10/11 Readings

References: Anthology, Chaps 18 and 20 and
"How do I support student's first language when I don't speak the first language?" - Cary, S. (2008)

Cary's article and Chapters 18 and 20 in Anthology focused on learning strategies in order to facilitate speaking skills and discussion among ESL students.

In Chapter 18 of Anthology, it discusses the reasons for why adult EFL students' speaking abilities need much more scaffolding in order to reach full potential. "EFL learners need explicit instruction in speaking" (pg. 204), and even more so at the adult level. Adult EFL learners usually have completely different reasons for learning a language than a child, such as that they might need to to learn it to advance in their career, have met someone and are in a relationship with someone whose family may speak that language, or they have just moved to the United States and want to communicate with people in order to actually get a job. There are many time constraints working against them, such as the fact that according to Krashen's theory, "age is one of the most commonly cited determinant factors of success or failure in L2 or foreign language learning" (pg. 205) because generally progress at the adult level tends to fall off at a certain level, the process known as fossilization. As we get older, the ability to speak with native-like proficiency diminishes, and almost drops off at the point of puberty, which is why it basically makes no sense to be learning a second language as late as we do in the United States. Another big hindrance in SLA in adult learners is the affective factors that they often face, such as "self-esteem, empathy, anxiety, attitude or motivation" (pg. 206). Children pretty much have no shame when learning language; they are not as afraid to make mistakes and have a very low affective filter. However, as we get older, this affective filter rises and we are much more conscious of making mistakes and will go to any length not to make one. I know when I was learning Spanish in junior high and high school, I would not speak unless I was confident that my answer was right. I spent a lot of time thinking it through in my head so that it did not come out grammatically incorrect. Of course, right now, I do not have this issue as much as I used to, but sometimes I hesitate to speak because I am afraid of being rejected in my language production or my ideas. Mainly now it is my ideas that I am more worried about than my grammatical accuracy because I am in college and that is the point of my classes, but adult EFL learners are learning this language to survive in the United States, so they worry a lot about being understood and not sounding like a foreigner, because in the US there is such a push to conform to one language and to conform to society as a whole. I do not blame them for being concerned about perceived this way.

An important part of this chapter I noted was that they declared interaction as "the key to improving EFL Learners' Speaking Abilities", which is that the "functions of spoken language are interactional and transactional" (pg. 208). Providing the learners with as many opportunities to interact as possible is only going to help them learn the language better and lower the affective filter. Adding onto this issue is the idea of making these speaking opportunities "meaningful". They should have some reason for negotiating meaning in the conversation, whether it is through an information gap activity or jigsaw, there has to be something they need to get out of the conversation. It can be easy as talking about what they did that weekend, because odds are they did not see each other and do not know any of the information that the classmate is going to tell them. There must be an element of surprise to the conversation, and also it has to encourage the use of small talk, or "how well a person can engage in brief, casual conversation with others" (pg. 208). In the United States especially we have a propensity towards being short with people unless they are someone we really trust and with whom we want to engage in actual conversation. It stuck out to me in the video we watched Thursday with the student from Colombia who remarked that Americans seemed rude to him because they would say 'How are you?' and then just walk away. I obviously did not notice because it is a part of our daily routine. I only stop and talk to people that I feel like talking to, and that is the reality of it. Another part of it is that Americans are generally always in a rush and do not have time for conversation because we adhere very strictly to timeliness for our classes.

I was really excited to read Cary's article about the teacher not speaking their students' first language because that has been one of my biggest fears about teaching ESL in the future. I only know Spanish as a second language which is always a good start since that is the highest minority population in the United States, but I don't know languages like Farsi or Vietnamese, as described in the article. I worried about how I make comparisons between languages when I do not even know the structure of that native language. I feel like I would be doing my students a disservice in that case. However, upon reading the article, it gave me so many awesome ideas to incorporate in my future classroom. I LOVED the idea of the teacher (Dolores) having her students present their culture and language in front of the class and teaching them the three-set phrase (hello, please, thank you) and then putting it up on the walls so that students could look at them. "Because Vietnamese was honored and because Nguyet and all of us have so much of our identity tied to what we speak and how we speak it, honoring Vietnamese honored and validated Nguyet" (pg. 138). It is such a great idea to incorporate that native language and make them proud of their heritage instead of focusing on English-only programs. I also thought the class newspaper idea was really cool and innovative; I've heard of this sort of project in mainstream classroom settings in elementary schools, but never before in an ESL classroom. I think it really brings home the idea that ESL students can do whatever mainstream students do if we just give them the opportunity to do it! The other teacher called Dolores' classroom "loosey-goosey" because it did not follow strict rules or regulations, but to me, if it works for the class, then it works. Every teacher is different, just like the students. If the students respond to rules and a strict schedule, then great; if they do not, then we have to work with them to find out what is going to work best in the classroom. I would rather my students learn than be bored, which I am pretty sure everyone else feels about teaching.

"Students who develop a strong foundation in their primary language in multiyeared bilingual programs consistently outperform second language learners in all English programs" and have an "economic advantage: proficient bilinguals were the 'prize hires' in an increasingly competitive global market" (pg. 137-138). I think this statement sums up everything that I try to advocate about bilingual and ESL education to everyone I talk to. The whole Prop. 227 in California issue and English-only programs get me so angry because people who run them are being ignorant; if they would just see what schools are doing and look at the research, maybe they would stop focusing on wanting to be the language majority and being superior to seeing that language brings people together and facilitates international cooperation. It can only help us, not hinder us.