Blog Post #1 – for 4353 students
As discussed in class, there are many different methods that have been popular at different times and with different instructors of language classes. Your goal for this blog post is to offer an example of a teacher (no names please) you have had who was clearly a fan of one particular method, and discuss how this affected your language learning.
Think back on a language course you have taken. Pinpoint in your mind one specific method discussed in class that your teacher(s) used. Think about the advantages and disadvantages of this method for your own personal language learning experience.
On the blog, discuss the use of that particular method and how its application affected your learning outcomes. Specifically, do you feel that the use of this method helped or hindered your language learning? Explain as thoroughly as possible, with clear examples, and support for your claims. You should write 2-3 paragraphs about your thoughts, and they should be posted by classtime on Monday, as a comment to this post.
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I had a Spanish teacher in high school who used the direct method. Once you inside the room, you were not allowed to say a word in English, and if we did we would receive a zero for participation for the day. The only English we ever saw in the class was found on written quizzes when we had to translate vocabulary, however English was treated as the foreign language. And if we needed a particular Spanish word we had to say ?Como se dice blank? in order not to obtain a zero for the day. The teacher was a fluent heritage speaker, and seldom "dumbed" down an explanation for us to understand. All test were given in an oral fashion that stressed our ability to communicate with the teacher.
ReplyDeleteThe advantage to this method was that you were highly instrumentally motivated to acquire the language in order to make a decent grade in the class. Another advantage to this method was it helped us not to be as shy speaking in front of the class in Spanish because everyone had to do it and also everyone made mistakes. This specific teacher incorporated a lot of group presentations and group activities so it wasn't the teacher speaking to the student but rather the class to each other.
The main disadvantage was that a handful of students were not able to keep up with the teacher, either by just not able to acquire as quickly as she wanted or was not preparing enough before hand.
This method helped my language learning. I wanted an A in the class, so I made sure to study before hand with my friends so we wouldn't be deer in the headlights in class. The activities used, for example: we had to make a cooking show for the class; were fun and prevented most from becoming disinterested in the course.
I studied Spanish for the first time in the 1970s. My teacher was definitely in the "memorize and recite" camp and an atmosphere conducive to relaxation was the furthest thing from her mind. We stood up when called on and recited dialogues.
ReplyDeleteAt that time, I was dating a Cuban guy and we went to lots of parties with his fellow Latinos. I struggled to try to incorporate my dialogues into party conversation. I remember learning two general phrases that I would use as often as possible: No cabe duda (no doubt about it) and Es la verdad, aunque tu no lo creas (That's the truth although you don't believe it.) Whenever I would be unable to follow the conversation, when my moment of comment would arise, I would use one of these, generally to hilarious results because my friends all knew what I was up to.
Nevertheless, I find that even after all these years, some of the dialogues still stick with me and I use that knowledge when I'm trying to express a complicated thought. Especially when I'm trying to use the subjunctive mood, I recall some of that dialogue
We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. Memorization can be very good and very effective for a long, long time. Unfortunately, it won't help you much out in the early years of learning.
Jacqueline Pereyra
ReplyDeleteLing 4353-001
1/31/2010
In one of my English classes during my middles school years the method that my English teacher taught us was similar to the Task-Base Language Teaching. One of the exercises that she made us do every day was to cut out pictures from a magazine. After cutting out the pictures we had to put them in any order that we chose so as long as we told a story. Then after we were finish with the cutting, pasting, and writing the story we had to share it with the rest of the class.
One advantage of this method was to help me associate the vocabulary I was trying to learn with the objects. Also, saying the words that I wrote out loud help me to better structure my writing. Being able to read in front of my classmates help me get out of my comfort zone. One of the disadvantages would be that not every word has a picture. Also, depending on how many objects there are in the photo the students may have a hard time focusing on a specific noun or on the task at hand, making it harder for the student to write simple sentences. This method affected my learning outcome in a positive way because my sentence and righting techniques improved, but as well as my vocabulary and my annunciation.
One of my Chinese professors at another university seemed to practice the audiolingual method. Although she was a native speaker, she stressed structural patterns above vocabulary acquisition, and introduced new information through dialogues. She followed the textbook very closely, although it contained traditional and nearly archaic forms of some words rather than today’s colloquial forms. My classmates and I read and listened to the dialogues and learned sentence patterns in class, but we were not offered many opportunities to take ownership of the language ourselves. Classes were very teacher and curriculum-oriented. (I am thankful, however, that this professor explained the grammatical patterns to us deductively and more specifically than the audiolingual method usually does, so that when I do acquire new vocabulary, I can arrange it in a sentence fairly easily.) A key advantage to her teaching method was her focus on correct pronunciation – essential to learning a tonal language!
ReplyDeleteAll in all though, I think this teacher’s use of the audiolingual method hindered my language learning, and I wish she would have used the communicative language teaching approach instead. I want to be able to use Chinese practically – to speak with someone on the street – but I’ve had to learn that by trial and error with my Chinese friends instead of in the classroom! The vocabulary words that I have retained most from Chinese class are the ones I can continue to practice in conversation with these friends. Even so, I am often chided by native speakers for using an outdated word or phrase instead of the colloquial, which makes it more difficult for us to understand each other.
I believe this experience will impact my ESL or EFL teaching in the future – I’m not a big fan of the audiolingual method. Rather, I want to give my students the power to use English to achieve practical goals, and to focus on helping them communicate effectively in an English-speaking environment.
I have had multiple Spanish teachers throughout my life, and each with their own types of teaching methods. When studying abroad in Costa Rica my professors used the direct method. I found this method to be the most advantageous to me. Since all of the classes were taught solely in Spanish, all of the instructions and examples were in Spanish, my mind began to think in Spanish.
ReplyDeleteI specifically learned a lot when my teachers taught using models and demonstrations. For example: The teacher would bring a large board to class with a map of the city draw on it. Each student was given a character piece which they would place on the map. From that point, the teacher along with the students would give directions and commands to a specific student in the class and that student would then move his character piece accordingly. It allowed the class and myself to practice on speech and listening comprehension.
The only disadvantage was in my large classes when some students were unable to participate in an exercise because of time constraints.
Overall, the direct method has been the best method for me. I learned more throught this method than any other of my teachers methods. I came out of each class more confident, willing, and comprehensible in my language abilities.
I took Honors Spanish 3 in high school. The teacher was interesting. He was very strict, but at the same time he tried to crack jokes with us, I guess to make a more comfortable environment. We didn't buy it.
ReplyDeleteEverything we said had to be perfect. He went so far as to name people "chica perfecta". If it wasn't perfect, he would sometimes yell, or more likely make a comment purely for the purpose of shaming. We hated it.
I tested well at first, making I think one mistake on the first exam. It was the highest score in the class, but it wasn't perfect. The teacher approved of me, but it would only take a few mistakes to drop you down to a level of stupidity. Being able to produce without mistakes was too much for me. Being able to take insulting comments while learning was too much for me. I was not OK with this, but I couldn't leave. So, I attended class, but I refused to participate in any way. I would not answer questions, do homework, or take exams. My Spanish stopped there.
There were a few aspects I liked. The first semester we read a book completely in Spanish. Didn't know that we had the capacity for that. The overall teaching strategy might appeal to some. No one in that Spanish class had any disruptive behavior. I had a talk once with a TA here. She had been a teacher in China before she came here...sweet, kind girl. It was common practice for her to yell at her students, calling them stupid, and demanding perfection. It's what was expected of her, and there are students who come out of that situation better it would seem. I just don't think I'm one of them.