Week 3

Learning Styles

Different tasks and readings this week got me thinking about different learning styles. Any class will have students with a variety of learning styles and we as teachers need to recognize this and use a variety of approaches and materials in order to catch the interest of everyone and help everyone learn. One student may be captivated by the mechanical visualization of English language phonemes and want to work on pronunciation alone in a computer lab. Another student may be interested in learning English-language songs. Another student may want to work with other students to create a video about a certain course theme. Another student may enjoy daily face-to-face classroom discussion. I think variety, with a pedagogical purpose, is the key.

I always think of myself as a verbal person who reads a lot. However, when learning a new skill, I really just like to dive right in and learn while doing. This is what happened with the delicious website. I just don't get along with written forms and instructions. Like everyone else, I have a preferred learning style.

www.delicious.com

At first, I thought I wouldn't use the delicious site too much. However, I now see how much time it will save me, how practical it is and how useful it is for sharing sites with others. I don't know why I never discovered this before now. No more scribbling down website addresses! Thank you Deborah!

Listening

The major focus of this week was Aural/Oral skills in language learning and teaching. In my EAP class, we divide class time between the skills. Listening/Speaking (including Pronunciation) account for 19% of class time and 19% of the final course grade. There is another type of course students can take where these skills are given twice as much emphasis - but I don't teach that course. On the other hand, I do teach a part-time course that is all Listening/Speaking/Pronunciation. We do not assess Reading or Writing in that course. Therefore I think we are paying attention to listening skills in a specific way, not just expecting students to develop these skills on their own, as Lindsay Miller suggests in her article.

What wasn't mentioned in that article and what I like to stress in my course, is the importance of active listening in discussions. Active listening skills are essential for being perceived as a good communicator in the English language context. I have had students who believe they should score highly in discussions when they talk a lot, dominate the group, and fail to respond to others or connect their ideas to the comments of others. I tell them that listening is more important than speaking in a discussion and that by talking less and listening more, they will actually become better communicators.

Another point that occurred to me after reading Miller's article is about the use of Voice of America (VOA) in our classrooms. Miller suggests its use without acknowledging that it is produced by the American government for overseas listeners/viewers and that it "will present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively, and will also present responsible discussions and opinion on these policies" as stated on its website. I have no problem using VOA in language lessons but I do think when we use resources, we need to make it clear to the learners who is producing the material and what their objectives are in producing this material, especially when we use news programs.

Another point about VOA is its use of Special English, or English that is unnaturally slow. This is modified English, not authentic English. Modified English is used in various ESL/EFL listening websites and is helpful for beginner and intermediate students. However, modified English needs to be identified as such to the learners. It's a stepping stone to authentic speech patterns.

A final comment related to Miller's article is on her discussion of material for academic listening. At our institution we use a textbook and CD entitled "Lecture Ready" (Sarosy and Sherak). I find that it does have some false starts, redundancies, and pauses that are more authentic than the academic listening materials Miller may have transcribed in her work. Ironically, however, we do not actually show the videos, some of which are available on youtube. We only listen to the lectures on CD's without the visuals because a committee decided that it is a fairer determination of "listening skills". Now I think that decision could be changed and that including the visual information would make listening practice more realistic and useful by helping students use visual cues to aid understanding.

Pronunciation

Maria Grazia Busa's article, New Perspectives in Teaching Pronunciation, highlighted the use of CALL to create individualized, safe environments for learners. This brought back memories of myself as a learner of French and Japanese. How I would have loved to have had CALL! The language lab is useful but I did feel self-conscious knowing the teacher was listening in and sometimes the teacher's attempts to help me just confused me further. Also, pronunciation work in class can be time-consuming and less beneficial if some students need more practice whereas others don't. I think the Computer Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) system really is one of the most helpful technological developments in language pedagogy.

The author states that language courses emphasize segmentals over suprasegmentals and I have to admit that I do the same. It's easier to teach segmentals and it's easier for students to recognize and work on segmentals. There are more materials and there is more technological support for work on segmentals. I do include practice with suprasegmentals, but I agree with the author that it is hard to articulate and explain why they are so important. English is a stress-timed language. I can point out patterns, but I can't actually time student utterances with the accuracy of a computer program, nor can I visualize it for the student. That is the benefit of technology. However, who knows when this kind of technology will be available to me as a teacher. In the meantime, I will try to pay more attention to prosody now that I can access research confirming its importance.

Speaking

In Julia Gong's article, The Employment of CALL in Teaching Second/Foreign Language Speaking Skills, she notes that Web documents can be updated constantly (although links often are abandoned in time), can be accessed repeatedly, and can be individualized. This aids distance learning. At our school, we are trying to incorporate more e-learning with a view to decrease the amount of time learners need to spend in class. This will allow more learners to participate in classes, regardless of work commitments and residence, similar to this course we are now taking. CALL is changing the way students learn and the way teachers teach. Language is moving out of the classroom and back into the real world.

Video conferencing and chat forums are ways in which students can speak with one another and practice their communication skills without having to be in the same room together and without having to come up with an immediate response. I think this is the type of technology that will be used more and more where I work and in other institutions throughout the world. I look forward to the time when we are better able to make connections between cities and between countries.

Critical Thinking

Finally, I read a column in the New York Times by David Brooks making reference to Marshall McLuhan's phrase, "the medium is the message". In the article, Brooks discusses the effect the Internet may have on the way children think and learn. How does the use of technology affect the learning patterns and thinking patterns of our students? Does it have a greater effect than we can predict? I think the jury is still out.

Janet