Hall, Chapters 7-10

chapter seven touches on some interesting points. Section 2 defines the types of data in terms of qualitative vs quantitative. I would assume that most collected data is represented in quantitative terms, like number of occurrences a particular phrase/word has within texts. I like how Hall points out (pg 133) that building analysis on a frequency basis (quantitative) offers less counter claims that the chosen examples are used to illustrate claims that represent the researcher's personal gains. This is why I prefer quantitative data. Sometimes, I feel that research data is swayed to support the claim, even if it doesn't.

Hall also points out that quantitative data doesn't reveal meanings behind patterns in speech, saying, "without some form of qualitative evaluation of the data, the numbers remain meaningless." I agree with this to an extent, but I bring up my previous argument. How are we sure that the data hasn't been swayed to reflect biased opinions?

Which brings me to the following section on research ethics. It was nice to see attention paid to ethical standards associated with research. Hopefully, the guidelines are followed so data isn't used in ways that may alter the outcome. There is one aspect of ethical behavior towards patients that I thought was left out. Researchers have the responsibility to their participants to ensure that the data isn't used in a way that violates the participants beliefs or identity. The participants should be aware of the uses their data will have.

Chapter eight was interesting, in that the discourse analysis section is relevant to another class. A good point (pg 151-152) is that "telling a story about one's life affords the individual the chance to foreground what they consider significant... their representations of themselves provide narrators with examples of how the self wants to be." It's important to let individuals express themselves within their own comforts. It will allow learning to become easier by making it a self exploration type thing... (bad word choice). I mean, that if you let students reflect on their past experiences, it'll help cultivate better future ones. Discourse analysis is a great way of doing this. I would assume that it would open up all sorts of boundaries and help ease understanding and knowledge.

Chapter nine was pretty self explanatory. Although the graphic was a nice touch.

Chapter ten allowed for some things to be better defined. In particular, the use of individual experiences as a research context. This helps shift focus to the ways individuals construct and place their social identities and roles with relation to ascribed or socialized placed positions. It offers a chance to look into the feelings and emotions associated with language learning. I think a lot can be learned from listening to an individual's experience. It can help determine what methods are working and what needs altered.

Just some thoughts on the readings. Hope everyone had a great break.

Farr, Seloni and Song, "Ethnolinguistic Diversity in Language and Literacy Education"

I'm taking that the article's main point is that ethnolinguistic diversity in public schools will help students with language and literacy education. This is a great idea. Using students as a resource will help education because it will make material relevant to students. I feel, though, that this may lead to a snowball effect in educational standards. If teachers are required to include cultural background from all their students, this may strain the teacher's ability to teach students to the best of their abilities. I agree that their must be a common ground for students to relate to the material presented. I also agree that teachers should be aware of their students needs in regards to learning. I am just wondering whether or not this will have an effect on their teaching abilities. Yes, there will be more training and inservice education. Yes this will create a better educational environment. Yes it will (possibly) lead to less drop outs among students but is idea plausible in regards to teacher's abilities and education? I'm not sure.

I agree that the education system needs some work. More attention should be paid to addressing students' needs. I think that the conventional wisdom idea needs to be throw out the window because, obviously, it isn't working. Standardized tests prove nothing in regards to ANY students' abilities, other than they can fill in holes completely. I can't remember one time when I learned anything from standardized test taking. They create stress for students and add extra, usually unnecessary, work for teachers. A pretty silly idea all around.

I also agree with the idea of Americans being monolingual. I think this stems from the idea that any where you go, someone will speak enough English for you to order food or get a hotel room. I've been to a couple of countries in Europe and I never had to know the native language. Granted, I do know German and would use German at any available moment, but as soon as my English accent was herd, they would speak English. It rests in minds that there isn't a point to learning another language because a lot of people speak English. In fact, I remember my friend Pat telling us about his adventure to Japan and not needing to use the Japanese he learned because everyone just spoke English to him from the get go. I think that American schools should pay more attention to foreign language learning. I think that we should require our students to learn a different language, just like every other country requires of their students. The only issue is that Americans aren't afforded the same opportunities to practice their learned foreign language. Think about it, if you live in France, you can learn German, Spanish, Swiss or Italian and be in those countries within a few hours. In the sates, however, it's a little harder. Yeah, you can practice Spanish by going to Mexico but if you live in Pa, that's a two day drive. You can practice French by going to parts of Canada, but that, too, is a far trip. Yes we have speakers of those languages here but in certain areas, they may be hard to locate. For instance, if I want to practice my German, I have to go to the German club in Pittsburgh. I have to be a member too and pay $100. It's not practical.

Anyway, now that I've rambled on for a while...

There are definitely issues with the education system in America, as the article points out so many times. There are issues with education systems all over the world. It's hard to change something that has been in place for so long. It will take the voices of a lot of students to change the way things work. I think that students should take a more active role in their education. They should bring their issues to the school board and demand change. If our parents, during the 60s and 70s were able to do it, I don't see why we cant.

Vivian Cook, "Going beyond the native speaker in language teaching"

This article makes it's points.

I think it's hard to determine what makes a language user native. The text says that native users acquire language from birth and thus learners would need to be reborn. This is true. A lot of brain power is expended while learning languages. It takes brain space to store language parts and unless you've grown up with them all your life, it'll probably be really hard to get all of the target language parts in your head, while simultaneously being able to use them to their full potential.

The idea of multicompetent language users is pretty nifty. These users grow up in a dual language society, acquiring two languages. Although, it may be noticeable to see the disadvantages of this, especially as the article states, in vocabulary, l2 words affect their twin l1s. My Latvian friend Sanda tells me about growing up with Latvian at home and Russian in school and how if Latvian was spoken in school, it was punishable. The article's example isn't as extreme but it shows the same issue.

I agree where the article says l2 learners should be treated as people in their own right, not as deficient native speakers. This is a resonating fact in all language learning and teaching. If you view your students as deficient, then they will be so. Students should be viewed as seekers of information and teachers should aid their quest. I do not agree with the measure of l2 learning being about their accent. Languages are full of accents. They keep languages interesting and changing.

The ways of shifting to a l2 user model are valid. Setting goals for your students that are both attainable and relevant to their world couldn't be a better idea. Using situations and roles that are authentic for learners will give them their own goals. Materials that use l2 language will help them in their acquisition. I like the idea of using situations that reflect students' lives in classrooms. This will allow students to present their ideas and also create conversations for resolution. Code switching is another interesting thought for classroom activities involving the native language of learners. Reciting in one language to a student and then in the other back will help create registers in the brain.

I have an issue with the letting students use their native language in the classroom for more than activities. In my experience, this doesn't help learning the target language. Students are more apt to speak in their native language if they feel the activities are too simple or hard.

The final sentence, before the conclusion, is a good sum up of using l2 users as examples: "Nevertheless, taking the description of the native speaker as the basis of language teaching is in a sense a temporary shortcut that avoids describing what l2 users are like and postpones the more satisfactory solution of tackling the descriptions of l2 users themselves."

This is a good message because, as stated above, it sets goals for students that are reasonable and attainable.

One last point, "If students are convinced of the benefits of learning an l2 and recognise their unique states as standing between two worlds and two cultures, more students may go on higher levels of l2 use; those who give up may feel more satisfied with the level of l2 use they achieve." All about being comfortable in your own skin, or in this case, your language.

Response from across the ocean, Brutt-Griffler/Samimy Article

This is an interesting article. The idea of meaningfully attempting to overcome disempowering discourse is great. This should be a practice that we all take part in, daily. In my opinion, placing emphasis on ways NNS teachers are quote, unquote ineffective as English teachers diminishes not only the person but also the field. We shouldn’t have to discuss this issue because it shouldn’t be one. The article takes excerpts from student’s essays who participated in the study. One student says the contribution of NNS teachers is indispensable. I can’t agree with this statement more. NNS teachers offer a wide variety of tools that NS teachers will never have, like explaining something to students in the native language. Yeah, if the teacher knows the native language, that’s great, but how well can their explanation be, especially if it’s a theoretical concept being explained. There will always be something lost in the translation. That goes across the board, for all languages. It’s also a good point that the article makes about the NNEST as a role model for students. However, I feel that if the teacher feels inadequate as an English teacher that this will transfer to their students. Teachers need to feel their worth as teachers and students smell fear coming from teachers. If the teacher has a preconceived notion that they are somehow unable to do as well of a job as a native speaker, then their students will pick up on this. Teachers need to basically just get over this fear. If you, as a teacher, have put forth the necessary effort to obtain an TESOL degree, then obviously you’re qualified to teach English to your students. I’m not sure who put this idea out there, that NNS teachers of English are “not as qualified as English language teachers,” but I think they should be smacked. It’s almost like saying a woman can’t do something a man can do because she’s a woman. Same concepts, just applied to language teaching. As teachers, if you’re comfortable teaching what you’re teaching (in this case English), then your students will pick up on that. If they disrespect you because you’re not a native speaker of English then you need to explain to them that you are just as qualified as a native. Teachers educate their students and should educate them on this fact as well. If not, then they will never learn anything from you.

One student from the study has a good point, written in their essay, that I feel is often over looked in much of the research I’ve read and class discussions. “By directing the attention of the nonnative professional into the native like proficiency, they whole profession has been very much distressed because we ended up complaining about our inability to have native like proficiency.” I don’t believe that many native English speakers are proficient in English. In fact, I would say that a lot of native English speakers lack the ability to use the English language to its full extent. Besides, what constitutes has having “native like proficiency?” Is it the ability to carry a conversation with any English speaker? Is it understanding and using the culture for personal benefits? Could it be that non of us know what it means to be fully proficient in a language? I don’t know.

Another point made is the issue of owning a language. You can’t own something that isn’t tangible. Bade word choice. I don’t think that anyone can own any language. I think that you take part in creating and enhancing a language rather than owning it. I understand where they’re coming from when they say this but it should be worded differently, in my opinion. Something I can work on during my future role as a TESOL teacher.

As a side note, I hope everyone is doing well in class. I will see you all in a week. Take care!

McKay, Chapter 1 "English as an International Language"

I'm reading McKay and all these things are popping into my head.

First, the International data base estimated the worlds population in 1997 at (we'll say) around 5.9 billion people. If Crystal estimated 1300 million people to be "reasonably competent" in English, that means, that at the time, 22 percent of the worlds population is reasonably competent in English. That's a lot of people. So, if almost 1/4 of the words population speaks one language, I would say, yeah, it's an international language. But this raises a question that McKay touches upon, what's happening to all the other languages? I would hate to see languages die (even though they do) because of the English language's influence.

I like McKay pointing out why the spread of English happens and its negative effects. I think this is a good thing for us all to look at and understand. I'm (obviously) a supporter of people learning another language (English in my case) but I don't think the learning should take over a culture and change their native language. That actually makes me not want to become and ESL teacher. I enjoy going to different countries and not knowing what other people are saying. It makes it interesting and fun. It also represents the culture that you're in.

I was really disturbed when I went to Holland and herd more NATIVE people speaking English than tourists. My boyfriend and I left our bags in the taxi at the airport. We were freaking out because we didn't know Dutch and had no way of communicating with the taxi service until the customer service woman informed us that "Everyone in Holland speaks English." I was floored when she said that but it was true. After I thought about it, I realized that we went ALL OVER Holland and never had a problem communicating with anyone. Even the older generations knew English enough to answer our questions. It's kind of sad.

Anyways.

McKay points out that learning English is a sign of social prominence. I'll agree with this because you need to have a means to educate yourself, and generally that means is money (take it from me, I'm $80,000 in debt for my education but it's money well spent). It's a shame that education is hindered by money. Everyone should be afforded the right of an education. As future teachers, we should advocate for equal education standards across all borders.

SlideShare Link

Hello Everyone,

Here is a link to my slideshare. Enjoy :)

http://www.slideshare.net/ashleybrahosky

-Ashley B.

Week Six Response: "'Breaking them Up, Taking them Away:' ESL Students in Grade 1" (this is really long)

I would like to being by saying I really enjoyed this article. Toothey takes research and observation to a whole new level: research conducted without direct interaction on behalf of the researcher is key in data collection.This study shows how beneficial observations are.

Moving on the the paper... (as a warning to whomever reads this, I was really into this article and what was being said. I had a lot of, probably, unimportant thoughts on this teacher that I included as well. I rambled on at some points as well.)

After reading only a few paragraphs, I noticed something very wrong with this situation. Pg. 65 says "Ms. Jones' class had a reputation among some of the other teachers in the school as having particularly difficult group of children, and four of the students in the class saw the school counselors regularly." Further on, Toothy says, "Ms. Jones believed that my descriptions... were accurate. She felt that the specific practices of her classroom had been necessary because of it's specific circumstances, which she interpreted somewhat differently than I did. She mentioned that she had been acutely aware that her classroom was located immediately adjacent to the school library and to an intermediate classroom, and she felt this placement meant she had to be extra vigilant in making sure her students were not noisy or disruptive. She also thought that the particular combination of children in her classroom presented extra challenges." She further quotes Ms. Jones on pg. 67 with an indented paragraph. Finally, Toothy says "[Ms. Jones'] practices needed to be congruent with those of the other teachers in the school. My point in all of this? This so called "ESL" teacher more concerned about her appearance and status among her fellow colleagues than about the wellbeing of her students. Had she paid more attention to their needs as learners than trying to keep the quite, she may have had an easier time. I felt a little bad for these children who had a terrible experience with a teacher. I remember having bad experiences with teachers and how it affected my learning and interactions.

The following page says, however, that next year's procedures were based on her own beliefs.

Hopefully she did a better job.

Toothy pulls off some awesome research here. She uses three seemingly unconscious habits to prove the "breaking up" of the classroom. I like what she says: "the reinforcement of the conviction that each child was an individual learner who, on his or her own, negotiated classroom life and internalized more or less efficiently the intellectual and linguistic resources provided by the classroom teacher." I assume Toothy means that students are going to copy the teacher's attitude that "your work is your work" and enforce it among their peers. Students also copied teacher's interactions and relations with the other students and acted "teacherly."

She observes the classroom layout and how that interfered with learning. If you have children who are better learners, then shouldn't you put them beside the children who need help? Can't they learn to help each other? Of course not, because the teacher instructed everyone like little soldiers to do their own work, which is touched on later. Student positioning, in my opinion, has a lot to do with learning. You shouldn't put students in assigned seating. That just tells them that they're incapable of choosing a seat. However, if you're teaching bilingual students, you shouldn't let same speakers sit near each other because then they just talk. This was a problem during my Goethe Institut classes in Munich. All the Russian students sat together and spoke Russian. All the Italian students sat together and spoke Italian. All the American students sat together and spoke English. And what happened? A German class where no German was spoken. Our teacher finally had enough and split us up. We all started speaking German because we had to.

Toothy also comments on Amy and Surjeet getting up during story time and going to their desk and doing other things. In the footnotes it says that Ms. Jones "found this to be a common pattern for many of the ESL children she had taught and believed that it reflected the children's lack of understanding the stories." Obviously Ms. Jones is oblivious to her own thoughts. If you knew why this was happening, why wouldn't you do anything about it? This brings up a previous student... anyone remember who it was? It was Ivan, the Russian student who didn't want to be apart of the x-mas holiday play. Does this sound like maybe Amy and Surjeet were not accepting of this idea because it assigned the role of a child as opposed to a learner? Is their resistance practice to centrally defined classroom activities because they didn't understand or because they didn't feel it was beneficial to their learning? I dunno, maybe the Toothy should have asked them. I'm sure she read Peirce's article at some point previous to this.

The idea of borrowing was a great idea to study children's interactions. It posed some valuable points as well. These cute little 6 and 7 year old kids were not only forced to sit at their desks, but now they can't even share crayons. This makes a lot of sense. Their parent's had to replace these materials as well. Not such a bad idea but school supplies are expensive and that's why we pay taxes, so students can have the necessary supplies to learn. ANYWAY, Ms. Jones didn't always approve of the children borrowing things because they were moving around and using things that weren't theirs. Okay, Teach children to sit still and use their own things. But don't punish them when they need too because your cheap school district wont provided necessary learning materials. Material borrowing is a great way for casual conversation to take place and I don't understand why the teacher didn't encourage this. It would have halted, maybe, the tenseness felt by Surjeet when she asked Mary for something.

Toothy summarizes borrowing, saying "From the above description, it seems evident that borrowing and lending practices in this classroom were reflective of the social relations of the children therein." Some of the children didn't lend their materials to students or they were rude when said students asked them for their items. I think this is a reflection of their seating arrangements. The arrangements were based on proficiency. More advanced at the back and vise versa. Children are intelligent and I think they would pick up on this and base their interactions on this idea of advance knowledge. They may have perceived the up front students as less intelligent, possibly explaining their hesitation with letting them borrow items because they weren't sure if they would get them back because the other students may loose or take the items, never returning it.

The final section, Toothy describes word usage between students. The teacher and students "made it known that repetitions were illegitimate contributions." Awesome. Tell a 6 or 7 year old that they're not contributing to the class and really diminish their self esteem. Good Job Ms. Jones. Other children participated in reminding students not to copy words, however, they weren't very nice about it.

So overall, I'd say this class did not cultivate knowledge. If anything, it hindered it. Toothy makes a good point that I thought about before even reading it. "The bilingual children I observed had relatively few unobstructed or unsupervised opportunities to speak to peers with whom they customarily chose to interact during unsupervised times at school. Therefore, the opportunities of the bilingual children who were seen as having difficulties to interact with more capable, English speaking peers were curtailed (imposed restriction on)." These children were unable to interact freely with their peers. How is this going to reflect on their future classroom interactions? Will they forever be scared because of this one year? I'm not sure. I hope they are not.

Toothy concludes with a quote from Kanno and Applebaum, "Perhaps it is high time we discarded our romantic notion that if we put children of all ethnic/linguistic backgrounds in one place we will witness the development of true cross-cultural understanding." She quotes Paley, "The group must change its attitudes and expectations towards those who, for whatever reason, are not yet part of the system." She quotes Freire, "The solution is to not integrate them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so they can become beings for themselves." These really resonate after reading this article.

It's impossible to enforce conformity. Any person shouldn't be expected to be something their not. That is why we all have individual thoughts and feelings. I think that if teachers stop looking at their students based on their outside, then learning would be easier and understanding would be universal. That isn't the case. It should be, but it isn't. There is a lot more to each individual student/person than meets the eye. This is the key to being a successful teacher is to understand the individual self and help them form into a comfortable learner. They'll learn and in return, you'll have accomplished your objectives.

I'm done. Hope everyone had a great weekend. See you all on Monday.