new title, new direction!

I've changed the title of my blog to reflect more of my beliefs. I felt the old title was being a little too down on myself, confessions just sounds too churchy and as if I am confessing my sins to a priest and not really doing a good job at all. I always liked the idea of buddhism, it seems more natural and self actualizing, versus the Christian belief system that we are all sinners. I know self actualization is a process we all go through and we try to add value to our lives (not monetary). Maslow describes it in a more social context of economic gain and how we view ourselves. Damn those business courses! lol I'm just here to try and be a better  and a more reflective teacher. In doing so, I will learn a lot more about my own being, in the here and now. Not sure, if people remember the Karate Kid and Mr. Miyagi saying: 'Hai - can see. No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher. Teacher say, student do' I will leave you to make your own opinions, and comments are welcome. On that note, hope y'all have a great night, err.., morning.

If we don't try we will never know!

In reviewing my first class recording, and aside from the ghastly fillers like um's, so's etc. I am starting to realize the potential of dialogic discourse in the classroom.  Giving students’ ownership is a great way in getting them to converse freely and without prejudice!  I really did this exercise to see what their language capabilities are. They were excitable and loved it. So much so, they told me after class I was the best speaking teacher they ever had! I was quite surprised myself how well it went over! On the other hand, this exercise would not work with all levels although some adaptations could be made.  In the process of transcribing and viewing, I noticed a lot of errors in their speech patterns, which begs me to question, in future classes how often and when should I be using the F move, and illicit corrections?

On an entirely different topic, another thing came to mind from last class when our professor Tom Randolph told us an interesting quote, 'We learn by doing, if we don't try, we will never know’. This got me thinking that I may have figured out a method which will work quite well in my subject classes.  Every week when I review a story, I ask them basic comprehension questions, either vocabulary, or a question related to the text, and I follow this by having them do a spelling quiz. I want to try a more peer oriented approach, and have students’ illicit questions to each other, rather than back to me! It only clicked after this past class, so I am anxious to see how it works and if it will engage the students, and will it have an effect on their learning? If it doesn’t work so be it, I will try and work out another method.

Through these reflections, I am coming to process and internalize new methodologies. It is helping me understand my own teaching style more, and new ways to break the rules, only for the betterment of my students. While there is still a lot to learn and internalize, I believe I am on the right track to becoming a well-rounded altruistic teacher. On a more superficial level, I am just dang happy I finally got this video to upload!

Thoughts before a long day ahead.

I think this self-reflective stuff is starting to sink in more. This isn't part of the homework btw, just a reflection on teaching this week. In one of my speaking classes, I had the students practice a few pronunciation drills and tongue twisters, first, through some choral repetition, and then individually, specifically with the V and R consonants.  At the end one student stated, "Mr. L, I hate the letters V and R, it’s so difficult to say".  While I did acknowledge his statement, I did NOT act on it, I only agreed with him, knowing that these are both difficult sounds to produce for a Korean L1 learner. From a cultural aspect I am aware of the problem, but my mistake was that I did not try to help him further on the spot, but replied, ‘I know it’s not easy’ (I know it’s not easy?!?! Am I letting this student down, for not giving him the opportunity to express, how it is difficult for him? Shouldn’t I have taken the time to help that student to perfect his pronunciation? 

Well, every cloud has a silver lining, and at least I can acknowledge that I made a mistake as a teacher. I will see him next week, and I will do a repeat of that particular tongue twister and try and incorporate some examples that we went through in SLA class. I just wished I had taped it. I will audio tape my other speaking class today to see what their reaction is as well, and post it later, if a similar scenario comes up.

On another note, I currently teach two high level speaking classes and 4 other subjects in Reading, Language Arts, and Social Science. I am still trying to figure out ways to incorporate CI into some of them, to see if one it will work and two how will students react. I think this will be more challenging for the Science based classes, although the subjects are all in English, they are not all related to ESL. In terms of the Reading/ Comprehension classes and Language Arts it is easier to slip in more conversation patterns, although I can always do a few pronunciation drills in other subjects. In fact in my last science class one learner mispronounced a word while reading (and whoops, I forgot what word that is now). I did go over some individual and choral repetition, so I did apply some basic CI techniques afterall. Yay for me! LOL

So in one case I dropped the ball, and the other I caught it and dribbled it for awhile. (bad metaphor?) At least I am catching myself thinking and reacting to different teaching methodologies and CI/ as well as SLA techniques. Teaching is all about learning as well, no one is perfect, and teachers being human we are allowed to make mistakes, as long as we acknowledge and accept that we correct those mistakes, reflect on it and change accordingly, which is again, why I am in this course! If we were all perfect teachers, we wouldn’t need training now would we, or I?

2nd warmup class/pair work.

This is another icebreaker activity that I used, after my warmup. These guys are great at interacting and communicating. I chose not to tell them I was filming  to achieve the most realistic experience from them. They caught on fast though!

CI techniques and warmup

This is a video of one of my higher level speaking classes. The exercise was a warm-up in the form of a 'rebus' puzzle. This was the first time with my students and a fun way to introduce myself. Rather than me talking, I reduced TTT by writing a number, symbol, or letter(s) on the board. (For example, the number 20) Students would then have to use a framework of questions to guess what that represented. (Is it your birthday, is it your brother's birthday, is it your brothers age? etc...) 

Unfortunately I did not tape myself, but here you can see a student mimicking what I had done earlier.  I am not sure if it was the most effective in the terms of CI techniques. This class is already quite good at speaking, and I did not really have to use any CI techniques, so I thought. but when I watched the video more closely, I did notice that there are some errors in grammar and pronunciation, which at that point I should have stopped the student and corrected them, before moving on, or if I did would that undermine their confidence in speaking? I will have to rethink if this is a good warm-up using CI techniques. In my defense, this was the first time I had these students, so I wanted to make it as enjoyable as possible, which it seems they did.

How to succeed in grad school.

Fellow STGer's! I spoke to my stepbrother who did his MBA at harvard awhile ago. I thought what better person to give some tips on grad school. A lot of it seems obvious, but some not so much. I'm posting this to share, and hopefully it will also become ingrained in my mind from now on! Knowledge is power afterall.

1. Exercise before studying. Studies have shown that Andrenelin helps brain function  and  abosrbtion of material.

2. Get your personal chores, and other things out of the way first. That way when you start studying you won't feel guilty about it later.

3. Set a schedule, write it down. Get in the routine, the hard part is sticking to it.

4. Study for 45 minutes at a time and not more. Take 15 minute breaks in between. Your brain can only absorb so much.

5. Get proper sleep. For an adult that's 8 hours. (yeah right! lol) and eat a balanced diet.


6. 'All work and no play make Jack a dull boy'. In otherwords, don't sacrifice your social life completely, set aside some time for friends, or loved ones.

1st reflection?

I don't know if this would be really a reflection, but  today my thoughts went to teaching and thinking about how I teach, and what is my methodology? Am I succeeding in actually teaching in that my students are truely learning? How do I adapt my own teaching practices to each different level of student? It’s a bit hard because even with the best lesson plan, it might not work for one group of students as well as another. I do try to make contingency plans, if I have the time, but it seems like there is never enough, and I can’t' make four different lessons a week for one subject, it’s almost impossible.

Also, as I work at an international school we use American text books. We have the freedom to design our lessons, and use our own methodology. Aside from reading and language arts, I also teach science and social studies.  I think learning a language versus other subjects is a different ball game, for example with Science, how do you teach kids about different kinds of dirt, and make it interesting, without a lab, or even science kits? I can easily find activities related to social science, that are related to the lesson of the day, but science is more of a challenge. These are some things to start reflecting on over the next three months.