Week６ Reading

I was very excited to read textbook for teaching listening because there are a lot of things which I did not know. Among these, the most interesting point is that ‘listening in their native language, people never hear all the information in a message, and they do not need to.’ Before I read the textbook, I misunderstood that we have to understand the all the information when we hear. When I was a junior high or high school student, I often practice to write down every single word which I hear because I thought that is extremely important for second language learner to listen every single word. I think that English teachers in Japan also misunderstand so even now. I really want English teachers in Japan to know this fact and stop making students write down every single word. 

Week 5 reflection

In the class, Stephanie and Rachel presented about vocabulary building. In second activity, we had to guess the meaning of unknown words from the content. It was really difficult for me because I did not know not only the target words but also some other words. It made me more confused. But I really enjoyed the activities. When I become a teacher, I try to introduce my students to do that kind of activity.

Dian explained her APP. Her focus is on vocabulary building. She tries to make the students memorize vocabulary by using association cycle. I think that it is really helpful; however, it has one disadvantage.  The method she is using  consumes time a lot.

I really know what kinds of strategies our classmates use when they acquire second language.

week 5 reading reflection

In apple book, the history of teaching vocabulary is explained. There is pendulum of teaching vocabulary based upon the changes of favor of teaching method and theory. I am very interested in the history of teaching vocabulary. I would like to know the detail.

When I built up vocabulary, I often used audiolingual method. I just memorized the word itself with Japanese translation by doing drills again and again. I never memorized the words in context. Those were sometimes boring and time consumer. Unfortunately, I cannot use the words which I memorized. It means that my vocabularies are passive vocabulary. In order to use them in real life, I have to find out the way to make the passive vocabularies active vocabularies. According to the apple book, the author suggested that we should associate target words to something. I think that it is really helpful way.

In grammar teaching, the authors of The Grammar Book mentions that we should teach grammar from three dimensions: form(accuracy), meaning(meaningfulness) , and use(appropriateness). We should have the following questions. How is it formed? What does it mean? When/why is it used? Students have to learn to use grammar structures accurately, meaningfully, and appropriately. In my experience, these three components were not well balanced. Fortunately, I am taking a grammar course of ENG 583 in this semester. So, I would like to find out appropriate way to teach grammar. 

week 4 class reflection

During the class we discussed the cross cultural difference. There are a lot of differences between cultures. For the first part of discussion, Dr. Smidt talked about her experience. Her example was about ‘double dripping.’ I think that in Japan, ‘double dripping’ is not acceptable, too. Of course, there are individual differences. I reconfirmed that ‘double dripping’ is rude attitude in Asian countries.
Chris talked about personal distance. When I was undergraduate student, I read the article about personal distance. According to that article, there is the unique distance which depends on culture when the people talk in pair. For example, the distance between Japanese is about 1 meter. On the other hand, the distance between Americans is closer than that. That is about 50 cent-meter. Therefore, there might be trouble when an American and Japanese talk. Japanese may feel uncomfortable if the American uses his or her unique personal distance.
I think that it is very interesting to find out the cultural differences. However, sometimes it is dangerous because we tend to fall into stereotype. I think the balance is important.

Week 4 reading

As we know that language skills can be divided into 4 skills, listening, speaking, reading and writing. Recently, there is trend toward skill integration or whole language approach for more authenticity and better reinforcement.
Integration of 4 skills always reminds me of TOEFL iBT (internet Based Test). In speaking and writing section of iBT, skills are integrated. For example, in speaking section, test takers have to answer by first, reading essay, second, listening a conversation about essay between two students, and finally speaking the summary of essay and conversation. The speaking is assessed. In order to entrance MSU, I took a TOEFL iBT 3 times. It was really hard to get a good score. I am not good at taking this kind of test.
In order to train learners’ skill integration, some models of skills integration are introduced in teaching by principles by H.D.Brown. In Japan it is difficult to introduce Content-Based Instruction or Theme-based Instruction now because there is a few teachers can teach by using these methods. However, in the latter part of the chapter, Experiential Learning and the Episode Hypothesis are introduced. I think that these methods can be used in Japan. In order to use these methods in Japan, I have to study more about them.