Tutoring Sam + North Korea Documentary

Please take the time to watch the National Geographic documentary on North Korea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQXfMMHV8

While Sam and I were looking at some pictures and what they could potentially be (Modals for logical conclusion) the word "cult" came up. He asked me what it meant and I said it was religious group who followed a person, then when I mentioned N. Korea; he understood immediately.

A few weeks later, I typed up some flashcards to review vocabulary and for memory or concentration games. On the flashcard "cult", I had, "religious group around a person".  He added "North Korea"

(Sam is from South Korea.)

Tutoring Sam - Frustrations

            A few weeks ago, I was concerned that my student was not getting enough opportunities to practice the English that he has been attempting to cram through rote memorization.  My week’s assignment for him was to find some activities or regular social encounters where he could meet a variety of people with whom he could chat. I sent him a fairly exhaustive e-mail with links and contact information for possibilities ranging from churches to on-campus interest groups.

            My concern has turned to frustration as he has not made any progress in this area and insists instead upon spending several isolated hours in a Starbucks, memorizing decontextualized phrases. I tried to explain to him, that even if you memorize an entire book, if you never use it in a meaningful way (i.e. in the context of a speech act), you might not internalize it and you may forget it (to which his previous educational experience can attest). I told him it didn’t have to be so difficult. He could learn more naturally and perhaps faster by spending time listening and interacting with English speakers. That is why he came to study here, is it not?  I can’t help but think that what he is doing now (attending English class, “studying” all day in a café, and watching TV in English) is not terribly different from what he could be doing in Korea. Essentially, you could do these things (which are good) anywhere, but the language acquisition process would be increased exponentially through regular social interaction.

So, once again, I encouraged him to find speaking opportunities both on and off campus, “Learning English doesn’t have to be stressful, Sam. Try to think of things you enjoy doing. What do you like to do for fun? Just do those things in English- you’ll learn, you will and it will be much easier.”

I realize my student is very shy and not terribly secure with his language skills, but I think inactivity will just exacerbate stagnation. I sent him another e-mail with such suggestions as tennis club and http://www.meetup.com/. Learning through doing…and maybe even having fun?

Educational Liberalism

A fellow MAT student and ESOL teacher posted this video on Facebook:

Changing Education Paradigms

There are several principals, that we were experientially taught at SIT; working in small and large groups, pairs, and alone (reflective writing); learning happens in collaboration and in community; heterogeneous classes (part of the richness of my graduate school experience was the fact that my classmates came from diverse backgrounds and brought a broad range of experience and perspective to the program); and finally, ideas such as Suggestopedia and the Ecological Approach address what Sir Ken Robinson mentions at the end of the video regarding the “culture…habits…and habitats” of institutions.

Upon further perusing of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce’s youtube channel, I viewed the following:

Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

While the presentation is mainly intended for an audience concerned with economics and better management, I couldn’t help but see the parallels within education.

1. The suggestion that mangers and superiors should stop treating their employees like “smaller horses” is reminiscent of Freire’s objection to the “banking model”; i.e. the teacher, as sole possessor of higher knowledge, pours learning into the student as if the student were an empty receptacle awaiting fulfillment. bell hooks describes her disappointment in higher education; “ Most of my professors were not the slightest bit interested in enlightenment. More than anything they seemed enthralled by the exercise of power and authority within their mini-kingdom, the classroom.” She was later relieved to “encounter” Paulo Freire because she “needed to know that professors did not have to be dictators in the classroom.”

2. Autonomy: I have already addressed this topic in the previous post: Students need to be intrinsically motivated and given the freedom to explore and chart their own learning. This way they can better forge their own meaning making and the learning experience becomes more significant and genuine.

3. The main idea is that autonomy, creativity, and mastery trump artificial incentives (i.e. money). What are artificial incentives in education?  I propose grades.  SIT has a pass/fail system; you are thus given a greater latitude of responsibility for your performance (autonomy) and what you produce is solely a reflection of your intellectual processes (not necessarily an arbitrary outside assessment) so you are intrinsically motivated to show creativity and mastery. At least I was. Grades always presented a source of stress and outside pressure (extrinsic). While the Chancellor’s List was somewhat motivating, it was more about getting a gold star and less about the value about my education. It was an affirmation for hoop-jumping and perhaps more honestly, an excuse to compare myself with others.

At first I was resistant to the lack of grades, having experienced that educational framework for 16 years, but as I eased into new ways of thinking about my own learning, I had a sense of freedom. It was not freedom as in lack of responsibility or lack of accountability; I think these were in fact increased because my success was not a matter of “making an A” but of producing something meaningful with “purpose”. 

In addition to the pass/fail system instead of a graduated scale, SIT was anti-exam. That is not to say there was no formal assessment. We were assigned final papers, final projects, final presentations and take-home exams which we were required to self-correct and re-take, sometimes multiple times. Interestingly enough,  Harvard has recently decided to adopt a different policy regarding exams:

“Dean of undergraduate education Jay M. Harris … told the faculty that of 1,137 undergraduate-level courses this spring term, 259 scheduled finals—the lowest number since 2002, when 200 fewer courses were offered. For the more than 500 graduate-level courses offered, just 14 had finals, he reported.”  

As with any kind of progressive change, there will be opposition.

I find it ironic that Mr. Finn and Mr. Muldoon despite their criticism of Harvard’s decision acknowledge the possible pitfalls to exams:

            “Granted, testing is complicated. How to assess a semester’s worth of learning in 180 minutes? How to probe what one has learned during three years as a history major? How, simultaneously, to measure the accumulation of knowledge and the development of analytical skills and effective expression? How to distill course themes into challenging essay questions or problem sets, and how to grade them fairly?”

What’s more revealing is their apparent support for standardized testing, which is seen as a problematic aspect to public education by many.

Finally, I must disagree with the crux of their position:

“It was finals that forced us to think, to synthesize, to study, and to learn.”

No. Finals caused heightened stress and anxiety (Affective Filter) and generally forced me to memorize material only to subsequently forget the information with the relief of having finished and passed (like all the birth and death dates of Medieval French poets). True thought and synthesis occurred in the form of paper writing and project or presentation preparation; this was where I was pushed to form thoughtful connections between the material and other relevant ideas (Connectionism). It was with these connections that meaningful retention and thus true learning occurred.

A-E-I-O-U....

Lots of teachers come up with mnemonic devices to help their students remember something important. (SQ3R, Roy G. Biv, or PEMDAS). Academics also conceive mnemonic devices or maybe more professionally regarded, “paradigms” (Dell Hymes’ speech act elements “SPEAKING” for example).

I’ve used mnemonic devices in classes; “FANOP” (Future, Ability, Necessity, Obligation, Possibility- the semantic purposes of modals) and MADS (the linguistic universals of Movement, Addition, Deletion, and Substitution).

Anyway, all this to say: I’d like to introduce a new mnemonic device for foreign language teachers using the 5 vowels, A-E-I-O-U.

A= autonomy

E=experiential

I=inductive

O=output

U=utility

Autonomy

Teachers should work towards student autonomy by enabling their students to learn independently. This means giving them the tools to continue their learning outside of the classroom as well as raising their awareness of their own learning in order to self evaluate. This stance reinforces the teacher’s job as a facilitator of learning rather than the sole provider of it. Teachers should provide the structures for students to learn more on their own and for them to discover what their i + 1s are.

Experiential

As in experiential learning; “the brain remembers what the brain does” (Todeva), Constructivism, connections between the known and the unknown, learning from doing etc. Creating experiences in which the student interacts with the material fosters learning. What does this look like in the foreign language classroom? This can be in the form of realia, group work, kinesthetic involvement, guest speakers, etc.

Inductive

Grammar and meaning can be induced with enough scaffolding and context. If the target language is meaningful, the meaning will become self-evident. This is similar to the previous two in that teaching inductively asks the student to be an active participant in his/her leaning and knowledge is acquired through discovery.

Output

If the teacher provides (although not exclusively) the input (target language), the student must provide the output (language production). This is a combination of Silent Way methods and Comprehensible output hypothesis. Again these elements are interrelated; the student, in practice becomes aware of his or her relative level and through meaningful use (experiencing), internalizes the new language elements.

Utility

Language is a means of communication and a system of meaning thus it should be taught as such. Teachers should ask themselves, “Are the target structures presented readily incorporable in my students’ lives or previous language learning experiences?” Essentially, can my students use this? Is this useful for communication, the conveying of information, and other linguistic purposes?

The Communicative Approach is all about Utility. Language is acquired through real life (meaningful and relevant) conversational scenarios.

The foreign language classroom is not the same as a linguistics course. Terminology such as “interdental fricative” is just jargony goobaly gook for the student whose learning goals include being able to write a memo in English for their job. The difference between /the/ and /threw/ should be taught in context.

Diane Larsen-Freeman emphasizes teaching grammar reasons not just grammar rules. That’s to say, “[the teacher has] to set up situations where the meaning and the use of these forms is transparent, is clear to learners.”  Again, utility is connected with inductive learning and student output.

“Okay”, you may be thinking, “AEIOU” but what about ‘and sometimes y’”? ; - ) The ‘y’ can be for, well, “why?”- Why are your students learning this language?  Why are you teaching the lesson this way? What are you students’ goals are what are yours?

Tutoring Sam...culture bumps

I have started tutoring a student from South Korea. He is very eager to learn English for business and professional opportunities; he is spending 12-18 months in the United States for that purpose. He found me on Craigslist, and expressed genuine (yes, non scam) interest in language classes. (His case is unique, as I've had many fruitless Craigslist responses).

Among other things, we've worked on the perennial /R/ v /L/ pronunciation so familiar to Asian EFL learners. We’ve also reviewed some tense structures plus their meaning but his educational background has prepared him well for grammatical dissection (so much so that he stumped me; “What’s the difference between Present Perfect simple and Present Perfect Continuous?”). Right now, his critical learning, especially currently in the US and later in intercultural business dealing occurs on a deeper pragmatic level.

 A “Culture Bump” is a term that describes a point where you accidentally encounter a difference, good or bad, and then (hopefully) learn from it. These occur on a regular basis on the metaphorical road to intercultural living. Make sure you have good shocks…

Sam’s culture bump 1

Sam* sheepishly hands me some bills as payment at the end of our lesson. He apologizes for “paying me that way”. I ask him what he means. He tells me that in Korea, when you pay someone for a service, it is customary to put the money or check in a sealed envelop, on which you are to write, “thank you”. It is considered shameful if you don’t. I told him that we don’t have that tradition in the United States and that he should not worry; I wasn’t offended. I had to reiterate the latter until he was assured.

Sam's culture bump 2

Sam often calls me the day of our lesson to confirm. He also frequently asks me if I’ve eaten yet. Ironically, he has called me at times when I hadn’t, when perhaps normally I should have (i.e. 3pm in the afternoon, not having had lunch).  In our discussion about the difference between Present Perfect and Simple Past, he asks, “Which would be more natural, ‘have you eaten yet’ or ‘did you eat?’”. I answer that strictly speaking, the Present Perfect is used without prior knowledge, context or preconceptions; the Simple Past may indicate a presumption (maybe I knew you had plans to eat). Nonetheless, you will most likely hear native speakers use these forms interchangeably. Then Sam realizes that “have you eaten yet?” or “did you eat?”, when asked of an American will actually illicit a direct answer about one’s dietary habits or plans. He explains to me that in Korean (and Chinese) culture, this is a formulized greeting, along with, “How are you”; it is not to be taken as an inspection of daily mealtime routine!  “This is not American, is it?” he asks me. No, indeed, not; if you ask me those questions I will either think you are generally concerned about my eating habits or that perhaps you will suggest we eat together… “Have you eaten yet” is often followed by an invitation. “OH!” Sam exclaims eyebrows furled, head nodding, “I will not ask this to Americans any more”.

*pseudonym

First Post...This blog as partial fufillment of my graduation requirement

I am in the process of writing my "Portfolio" which is a cumulative project documenting my academic and professional progress as a teacher. It is highly recursive in that the very process of writing about what I've  learned is supposed to reveal to me more about my learning...navel enough for you? Not only does this assignment serve as a record of my learning through my graduate studies, but  it also asks the writer to make projections or goals about his/her future professional development. In order to keep track of this meta-learning I'm keeping a “portfolio learning log” and to fulfill my commitment to continuously reflectively teach, I’ve begun this blog. In this post, I will share with you a recent “learning log” entry.

Journaling: from private to public, from emotional to intellectual: from marble notebooks to blogs.

I began journaling when I was in the fourth grade. It was at its birth a sort of anger management. I didn’t like school when I was younger; I resented having to sit for long periods, which I viewed as an impediment to discovery. I was used to studying and interacting with the world around me; I kept track of the development of frog eggs to tad poles; I learned about art from going to museums; I learned about music from singing and playing piano. My early childhood (Gargantuan?) learning experiences were hands on and so to me sitting in a classroom made no sense (Shakti Gattengo?). This coupled with the fact that I had a rather cantankerous teacher, made me turn to writing to express my frustrations.

Later, as journaling became a way for me to understand my life. I wrote very regularly in my journal which I adamantly refused to call a “diary”. A diary seemed so demeaningly feminine and beside my tom-boy inclination, a "dairy" connoted a stream of menial entries and emotional confessions to an imaginary audience (“dear diary?”). Somehow, as a preteen, I knew that journaling was more of a life skill. My audience was my conscious, my intellect and often times, God. Writing became an exercise in clarity.

Increasingly, journaling took a much more spiritual purpose as I filled my notebooks with prayers, quotes, and questions.

            Finally, a year of grad school at the School for International Training, taught me that reflective writing, much like what I’d been doing in my journals, was a key element and discipline in the experiential learning cycle. When I spent 3 months in Morocco on an internship, blogging became a sort of public journal. I was writing not only reflectively but to inform the novice reader. This process helped my understandings according to the KASA (knowledge skills awareness and attitudes) framework, the program’s pedagogic base.

In order to track my future professional progress and consciously continue my SIT acquired skill of implementing the experiential learning cycle through reflective writing, I am considering starting a teaching and learning blog.

Blogging is a sort of continuation of the journaling discipline but I see it as a transition from private to public and from emotional to intellectual.