Brown chapter 23 and 24

Assessment is one of important aspects of teachings. Assessment is for the students to see the results of students’ success. In chapter 23 and 24 of Brown, he talked about different kinds of assessments. In chapter 23, it talked about the issues of large scale proficiency test. Personally, I don’t think standardized test for ELL students is beneficial for students. I feel like standardized test is making teachers to teach what the state wants students to learn instead fulfilling students’ needs. I went to observe in 3^rd grade bilingual class. The teacher told me that she was trying to teach that relate to standardized test because many of her students did poorly on the standardized test. It seems like schools or districts believe that assessment is the only way to see the students’ achievement. One of the reasons why I think standardize testing is not beneficial for students is that its reliability. Many ELL students get nervous when they take standardized testing. I remember I had to take standardized testing and I was so nervous and everything went blank. I never had to take a test like standardized testing and it made be very nervous.  Also, standardized testing can mislead the teachers’ lesson because they might focus too much on getting a good grade on standardizing test.

Brown chapter 24 talked about different assessments as well. It talked about alternative assessment. I personally like alternative assessment because I can see students’ progress and things that they learned. I remember I had to do lots of journals when I was in ESL. Doing journals is one of things that I hate. I didn’t understand why I had to do journals. However, after I am taking all these classes, I realized the importance of journals, portfolios and others.  

As more I read these chapters, I realized that I need to use different kinds of assessment. I have to be careful to not stick with one assessment and use variety of assessments for students. Also, I have to teach students to be comfortable to take tests because many ELL students get nervous when they take tests. What can I do as teacher to develop more assessment for students? How do we know if some particular assessment works or not?

Brown9-11 and Kumar 13

Brown chapter nine is about how to design curriculum for students to test their proficiency level and talked about importance f systematic process. Brown chapter ten and eleven is about how to make lesson plan and how to use technologies and materials to use in the classroom. These chapters focused on strategies to have individualized lesson plan. For the past few weeks, Brown focused on different methods for ESL classrooms. However, I was always wondered how to use those methods into lesson plan. Also, in Brown chapter, it talked about the different ways to prepare to know students proficiency. When I was in 6^th grade, my bilingual teachers never asked the students their proficiency level. The first day of bilingual class, the teachers asked bilingual students their English proficiency levels. They didn’t even test my brother’s and my English proficiency level. It was problematic because there were some students whose English proficiency level was low or high. My 6^th grade bilingual classmates and I still talked about our memory when we were in 6^th grade. We all felt that we didn’t learn anything or it was beneficial for us while we were in 6^th grade.  In Brown chapter eleven, it talked about textbook analysis and how to use right textbook in class. Sometimes, it will be hard to provide right textbook for ESL classroom because of financial conflict. Some schools don’t provide right textbook because of money. Therefore, it is hard to fine right textbook in class with small amount of money. When I was reading these chapters, there were few questions that came into my mind. How can we use right textbook for ESL classroom if there was a financial conflict? How we analyze the right textbook if we don’t know the students proficiency level?

In Kumar chapter thirteen, it talked about monitoring teaching acts by using M & M observation scheme. The M&M observation scheme can be used as a frame of preference and have 10 step procedures. M&M scheme for classroom observation can offer new way to use self evaluation and self-analyzing. M&M scheme is a great way to develop different lessons from practicing and analyzing and evaluating the lesson. 

Kumar 11, 12 and Brown 26

The readings are about how teachers can teach controversial issues in classroom and teachers need to teach importance social issues.  This chapter was very interesting because I can relate this chapter. When I was in Junior high school, there was high tension between Japanese and Korean students in ESL class. The reason is that Korea was ruled over by Japan for about hundred years. When I went to junior high, my Korean classmates and I didn't like the fact that I had to study with Japanese students. I thought my ESL teacher will solve the tension between Japanese and Korean students. However, she didn't  Instead, she made us interact with each other during the lesson and solve problems together. Later of that year, I realized that it wasn't the Japanese students’ fault of what happened in the past. History is just history. I learned this just by interacting and learn the language together. I asked my teacher that why she didn't try to mention controversial issues between Korean and Japanese students. She told me that if she talks more about controversial issues, the tension between Korean and Japanese students might get deeper that she doesn't want to risk it. Usually, many students realized that it is not Japanese students’ fault of what happened in the past by interacting with others and realized that they are the same.  I believe it is essential roles to knowledge social issues and it can possibly change students’ lives. Many ESL teachers focused on teaching the language, the essential of social issue can easily missed. If I didn't learn to interact with Japanese students, I would still prejudge Japanese and still hate them. I think teachers need to knowledge students about social issues instead of rightness of problem. In my opinion, I believe it is easy to bring up the controversial issue and political issues. However, can we bring up the topic something still relates to students’ countries, something that two countries have problems with? How can we teach how to respect each other’s opinion when the students have strong belief in it? 

Propsal 2

After last week, I wanted to learn more about integrating language skills. I never had thought deeply of importance and different ways to integrate language skills. I wanted to write advantages and disadvantages of integrating skills. However, if I included the disadvantages and disadvantages, the paper will be too long. At the beginning of the research paper, I wanted to talk about importance of integrating language skills. First article that I read was written by Akram and Malik. An article is a research about the problems to ELT and some suggestions to solve these problems.  The article talked about how many ESL teachers are focusing on teaching one language domain. Also, it is more challenging to integrate language skills when the teacher is non native speaker. The article also talked about CLT and SLA. CLT is to develop students’ communicative competence. CLT also teaches language that can be used in real world. In the real life, we use more than one language domain for communication. Integrating the four skills can emphasize the focus of realistic language. SLA is how people learn second language. The article talked more about the problems of CLT and SLA and their solutions. SLA’s and CLT’s problem is the students can fail the learning in CLT and SLA depends on their culture and social factors. Integrating different four language skills can overcome these cultural problems that ELL students have.

The second article is about different methods of integrating skills in the ESL and EFL classroom. This article is written by Rebecca Oxford. The article talks about segregated skill instruction that have advantages of integration language skills. Segregated skill instruction is when language learning is separate from content learning and focus on segregated language skills. Within segregated language instruction, there are two forms of integrated skill instruction. They are content based and task based instruction. Content based instruction is when students practice the entire language domains while learning content. Task based instruction is when students learn through different tasks. The article talked about how it is necessary to learn different ways to integrate skills and reflect on their approach and choose carefully on textbooks and technologies.

The third article is written by Penelope. It is about how to integrate language domains. The article talked more on advantages of integrating different language domains. Many students will learn different types of language and how meaningful it is. Also, the integrating different language domains can interact with other subject and creates motivation to learn language by interaction rather than just knowing the language.  By integrating different domains, the teacher can teach multiple skills at one time. 

Akaram, Annela, and Ammela Malik. "Integration of Language Learning Skills in Second Language Acquisition." International Journal of Arts and Sciences 3.14 (n.d.): 231-40. InternationalJournal.org. Web. 1 Nov. 2012.

·         Oxford, Rebecca. "CAL: Digests: Integrated Skills in the ESL/EFL Classroom." CAL: Digests: Integrated Skills in the ESL/EFL Classroom. CAL, Sept. 2001. Web. 01 Nov. 2012. <http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/0105oxford.html>.

·         Penelope. "An Integrated Approach to Language Learning." Yahoo! Contributor Network. N.p., Sept. 2006. Web. 01 Nov. 2012. <http://voices.yahoo.com/an-integrated-approach-language-learning-77279.html?cat=4>.

Kumar Chapter seven and eight and Brown

Kumar chapter seven is about language awareness from two countries of United States and Britain. Also, it talked about whole language movement and it was interesting. It is really interesting to learn about language movement. In Korean education, many educators focus on teaching content than teach the language and social aspect and others. For example, Korean students learn statistics when they are 8^th grade and they have to study for 14 hours of the day to study the content.  However, Korean students lack at developing critical thinking and Korean educators do not fulfill individual student’s needs. If Korean education fulfills individuals’ needs, rate of suicide within secondary students will go down or many Korean students don’t have desire to go to different country to learn the language. Also, if educators focus on social development, rates of bullying can decrease.  Kumar quoted, “Language is intricately woven into the fabric of human life. It is closely linked to the relationships between mother and child, between self and society, between thought and action, between war and peace” (pg 156). It is important to think as educator to use language instead of misuse and abuse the language. Many educators are so focus on teaching the content and the grammatical language instead of fulfilling individual’s needs. This makes some ELL students drawn away from the language. How can we constantly test ourselves to assure students needs? How do we know if we are used to some curriculums? How we focus on the students?

Kumar chapter eight and Brown book talk about heuristics. Heuristics is a word that I am unfamiliar with. According to Kumar, he stated that “Heuristics refers to the process of self-discovery on the part of the learner. It also refers to a particular method of teaching--” (176). Kumar chapter eight talks about how the students can learn the language from their own than following direction. However, I was thinking that it can be problematic for some students. Many Asians students are so used to following directions than learning on their own. Therefore, they can be more stressed for the students. Some methods can work for some students. Educators have to think about the method that they are using can fit the students cultural values and their needs. However, should educators change methods because of students cultural values or should educators make students to adapt the methods? What is changing methods can stop students from developing? Sometimes, adapting and changing can be effective for students. Are there negative aspects of Heuristics? Heuristics can be positive but there isn’t any perfect method. I believe that as educator, we constantly need to create new methods.  

Reading and Writing in Brown

             Brown chapter twenty and twenty one is about different strategies between reading and writing to Second language learner. In chapter twenty, it talked about strategies for reading comprehension.  I believe reading comprehension is one of the hardest tasks to achieve as English Language Learners. Including myself, I know many ELLs struggle with reading. When I was in ESL, reading was very easy for me. Many ESL classes that I took focus on reading with short paragraphs. However, they didn't focus different strategies for reading comprehension when the students need to read a long paragraphs or book.  When I took ACT, it was so hard for me to get a good grade on reading. The reason is that I didn't know any strategies to read well. I was so used to read short paragraphs. Therefore, it was difficult for me to understand reading. Through my experiences, many ESL teachers focus on grammar and vocabularies rather than focus in reading and writing. However, there are many tasks to focus on to learn English. It is hard to teach every aspect of language domain. In my opinion, many ELL students don’t have hard time with writing. The reason is that it is easy to teach writing. In brown chapter twenty one had many different strategies to teach writing.  One of interesting strategies is using both top-down and bottom-up strategies. I thought top-down strategies might not helpful for the students.

             When I was reading Brown chapters, I was so happy to see these different strategies of different language domains. When I was reading these chapters, I was thinking, what makes a perfect teaching? Is fulfill all these language domains can be helpful? As time goes on, these different strategies should change and adapt for ELL students. 

Listening and Speaking

 Chapter eighteen of Brown’s book is about how to teach listening. Brown talked about things that make listening difficult and how to teach listening. It was interesting to see different ways of teach listening depends on the student’s proficiency. For a long time, I thought that watching American dramas and comic shows will help ELL’s listening skills. I don’t remember how I learned to develop listening skills. I watched lots of movies and dramas in English without the subtitles. Some of my friends still have problems when some Americans speak very fast. However, for me, that wasn’t a problem. I could understand even though when people were speaking fast.

Chapter nineteen of Brown’s book is about things that make speaking difficult and how to teach speaking skills. One of interesting things that make speaking difficult was performance variables. I see many ELL students use fillers of “you know.” I had a friend who used filler of “You know” for every sentence. One of the problems that I have for a long time is using gender pronouns. In Korean, there are no gender pronouns. Therefore, when I talk in English, I always mix up with using gender pronouns. I still don’t know how to fix it. I tried to fix it and I failed. I had friends who are Native speaker. I thought talking with Native speakers would fix the problem. However, my friends who are Native speaker have problems with gender pronouns because of me. In chapter nineteen, it talked about pronunciation. Many people are eager to not have accents. I believe that having accents isn’t a bad thing as long as people can understand and communicate. However, many people assume that people with accents cannot speak English very well. In chapter nineteen, it talked about how to treat errors when ELL students speak English. I believe that correct errors are better than ignoring it. ELL students might feel embarrassed at that moment. However, if a teacher will make environment of making errors and get corrected errors are not embarrassing, it will be good. My boyfriend started to correct mistakes when I spoke with him. At first, I was embarrassed. However, after a while, I wasn’t and I fixed most of the problems that I had.  When I was reading chapter nineteen, there were some questions that came up in my mind. Is it right or wrong to teach students with accents? What is perfect pronunciation? Is perfect pronunciation with or without accents?

In the article, How do I support a student’s first language when I don’t speak the language, is about a teacher named Dolores who teach English to eight students who speak different languages. I loved how Dolores makes her students to greet each other with their own language. I loved how Dolores emphasizes the importance of their L1 language. It is hard to emphasize and have supportive environment to use L1. However, Dolores gave good examples.