TESL 160 Transitioning to the Classroom

Assignment # 3: Share a 500-word report about a situation when a cultural misunderstanding or disconnect created an obstacle to learning in the classroom.

The following report is based on a true incident that happened in an ESL classroom.

Jenny Carmona

TESL 160 – Transitioning to The Classroom

Assignment # 3: Community Task

Context and Challenge Multi-level classroom with CLB levels ranging between 1- 4 in a government-funded program in an elementary School – Community Based EAL classes with childcare. The classroom consisted of 18 students from various cultural backgrounds. Most of the students were CLB 4. The Challenge: An incident happened between two cultural groups; Iraqi and Indian female students. The teacher tells that all her female students got along really well in the classroom, but the unfortunate incident was due to a cultural and custom belief. During the break, on a regular class day, two Iraqi women "accosted" an Indian lady without being hostile or anything. The two Iraqi women grabbed the Indian woman’s belly area and proceeded to tell her, "You are SOOO.... fat!"   The Indian woman began to cry, which sent the Iraqi women into confusion, and the whole class was in an uproar. *According to the Indian female student, in the Indian culture, grabbing parts of a woman’s belly or saying such remark, is taken “very offensively.”   When the teacher realized there was a problem and moved towards the situation, the two Iraqi women tried to explain that they did not mean to offend the Indian lady and that in the Iraqi culture that gesture and remark is a good thing. Suggestion and Rationale In my opinion, the incident is significantly important to be addressed right away.  My suggestion would be to stop the lesson for a moment and talk about the differences in cultures and the real intentions behind the Iraqi women, which was what the ESL teacher did. Brown and Lee in Teaching by Principles, pp 295 -296, list two principles: Unplanned Teaching and Teaching Under Adverse Circumstances. Both of these principles call for the teachers’ judgment and decision to make changes in their lessons. I truly believe that this situation calls for a teachable moment in the classroom, and also the incident could be used as a platform to teach further about the differences between cultures and practices in Canada - what’s considered appropriate and inappropriate? Another essential factor to consider in a situation like this is that the role of the teacher is to keep her opinions and points of view to him/herself and be as neutral as possible. The teacher is there to serve as a mediator and transmit fairness and make his/her students feel valuable and respected.

References:

-       D. P., EAL Instructor, Newcomer Reception Facilitator, RETSD.

-       Brown, D. & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (4th ed). 

-       Susan Verner, Busy Teacher, Classroom Conflicts, How to Smooth Over a Cultural Clash, Retrieved from https://busyteacher.org/5972-classroom-conflicts-how-to-smooth-over-cultural.html

-        Blurred Lines: Cross-Cultural Communication Tips For The ESL Classroom https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/communication-in-the-language-classroom/

-       6 Ways Teachers Can Foster Cultural Awareness In The Classroom https://www.huffpost.com/entry/6-ways-teachers-can-foste_b_6294328

TESL 160 - Assignment #2

As part of Unit 2, Transitioning to The Classroom, we had to work on an assignment titled "Job Analysis." For this assignment, we had to choose a specific context from a list of context provided in the outline. Once we had chosen such context, we had to do a little bit of research about the different aspects of the place (city, country, etc) we were intended to work. 

Also, we were required to use techniques such as Podcast, a video, Screencast, infographics, etc to present our findings of the key aspects of the place we chose for our ESL teaching job and to finalize the lesson, we had to choose a small activity that it was already made and adapt it to our own context. Both activities are presented in my lesson, the original and the adapted one, for you to see.

JOB ANALYSIS

Jenny Carmona

TESL 160 - Transitioning to the Classroom

Assignment #2

Job Analysis

CLB level: Foundations

Context Government-funded Literacy class for refugees who have been living in Canada for over two years. The class consists of 6 females and 3 males. Most of the students had interrupted schooling for 4 years or more. Penmanship has improved significantly since they began English classes 2 years ago, and most learners are at CLB 1 Stage I now.

Key Aspects of the Context 1)    The host culture 2)   Accreditation and Visa requirements 3)   Remuneration and basic expenses 4)   Availability of resources (textbooks, copying machines, the internet, student-owned devices, institution provided devices)

Lesson Plan: FOODS

I have chosen to do a short reading activity from the Bow Valley College website. Please see the activity here. In this activity, the students read about Lien who goes grocery shopping. The story provides very short simple sentences in the present tense. For the first three sentences, the name of the person is used.

ex.

●     Lien buys foods

●      Lien buys cabbage

●      Lien buys garlic

Then, the following three sentences change to using the pronoun instead of the name.

ex.

●     She buys apples

●     She buys papayas

●     She buys carrots, etc.

Modification of the activity:

Food Flyers: 

❖   The teacher will provide the students with a lot of food flyers from local market places.

❖   The students will choose a variety of food items and they will cut them out of the flyers.

❖   The Ss will collect about 5 - 8 items in total.

Booklet:

❖   The teacher will provide the students with the following booklet

Cover

_________ Buys Foods.

5-7 Pages

Glue here ___________________________________ ____________________________________

❖   The teacher will provide samples of names for the students to use in their story. The T will let the students know that they can also use any name they like i.e., the name of a family member, husband, children or their own.

Group or Pair Activity:

❖   Students will form groups (no more than three people in a group) or work in pairs in the classroom.

❖   Each student will have an opportunity to share their booklet.

❖   The teacher will provide ongoing feedback throughout this activity.

My Rationale for modifying this activity:

I want the students to work with authentic materials by using real food flyers from local food markets. The Ss will practice skimming through the flyers when choosing their food items. They will practice fine motor skills such as cutting, pasting, and penmanship. The modification of my activity allows targeting the following skill areas: Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking, and Grammar.

References Teaching Refugees with Limited Formal Schooling, retrieved from http://teachingrefugees.com/instructional-programming/resources/ Bow Valley College, School of Global Access, ESL Literacy Readers, Level A, Lien buys food, retrieved from https://globalaccess.bowvalleycollege.ca/esl-readers/lien-buys-food/ Working as an Adult EAL Teacher In Manitoba, Employment and Hiring Information, retrieved from http://manitobateam.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/6/4/13647344/working-eal-teacher-manitoba.pdf TESL Canada, Teachers Of English as a Second Language - Canada, retrieved from https://www.tesl.ca/jobs/canadian-jobs.html English Online, retrieved from http://myenglishonline.ca/careers/ TEAM, TESL Canada and Training in Manitoba, retrieved from https://teammanitoba.org/membership/tesl-canada/ MANSO, Manitoba Association Of Newcomer Serving Organization, retrieved from https://mansomanitoba.silkstart.com/companies/edge-skills-centre Dave’s ESL Cafe, retrieved from http://www.eslcafe.com/

TESL 150 - Unit 1

Developing Materials and Copyright: Where'd you wanna go? How much you wanna risk?

We began our unit by learning the different types of teaching materials and how to develop them for classroom use - materials like videos, pictures, textbooks, cassettes, DVDs, etc. are very important when it comes to taking part in your teaching, but it is even more critical to evaluate the material before sharing it with your class.

Bian Tomlinson (2014), Developing Materials for Language Teaching, talks about the development of such materials and how and who should develop them. He points out that nowadays, all teachable elements are done with the commercial profit in mind. The people who design these materials are very experienced and knowledgeable, but they lack knowing what the learners needs. Another high point that Tomilson (2014)  states in his book, Developing Materials for Language Teaching (pp 7) are the importance of using authentic tasks and texts so the learner can be prepared for the reality of language use.

Unit #4 TESL 110 Putting It All Together: Lesson Planning

Putting It All Together: Lesson Planning

Putting It All Together: Lesson Planning
We have come to the end of this course, and it is lesson planning time!
To end our TESL 110, we are required to submit a grammar lesson plan with a focus on writing.
Before getting started in the planning, we explored three main lesson plan approaches.

First, PPP (Present, Practice, Produce) which is a traditional lesson and for its sequential way, it's appealing to language instructors, in particular, new ones. This method is easily controlled, and the instructor can adequately prepare. Finding resources is more comfortable through this approach. One negative thing about PPP is that has little focus on fluency, it is teacher-centered, and presumes that language is learned in pieces.

Unit #3 TESL 110 Corrective Feedback and Assessment in Writing

Corrective Feedback And Assessment In Writing

So far I have taken a total of three TESL courses, and in all of them, we have talked about corrective feedback. We know that giving feedback to students is essential for their learning and understanding of a second language, but how much corrective feedback can we provide to our learners? 

Most second language learners do not mind getting corrected by their teacher. They know this is the way to learn, but as teachers, perhaps we tend to forget that when it comes to correct our learners' work on any particular skill area, we provide them with a long list of all the things they are doing wrong. My approach to this would be different. I think I would be more "selective" with the areas I want my students to improve on, focusing on two or three areas that need a boost instead.

As part of our reading in this unit, Harmer, J. (2001)  discusses in his paper 7| Mistakes and feedback the different ways students' performance should be assessed. Teachers can be explicit by verbally giving a positive comment and implicit when for example she directs a question to each student, and she passes to the next student without giving a positive comment. Harmer points out to be careful when you don't give a comment correction to a student "there's always the danger, however, that the student may misconstrue our silence as something else."

Another way to give correction to our students is by commenting on the learner's performance at different levels whether that happens in or out of the classroom. And finally, giving the students grades, marks, and reports are additional ways to demonstrate to the student their learning and their progress throughout their course.

Resources

Harmer, J (2001) 7 | Mistakes and Feedback

https://universityofmanitoba.desire2learn.com/content/enforced3/309458-17788.201890/Content/materials/unit%203/Readings/Harmer%20Chapter%207%20Mistakes%20and%20Feedback.pdf?_&d2lSessionVal=7nmXnniVgPyR7BEhA8rmO4kGw&ou=309458

Unit # 2 TESL 110 Approaches to Grammar and Writing Instruction

Approaches to Grammar And Writing Instruction.

In this unit, we were introduced to the Grammar Translation Method and the advantages and disadvantages of using it in second language classrooms. In a publication by Mohammed Rhalmi (April 4, 2009. Updated Aug. 26th, 2014) "GTM is an old method which was originally used to teach dead languages which explains why it focuses mainly on the written form at the expense of the oral form." This method allows the L2 learner to make use of his/her mother tongue to understand the meaning of words and phrases. However, some of the disadvantages that are argued about using this method are that GTM is good at  "teaching about a language," not "teaching the language" and "translation is misleading. This is just to mention a couple.