December 8

I have read Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed in an EAF class here at ISU, and once getting past the very complicated language, I am struck again and again by the powerfulness of this work. Critical pedagogy may be the most important thing we learn about as teacher education majors. Oppression is really never-ending. Across time, borders, and oceans - oppression is found everywhere. One place we can vow to end it is in the classroom. Fundamental societal changes need to occur in order to end oppression anywhere, and the classroom can be a great starting point for that change. Freire quotes, " The awakening of critical consciousness leads the way to expression of social discontents precisely because these discontents are real components of an oppressive situation" (36). Critical consciousness is the way!

December 1

Kuma's chapter 13, Monitoring Teaching Acts, offers a very nice closing to this book. In ISU's Teacher Ed. Program, we are constantly taught to reflect, reflect, reflect, and Kuma is offering strategies for self-ovserving, self-analyzing, and self-evaluating ourselves as teachers. I love that Kuma expresses the need for a user-friendly system as opposed to very complicated models discussed in the beginning of the chapter. The M&M scheme was extremely detailed, and I wish I would have read it before conducting my observations! I found episode 13.1 very interesting, and the M&M scheme made it possible for the teacher to recognize the missed learning opportunities in that class discussion. I think it is very common for teachers (especially beginning teachers) to recognize learner-initiated opportunities that are in line with the lesson plan or agenda and ignore ones that are not as described on p. 301. What an interesting concept! I am very impressed with this strategy and its integration of teacher, observer, and learner experiences to truly offer useful information to the classroom teacher. The use of videotaping is obviously invaluable, and I will certainly be thinking about this in the future.

November 17

My final project is going well. I am observing at Kingsley Junior High approximately eight hours a week and writing my observation reports. I also have the opportunity to teach parts of lessons, and the teacher and I work together quite nicely. Over break, I will begin connecting my reports to the readings we have done in class.

Kuma's chapter 11, Ensuring Social Relevance was my favorite reading this week. He talked about the politics of language, being aware of all contexts that the language is being taught in (international, national, ethnic, political, religious, etc.), as well as English as a global language, the home language's role in the classroom, and the use of appropriate teaching materials. It is important to know the role English plays on a global level so that we avoid the standardization that he describes in detail. At the end of all of the talk about how a language gets standardized, he says, "Standardization is essentially a political act over which teachers may not have direct control...The least teachers can do is to recognize the rich linguistic and cultural heritage the learners bring with them and use them as resources to build bridges between what is known and what is new" (249).

He also talks about the use of the L1 in the classroom, which I thought was extremely interesting. This is something I have observed at KJHS and I was very confused about. He says that it is actually beneficial and in most cases not used to its potential. We can see how in the episodes he lists. They show instances of using the L1 to recognize their own cultural differences, making the students feel more comfortable by encouraging them, and more (see list on p. 254). He quotes Elsa Auerbach when he says, "...both research and practice show that the use of the L1 in early L2 classes is critical not only for later success but also to a smooth transition to the target language" (254).

The final point in chapter 11 is the use of appropriate teaching materials. He says that textbooks are not a neutral medium and talks about the use of materials that represent both the local and global cultures rather than the culture of the target language community. This chapter was so helpful for me. I learned so much about best practices and how to make sure the pedagogy of possibility is upheld in the classroom.

November 10

As we discussed in the lobby of the theater, the movie was obviously very well made with very wealthy contributors, etc. Therefore, it was pretty convincing, however, I believe it was extremely one-sided. Afterwards, I was left with a lot of questions...some of them I cannot even remember now - I wish I would have written this earlier - but overall, it was simply an attack on the public school system and teacher unions that "keep jobs locked into place after 2 years." Although the cute children and loving parents who wanted more for their children tugged at my heart strings, I know this is not what the entire public school system is like. In order for our nation's education system to change, the change must occur at a much deeper level...at the level of families and communities and hopefully, eventually, we will have some sort of societal level wake up call that will make us realize that if we don't improve our education system, we are going to suffer as a nation. The change this movie suggested, disbanding the unions and closing public schools with replacements of what I am not really sure - charter schools? is not the answer to the problem. Obviously there is not one answer to the problem...which is why this movie is extremely misleading. It leads us to beleive that there is this simple solution - that all public school teachers need to go and we need to start over by starting these private fascilities - which is not a reasonable, justifiable, or long term fix to the problem. So what is? This is the question. It is obvious that we need reform...but how and what do we do next?

In Kuma Ch. 10, we take a look at the four language domains of reading, speaking, listening, and writing. It is obvious that we should not be separating these skills when it comes to teaching English Language learners. We should be providing them with a classroom environment that integrates all of them into well prepared, engaging activities. Kuma gives tons of examples of activities that are successful in doing this, and once again, I am really grateful for this book and all of the ideas. It seems to be something so obvious, but reading about it and breaking it down will really make it stick with me and be an important factor when I am planning for class.

November 3 SLAM

Wow! This was definitely a very good experience. It is amazing to see how talented people are on campus. I wish I was able to write poetry! This event got me thinking about all of the different strengths and interests my students will have and further reminded me to think in this light. I have actually never been to a poetry reading before, and this was extremely powerful. The diversity in the types of works was really interesting to me. I loved the rap. I felt like I knew that young man after his reading. I also really liked the Who is You poem. This would actually be great to use in the classroom, because I think a lot of immigrants or sons/daughters of immigrants could relate to her words.

One thing I noticed and was a little shocked by was the host of the show and his sense of humor. I will admit, I definitely laughed and found his jokes funny, but it got me thinking about the way we handle stereotypes and dealing with diversity. For example, after "Who is You," he said something along the lines of her bad grammar, and if a black person would have written that, they would have never gotten away with it, but she was Asian. Is this the best way to change the horribly prejudicial world we live in...by laughing about it and at it? I feel that sometimes we do this to try to diffuse the situation, but when I caught myself laughing, I felt really terrible inside. I wonder how she felt after spilling her guts to a room full of strangers about her identity crisis...

As for the last performance, I was actually pretty disturbed. It is amazing how different people can be affected by different works of art/literature/etc. It was really interesting to see the room emptying out, and as much as it pained me to do so, I didn't think I could stand much more. I actually had nightmares that night!

All in all, it was an experience that really got me thinking about pretty much everything. So I'd say it was successful!

October 27

Module 2, Building Language Awareness was a great follow up from our discussion last Wednesday. It is very interesting that traditional aspects of language, such as grammar, are once again holding an important place in teaching English as a second language. Grammar is being brought back, but in a different light. Instead of memorizing grammatical forms and constructs through drills and rote learning excersizes, it is now important that we teach grammar through activities that include authentic materials that will teach students these grammatical forms in a variety of contexts. I thought the activities in the video were good because it gave the students an opportunity to relate an American history lesson to their own personal histories, and the use of real brochures to plan a trip was a good tool to show students certain grammatical functions in a certain context.

What is diversity? To me, to you, to American society? Why do we have to put a label on people in order to deem certain cities, schools, and classrooms "diverse." The very first page in Ann Johns' article, Linguistic Diversity and Instructional Practices says, "...in many parts of North America, the "African American" census category now includes a growing contingent whose families have just arrived from Somalia or Ethopia in eastern Africa, students very different from the young people descended from West Africans who were forcibly brought to the United States in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries." This is so very true. What makes us categorize ourselves into the White, African American, Hispanic, and Asian categories? It is clearly being based on race - skin color, the shape of our eyes, hair type - IT'S LUDICROUS! This should inspire us as teachers to embrace diversity in a different way than society is telling us to. Each of our students comes to our classroom with his or her own sets of challenges, family life, linguistic abilities. Realizing this may be key to helping our students find themselves and success.

As Johns explores the "Hispanic" group of students' discrepencies between BICS and CALP, I am reminded of the students that I have been observing over the last few weeks. It is amazing how certain students can be so talkative and social - sometimes I think why are they even in ESL? - but when we sit down to read an excerpt from the textbook or work on writing a spatial order paragraph, the student is at a loss for words. This happens across cultures, races, categories, whatever you wanna call them, but it is certainly interesting to explore the differences between 1st, 1.5, and 2nd generation immigrants from a certain country. Of course the opposite is found as well. There is one student in a beginning class that I am observing that rarely ever speaks, and yet when you look at his writing, it seems that he should be in a much higher level. His CALP is great, but his BICS needs practice. In this article, we also see the importance of distinguishing between different varieties of English and what our students know and have been taught or introduced to in the past.

I love that Johns offers solutions to this ever present struggle to embrace diversity and help all of our students achieve success. Getting to know your students is obviously the first vital step. I have seen my CT's methods, and I am very encouraged by her openness with her students. She seems to serve as more than just a teacher to her students, which is really important for children who may be so lost in every aspect of the word.

October 20

Chapter 6: Promoting Learner Autonomy was really interesting for me because I actually related it to my Material Evaluation. The textbook I evaluated, Inside, by National Geographic was an excellent resource to help teachers promote learner autonomy. Kuma says that, "The narrow view of learner autonomy involves, simply, enabling learners to learn how to learn" (133). To me, this really encompasses the underlying message of post-method pedagogy which encourages teachers to form their own teaching methods based on experience in the classroom. If the teacher knows how to promote learner autonomy, he/she will be able to, in a sense, "train" students to use their own personal library of learning strategies which will lead to success and motivation for the student. It is difficult to stay motivated when you are confused all of the time and you are constantly recieving failing grades. Teaching students learning and reading strategies is something that can help them find a starting point and improve their language skills from there. Inside did a wonderful job of explicitly explaining learning and reading strategies, and the district where I am doing my clinical observations has done a great job of building reading strategies into the curriculum which goes along with their textbook choice.