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>.