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                    ISSUES IN LEARNING AND TEACHING GRAMMAR

“PROCESSING INSTRUCTION AND STRUCTURED INPUT vs.

 MEANING BEARING INPUT”

“Culture and Technology”

            Before I started this course, I had the idea that the only way to teach Spanish to beginners consisted in following the instructions in a textbook and giving the students a list of words and short sentences for them to memorize, starting with the verb to be, some basic nouns and adverbs, which they were to repeat over and over until they pronounced all correctly. After several weeks during the semester, I realized that this method was really not very effective and that to teach a second language required a more creative approach. I whish to now summarize how I arrived at new and better approaches, methods and concepts.

There have always been several schools of thought regarding the best and most effective way of teaching a second language.  Some of the best critics are teachers who were at one time learning a second language and exposed to the difficulties and/or advantages of certain methods used.  Others, as Musumeci (1997) and Van Patten (2002), have researched the subject extensively and shared the results with educators.  Also to be taken into consideration is the concepts of “hallway English” and “critical concept learning English”. Hallway English does not require critical thinking skills, just mimics.

Many believe Immersion is the best solution while others believe that since Grades would be in jeopardy of suffering, immersion is not the perfect solution.  Concepts and cultural identify plus a high level of “stress” makes immersion an ineffective method of learning a second language.  If the classes were not “graded” and the stress removed, immersion would be more effective. In the previous paper I wrote regarding immersion I seemed to believe that it was a good method of learning. This new information, however, has made me doubt its effectiveness.

Of all the readings that I had to study this semester in the textbook, chapter six and seven were my favorites and also the most controversial. Lee and Van Patten have studied traditional methods of learning a second language and it did not turn out to be very effective. Many make the point of saying that formal classroom is the superior method of language acquisition, but while formal classroom education may provide more vocabulary, the concepts and relevancy are sometimes lost.  This causes low self esteem, stress and failure and many drop out due to the frustration. It has been shown that it takes at least 4 to 5 years to become a little proficient in a second language, but the colloquial terms, idioms and daily conversational skills are not mastered that easily.

In chapter six and seven, I learned that they related to the “old method” of teaching and learning, plus the new method of teaching and receiving meaningful input. Personally, I believe that what works is what is learned, and not memorized. The teacher’s method of teaching also has so much to do with it since if the student is not learning the way a teacher teach, then the teacher has to adapt and change to how the student learn. No longer can one say, “well he/she understood me, why didn’t’ you?” Language learners come in all sizes and shapes and cognitive learning levels. I believe that reaching ALL of them is important. Anyone can teach the perfect, quite, well behaved student, but we need to reach all of them. There are too many variables in teachers and learners and even a hungry, sleepy, distressed student will block out any perfect lesson.

Learning Grammar by means of using Technology has been one of the most effective ways of reaching second language learners.  This method teaches to all the senses and allows all the students to participate and understand in one way or another. Since not all students are auditory learners, one must reach the visual learners and the rest by reaching out to them with technology.

Technology must be used “properly”, not as a “babysitting” tool.  Pausing the video, or tape or c.d. or power point presentation will enable the teacher to probe for questions and answers regarding the effectiveness of the lesson.  Teaching in “chunks” has been found to work well since everyone has organizational problems and the listening span of even adults is only 15 – 20 minutes.  The mind will then begin to wander and block out the instructor.

Meaningful input relates to allowing the student’s CULTURE and experiences to be integrated in the lesson.  This is what provides “relevancy” and makes the learner interested and can bond to the activity.  I believe relevancy will give personal meaning to any example or explanation.  Also, allowing the student to lead a section of the class and to even teach a short part of the lesson will be so effective in the learning process.  Students learn best from other students and when one can teach a subject, be it grammar or sentence structures, one can say they learned it.  The input coming from the student, related to his personal experience is what causes learning.  Even this presentation that you asked us to make in front of our peers was very effective and while challenging, learning was taking place in an effective way.

I believe it is not necessary to exclude all the old methods of teaching, but it is important to integrate the new findings and effective methods of teaching to the old.  Using the learner’s CULTURE and using TECHNOLOGY is one of the most meaningful methods of involving a student into the lesson and actually giving them a stake in the outcome of the lesson.  Teach and Drill alone is not working.  However, “teacher generated drills”  and handouts have been found to be more relevant to the lesson, the class and the learning process.  I believe one should teach students to keep all the handouts for studying purposes in the future. For example, a Final Exam will be easier to study for when all the handouts are available to review.  Many students throw them away or lose them and then cannot review for the final exam.  Teaching and learning should be

enjoyable, learners can have fun learning, especially another language, which often involves a new culture.

Returning to the power point presentations, I mentioned in my previous paper that there are many critiques to using this method of Technology because many teachers complain that students do not feel comfortable with its use in the classroom.  I mentioned that the Team-Based Learning point out that power point causes loss of track on how fast or slow to present to students. However, most has found it be a positive technological method of teaching.   It, however, should be kept simple and not overpower the presenter. I have seem overwhelming power point presentations where words and pictures fly in , flip over and drop or rise from every which point of the screen.  Too busy is not a good thing. In addition, if the student has a question or comment in relation to the presentation, most instructors don’t feel comfortable stopping at that point to explain and would rather continue on, not allowing any interruptions.  This is not an appropriate method of teaching with technology.  The instructor should control the technology, not the technology control the instructor, or lesson.

 On a more personal note, I appreciate the fact that you do not lecture entirely in the class, or use power point presentations so often.  You have allowed us to listen to the presentations of our peers and motivate us to prepare activities to share with each other.  This, to me, has been invaluable because I can compare the presentations, contrast them  and learn from others mistakes, including my own.   Another skill I have learned from you as an instructor is that you vary your presentations to the point where they are very interesting and stimulating. You use so many different sources of materials, including articles from magazines and books, deviating from the textbook.  This makes learning effective and motivates me to do the same when I am instructing a lesson.

You asked me to write on what I learned from your class. I think all the above mentioned have apparently made an impression on me and caused me to write about it. I have had only positive experiences in this class, from you as my instructor, as well as from my peers.  It was obvious that everyone was really enjoying the class and learning. You encouraged sharing of material and each other’s knowledge and motivated involvement, which is what we, as instructor’s should be doing with our classes.

                                                   Textbook Analysis

            In general the textbooks have a didactic goal to transmit summarized knowledge in an easier way. However, students are not always aware that they are falling into a peculiarly modern pedagogical trap in which they let the textbooks decide what has to be learned. The student is in fact reading the subjectively-selected material of a particular author. That is why sometimes we hear educators complaining that the textbooks, especially in history and government courses, don’t present the reality and the true facts in an objective manner.  Although it does not always happen with second language textbooks, still students who use them are in certain way manipulated by some textbook authors.

The reason that it is not the case of the textbook used currently by the students of UTA who are learning Spanish is that the book was prepared by a group of professors and investors dedicated to improve the quality of second language learning.  Partition points are characterized because this provides helpful material for students to follow information through pictures, illustrations and communicative notes. In each chapter small boxes appear with a variety of colors to show extra useful information on vocabulary, grammar and expressions. The section of grammar is well organized. The authors use a system that allows students to make obvious the identification of the irregularity of verbs and other grammatical forms.

What I like the most about this book is the section on culture found at the beginning and the end of each chapter. It is the first book I have studied that mixes the second language with culture. The authors pay a lot of attention to cultural content by presenting a wide variety of customs and accents from the length of Latin America and Spain. Those sections are I think the most enjoyable for the students since they learn ways of life that they have never experienced. Each chapter is dedicated to a different country with its demographic information, maps and pictures of the most relevant places in the country.

            In general, this book is a good friend not only for students but also for teachers and assistants as well. And the most important thing is that there is a neutrality in the content, that is, the words and expressions do not belong to a particular region.  On the contrary all of the Spanish-speaking countries are included. However, sometimes I find words that in my country are taken as bad use of the language, but I am learning to accept the way other speakers use the language without making any judgment.

                                              PowerPoint in the Classroom

            The use of the PowerPoint in the classroom has become controversial among both professors and students with opinions divided among those who favor it and those against. If the positive aspects are balanced with the negative ones we can see that there are more benefits and that PowerPoint is a wonderful tool, although many times it is used incorrectly and inappropriately.

            Overall PowerPoint is a powerful tool for teachers to prepare their lectures especially in topics such as history or biology in which students need accurate information including dates, names, formulas and definitions. With the use of PowerPoint, teachers do not have to write down every word or dictate long texts and at the same time, students improve their note-taking abilities. Teachers should use PowerPoint when it allows them to present information that otherwise they cannot. Some examples are provided by the University of Minnesota Teaching and Learning “You can put an image that relates to the day’s concepts; you can play music or have a short video clip to draw their attention or stimulate discussion.” PowerPoint also gives the opportunity to use different kinds of multi-media, file types: images, video, audio, and animation.  Students are visual learners and teachers have to provide presentations to overlay maps, graphs, and compare texts and data which allow students to see the information.

            Although PowerPoint has positive aspects, many teachers complain about the fact that students do not feel comfortable with its use in the classroom. According to the video Team-Based Learning, “PowerPoint can make it easy to lose track of how fast or slow to present to students.”  One of the professors interviewed at University of Texas, Austin says that PowerPoint is a problem because the students do not want to go too fast or too slow during the lecture. On the other side, teachers have to make a really strong effort to write down exactly the words they want the students to know. Beyond that, students consider PowerPoint to be very passive, not spontaneous and not equal to a lively professor in the classroom.

            After doing some research about PowerPoint in the classroom, I was wondering how to incorporate it in a foreign language teaching classroom and I think it is a little inappropriate in some aspects. For example, in an explanation of some rule of grammar, it is important that students see and hear what the professor says. The student needs the attention to remain on him as the presenter and stimulator, especially with beginning-level students.

On the other hand the professor can make use of PowerPoint to present pictures of vocabulary. For example, beginners always have to memorize a lot of basic vocabulary such as pieces of furniture, cloth, colors, etc.  A teacher can use images and pictures without losing the attention of the students who want to know how the words are pronounced. PowerPoint should be an extra tool for teachers. It should be used as an extra presenter that will help them to emphasize their basic ideas and points. Therefore, slides should be simple, with the necessary text put on them.

            There is not a better way to show culture than through PowerPoint. By means of it students can be transported to other countries where to appreciate new ways of life, music,  dancing and one of the best uses of PowerPoint is in presenting different dialects (or accents) of the target language.

Another use of PowerPoint in a foreign language classroom is to play educational games. “Games motivate students, hold their attention, and introduce excitement, spontaneity, and fun into a class session.” The University of Minnesota offers on its website some PowerPoint games that caught my attention and woke up my imagination enough to adopt some of them. For instance as a first-level assistant professor, I can motivate students to learn grammar and at the same time have fun with the “Jeopardy game.” Instead of the boxes of literary forms, epic literature, and the other two, I can replace them with verbs, adjectives, and vocabulary and play the game with students forming different groups.

As we see, there are positive and negative aspects to using PowerPoint in the classroom. And as the University of Minnesota website says, “PowerPoint is only a tool. It will not, in and of itself, improve student learning, yet if used in an appropriate manner PowerPoint can effectively assist the professor and encourage students to learn.”

Active Lecturing: The Potential of PowerPoint. University of Minnesota.

<http://wwwl.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/tutorials/powerpoint/lecturing/index.html>.
Video: Team-Based Learning: Group Work that Works

<http://magenta.cit.utexas.edu/largeclasses/> .

                            Technology in Language Proficiency

The world of modern technology has changed human life in various ways.  Technology is now central in scientific research, in methods of communication, in art and in many other fields that help human life to be more productive.  We see that technology also has invaded the world of education in a manner that is surprisingly effective, and now we are feeling the power it is taking in second language acquisition.  There are some new studies that describe the most effective forms of technology used to learn a second language.  As these new studies come out we see that technology offers many mediums to learn easier. These mediums already are here.  They are at our fingertips and they are full of much hope, but at times they leave me worried.

According to Kelm the average university student who studies a foreign language for four semesters will be in class for 240 hours, and normally, he will need 500 hours to achieve the intermediate level in a category two language like Spanish. However, the results are not rewarding simply because the learners and teachers do not have enough time to devote to the task. For example, instructors have limited time to spend with each student. Therefore, students do not have a real opportunity to be exposed to authentic language and different dialects.

The advances in language learning and technology allow students to make use of online videos to increase the amount of time devoted to the task. One example is that of the web site called Portuguese Communication Exercises which was created to give students the opportunity to hear real people say things in Portuguese as they discussed different topics. One advantage of this online video is that the speakers come from different places where Portuguese is the first language, for example Brazil and Portugal. In that way, students can learn general Portuguese pronunciation.  This is an excellent input practice since the ear is very selective and is accustomed to certain forms of listening to a group of persons talk, but when the ear hears other pronunciations and accents it has to return to start again the process of adaptation. I think that it will happen to me in my first trip to England. Possibly I will understand only a few isolated words.

Technology also allows students to create their own learning way or style. They have to decide what they are going to do with their time, and how they are going to use things. Technology allows learners to listen to language anywhere, any time and go back to the material over and over again, something that they cannot do with an instructor. Technology also helps students to learn language in chunks and scripts; that is how speakers put information together in meaningful units. Normally, or in traditional classrooms, students do not have many chunks and scripts with which to practice. Instructors focus on teaching language in a very formal way and when students go to the streets to face real speaking, they do not understand the exchange that goes on among native speakers. Therefore, if students have access to chunks and scripts with which to practice, it will enhance greatly their communication skill. At the beginning of lesson three I was enthusiastic to know more about how technology was working on chunks and scripts, but the explanation of the process was a little unclear and also boring.  Maybe I have to do more research on that, although I am still optimistic about the further benefits that technology could offer to second language students like me. I have to understand that technology as applied to language acquisition is still a new project in education and that it is in a phase of maturation or improvement.

However, as a future professor I have some other questions.  What will be the role of the classroom teacher when technology advances to the point of maximum effectiveness and is widely used to learn a second language? Possibly the students will not need assistance from college.  If I let my imagination fly, I visualize a second language classroom full of computers where all the students learn at the appropriate pace with an instructor monitoring them and answering questions. This could mean that the teachers also will have to adapt to a new form of technological instruction and still have to take new teaching courses base on language technology to be able to manage a classroom.  I think that although technology that assists in learning a second language has made many advances, a classroom teacher will always be indispensable, especially in the area of learning how to pronounce the new words and also in motivation.  It has been my experience that there are sounds that a student cannot quite perceive in an online video and that will require that someone is up front who can make corrections to the pronunciation.

Kelm, Orlando R. Foreign Language Teaching Methods: Technology. 2009-2010.

            <http://tltc.la.utexas.edu/methods/modules/technology>.

                                                         Culture and Writing

            From the time I started to become familiar with themes about a second language I always heard that there were only four skills. If a second learner could write, read, speak and understand, it was enough to consider him as a part of a second language culture. I also assumed that he or she might be accepted and be able to pass as a native speaker, but that is not true. There is a fifth skill which has remained elusive in the foreign language classrooms. This skill is “culture.” For Jesus Garza culture is relevant when instructors teach foreign languages, and it is the key skill to get all of us to be really proficient in a language.  These affirmations were what first came to my attention when I started to scan the video, but later more interesting things came along.

            According to Garza, literature talks about culture in terms of “big C” culture and “little c” culture. As students, second language learners are taught just about some big Cs that almost always include the great writers and musicians or the great moments in the  history of the target language. However, the little c’s get much less attention, although they are more important because they are a part of daily communication. A little c example is this:  A Spanish-speaker, who is beginning to study English and is quite familiar with both paper and plastic, is befuddled when a grocery clerk suddenly asks him “paper or plastic?”  While he probably knows what paper and plastic mean because those words are cognates, he cannot understand why the clerk is now using those words. I remember the first time I went to a Wal-Mart and the casher asked me “Your ID please?”  I answered “ID, what is this?” She said “your identification card.” When I was leaving she also said “Have a nice one” and I had to ask later what she meant, although I already knew the meaning of the three words. Thankfully by now I am aware of at least the most common expressions in American English because I have been embedded in the American culture for about 10 years.

            There were other concepts not clear for me until now through listening to the video about culture.  Lesson 2 of this video starts with the question: How is language acquired? According to professor Jesus Garza, before the 80s, language acquisition was processed in a linear manner. I was wondering, what does linear manner mean? And later, my question was answered “proficiency was based on the number of years devoted to the study.” My understanding was that apparently, after four years of studying hard, learners become fluent in the target language. Professors frequently determine or guess how good or what level of proficiency a second learner has according to the years he or she has studied the language, but that is not the way to measure fluency or proficiency.  Some learners can in one year do better than another in four years. It is because of his functional ability rather tan the number of years spent in studying. Therefore, instructors have to measure functional ability according to what a learner can do with the language in a particular situation, for example, if the learner is able to negotiate a divorce, or fight a traffic ticket.  These functional abilities can be acquired only by cultural knowledge. Culture is embedded in the process of proficiency. As instructors of a second language, we should never forget that “No matter how we say it, it is an essential part of our language, our past, our present. Language without cultural relevance is nearly useless.”

            My second lecture was about the writing process and I was concerned about the quality of activities that the instructors use to prepare their students in the primary levels of the study of a second language.  The instructors may have a tendency to believe that since the students have not mastered the target language they don’t have the ability to make decisions such as  to define the purpose of their writing and to select their audience or also to develop ideas in an organized form in order to be more effective in their writing. The activity A on page 249 of the book by Lee and VanPatten, has restricted the pupil to write to communicate or generate ideas. All the material needed for a student to learn how to develop writing communicative skill are already given. He only has to follow the instructions. The student does not feel pushed to use his imagination or transmit to others of what he knows and believes a family is. It should be exactly the final goal of his assignment instead of writing practices as the activity A and B are.  It is true that second language writers have to deal with the form (grammar and lexicom) of the second language, but the goal of writing is that of being able to communicate thoughts or ideas.

Garza, Thomas de Jesus. Foreign Language Teaching Methods: Culture. 2009-2010.

            <http://tltc.la.utexas.edu/methods/modules/culture/01/>.

Lee, James and VanPatten,Bill. Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen.

            Chapter 12. The University of Illinois at Chicago. 2003. Print.

                                              Learning and Teaching Grammar

Of all the readings that I have studied in the book by Lee and VanPatten, chapters six and seven have been for me the most difficult and also the most controversial. By my own experience I already knew that the traditional methods of teaching a second language are not always effective. Lee and VanPatten present an example that at first I thought supported my own theory that only with activities of interaction with native-speakers learners can acquire a second language without attending formal classes. In part it was the example of how Bob inadvertently helped Tom correct his statement and, at the same time, Tom got some kind of linguistic data (119). Like Tom, many non-native speakers can improve their grammar in that way. But later, on page 131, the authors make the point that the formal classroom is the superior method of learning the target language and I have to accept that they are right on this: “Learners tend to be exposed to a wider range of conversational language and also to the language of written texts.”  In any case, I think that we can consider the method of language immersion. The majority of children and adolescents that come from other countries are, in the first two years of school, completely immersed in a second language without the opportunity to attend formal classes of grammar and vocabulary. In a formal class they would feel lost and confused, but finally they master the target language.

However, the purpose of Lee and VanPatten in chapter six is to show how the traditional methods used the classroom don’t work well and they explain why. After reading the development of input and traditional instruction several times, I finally could digest how acquisition involves the creation of an implicit linguistic system and it was a great surprise for me to realize that traditional grammar practice and the way second language learners acquire the language are in contradiction. The traditional grammar practices are focused on output and not in input, and it is in input practice activities where instructors have to concentrate.

            The purpose of the authors in chapter seven is focused on the development of a new kind of grammar instruction through putting form or structure at the level of processing input and instruction. After I read and analyzed all the principles of input processing, I focused on the points that in my opinion are the more relevant.  It does not mean that the other principles are not important, but with the first four principles I could summarize the following: Learners can process structures that have referential meaning and they can also be expressed by lexical items.  The word order does not matter except for the first noun in the sentence in order to interpret sentences.

 As we already know, grammar instruction should first occur at the level of processing input; now we can follow the instructions given by VanPatten who provides three basic components to start with teaching activities. I have summarized them in this way: give learners information of a linguistic form, and warn them about the negative results they will get in comprehension if they do not use the instructions already provided to them. The already manipulated activity will push the learner to attend the form in order to get meaning instead of following their natural processing tendency.  The final result is that learners are going to focus their attention on grammar information and not on lexical items.

The activities to put all the principles in practice were very interesting. For example the strategy for verb morphology, activity A and B and (143) are in my opinion very effective. The strategy consists on focus learners’ attention on verb endings. If a brief explanation is given to learners about how the inflexion suffixes in verbs work, this will help them to know when an action occurred and also they can select the appropriate time-related adverbial if it is asked to them as occurred in activity B. This example avoids the principle described in P1b in table 7.1, since learners need to attend to the form in order to complete the activity.

In conclusion, although I had to read chapters six and seven several times, I enjoyed them very much because I learned a lot. However, I have to question why those wonderful strategies have not been introduced to UTA methods of teaching foreign languages instead of continuing with the traditional methods of teaching. I feel like I cannot wait to start to practice with learners these new strategies presented by Lee and VanPatten.

Lee, James and VanPatten, Bill. Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen.

             Chapter 6 and 7. The university of Illinois at Chicago. 2003. Print.

                                          Listening Comprehension

Each time that the theme of listening skills is dealt with, there is always a reference to it as a “passive” or “receptive” skill. While this is true if we speak of listening as a skill in our primary language, as students of a second language we are going differ in opinions. When we hear information in our native language, we are not aware of the process that is occurring in our brain at that moment.The mind is receiving and processing information apparently of a passive form that we permit to understand all that we hear without making even a minimal effort.

            The contrary occurs with a student of a second language. When I began my first semester of university I only understood isolated words. The process of listening was overwhelming for me because my brain had to perform various functions simultaneously in order to not miss the explanation. In addition, I felt the pressure to take notes in order to understand at any cost what the professor said. After the passing of an hour I felt an intense heat and the sound of drums in my head (going boom, boom).This experience makes me think that listening is a highly active process. If we don’t understand what we hear we cannot communicate with others. I don’t know why the majority of teachers don’t pay attention to the skill of listening and instead devote their teaching grammar and vocabulary lists. Helping students to understand me when I talk to them in the target language is one of the best investments I can make as a teacher.

It is a major frustration for a student or any person not to be able to respond because they don’t understand what is being said to them. As an assistant teacher I feel the desperation of my students when I ask the simplest things and they cannot respond.  The teachers in the lower levels tend to focus on grammar and vocabulary, but dedicate very little time during a week to exercises of listening and comprehension.  If a student understands what the teacher asks, he is already in a position of being able to negotiate the meaning; but when the contrary occurs the student feels a kind of frustration and momentary anger and wants to give up.

As one who will be teaching Spanish in the future, for me listening will be one of the first priorities in the classroom. Lee and VanPatten and Al-Batal agree that the teachers have to take necessary steps “toward maximizing class time for the development of listening.”          Toward this end, they provide some very interesting suggestions. On the one hand, Al-Batal is a strong defender of using working group listening activities during class. He supports the view that the classroom must not be used to promote individual activities since listening involves communication and interaction with others (and individual work does not accomplish this). As teachers, we have to prepare our students to activate their schema by means of activities that create confidence in the students and the expectation about the text. As a group they can exchange ideas of what they understand from the text without feeling stress. Also, they can make comments about little things that they understand in class and they can reconstruct sentences together from the content of the text.

However, instructors have to be careful in the selection of the texts. The texts have to be accessible to the students and at the same time challenge their knowledge. If they use texts in which the students feel they can understand without making a great effort, they are not going to learn much. Al-Batal recommends:  “authentic texts with simplified tasks rather than using simplified texts.”

“Prelistening” is an interesting activity that teachers should pay special attention to.  Although they all advocate this “prelistening,” I found some differences between Al- Batal and Lee and VanPatten. On the one hand, Lee and Van Patten suggest that vocabulary preparation is a simple task that helps the students familiarize themselves with and recognize new words when they listen (210).  On the other hand, Al- Batal is firmly opposed to a vocabulary list. He says that teachers must not deprive students of the opportunity to guess at the information contained in the texts. He also says that the development of listening comes from the ear and not from the eyes. Prelistening helps the student to activate their schema and to make the first assumptions about the text. Instructors should mention the subject and include some key words, but they should not provide a vocabulary list. “If we give 20 vocabulary items to understand, it means that the text is not appropriate for the level of the student” ( Al-Batal).

As a student of a second language I can tell that the two strategies are equally effective, and that this depends on the style of instruction of the teacher. I remember that during my first years of college, I always made it my practice to read ahead in the chapters that I knew the professors were going to teach.  If I didn’t do this I did not understand very well and was not able to follow in class.  As I read I looked for new words I was not familiar with. This strategy worked very well for me and also helped me to participate a little bit in class.

Although Lee and Van Patten do not mention the details of other listening steps, Al- Batal says that the students must listen to a reading three times. The first reading must be general and with no segmental listening. This helps the students pick up some details after the first listening that helps them have a general idea of the content of the reading and also activates the long and short memory. Also, Al- Batal says that it is very important, in this class activity, to wait for the student to listen to all of the reading and then they can tell what they heard and understood. In this step the professor does not ask questions. On the contrary the teacher must obtain information from the students about what they just heard. In this way they work together and can reconstruct the content of the text.

Al-Batal, Mahmoud. Foreign Language Teaching Methods: Listening. September

16, 2010. <http://tltc.la.utexas.edu/methods/modules/listening/01/>.

Lee, James. VanPatten, Bill. Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen.

            The university of Illinois at Chicago. 2003. Print.

Foreign Literature in the Classroom

In the book by Guillian Lazar, the author wants teachers to consider some foreign language activities for the classroom.  He gives sound reasons on how the literature is a good tool that teachers can use to help students improve in a second language and which will enrich their knowledge.Teachers have the challenge of selecting and designing the most effective materials that will help the student arrive achieve the educational purpose.  The goal consists of letting the students familiarize themselves with the elements of the language and also, at the same time, enjoying the culture of the target language by means of the materials that they read.

            I want to point out that, in general, when people are reading, they are looking for information and entertainment.  In this process they develop the ability to determine the main ideas, meaning of a phrase or a word, or the purpose of the author and his point of view. The ability that they have already acquired in their first language, is the same they are going to use reading texts in a second language. Although many times instructors discover that the way they interpret texts and make deductions can be different. That is because they come from a different cultural background. This is the point where an instructor must use a sound basis when selecting material for the students that corresponds to the educational goal. Lazar comments on page three in the book that the texts commonly used in classes are frequently irrelevant to the interests of the pupils “in fact,  “being made to read texts so alien to their own experience and background may only increase student’s sense of frustration, inferiority and even powerlessness.” A teacher must select themes and readings that are easy for the student to translate and to recognize that which is implicit in the text.

            Lazar also provides in page seven a list of linguistic characteristics that are found in the literary texts which can help a teacher complete his/her pedagogical ambitions.  Among others she has:  metaphor, simile, assonance, alliteration, repetition of word or phrase, unusual syntactic patterns and double or multiple meaning of words.  These characteristics are the same that are found in many books on the literature without regard to the culture of the writer or the language of the writing.  The mechanism to be used to humanize or use in order to manage the language in literary texts can be different from one culture to another, but the principles are always the same: to entertain and to report.  Therefore the teacher must have the ability “to make his/her pupils discover the underlying connections between the linguistic system and the particular history, novel, poem or play they are reading” (Aniballi). As a graduate assistant to a teacher of a second language, I try to ascertain which of these types of literature will be most appropriate for the beginning language student.

 Lazar and Farrug agree in their appreciation of how poetry in a foreign language can not only help the students but also inspire them.  Farrug holds that poetry is personal, creative and communicative and is a powerful means to internalize new words and expressions in a second language.  One activity that appears to me to be excellent was  exercise A that is found on page 107 of Lazar’s book.  In this exercise the students can make links to words that they already know with others unknown.  Since English is my second language I am not yet familiar with all the words and I never liked poetry in my first language.  However, after reviewing these exercises as provided by Farrug, I can say that poetry is a powerful way to internalize new words.  For instance, as to the word “splinters,” that I found in exercise A, I didn’t know the meaning of this new word and I had to refer to the dictionary.  However, after I understood it, I felt a certain joy in discovering this powerful way of internalizing this word by means of the poem.  This was an exercise that awoke my creativity as a teacher.  It is a powerful tool that I can use in the future by inventing simple poems for my students that will help them to connect ideas and meaning.

            The literature in general helps whatever student to enrich his/her vocabulary, to awaken the imagination, to learn other ways to see reality, to see the world from another perspective and to enjoy new customs. In general, the literature is a multicultural tool that opens knowledge in many directions.    

Aniballi, Francesca. “Teaching Foreign Language Literature: An effective Approach to

            Foreign Literature in the Classroom.” Aug 2009. 14 Oct. 2010.

            <www.suite101.com/content/teaching-foreign-language-literature>.              

Ferrug, Diane. “Write Poetry in a foreign Language: Create Original Poems and Improve

            Writing Skills.” Feb 2008. 14 Oct. 2010.

            <www. Suite101.com/content/poetry-inforeign-language-classes>.       

Lazar, Gillian. “Literature and Language Teaching: A guide for Teachers and

            Trainers.” October 12, 2010.

            <http://books.google.com/books?id=RNIMiCVXfcEC&dq=techniques>.

                                                Reading Skills

After reading the materials on reading skills, I found two definitions of reading that caught my attention.  First reading is a process undertaken to reduce uncertainty about the meaning conveyed by the text.  Secondly reading is the interaction between the reader and the text.  In truth, the two make the same point, but for a non-native English speaker the words chosen in the first definition are at a higher level of English.   There is a great possibility that the student will not understand the concept of reading without knowing the proportion of language in agreement with his level.  

            Another important factor was the difference between print and symbols that can exist between various languages, a theme very important that was expressed by the authors J. Lee and B. Vanpatten.  As native Spanish speakers we don’t have these problems when we learn English because our system of codes is substantially similar.  However, I never had considered how these elements can become a great problem for a learner especially for the languages that proceeds from the Turks and Sinotibetan language families that have a pictograph alphabet or a logographic alphabet. (from right to left and from top to bottom) A teacher must be aware that there are students who need special attention to be able to fit such a new system of codes as a distinct direction to begin to read a text.

In the book, Lee and Vanpatten raise the question of whether a non-native speaker can be taught in the same way as a native speaker and my answer is a sound affirmative.  When I began the first semester of college in the U.S., I didn’t speak, write or understand English very well, but I could read and understand enough to analyze a reading.  I used the knowledge that I had in some areas including biology, government, and mathematics, in which I encountered many cognates that helped me to understanding the meaning.  I had an acquaintance with basic English vocabulary and grammar and I knew examples of all types of conjugated verbs in English.  Most of the time when I was reading, it did not deter me if I didn’t know the meaning of a particular word, because from the context I was able to sense intuitively the meaning, or to make a quick guess as to what it was about.  Sometimes, I had to resort to the dictionary when I lost the line of thought of the reading because I couldn’t risk failing an exam because of a bad translation.    

            With these methods, the same as a native speaker, I could understand most of the main ideas and identify a writer’s purpose and point of view.  I was able to do this because the form of writing used in academic texts in universities is fairly clear and the language direct, with many explanations and simple examples.  But something else happened when I tried to read the newspaper or health magazines where the vocabulary is completely different, and the writers use many abbreviations, slang expressions, compound words and it is difficult to understand.  Even now it is hard for me to follow such writing because I cannot find these slang expressions and provincialisms in the dictionary.

            In doing the assignment for this week, which consists in taking a reading for students who have very little knowledge of Spanish, it helped me a lot to recall the elements that I must take into account in selecting reading material for my students. At the beginning, I was thinking of using a reading about children’s literature, but I remembered my experiences as an adult student and concluded that I should focus on cultural readings that are easy for them to identify with and that use many cognates, words and names that will be familiar to them.  That which I don’t like in the two readings was exactly that the authors and the practices don’t focus mainly on the typical student but rather on the advanced student.  The activities, exercises and drills that are referenced in the article are fine for teaching native speakers how to read effectively; but how about beginners who do not know many words in the target language?  In my opinion, and as one of the articles says, instructors should consider the age and language level of the students and this should play an important role in selecting readings and exercises to practice and work through.  

           My conclusion is that reading is the easiest of the four basic skills.  In comparison with writing, speaking and listening, less effort is required to learn to read with comprehension in the target language.  A good example is my mom who is about 70 years old and started learning English three years ago.  She still has not mastered the verb to be in the present tense.  She cannot understand, write or speak yet, but she can read some magazines, cookbooks and letters from friends, although sometimes she has to look in the dictionary. 

Lee, James and VanPatten, Bill. Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen.

            The University of Illinois at Chicago. 2003. Print.

Swaffar, Janet. Foreign Language Teaching Methods: Reading. 2009. Texas Language

Technology Center. Austin. 8 Oct. 2010.   <http://tltc.la.utexas.edu/methods/modules/reading/01/>.

                         The Importance of Culture-Specific Meaning in Vocabulary

                                                        Words and Phrase

After reading the materials about the importance of meaning in vocabulary I have concluded that an instructor can offer a positive atmosphere of enthusiasm for her students if she abandons some of the traditional methods, in favor of making the classroom a place of training in communicative activity and in the exchange of information.  Among the old methods that the instructor can put aside is that of the “teacher-fronted” position which is the customary way to teach grammar and vocabulary.  In place of these old methods the instructor must, for example, utilize an approach which includes interaction between the students themselves or between the students and native speakers of the target language.

The traditional approach with drills in which students repeat a list of vocabulary words in the classroom has not been shown to be sufficient in the development of the communicative language abilities of students.  I don’t mean to say that the old practices should be completely abandoned, but that we must recognize that, while in a certain way they have served a limited purpose, they should be combined with other activities that stimulate students to exchange information. The instructors can find more effective results if they develop activities that challenge the students to think independently and to defend themselves.  The custom of “teacher-front” activity does not help the students to develop strategic competence because the student is limited only to imitating and following the instructor.  Nor by such methods does the student gain from his or her previous knowledge so as to build upon it and apply it.  We want to put the student in a situation in which he or she has to use what has already been learned as to the meaning of the words.  This is best done by practice in communicating, especially with other students, by which I mean real practice in the use of words, phrases and sentence from daily life, real life, which always makes the difference. 

In comparing the two ways to learn it is sometimes difficult to know whether the academic classroom approach is better than that of someone who picks it up while working and living outside the classroom through daily contact with others in the target language.  Those who go to school will study grammatical structure and rules, while those who learn in the streets will learn through constant interaction with native speakers. I am inclined to favor the second group because those in the streets can see the value of learning new words and they will, out of necessity, look for certain words and ask the meaning of others.  They truly want to search for the best way to understand the new language, while those in a classroom will wait for the instructor to take them through step by step. A plumber or electrician who comes from one of the Latin American countries to work in the US, for example, has to quickly familiarize himself with the total vocabulary of plumbers or electricians so as to communicate with those who speak only English.  When such a worker continues, through daily repetition and usage in an atmosphere where the use of a certain vocabulary is common, this person acquires an input and an output that helps him communicate effectively.  By means of learning a technical vocabulary he also acquires new phrases and expressions that he hears and he begins to have exchanges in words that he can use in other contexts and in other relationships outside of his profession.  In a few years such a non-native speaker can use the language in daily life although his grammar and pronunciation may not be the best.

On the other hand a college student may have only others within the university context to interact with in the target language.  He or she does not have the advantage of learning out of necessity, or out of making a living, a particular vocabulary.  There is not such a motive to quickly learn because of the situation.  In the end the student may be frustrated because, although he acquires much knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of the language, he cannot really express himself very well in that new language and in interaction with others is still quite limited.  By experience I can say that it is easy to be receptive or to receive input from the immediate environment. However to be productive in speaking and writing it is a very difficult process because it requires more communication and practice. 

In conclusion to be successful in acquisition of a new language, the two processes of input and output must be practiced simultaneously.  We must introduce into the classroom in school the equivalent of language practice in real life that is similar to that of a plumber or electrician.  We can do this by means of good classroom communication activities in the target language. The student must be permitted to obtain information and exchanges ideas with others under the supervision of good educational strategies such as those in a working group.  A good example is found in chapter three of the book in which James F. Lee puts the students in a group to develop activities under a particular theme.  Others can ask questions.

A useful vocabulary that can be used in daily life is more important and essential than the rules of grammar and pronunciation as learned in the traditional language classroom.  But vocabulary should not be limited to successive lists of single words.  Good instructors can convert a vocabulary list into something more useful and practical so that the personal familiarity with words grows. A strong vocabulary is what enables a student to have fluency in a language.  That is the reason why vocabulary must be actively taught, learned and recycled.  But to get to this goal, the learner has to be in constant communication and interaction by means of activities and interchanges inside and outside of the academic institution.

Lee/VanPatten. Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen. The university of

            Illinois at Chicago, 2003. Print.

“Vocabulary:” http:/tltc.lautexas.edu/methods/modules/vocabulary/