"they never taught me this"

As I was skimming (admittedly) through the readings for this week (hey, we have a paper due next week and I have been working hard on that!) the thought that kept coming to mind was that it is simply not possible to learn classroom management from a textbook. I think it is something that has to be developed and learned through experience over time. No textbook chapter, no matter how much experience the author has or how well the book is written, can ever prepare us for all of the situations we will encounter as teachers and mentors. I learned this first-hand working with the Migrant students this summer. I felt like I could lead them through a guided reading lesson, make sure they did their math problems correctly, and help them write better transitions between paragraphs. But when it came to discipline, I sometimes found myself completely at a loss.

Much of discipline, I have learned, comes back to respect. No amount of punishment will be sufficient to change a student who does not respect me. And so as a teacher, I desire to develop mutual respect with my students: they as respectful of me as the teacher and authority in the classroom, and I as respectful of them as individuals with needs and desires that may, at times, clash with my own! These situations cannot be handled by following instructions out of a textbook.

There are some things, though, that affect behavior and that we, as teachers, can be proactive about. It is very important to understand those things. Lewis, in her chapter "Classroom Management" suggests motivation as one. Motivation significantly affects language learning. If we can somehow help students to be motivated, we will likely experience less behavior problems in our classroom.

I am sure there are many others. In fact, we have talked about quite a few in this class. But I still hold that the most important thing is respect. It is so fundamental, and yet sometimes so difficult to attain.

self-assessment

In Elena Shohamy's article, "Assessment", she discusses the necessity of and options for evaluating discourse, which she considers to be an important aspect of communicative competency. I wholeheartedly agree with Shohamy. I think that discourse is something that language learners are striving for; something that will make their learning seem worthwhile.

Her commentary on page 205 about the different types of discourses explains that a student's performance in one type of discourse, such as an interview, cannot predict a student's performance in another type of discourse, such as a role-play. She, therefore, suggests that students should be tested on different types of discourses, and it should not just be assumed that they have discourse competence if they can successfully participate in a debate, for example. I think this is true. However, her commentary seems to imply that students should be striving for mastery of all of these different types of discourses. I think it is important to keep in mind that even in a student's first language, they will have strengths and weaknesses in different discourses. Not everyone is good at role-play; not everyone is good at debate. Second language learners do not suddenly possess the ability to express themselves in all ways at all times simply because they are learning a second language. They will still be better at some things than at others. Perhaps sometimes we place too much pressure on second language learners to perform well in areas that give them trouble in their first language.

On page 211, Shohamy describes ways that discourse should be tested, as alternatives to traditional testing methods. She offers self-assessment, narratives, peer assessment, dialogue journals, oral debates, portfolios, and other assessment methods as viable alternatives to traditional testing. I have seen self-assessment come up more and more as a "good" alternative testing method, and I have to say that I disagree with this. Evaluation of oneself requires quite a bit of higher level thinking. Students' brains are not fully developed in high school, much less earlier than that in school. Thus, to offer self-assessment as an assessment method seems flawed. I think that it is important to guide students into evaluating their own work, but to use it as a reliable assessment tool at this stage does not seem like a wise idea. I believe that at this point in their learning, students are still looking for guidance and stability from teachers and other mentors. They are not looking for the academic freedom we seem to think that they need. Instead they are looking for direction in their education and are still learning how to learn. Higher level thinking, and consequently the ability to better evaluate one's own actions, thoughts, and needs, come later in life.

Shohamy has certainly given me something to think about, although I sometimes feel that we severely complicate things like this. The more we "unpack" things, I feel the less we accomplish. Assessing discourse maybe isn't quite as important as just giving students opportunities to practice it. I realize that what we assess is indirectly stating what we believe is most important in language learning, but sometimes I think that there is too much theory being thrown around about things like this. Theory rarely plays out in the classroom the same way that it does on paper.

jots and tittles

I found the "From the Good Kids to the Worst" article very interesting. The Kuma chapter was fine too, but it was kind of a repeat of what we've been talking about ever since 344. I think the article is the part of today's readings that really made me see some issues in a new light. Unfortunately, my brain is going several different directions at once, so this post may become a bit disjointed. However, these are a few of my thoughts, in no order in particular, about today's readings.

I would agree with Harklau's statement on page 36, where she writes, "Too little is known about how these English language learners take on the simultaneous challenges of managing high school content-area academics, learning a new language, and coming of age in US society". Because this statement encompasses so many factors, it would indeed be very difficult to tell what factors are affecting which students at any given time, and because each of them are in a different situation, it is difficult to generalize. I think that was a problem for the ESOL students described in this case study... they were generalized and homogenized incorrectly. I think at some level all teachers must, at some point, mentally "group" their students in order to have a more categorized idea of the general needs of the students in their class. Of course, a teacher cannot rely too heavily on this mental grouping - as one person states later in the article, "each time you think you sort of have a profile of what the family situation probably is based on a few indicators, I find out that its - I really can't make that assumption" (48). We need to be careful that we always think of our students as individuals and not as just a member of a group of students who are all alike - the "ESL kids", the "band kids", the "trailer park kids".

I think the biggest problem here, though, is not necessarily that the students were all being grouped as "ESL", but that students were categorized and were assigned characteristics that were not true of them. Thus, teachers who thought that they were catering to or meeting the needs of these students, actually were not doing so.

The author addressed the question as to why ESL students who performed wonderfully in their high school classes became complacent and poorly behaved in their community college classes. Harklau examined the interaction of classroom practices and social structure and the role that these concepts have in students' identity formation. She discussed the way that ESL students are typically viewed by their high school instructors. These high school instructors typically gave the students high praise for their writings about their experiences, and commented that although the students sometimes failed to correctly complete their homework assignments and perhaps weren't always on task, they were very motivated, hard-working, and had pleasant attitudes.

One part of her article that I found the most fascinating was the discussion of Aeyfer's paper that she wrote, in which she was sitting between the two flags and described her story of how she came to be where she was at, etc. The teacher thought Aeyfer had done wonderful work. As the author writes, "These stories carry at least the potential for students to essentialize themselves as a cultural 'other' in order to secure teachers' sympathy and support". As I read through this section, I had to think of the term "suck-up" as a somewhat adequate descriptor in some of these cases. It happened at the ELI and in the Migrant program too. I don't say that to be derogatory, but just to describe the situation. Students who can't genuinely perform well do often position themselves as "different" because in today's society, the one who is "different" is the one who gets attention.

Anyway, though, the author points out that Aeyfer had been given the same assignment in at least two other classes - and later in the article mentions that similar assignments appeared in these students' college classes as well! Furthermore, this assignment was not actually even relevant to all of the ESL students, as many of them, like Claudia, had been in the States for some time and actually considered "her country" to be the U.S. She was viewed as an American by all of her friends and family in the country she had come from.

The problem came when these students entered college and were placed in ESOL courses, limiting them to a level of performance and learning of material that was too easy for them and somewhat degrading, almost, it seemed. I actually don't think it is any surprise that their college experiences came as a frustration to these girls. In high school, they could succeed by being "different", as described above. They could succeed by telling about their past experiences. College classes, however, require that you go beyond your past experiences in order to be successful. And furthermore, you are plopped in with a whole pool of "different" people, so being "different" doesn't necessarily single you out anymore. From what I read, this created somewhat of an identity crisis in these girls. I actually think we all go through that at some level, so I'm not convinced its just a culture/language thing. We all have our "spot" among our friends and peers in high school, our "label"; our "comfort zone". College can be a shock in that way, because you've arrived at a new place where no one knows about you, your reputation, all your great accomplishments, or your family. For some that can be a good thing, but for other students who have relied on their past to create their identity, this can be difficult.

Harklau's discussion is similar to my own interpretation (or should I say, my interpretation is similar to Harklau's). She asks, "How is the ESOL student constructed and understood" and describes the "new positioning" of these students as explicit "ESOL" students in college. She talks about frames of reference in terms of "in my country", being "from" the U.S. etc. And she describes a very common circumstance in which "In daily, subtle ways, the curriculum and teacher talk in college ESOL classes denied these immigrants ownership of English" (58). Their status as a speaker of English was unrecognized, and their ability to speak the language undermined. This resulted in a resistance to the classroom that represented this language.

I feel like this post is very scrappy, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that all of these issues are interrelated but also experienced by native English speakers on some level. It is very important for us as teachers of English to recognize our students as speakers of English and also to give them opportunities to move beyond their position as an 'other'. Perhaps that is where they would like to stay, but it would seem that this position results in their education being somewhat repetitive and does not do much for their desire to be viewed as a speaker of English and as an American.

I wonder... how do we honor and use past experiences and move into the present at the same time?

understanding

Do they understand? Although there was so much I could talk about in chapters 5 and 7 of Kuma, I think a theme that I recognized that connected the two lies in learner understanding.

In chapter 5, the part that interested me the most was on page 106, where Kuma discusses Interaction Hypothesis. After describing "teacher-talk" and "foreigner-talk", Kuma explains that this phenomena occurs quite often in the language classroom. Michael Long explains, in the Interaction Hypothesis, that "oral interaction in which communication problems are negotiated between participants promotes L2 comprehension and production, ultimately facilitating language development" (Kuma, 106). In essence, rather than looking for expected answers, we as teachers should negotiate with our students the meaning of what they are saying. Negotiation involves clarification strategies, rather than a simple "yes" or "no", wrong or right. Kuma explains that while clarification strategies do occur frequently in speech among native speakers, it happens most often between a NS and an NNS or some relationship of that nature. Clarification, comprehension, and confirmation questions such as "Do you understand me?", "Can you say that again?", and "Is this what you mean?" are important in order to avoid "break-downs" in conversation. The thought that occurred to me is that not only is this valuable in the classroom, but students will also need these comprehension and clarification strategies in real speech! What better way to practice them than in the classroom? These strategies and modifications aid understanding.

In chapter 7, Kuma talks about language awareness. I think what stood out to me here is that students need to be encouraged to ask "why?". The example given on page 159 is that of the English spelling system which is, as the author writes, somewhat "zany". But then, what spelling system isn't? They are all different, and that is why it is necessary to check for student comprehension and understanding and allow them to understand it at a deeper level, rather than just being content with, "well that's just the way that it is spelled".

Throughout all of this too, I was constantly reminded of my experiences at the ELI. We used comprehension checks all the time. And I was asked for explanations all the time! And I hate to admit it, but I wasn't always prepared to deliver those explanations and I wasn't always good at it and sometimes I had to say, "I don't know". But I think that we can still encourage our students to search for understanding and to think about the language they are learning - because even all together, we might learn something!