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?
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