Have you ever learned a language in a classroom setting?
If yes, think of one thing the instructor did that you thought was very helpful for your language learning experience. Describe it in detail and discuss why it led to success in language learning.
If no, think about the advantages and disadvantages that you bring to language teaching, having never learned a language in a classroom. Discuss at least 3 advantages/disadvantages in detail.
If yes, think of one thing the instructor did that you thought was very helpful for your language learning experience. Describe it in detail and discuss why it led to success in language learning.
If no, think about the advantages and disadvantages that you bring to language teaching, having never learned a language in a classroom. Discuss at least 3 advantages/disadvantages in detail.
(Additional comments on this post no longer earn points. Please choose a more recent entry).
Have you ever learned a language in a classroom setting?
ReplyDeleteYes, I have learned Italian (5 semesters), Spanish (3 years), French (1 semester), and German (1 semester) in classroom settings.
If yes, think of one thing the instructor did that you thought was very helpful for your language learning experience. Describe it in detail and discuss why it led to success in language learning.
Of all my language classes, my Italian class was by far the best taught, in my opinion, and not only the most enjoyable but the most productive. My teacher seemed to rely on a combination of Direct Method and Natural Method. The class was always conversationally-based. She always taught so vibrantly and no one felt uncomfortable to speak. There was an emphasis on role-play, conversation, acting out (often we had group assignments where we had to perform short plays). However, she also taught us grammar, albeit implicitly, and we were taught proper terminology as we learned the grammar. I think the success of her class was because in a way, she taught us very "naturally", but as ADULTS rather than children, or L2 learners rather than L1. She spoke the target language in class and rarely deviated from it. However, she also presented grammar explicitly when she felt we were understanding concepts in order to solidify them into our minds. I think she taught more slowly than other teachers in my languages classes. They plunged through grammar very quickly and then things became so complicated and advanced immediately after we "learned" the concept. However, this teacher truly gave us the tools to ACQUIRE Italian. And the reality is, none of us ended up knowing dozens of obscure tenses or vocabulary, but we knew the basics extremely well. While I could produce the correct answers on a German test of more advanced grammar, I did not know how to say, "I don't remember." However, in Italian, we all had extensive conversations about who we thought was "hot." So, overall, communication was achieved.
If no, think about the advantages and disadvantages that you bring to language teaching, having never learned a language in a classroom. Discuss at least 3 advantages/disadvantages in detail.
Although, I HAVE had this experience, if one did not, I imagine the advantages and disadvantages would be:
Disadvantages:
1. Not knowing personally how YOU acquire language most easily
2. Not knowing how to conduct a classroom through observing one's own teacher
3. Not seeing these methods performed and tested firsthand. Talking about them in theory is important but seeing them tested really makes one form an opinion.
Advantages:
1. There is no danger of being influenced to only teach as your teachers taught.
2. You can study the success of the methods before trying them out, so you feel you have a better handle on how teaching works.
3. You can "teach yourself" as you teach your students and from there, realize what works and what does not.
-Caitlin Sapaugh, grad student
Yes, I took French and Arabic. For my French class, I think the most helpful thing was how the teacher integrated the topic into several parts of the lesson. For example, if we’re learning prepositions, first he’d show us by displaying a small teddy bear on/under/behind his desk, etc, while saying the words in French, then we would repeat after him, and then he’d ask us questions to get us to use the words. Afterwards we would have conversations in groups while trying to use the new words, and finally do exercises in class where he might explain in English some grammatical points. I think the repetition helped, because we had to use everything we already knew (he only spoke in French and so did we- even if we wanted to ask what something meant, we asked in French), and so it helped us build on what we already knew, and also make sure we didn’t forget it. He didn’t give us too much to learn at once, it was a little bit each time, and we kept building on that. We also had to write a sort of journal each week (only a small paragraph though), and we’d have to include some of the words in the list. There was also listening activities, games, videos, etc, but I think the constant exposure and repetition helped the most. We also had activities outside the classroom, and sometimes there would be meetings where the students would find a place to meet at and just sit and talk (the teacher wouldn’t interfere, but he was ready to answer any questions if we were stuck or struggling). So, I think it was successful because he managed to balance the pace and the material well in a systematic way, and since the class was willing to try and make a French-only sort of environment. However, this was in high school, with a small class that met daily, so I don’t think it would have been possible if that wasn’t the case. For example my Arabic class; it was mostly rules, memorization, a little bit of conversation and a lot of homework, and it was just too much information at once.
ReplyDelete-norma
JARROD DUARTE
ReplyDeleteYes, I recently took Spanish 3 here at UTA. This was my first language class in 10+ years and really the only one that I can recall in any detail. To be honest there wasn't much that I would specifically point out that the professor did that was all that helpful, outside of clarifying a couple of grammatical rules for me. For the most part, there was very little L2 conversation in the classroom and the class was taught using the Grammar Translation Method, which I don't think my Professor preferred but I am sure she has to answer and adhere to a higher departmental bureaucracy. To be fair, the professor as I mentioned before, was an effective communicator of the grammatical rules. She used color coding to help us remember that certain words triggered a grammatical rule (the subjunctive in this case) that I’m sure some found useful and in fact I may use this method in my future classroom. As a whole, I thought we were tested and quizzed a little too much in the class especially towards the end of the semester and too little attention was paid to actually speaking and understanding the L2.
JARROD DUARTE
I have take multiple languages in classroom settings: Spanish, German, Chinese, and starting last week, French. By far, my favorite teacher was my German 3 and 4 teacher. My previous German professors had mainly used English to explain anything we did not understand, but Herr Genzmer was the first one who would explain and define things in German first. If the class was still confused after a few attempts, he would switch to English and translate. It was exciting for me to realize that I did not need to depend on English as much any more; I could ask what an unfamiliar word meant, or when to use a certain noun case and not have to use a single word of English. Using German in class more frequently also made it more valuable. German wasn't just about memorizing lists of words and rules, but an hour three days a week where I could challenge myself to say as much as possible using as little English as possible. I think I put much more effort into that class than into my previous L2 classes.
ReplyDeleteKailey Watson
Yes, I have taken Spanish for the past 5 years.
ReplyDeleteI know that for me it was not so much one thing that really made me learn the language better and fall in love with it. It was the fact that my teachers were absolutely in love with the language, culture and were just excited to be there everyday! Probably the most helpful strategy that my teachers after level 2 used was that they spoke spanish 90% of the time. It frustrate me at first but I then stopped translating from English to Spanish and just started understanding sentences even though I didnt know what the verb meant or something like that. Also, if I asked what a word meant they would tell me the definition or a synonym in Spanish instead of telling me the English word. I now can sit in a Spanish class and forget that I'm listening to a lecture in another language!
Yes, I have taken 4 years of French and have been taking Spanish for the past 18 months. One of the things that helped me was the fact that the class was totally in Spanish but the teacher took it really slow to begin with, continually repeating the same lesson (with variations of course!) until some of the responses were second nature as opposed to translating from English in my head. The other thing that was really helpful was that the lessons were 'taught' as if they were conversations between the teacher and student, with the teacher using action (such as pointing at herself with "Yo soy" and then pointing at other students with "Tu eres" until everyone was comfortable with the verbs ser and estar which are really hard to act out as they are not concrete actions). It was interesting to me that we talked about these methods in class last Monday, and I thnk that it is really valid that the best way for a language to 'stick' is to NOT have to translate it in your head, but to THINK in that language when formulating questions and responses.
ReplyDeleteKathy Estell, grad student
ZAHRA ALSINAN
ReplyDeleteEnglish is my Second Language that I have been studying for more than 15 years in an EFL environment. This was the reason behind not being able to master the language appropriately or excel in all its language skills. However, I managed to improve myself through reading, listening and watching English material which really helped me more than any other language class I took in junior high and high school. Nevertheless, when I came to the US last year I attended an ESL institution to work on my speaking skill. There, I was taught American history as a part of the course. I liked it so much that I asked the teacher to give me an independent study in American history. The Teacher happily agreed and planned to give me a sheet of paper that includes questions about a certain topic in history that is presented in a documentary. Then, I had to watch the documentary, answer the questions and meet the teacher at the end of the week to discuss the topic. After 6 weeks I felt that I am more capable of understanding scientific utterances and recalling them throughout the discussion. I grew found of history and became more willing to discuss it with other students. I broadened my knowledge about language and culture as well. My Tofel scores showed that my listening skill has magnificently improved. My note taking skills has improved to. I think that my history teacher had noticed how much I am interested in history so he decided to take advantage of that and integrate all language skills in the history course. So, he was certain that I will use subtitles and going back and forth through the material to get the answers accurately which will help me with my reading, listening and writing along with the exposure to new vocabulary and grammatical structure. In addition to all of that he made me apply all the knowledge I got through these skills by speaking which will give him an indication of how much I learned. In my opinion, this was a very smart strategy that saved his time and effort. I think once the teacher discovers the need and interest of his students he can figure such smart idea that meet his and his students' interests.
I’m from South Korea, and to me English is a foreign language. English is one of the major school subjects (with Korean and mathematics) in my country, and I have learned English from middle school. These days according to the new National Curriculum, most Korean students start learning English from elementary school at 3rd grade.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, many non-native English teachers in Korea are still using the Grammar Translation Method because of the specific reasons. At first, one significant reason Korean students study English is getting high scores in University Entrance test, which is similar with SAT in the United States. Because reading and grammar are important parts of these kinds of standardized tests, they should concentrate on these skills more than communicative skills. Second, because English is a foreign language not even a second language, students do not have many chances to use English in their real life, outside of classroom. Therefore, not only teachers but also students do not much care about the communicative skills. Third, teachers have a limited amount of time to teach English. During this short time like a semester or one year, teachers should teach a wide scope of English rules to make their students take high scores in English tests. To do so, GTM is a somewhat efficient and effective method in spite of serious weaknesses in teaching communicative language skills.
This traditional English teaching method has also many shortcomings. Nowadays, according to the increasing necessity of communicative skills in global generation, Korean English education is also changing a lot. Many younger and fresh non native English teachers are trying to use various techniques to improve students listening and speaking ability. Moreover, many native English speakers are being employed in every level of schools evenly.
Like Caitlin, I've taken a lot of language classes (4 semesters German, 5 Spanish, 4 French, 1 Latin).
ReplyDeleteIn my Spanish class, the instructor explained the grammar concepts in English in very simple terms. Her explanations were very formulaic (IO + DO + Verb = I.D. Verb). After she explained the concepts in English, we did practice drills / exercises in Spanish. Her method of explaining an L2 grammar concept in L1 helped me because my L2 language skills were not good enough to understand an explanation of L2 in L2. She did this for all the grammar concepts that we covered and it helped me think of Spanish grammar as simple, clear and rule-based. When we got to subjunctive explanations, she systematically explained each tense (and usage) with us in L1 and we did exercises in class in L2 to reinforce each usage.
For me, the next level of Spanish classes are 100% Spanish. I hope to make the transition (like Kendra did) to feel comfortable in an all-Spanish classroom.
While most of my formal language learning has been centered around Spanish, I also had the opportunity to take one semester of American Sign Language.
ReplyDeleteIn this course, we did a lot of practicing with our peers, both during and outside of class. While it is common to practice with peers during class, I have never experienced a language class that made practice with peers outside of class a requirement for our grade. The practice during class helped to clarify and cement what we had just learned, but the practice outside of class seemed to be equally helpful for my classmates. For me personally, it helped me see the importance of signing clearly and with correct grammar. I learned that if I did not do this, my classmates could not follow. Where as a Deaf person can usually just figure out what you mean, my classmates needed my signs to be precisely produced or else they could not follow. This showed me the ways in which my signs were sloppy or in which my grammar was off.
Also, I noticed that the hours we spent together outside of class helped to build commradery amongst us. This created an enjoyable attitude amongst us as students that helped keep the atmosphere positive.
Ruoying Shi
ReplyDeleteYes, I’ve learned English as my L2 in a classroom setting. I’ve learned English from the 3rd Grade in elementary school in China. I think my level didn’t improve until I went to university to further learn English Language and Literature. My elementary school teacher adopted The Audio-lingual Method to teach us English, word by word, sentence by sentence, dialogue by dialogue. She made us to recite every word and every dialogue. So the funny thing is that we can just say “I’m fine. Thank you. And you?” for “How are you?” from others. And we cannot use the sentences apart from those appearing in dialogue to communicate. And in middle school and high school, studying English is just for exams so that speaking and listening parts are to large extent ignored.
The true English learning starts in university. One of my extensive reading instructor let us to find some articles we are interested in to read every day and write your own ideas about the articles or the topic. And everyone must retell what they read and think to other students. With this method, I felt a great improvement after insisting one semester. This kind of method requires daily reading, writing, thinking and speaking. It doesn’t take a long time to do the job, but if we do it everyday and can insist on, we can benefit a lot in the long term.
Stefani Goode
ReplyDeleteYes, I've learned most of my foreign languages in a classroom setting. My L4 (Korean) was my most recent language taught in a classroom. I took Korean during my last year of my foreign languages undergraduate degree. I was instructed to take a language course that was not a european language. My choices were Chinese and Korean. I chose Korean.
The first day of class was quite memorable. The teacher (who looks like a student herself) greeted us in Korean and introduced herself in Korean. There were five of us in the class and of the five only one who didn't speak Korean. That was me. I was worried since I didn't know how to respond. She smiled and said don't worry. I will have you speaking, reading, and writing Korean in no time, were her words to the class. I felt reassured I would learned something.
The class was taught in a 50/50 manner for most of the course. She spoke 50% in English and 50% in Korean. She focused on proper pronunciation as well as usage. She made sure to use Korean when asking simple questions or requesting information from the students. We were allowed to fall back on English, but as the class went on we seemed to challenge ourselves to use Korean more. I would say that 7 times out of 10, I would do my best to use proper Korean in class. Even the assigned textbooks were totally in Korean. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to read the instructions but by week 4 of class I was able to read and understand the instructions in the text and work book.
She did her best to immerse us, the class, in as much of the language and culture as possible. And I think that helped us as a class learn the language quickly. She introduced us to popular Korean pop music, Korean history, and everyday life in Korean. She challenged us using fun but useful activities. My favorite activity was a group activity. We had to create a dialogue in Korean. She would check our spelling and usage. We would revise and have her check it again. The challenge was to act out and record our dialogue. She gave us free range on the topic as well as where we record it. My group decided on a mini-Korean drama. We had so much fun with it. The hardest thing was memorizing our "script"! On the final day of class all groups got together for a film festival. Our teacher had nothing but praise for all the groups. However, my group won for best dialogue. I will always remember that. To this day I am not fluent in Korean but I can still read and write it.
I learned to be enthusiastic about teaching a language and patient with my students from her. I can only hope that I can challenge my students the way she challenged us!
The single most helpful thing my Spanish professors did was to conduct classes using as much Spanish as possible. In this way, I was given plenty of examples of the proper pronunciation of words, and also a head start on thinking directly in the L2 (rather than becoming dependent on mental translation to the L1). Often, professors would define an unknown word or phase by describing it in Spanish. This also led towards mental L2 autonomy because the entries in my mental lexicon were in Spanish!
ReplyDeleteSpanish is the only language I have studied in a classroom setting, I but did get to observe an intensive Biblical Greek course a couple years ago. The techniques the professor used in this course were quite different than those of my Spanish course. Koine Greek is no longer spoken, so the focus of the course was on reading and translation, and arbitrary pronunciations were assigned to phonemes (so that the class would all be using the same pronunciation, regardless of the accuracy of it). The basic format of the class was an alternation between a grammar explanation from the teacher and readings/translations from the students (Grammar Translation Method). While I think that this method alone would not be very effective in a course targeted at communicative competency, there were a couple positive points I can see in this style.
First, the professor went around the room in a very systematic method. Each student was asked to read a sentence, and this was done in a predictable order that could make students comfortable. This ensured that each student was given individual attention, and each student participated. Secondly, the students were treated as competent adults, and the material was directly based on the types of passages they hoped to be able to translate by the end of the course. Verses in Greek were included at the end of each chapter, giving the students a glimpse of their growing success.
--Elizabeth Vose
In my French and Spanish language courses, the instructors often applied many communicative activities in class that I believe were very beneficial to our language learning. My favorite activities were the creative ones, such as group role play. For instance, activities in which students sat back-to-back role playing making a phone call to one another, shopping in a store, or a child coming home late to waiting parents. These activities made language study communicative, interactive, and fun (sometimes very funny too)! Also, there was a feeling of safety being able to “try out” all this language in a mock situation (that was nevertheless relevant and important to daily life which made them meaningful) before being in the real situation ourselves. We could take all the grammar and vocabulary we had been studying in books and apply it in an interactive and creative way. I think the creative aspect is what made it so much fun. It was always amusing to see what my classmates would come up with spontaneously, and in return, to see their reaction to whatever creative spin I would put on our exchange.
ReplyDeleteTo name an example, I remember role-playing shopping for perfume in a department store. This was in an intensive Spanish language program in Spain. My classmates were from many other countries. I was playing the role of the shopper, and two other students, a Japanese student and a Slovenian student, were playing the role of shop clerks. As I entered their “store” they greeted me and asked me in Spanish if I was interested in buying some perfume. The Japanese student pretended to offer me a perfume sample. As I took it, she asked me (in Spanish), “How does it smell?” I thought to myself for a moment how to describe the smell of perfume, and pondered what I could say that this Japanese student could relate to. Green tea perfume came to mind (perhaps mistakenly). I told her, “It smells really good, like green tea”. She threw her hands up, crossed her arms into the shape of an X in the air, and shouted, “¡No huele a te verde!” (“It doesn’t smell like green tea!”). Her reaction was so unexpected it left me without words. I lost all composure and fought to suppress laughter for the rest of the play. It was so funny!
Years later, I still have vivid memories of that performance and many others. The interesting thing is that the dialog was not drilled or rehearsed to be remembered. It was a one-time occurrence that has stayed with me through the years. To me, that is successful language learning.
I have studied Spanish in a classroom setting for about 5 years total and one professor really stands out in my mind for several reasons. I feel this professor was one of the most qualified language teachers I've ever met. She was a native Spanish speaker but also taught French and Russian. She seriously was fluent in like 5 languages. Overall, I would say she generally taught using something akin to the Series method in that she involved as little English as possible, a complete change from my previous coursework. She demonstrated verbs in action: running, jumping, falling, etc. and relied solely on pictures for vocabulary building. The sheer energy of the class was enough to hold my attention more than any others I had taken, and learning will happen when attention is commanded. Although at that time I was unaware of the fact that I would develop a love for Spanish linguistics, I am now so grateful that this professor also took the time to teach us the various lexical differences that exist for food/everyday items in different Spanish-speaking regions. This overwhelmed and discouraged me a bit at first because it made me feel hopeless and that my Spanish would only serve me in the US or North Mexico, but knowing these dialectal differences in lexicon has given me quite an advantage in my Spanish Dialectology classes. I didn't even know I was learning senior level material in a freshman class! I also think of this professor every time I am having trouble with accents because she would write the word on the board and draw a giant accent over the proper syllable and say the word loudly, extremely exaggerating the accented syllable. I suppose to tie up this stream of consciousness evaluation of what makes this class stand out to me is simply the high energy factor and dedication to not fall back on old methods that are easier to employ, but less engaging.
ReplyDelete- Hayley Mullane
The professor in my first semester Koine Greek class used a version of the socratic method to teach that while leaving all of us in the class emotionally branded, was quite effective in motivating us to learn the material. Each class we would go over passages of Koine Greek and exercises we were expected to complete before class. The prof would pick a student to translate a section of the passage or read his answers to an exercise, then ask questions on concepts the passage or exercise illustrates. This was very stressful for students because it was very obvious who had studied and who hadn't. Since we all knew that we were supposed to take our studies very seriously, no one wanted to be embarrassed or sit through such a grilling without being properly prepared. This motivated me to study more diligently than I would have if my prof didn't use this method. Some will think this method is harsh, insensitive, and even potentially emotionally scarring but my prof was always respectful and never condescending. Students who didn't take Greek seriously quickly dropped out and though my teacher earned a nickname using this method (which he kind of wore as a badge of honor), going through this experience bonded our class together and we all had much respect and congenial feelings for our teacher. I'll never forget the feeling of hot sweat that would break out on my back when he was calling students and I wasn't confident, but I also credit him for helping me build a foundation of Greek that helped me finish my Greek studies well.
ReplyDeleteI've studied Spanish, Latin, Mongolian, Chinese, and Khmer. I studied Spanish for 10+ years, and some of my favorite activities involved role playing or writing and performing stories or plays in groups. It allowed us to have fun with the language and forced us to learn new words that we wouldn't have otherwise from the book. Our instructor generally assigned the groups (so that there would be a good mix of skill levels) and gave us a topic and guidelines, including requirements about what verb tenses and vocab had to be included. It was a lot of fun and forced us to learn the vocabulary very well. Oftentimes there was some kind of prize for the group that did the best job or was the most creative, so we worked really hard. This process was often done over the course of weeks, in which a small portion of class each day was dedicated to writing and practicing. Today I can still remember lines and vocab from middle school Spanish performances 16 years ago, including one particularly memorable "telenovela" :) I think this was effective because it allowed us to have fun with the language and to learn from one another. We had to learn the material well because we didn't want to look like fools in front of our classmates!
ReplyDelete- Debby Adams