felt the same way when I first studied abroad (though I wasn’t as shy because I was young, stupid, restless and reckless…)

Seeing the Shimane kids reminds me of my own language learning experience, which is precisely the reason I chose to become a language educator: I want to be a part of others’ language learning experience and I want to make a goddamn difference.

On Monday, I marked my mid point in the TESOL program by helping out with new student orientation . It brought back vivid and special memories of getting started here at MIIS. It’s hard to believe that a year has gone by already, and that by this time next year, this will be over and we will all be starting new things in new places.

So, out of this first coaching experience I’ve realized the importance of having and developing a successful teacher persona. One that helps to appropriately calibrate the energy level in the classroom. Without watching myself almost completely fail at this, I’m not sure how long I would have gone on teaching like a tall, skinny Ambien pill. I also came away with what I feel is a very good and concrete idea to keep in mind when designing lessons. And finally, I learned how valuable (and painful) of a tool video and peer coaching can be for developing professionally.

After watching my practicum classmates (Heidi, Rebecca, Gabriel) teach, I now find myself a lot better at going beyond the world of simply seeing and into the realm of observing. Holmes need only observe once or twice to get the details and I am envious of his keen observation. However, when I watch my own teaching video again and again, I notice different things each time. The same goes with observing my classmates, and even watching movies and listening to music: Though I am capable of multi-tasking and perhaps observing more than one or two aspects of teaching, it’s impossible to be mindful of ALL of the different variables at once, let alone the effects of those variables on the teacher or the students or the other aspects.

Through watching the videos with Peter (Holmes) and with two of my classmates, I learned a great deal about the power and the rewards of careful observation. Having someone outside is also helpful because a new perspective is added to the observation. Peter provided us valuable feedback and suggestions on ways to improve on our aspects of teaching and because of that, I feel I am now much more comfortable in having observers seeing me teach and even me watching myself teach.

Heidi mentioned in one of her posts that it takes a certain amount of trust and openness to do what we did with Peter and our classmates, and I find it to be very true. I think that our practicum class is simply MAGICAL! Thank you Peter!

Needless to say, this first observed class went pretty well and I think it depicts the day-to-day classroom pretty accurately. We began with 4 students each making a 3-minute persuasive speech and receiving detailed feedback from both peers and me. Next we launched into Peter’s a-b-c debate activity which tied into formal debate structure. Since they had been reading Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations (which asserts that wars will be fought based on insurmountable culture and value clashes) in their reading class I had them summarize the main points, typed them into our blog and showed them a video of Edward Said presenting a counter-argument. For homework they were given a listening jigsaw of the Edward Said talk and told to summarize the main points as look up vocabulary that I had listed at the bottom of each sheet.

When teaching, I sometimes feel as if it’s a bit like Eddy Izzard’s description of snowboarding: There’s only 2 positions; “cool” and “DEAD!!!” Perhaps the most valuable gem I walked away with was faith in the reality check given by the video camera. While teaching, it’s extremely difficult to get a completely accurate self-assessment of how the lesson is coming along. If you have a lot planned, and I often do, you spend a lot of that self-assessment time just checking your pulse (…not dead…still not dead…) and the energy level of the class. During the actual class, some of the group work that seemed rocky or some of the questions I felt I struggled with weren’t nearly as big a speed bump in my lesson as I had thought. As a person who tends toward extensive self-criticism (pianist) I tend to see only what still needs improvement and quickly lose site of everything already gained. Through my discussion with Peter, the experience of planning for this class and seeing it all play out on video tape, I realize that one year ago, my teaching would have been far more teacher-centered with grammatical accuracy playing a bigger role in the curriculum. Students weren’t trained for peer feedback, they didn’t have a say in the curriculum, the activities were mechanical and not terribly communicative, and the design of the unit was still in the hands of whatever textbook I happened to be using. Of course, I’d still like to be able to spend less than an entire day planning for one class, I feel a great deal better about my teaching methods.

That’s not to say the camera doesn’t reveal things I’m not terribly proud of, however. There are definitely phrases that I repeat too often and my James Brown impression needs some serious work

I like the time-line maker, the Glogster collage tool, and Jaycut (for editing video if you don’t own iMovie). The site gives nice little reviews and descriptions of each tool as well.

For wacky things to do with pictures: http://bighugelabs.com/
What is it?
A collection of lots of little mini-photo editing apps. You can make jigsaws, collages, frames and tons of other things. I like the one that lets you make your own picture game (called “Guess the Title”), which could be great for language leanring! Here’s something I made using the “Motivator” tool:

For teaching yourslef about digital tools: lynda.com
What is it?
Ever use a youtube tutorial? Wish they were better? lynda.com has professionally made video tutorials on just about anything you’re looking for, from Jing to Voicethread to Drupal website creation (what the MIIS website is hosted on). Well scaffolded, well made, the only catch it that you have to pay to be a member to access the more in depth videos ($25 per month!!!:/) That being said, the ones they offer for free are quite useful if you just want to take a peek at a new tool and explore it yourself.

More than a few SLA researchers advocate for
learner-centered activities regarding cultural learning. I find this idea very
compelling but challenging in terms of activity design. However in the DLI
teaching environment this principle will not always work due to the
exceptionally fast pace and high pressure characteristic of its language
programs.

I have always had a keen interested in teaching the cultural
aspects of the target language. Somehow it is not very easy to integrate into
the DLI’s relatively rigid curriculum. Also, I have noticed that the learning
opportunities are more incidental than pre-ordinated. The cultural subjects
that come up during the class are often random and spontaneous.

Many times students would raise questions on cultural topics
based on their thoughts regarding language use derived from their homework or
class exercises. Other times my lecture will take a deviation from the planned
activity, triggered by the contingent topics of discussions, and briefly draw
my students’ attention to some interesting cultural phenomenon. For example,
today’s reading material features an article on child obesity in the US. The
topic then embarked on Chinese children’s obesity, which is relatively new
topic in China. I told the class back in my early school days (80’s and early
90’s) in China I couldn’t recall even one child being chubby. My students asked
me whether “fat” children in China indicate their family wealth. The topic then
took a different turn from obesity to the history of economic development in
China since the start of open door policy. The switch of topic was
self-determined by the natural flow of conversation and students’ interest. I
was quite happy to share with my students my observations and opinions of how
wealth gap gradually took shape as I grew up in Beijing. My students seemed
quite intrigued the whole time by my teacher-centered lecture.

This little episode makes me wonder if teacher-centered
cultural learning has an equal value to student-centered at times. I believe in
learner’s interest in the content and subjects involved. As long as their
attention is aligned with the content, they normally would walk away with gains
of new knowledge. In such a case, the teacher has to “shoulder” the burden of
being a cultural expert to certain extent. Being well-versed, sensitive and
well-tuned to various cultural subjects is a key requirement.

Meanwhile, my previous experience is that teacher’s guidance
and feedback is well valued by students even for those more student-centered
cultural learning activities. They have always shown a tendency to tap into the
cultural expertise of their teachers. In such a case I believe it is important
for teachers to encourage students to search for other sources of information
than their own voice after class.

I helped my students prepare for their Unit test during
today’s oral speech class. Role play is an important item in DLI’s speaking
test design. During the simulated practice of test-relevant situations, I was
taken by surprise that most of my students had serious struggles in retrieving
the accurate vocabulary to express their intended meanings. Majority of the
time they had to rely on me to provide the key vocabulary rather than work out
the lexical choice themselves.

My first impulse is to search for reasons why they were
struggling. Starting second semester the workload of vocabulary study had
notoriously doubled or even tripled at DLI’s Chinese program. Many times the
students are artificially pushed to move on to the next topic or material
before being able to use the newly introduced vocabulary. The way they have a
chance to practice using new vocabulary is often through grammar exercises,
homework exercises and speaking activities with a clear focus on the lexical
usage. However, when they leave those exercises behind, there will be rarely
any chances to use them again. When the amount of vocabulary spirals up, the
new unfamiliar words seem to store up randomly in their mind and sometimes end
up being buried deeply.

To solve this problem equals finding a way to facilitate
speedy and automatic retrieval of vocabulary. Under the concern over oral
production, I realized the issue may come down to achieving a balance of
prepared and improvised speech in practice time. This conceptual distinction
comes to my mind due to a recent presentation at MIIS on the subject of oral
fluency. Prepared speech easily draws learner’s attention to the usage of
target vocabulary that falls below mastery in the short run. Improvised speech,
on the other hand, enables learner to identify their vocabulary learning gap in
the long term. It is exactly owing to its lack of focal point or extensive
coverage of content that learners are able to incidentally encounter vocabulary
items that they have yet to learn or review.

The next step is to help identify or promote learning
opportunities to enhance the practice of improvised speech. I believe having a
language partner or online chatting friend is a great way to meet this purpose.
I also think the warm up stage at the beginning of every lesson serves as
another great source of random talk with students. I can also set up a small
time slot in every speaking class, have my students take turns to pick up a
random debate topic, and everyone has to come up with a speedy line of thought
surrounding the topic (more priority given to accuracy of language use than
merit of argument). Based on today’s observation and lesson learned, I am
starting to have an interest in developing ideas that promote the incidences of
improvised speech in the classroom.

1. What went well?
The class environment
I liked the environment of this class more so than any I have I’ve ever taught. Most students had little trouble giving constructive feedback and we had a very supportive atmosphere that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. Class participation was generally high with all problems of reluctance either eventually working themselves out or showing signs of definite improvement.

The topical structure
We had a WIDE variety of skill levels and interests and letting the students pursue their own passions for weekly presentations on Mondays seemed to work out great. The content is emergent and with the students giving me something to build off of, we all learned a great deal more than we could have planned.

Voicethread
This gets two entries. What was good about it was that I eventually discovered the myriad ways of putting it to use in a language class and came up with a clearer idea of the role I wanted it to play in this particular course. For my class (Oral Comm IV), it’s true potential shined when students listened to each others’ comments and built a conversation. FAR more interesting, communicative, and community building than the simple TOEFL-esque “respond to X” prompt.

Teacher as a guide
A student-centered environment changes the student-teacher relationship considerably. I felt that in this class students were more honest and open with me than in my previous teaching experiences. Giving students a voice that you listen and respond to (thank you Needs analysis & speaker-understander!) cultivates a level of comfort needed for (usually polite) frankness.

2. What would I change if I ran this course again?

Voicethread
In my own private Hell, there is a gmail account that I must empty by replying to each Voicethread notification with detailed individualized feedback for an uncountable number of students. I think I might change assessment of this assignment to utilize only peer and self assessment and take my voice out completely next time. Another option is to have students comment on the content, cohesion, and coherence of each others’ entries and leave only the grammar and pronunciation to me.

Linguistic themes
I had designed the course to cover one per week, like the topics. However, 2-3 days is not nearly enough class time to cover things like persuasive speech, debate, pronunciation, etc…in any kind of depth. I felt that just as we were starting to find the students limitations on any one theme, it was time to change again. Next time I will definitely try to cover less breadth at the curricular level.

The website
Our google site was nice, simple, and well trafficked but used only for completing assignments. I don’t think anyone perused the resources I had set up and the vocabulary log seemed to turn into “just another arbitrary thing to do”. I’ll need to find a way to make this more attractive, interactive, and useful.

3. Things I’m not sure about…
Progress
Completely forgetting to pass out the end-of-term course evaluation forms was one of my biggest mistakes this summer. Using the audio journals and presentation assignments, I could point to areas of definite improvement in most students but I’m not sure that everyone feels like they got what they needed.

Grammar
Only a couple students seemed to need explicit grammar attention but with only 6 weeks of usable instruction, I didn’t see how to fit in the bits that would help them. The only thing I did was give them corrective feedback on their voicethread audio journals via email, which I’m pretty sure wasn’t enough. If I had to teach this course again, I’m still not sure what I would do for grammar lessons at the advanced level.

If Speaker-Understander were a monologue it would look something like the above, I think Overall, my summer session at the ESL school was a great teaching experience that was enjoyable, experimental, rewarding and refreshing (Don’t let my exhausting posts fool you :p).