Remember the Frustration!

Last night in class we had a woman come from Concordia Language Village. My teacher wanted us to experience what it is like to be learning a new language. Of course I went through that when I was learning French and Spanish, but it hasn’t been for a long time. Also French and Spanish have lots of cognates so it may be easier to learn compared to Swedish and Japanese which were the languages presented to us last night.  

 First she did an activity in Japanese. There are six people in my class.  She handed out 2 yellow balls to 2 people, then 2 blue balls to 2 people, and then 2 red balls to 2 people. While handing the balls to people she kept repeating the color in Japanese. We formed a circle and one person had to stand in the middle. They had to say the color in Japanese and the 2 people with that colored ball had to switch places and the person in the middle had to steal one of their spots. The one left without a spot became the person in the middle calling out a different color. This is a great activity to learn colors, get the students active and it’s great because there is a of repetition.

 The next two activities were in Swedish. The teacher modeled the first activity for us by bringing up a volunteer. The volunteer was to act like a marionette and to follow her commands. She kept lifting up the right hand and saying ‘right’ in Swedish. Then she taught us left, up, and down. Then it was our turn to do this in pairs.  After we practiced this for awhile she added the leg to life up and down. This was another great activity to get us moving using total physical response which helps us remember the words. I still remember everything today from last night.

 The last activity was practicing the same words we learned during the other activity. One person came up to the front chalk board and was blind folded. The instructor drew a shape on the board and the class was to shout out directions to the person blindfolded. We had to say, no it’s to your left or its up higher. We also learned how to say ‘stop’ which is the same in Swedish as in English so we could tell the blindfolded person to stop going so far left or if they were going too high.  When the person followed the directions accurately and pointed to the shape on the board they reached their goal. This is a great activity to do in small groups because everyone can participate. Everyone in the class should be yelling out instruction to the blindfolded person. I enjoyed how the 2 Swedish activities built upon one another. The extra repetition was definitely needed, the fact that the instructor slowly added on words was a great stepping stone.

 It was great that our teacher brought in this woman. She has great activities and it was fun to hear a language that is so foreign to me.  It was an eye opener for me and brought me back to when I was first learning a new language.  Learning a new language can be very frustrating and tiresome.  This made me more aware of how my students may be feeling.  Many students may think they are the ONLY one who doesn’t understand it and that everyone else does. Students may be scared of making mistakes and being made fun of. It’s important as a teacher to make the games fun and silly so they don’t feel this way. Let them know that you make mistakes too. When students make mistakes teachers should correct them, but not get frustrated. A lot of pride and joy come along with learning a language as well.

 It’s amazing that after 45 minutes I only learned 3 colors in Japanese and right, left, up, down in Swedish. Learning a language takes lots of time, patience, and practice. Its important for us to remind ourselves of this as well as students.

Tough Skin

I volunteer for a program through the NCLB act. I’ve committed to working with 3 students for 16 sessions each. It amazes me how quickly I’ve become attached to  these 3 students. I have been tutoring for only 8 sessions which means a total of 12 hours with each student.

I’ve been very lucky to connect with all three of my students. I already know i’m going to cry my last tutoring session. . When I start teaching and I have my own classroom, I can’t even imagine how attached I may become to my students. I wonder if it will get easier and easier as each year goes by.

I know that the hapiness of having them the entire year will outweight the sadness I’ll feel the last day but it makes me worried how upset I will be saying goodbye.   Will my skin toughen: will I get used to hearing kids make fun of one another, seeing kids alone that have no friends, will I become accustomed to saying goodbye ?

Hold your head up high

I always thought I wouldn’t enjoy teaching at the high school level. Currently I’m doing some of my student teaching in a sophomore and junior French Class. My mentor teacher teaches French II and French III.   Since language is an elective most of the students have selected this class and they have chosen to be there.   I am enjoying this experience a lot more than I would have thought. The time I started to panic and not like high school was when I was required to teach a lesson…and my supervisor was coming to watch!

I was quite nervous to teach students that are closer in age to my self. I learned that confidence is very very important when it comes to teaching. Ive always had great confidence when working with middle schoolers and elementary aged student’s but when it comes to working with student’s closer to my age I became very insecure. This is the first time I “fell on my face” teaching. I screwed up giving clear and concise direc instead of shrugging it off and trying to explain it in a different way, I got very nervous and apologized to the students. My mentor teacher told me that I shouldn’t have apologized to the students, but to shrug it off and tell them I changed my mind and I want to teach it a different way.

This lesson was definitely not a complete failure. I learned more than I did the other times I’ve taught. First of all it’s important to give very clear and concise directions. If the students don’t understand the first time you try to explain something don’t give up. I need to try to explain it another way using cognates and easier language. Don’t get frustrated or embarrassed just keep going and have confidence. The over all lesson I learned from this lesson is: Never show your students’ fear, or they’ll eat you alive! Luckily these students weren’t disrespectful, but they looked at me with those horrible blank stares which can be just as bad.

I teach again on April 7th…I plan on using all the suggestions my mentor teacher and supervisor provided and I’m hoping it goes better this next time. I need to have clearer and more concise directions, and I’m goign to be confident and hold my head up high. Wish me luck!

Total Physical Response

I believe that total physical response (TPR) should be used in every world language classroom. TPR is a method where the teacher uses actions and gestures and the students immitate them. This method helps with vocabulary retention. It’s been proven that students remember the vocabulary words if they go through the motions. I have learned two other target languages and this is definitely the case for me so I will incorporate this in my classroom.

The actions and gestures also make it more fun and enjoyable for the students and teacher. It is a great way to burn off excess energy that the students may have. I tried TPR last night with one of my tutoring students. It was towards the end of our session and she was having lots of trouble focusing and she said she was bored. So I decided to try to incorporate TPR into the lesson and she had the greatest time. I am working with her on reading, writing, and spelling. I’d write a word on the white board and then I’d have her read it out loud and then act it out. I made sure she repeated the word while doing the action. Then I’d have her write the word a few times so she could remember how it was spelled.

I also believe in TPR-S, which is the use of TPR with story telling. So much of our lives and conversations are actually stories. Students love stories just like everyone else so we should use them to help grasp new vocabulary and concepts. It will also help with comprehension. We can read stories and have the students perform them to assess comprehension and to add a physical element into learning.

Gouin Series

The Gouin series is a series that has 5-7 steps and each has 5-7 syllables. This series should make it easier for students to understand and remember the task or instructions. This assignment was for my world language curriculum and instruction class. Part of the Gouin Series is using TPR and repetition which helps learn a target language.

Ex: Que hago al fin del dia

Escribo la tarea en mi cuaderno

Pongo mi cuaderno y mis lapices en mi mochila

Me levanto

Pongo mi silla en la mesa

Salgo al salon

 Digo adios a la maestra

All six of these steps should be done showing pictures and using actions to help the students comprehend what is being said. Since this is in the target language the teacher needs to do everything they possibly can for the students to gain full understanding so the teacher can refrain from using the native language.

Watch what you say!

I am currently a part time tutor for college nannies and tutors. It is a governmental sponsored program for NCLB. Most of the students I am tutoring come from families whose native language is not English and they are low income families.

I was tutoring one students and I was trying to explain what the word boots and hat were. I said, “what you wear outside on your feet and your head when it’s cold outside”. She informed me that she doesn’t have boots or a hat because her family can’t afford them. I was embarrassed that I had assumed that she would have these items. It’s amazing what many people take for granted (I am definitely including my self in this) when there is a 6 year old girl who doesn’t have these necessities.  I feel especially bad since I have more than 2 pairs of boots! I need to be more aware of these economic differences when I’m teaching. I know this girl wasn’t offended but some people may have been offended I assumed they would have these. I need to think what I say and leave the assumptions behind.

Why should students learn another language?

My professor told me that this will be one of the questions that is asked when I interview for a French or Spanish teaching position. I’ve never really thought deeply about this question. I know why I wanted to learn two other languages, but I never thought I’d have to explain why others should learn one as well. It is extremely important for educators of a foreign language to prove why students should learn another language since there are so many budget cuts happening within school districts.

The first practical reason for students in high school to learn a second language is because colleges and universities still require them to have taken 2 years of a language. If they don’t take them in high school then they’ll be required to spend a lot of money taking these courses at college.

The world is becoming more and more diverse. It’s important students are aware and accepting of cultural diversity. A great way to expose these student’s to new culturals is through language. It’s difficult to understand a culture without having appreciation for a language and even better speaking the language. Culture and language go hand in hand.

When a student learns a new language they see how truly challenging it is. This can help them understand and appreciate the experience immigrants in their country are dealing with trying to learn a new language.  Learning a new language activates a different part of the brain. It helps them congnitively and it will help them in the future solving problems.

Learning another lanuage is also fun and exciting. It is a great way for socialization to happen during the classroom. I think this may be a huge reason why I love languages, is because I love to be social and talk a lot.

Internationalism

A few days ago in my education class on languages and culture we were asked how we would define internationalism. We were given a list of 10 people; we had to rank them from 1-10, 1 being the most international and 10 being the least. I found this task quite challenging. Who & What is international? My personal definition of internationalism: is a person who has traveled to many different parts of the world, is knowledgeable about other cultures and can speak/understand a few different languages. I also believe that a true internationalist is someone that believes everyone’s culture is unique & they are accepting of all cultures.

I would consider voyagers, presidents/prime ministers, and world wide travelers internationalists. It’s hard to know if some of these people would fit my definition of internationalists because I don’t know if they are accepting of all cultures and people. When I looked up internationalism in the dictionary they use the work cooperation rather than acceptance. I believe acceptance goes even further than cooperation and to be a true internationalist in my eyes it’s necessary to be accepting. A synonym for accepting is tolerance and I believe it goes further than tolerance as well.

Fifty Percent

50% of teachers quit teaching after 1-3 years in the field. This statistic really scares me! I definitely don’t want to be one of the 50%. But I guess if I dislike teaching then it’s better to get out rather than suffer just so I don’t become one of the 50%. Teachers need to be passionate about what they are teaching and their profession so it’s best if they aren’t happy to leave.

One of my friends has been teaching for about a year now, and this will be her last year teaching. She is going to go back to school to do something else. I never thought she would be one of them to quit teaching. Last night I was asking her if when she was doing the student teaching and work in the classrooms if she loved what she was doing. She said that she didn’t like it or dislike it. She said that once she was the actual teacher in the classroom and didn’t have a mentor teacher, that the reason why she hates it is because students are so cruel and disrespectful. I am hoping that the one or two very disrespectful kids will be out weighed by the wonderful student’s and that it will make it worth it.  I am hoping since I loved every minute I’ve had in the classroom teaching and observing thus far that I will continue with my career as a teacher after a year. We will find out soon! I can’t wait to finish my degree and actually get out into the real world and have my own class!

Tomorrow I start my new position as a tutor for the college nannies and tutors company. I am very excited to start tutoring. This will be great experience and I hope it helps calm me down a bit.  Calm down because I am so impatient to start teaching!

It’s interesting: I am currently taking my last eduaction class and I thought that everyone in my class would be just as excited as I am about finishing their degree and moving onto their career. Boy was I mistaken! There are two people in the class out of five who aren’t even sure if they want to be teachers anymore! The first day of class we went around the room and discussed what our ideal job would be and why we want to be a teacher. One girl said she just doesn’t know what else to do so she is becoming a teacher. I hope she finds the passion to teach other wise moves on and finds something else to do for the sake of the children in her classroom. There is nothing worse than a teacher that doesn’t want to be there more than the students!

TEFL

I just finished taking my Teaching English as a Foreign Language (will be referred to as TEFL from now on) certificate class. It was a 60 hour class so I am qualified to go teach English abroad.

This blog will now be transformed into more of a blog about Education rather than just language. I plan on being a French/Spanish/English teacher when I fnish my graudate degree in February of 2010. I’d like to capture and share my transformation from a student to a teacher. I’d like to incorporate my thoughts about education and the education system.

At the beginning of the TEFL class I thought I wanted to go teach in South America and now I’m considering Asia as well. There are just way too many great places to go and so many languages to learn! I probably should master the Spanish language then move on to Korean or Chineese, but we will see by February of next year where I am supposed to go.

In my TEFL class a lot of great ideas/issues/topics came up throughout the 60 hours. The one I’d like to discuss here is a story my professor told us. He told us a story of an adult who was taking his ESL class because he was an immigrant and needed to improve on his language skills and pass the TOEFL exam. One day this student’s fiance called my teacher up and yelled at him about teaching him the word ‘gonna’! Of course the word ‘gonna’ is not grammatically correct but it is a word this man will hear every day and may not realize that it really means ’going to’.

As an ESL instructor in the future it will be hard to decide what should be taught. Do we want to teach the adults practical useful information or should we teach them strictly by the books?

A funny story that goes alone with this: I learned very ‘proper’/polite/formal French. My friends from Paris joke that I have two different personalities…one where I am very polite and the other one where I am funny/’crude’ and just silly. My friend taught me street/slang French so that I could express my self better in different ways.

So what is right: teach by the books or teach the current/slang language? This is something I have to be very aware of as a language teacher in the future. Hopefully I can find ways to include both in my insturction!