The Most Popular Programs in the TESOL - Report Example

Iamma Reflective Journal: Module 2 Task Reflective Journal: In the module 2 of the several aspects of English as global language, the context of TESOL, the key components of pronunciation and phonology as used in TESOL, and the detailed lesson plan are covered and these are very significant to a teacher of TESOL. English as global language covers the language used by the native speakers of English, the users of English as second language and those who speak it as foreign language. A number of students and professionals who are non-English native speakers go overseas to nations of the native speakers and learn English. Understanding of the TESOL contexts helps a teacher in his or her future teaching of the language. For the future teaching practice, a TESOL teacher should be able to analyze each student’s language behavior including intonation, stress, and use of phonemic alphabet. Global English and Different TESOL Contexts: English in the current situation enjoys a global status. It is used as first language in countries such as UK, USA, and Australia, where which forms the inner layer of Global English. It is used as a second language in countries like India which forms outer circle of the Global English. And there is an expanding circle where it is used as a foreign language. TESOL contexts vary from people to people, group to group and country to country. A TESOL is conducted in some places such as schools and institutions and it consists of nearly 10 programs such as AMEP, The Volunteer Tutor Program, and ELICOS. ELICOS program is one of the most popular programs in the TESOL for international students. How First Languages are Learned: The three different theoretical positions that describe first language acquisition are behaviorism perspective, the Innatist perspective, and the interactionist and developmental perspective. The first one hypothesizes that children adopt first language from imitating and practicing the words or sentences produced by adults and believe that the encouraged by environment would shape the child’s language behavior. The next explains that children gain knowledge of language innately when humans are born and they develop the language in just the same way that other biological functions develop and it considers the CPH (Critical Period Hypothesis) as suggesting that children will not acquire language if they miss that time to learn language in infancy. The third perspective mentions that interactions between children and adults are vital to access to language that is adjusted to his or her level of comprehension and it suggests that a child grown of deaf parents will be well below age level in an aspect of language. However, the same child acquires the English structures rapidly when it enjoys normal social life proving, according to the perspective, that interaction is very significant factor language learning. English Pronunciation for Second Language Learners:  Pronunciation is important element in the learning of English as second language. Intonation indicates the tonal variation in speaking. Intonation specifies the meaning of utterances and indicates the mental attitude of the speaker. For example, high tone of sentences denotes excitement, surprise or angry whereas low or flat intonation indicates boredom. Speaking within the range tones is essential in the speaking of English, particularly due to the different language systems. Another key element is that of stress which indicates the emphasis given to a specific utterance or syllable. The meaning of the utterance is affected by the stress or accent given. For example, the meaning of “I bought a new watch,” “I bought a new watch,” “I bought a new watch,” and “I bought a new watch” (bold indicates stress) give different meanings. Also, it is important to consider connected speech. In spoken English, people tend to utter sentences omitting some parts through a process called elision. And this is possible in connected speech to ignore parts of a sentence unuttered. The use of the phonemic alphabet is another notable element of TESOL teaching. Phoneme is the smallest element of pronunciation which is the smallest meaningful unit of a language. Module 4: Task 1 Reflective Journal: The Module 4 deals with several significant elements in the TESOL such as fluency and accuracy in speaking, sentence and clause types and different popular TESOL lesson types. Accuracy and fluency in speaking are equally important and according to the ability of the student the focus needs to be decided. The former is usually practiced through controlled (or restricted) practice and the latter through free (or authentic) practices. While the controlled practice aims at providing maximum practice within controlled, builds confidence in using the target language, but realistic, framework, the free practice provides opportunity for creative practice in supportive environment, practice dealing with the unpredictable and are useful for revision/diagnostic practice. The former has meaningful drills, survey, etc as activities and those of the latter includes games, role plays, discussions, and brainstorming ideas/opinions. In both cases, the teacher acts as facilitator, monitors, corrects errors and carefully sets up tasks. In the former practice teacher interrupts the task to correct, but in the latter case he does not. In the pedagogic grammar session, aspects of grammar that are useful in language teaching are analyzed with special attention to grammar in the TESOL classroom, concept checking, and timelines and in the language session simple sentences, clauses and phrase complex and compound sentences, and questions and negatives are dealt with. In the Module 4C, popular methodologies in TESOL along with different lesson types are described and eliciting and drilling covered. Accuracy and fluency in speaking: Speaking is one of the most essential language skills that require accuracy and fluency in its acquirement. “Speaking can more or less be divided into two categories: accuracy and fluency.” (Hue, 2007). Accuracy means speaking correctly with little concern for the smooth flow or speed in speaking. Fluency means “speaking naturally without worrying too much about being 100% correct.” (Scrivener, 2005, p.422). Both these are equally important and can be learned at the same time. Simple and Complex Sentences: Simple sentence has only a main clause whereas a complex sentence has a main clause and one or more subordinate clauses. The former is structured by 5 elements such as Subject, Verb, Object, Compliment and Adverbial whereas in the latter clauses are used often to link multiple sentences. Subordinate Clauses: It is a clause which is appended to a main clause and does not stand alone as it has no complete sense. Moods (Indicative Mood, Interrogative Mood, and Imperative Mood): Moods are used to indicate the verb’s relation to realities and purpose. A mood used in statements is indicative mood, one used in commands is imperative mood, and interrogative mood is used in questions. Presentation Practice Production (PPP): It is a lesson type which includes presentation stage, practice stage, and production stage. Presentation stage introduces the target language of the lesson through elicitation and includes drilling, concept checking and language and the second and third stage refers to controlled practice and free practice respectively. Skills-Based Lessons: These are lessons which give important role to the development of the skills and the activities and practices are formulated accordingly. Teaching/Learning Cycle: This is a cycle or process that happens continuously between the learning and teaching areas. The four stages of this cycle are planning, implementing, assessing, and reviewing. Test-Teach-Test: It is a continuous evaluation method which the testing of the students learning, the teaching of the weak areas evaluated, and the testing of the improved learning. This method is useful for the students who are high level. In other words, it is good for the students who know already. Task-Based Lessons: These give significance to the tasks for the students and provide the maximum capacity for his development. The learners are focused on the task such as doing a specific assignment with a clear outcome. Module 5 Task 1 Reflective Journal: It is significant for teachers to know the characteristic of the different learners between androgogy and pedagogy. It is also important to know about learners of ESP (English for Specific Purposes), learners of EAP (English for Academic Purposes), and exam classes. All these will help a TESOL teacher to be more proficient. Androgogy and Pedagogy: Androgogy is adults as second language learner and the latter is children as learners. Old learners have the previous knowledge of how language works. It can be beneficial for old learners but it can be barriers to language acquisition. As oppose to the young children, old learners are attitudinal and cultural differences. Old learners only have limited exposure to learn the second language through classroom which always takes the tasks and controlled communicative. In contrast to androgogy, young children who are before CPH (Critical Period Hypothesis), they learn the language without the cognitive maturity or meta-linguistic awareness that older second language learners have. They do not feel stress to speak which means young children feel free to speak without being afraid of wrong grammar and vocabulary. Whereas pedagogy is traditional, age and curriculum regulated, teacher directed, subject centered, and involves rewards and punishment, androgogy is non traditional, problem based, teacher guided, self directed, self regulated, and goal oriented learning. (The distinction between pedagogy and androgogy and the influence of ICT in determining the approach adopted by the educator in the modern education environment). Learner Language and Inter language: The language learned differently by every different learner who makes errors differently due to the learner’s comprehension of the second language system itself rather than attempt to transfer characteristics of their first language is learner language. Interlanguage is named to the learners who are developing second language knowledge. It is systematic and dynamic in many forms and most learners reach a plateau during the period stimulating further progress. Pedagogic aspects as form, function, concept, common errors etc of the verb phrase in English include tenses and their aspects, active and passive voice etc. The basic tenses in English are present and past and the former is expresses the state present, habitual present and instantaneous present and the latter describes an action that is complete. General truths, repeated events and the moment of speech such as sports commentaries etc are said in present tense. The aspects of English are simple, perfect, and continuous. The first is non-progressive and the sentence construction is with subject and verb as in ‘I work,’ and ‘I worked.’ In perfective aspect, auxiliary verb which is ‘have’ is needed to complete perfect form. After ‘have’, past participle verb is need in perfective structure. Perfective aspect is used to express for an action is related to current situation and experience of an action, as in ‘I have been in Switzerland.’ The progressive aspect gives a continuous action indicated by ‘ing’ form of the verb as in ‘I am working.’ Active voice presents the doer of action as the subject of the sentence as in ‘I wrote a story.’ In a passive voice the object becomes the subject of action as in ‘A story was written by me.’ TESOL materials: The materials intended to native speakers such as newspaper, radio from native speaking or Magazines with real life story which are useful for learners to communicate in real life are called authentic materials. Commercially produced materials consist of exercises from the student’s book which will increase the students’ vocabulary and grammar through various activities and teacher correspond information from the teacher’s book. Communicative materials help interaction between students and the teacher. One of the famous communicative activities is ‘find someone who…’ that is by students ask the questions each other and then, talk with the teacher with extra question from the teacher. In students centered lessons, students are being focused who work more than teacher does who is not involved very much in the activity. Module 6 Task 1 Reflective Journal: In the module 6, the essential lessons regarding English language teaching is studied and the understanding of writing skills, genres, teaching/learning cycle etc are of great importance. Here, the often neglected writing is identified as contributing highly to the language learning. It has raised its profile recently with learners increasingly and the significance is rightly identified as TESOL teachers. English language tests such as IELTS require well developed academic writing skills and writing itself is an important communicative tool. All these knowledge help in the making use of writing as a language learning tool through slower reflective text construction. The learning of the difference between written and spoken language, the purpose, audience and typical structures of the five major genres, the concept of register in writing, the stages in the Teaching/Learning Cycle in writing etc have been helpful to the TESOL teachers. Genres in TESOL: They include basic social genres, basic vocational genres, and basic academic genres. Genres are texts which are patterned in a distinctive way in a particular culture in order to achieve a particular purpose. They are culture-specific and can be classified into related groupings. The basic social genres are those used by people of a particular social group. The vocational genres are distinctive genres of a specified language group and registers are examples for this. In the same way, there are also basic academic genres used in a particular academic circle. Interestingly, the major genres groups are narrative/story genres, transactional genres, procedural genres, factual genres, and persuasive genres. Teaching Writing: Teaching of writing is of great significance in the learning of English language. Spelling rules and strategies including introducing the alphabet are to be taken care of. In the language teaching aspect, the teaching of several spelling rules such as the capitalization are necessary as it forms important part of writing. There are also very many punctuation conventions to be considered. The use of question mark, exclamation mark, dashes and others need to be very well comprehended by the students to acquire the skill of writing. The teaching of writing structures as discourse, paragraph and sentence should also be given due importance as these are essential knowledge for the effective writing to take place. Pedagogic Aspects of the Verb Phrase in English: Such aspects like the form, function, concept, likely error etc are to be thoroughly focused in order to acquire an effective writing style. The modal verbs are those verbs which act some important functions in the mechanics of sentence. The examples include ‘will,’ ‘can,’ ‘could,’ ‘must,’ and ‘have to.’ Modal verbs of obligation include ‘should,’ ‘must,’ and ‘have to,’ those of permission include ‘will,’ ‘shall,’ ‘can,’ ‘could,’ ‘may,’ ‘might’ etc., those of deduction include ‘may,’ and ‘might’ and those of ability include ‘can’ and ‘could.’ Future tense is formed by the use of a modal verb along with the simple form of the verb as in ‘will come’ or ‘shall go.’ Module 7 Task 1 Reflective Journal: This module is very significant to a TESOL teacher as it gives primary understanding about types of assessment and commercial assessment instruments. The understanding of assessment as a systematic way of checking whether learning has taken place, without which neither the learners nor the teacher can be sure about learning is important to the TESOL teacher. It also tells that assessment should meet certain standards to be acceptable and for competency-based training, assessment needs to meet four standards such as validity, reliability, fairness, and flexibility. This information helps the teacher to arrange for an effective assessment of the students. It is also important comprehend competency-based assessment, a form of criterion-based assessment which tests if competencies are and it does not involve grading of performance. Assessment in TESOL: Most significantly, assessment is understood as a systematic way of checking the learning by the student which helps the learner as well as teacher in the judgment of the learning activity. The basic standards of validity, reliability, fairness, and flexibility need to be ensured in an assessment. Formative versus Summative Assessment: “The essence of formative assessment is that undertaking the assessment constitutes a learning experience in its own right… Formative assessment is not often included in the formal grading of work, and indeed many believe that it should not be… In contrast, summative assessment is not traditionally regarded as having any intrinsic learning value. It is usually undertaken at the end of a period of learning in order to generate a grade that reflects the students performance.” (East, 2008). Placement Tests: This type of test is important to assess the reading and writing skill of a learner who joins a new course and it helps one to be placed in the exact course according to one’s proficiency. Diagnostic Tests: It is a type of assessment which gives primary importance to the diagnostic process of testing for an effective evaluation of one’s ability. Progress Tests: This type of assessment is also found to be very necessary as it tests the progress level of a student during a course, thereby assisting him or her in the better acquisition of the course material. Proficiency Tests: This is a very useful assessment test which assesses the proficiency of the learner through different tools. Key Commercial Assessment Instruments in TESOL: The commercial assessments are used all over the world to check the language proficiency of the people. Examinations in it are chiefly taken for university entrance, employment prospects, and immigration purposes. The key assessment instruments include the testing of language proficiency in the four basic skills of language – listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Nouns, Noun Phrases and Nominalization: There are countable nouns, which can be counted as in ‘two pens,’ or ‘five apples,’ uncountable nouns, which cannot be counted but measured in volume such as ‘water,’ ‘milk’ etc. Accordingly, the former takes singular and plural forms whereas the latter has only the singular form of the noun. Compound nouns are noun phrases which combine nouns and adjective modifiers. Articles and determiners are words which promise subtle differences in meaning in order to distinguish the meanings of words. There are definite article (a and an) and definite article (the). Relative clauses are used to provide additional information without adding another sentence. Prepositions are parts of speech that join two words and indicate the relation between them. Adjectives are parts of speech which qualify nouns whereas adverbs modify a verb. Phrasal/multi word verbs are combination of verb and adjective, verb and preposition, or a combination of verb with both of these and they give a completely new meaning. Module 8 Task 1 Reflective Journal: This final learning session or module has been helpful to a TESOL teacher as it deals with learning skills, discourse or whole text, that is, language beyond the sentence level, and the planning of TESOL instruction. The learning skills including the learning strategies and language learning strategies, learning styles, developing learner autonomy etc help a teacher in his or her practice of teaching. Comprehension of the internal structure of text and how it ‘hangs together’ has been found very useful. Planning of TESOL instruction which includes areas beyond the level of the lesson helps one in the better classroom strategies. Course design and Syllabus types included in the portion are also most useful to a teacher in TESOL. These will assist the teacher in his future teaching experience. Learning to Learn in TESOL: This includes a course of classroom-based lessons exploring topics on learning to learn English which are found most relevant strategies to learn the language effectively. Learning and Language Learning Styles and Strategies: It may be noted that the learning of language and learning in general includes several learning styles and strategies which are designed by the specific characteristics of the learner. It is important therefore to cover all the learning styles in the classroom teaching which the teacher needs to particularly take care of. The learning strategies are to be designed to suit the learner’s learning style rather than that of the teacher. There are activities which can use many different learning styles at the same time and these may be visual, auditory, kinesthetic or tactile. The simplest strategy according to the learning style needs to be selected from the wide range of strategies and the effectiveness of the strategy needs to be ensured. Assessment of the students’ learning styles and the strategies adopted along with motivation of the learner to find the best strategy will be required of an efficient TESOL teacher. Whole Text in TESOL: The aspects such as cohesion and coherence are very essential with regard to the whole text in TESOL. Coherence indicates the logic and clear expression of speech or ideas whereas cohesion means the grammatical or semantic links in a text that hold it together and these links include referencing and the use of related words or lexical cohesion respectively. Reference Hue, Cotter. (2007). ESL Speaking for Advanced Students 83, Hub pages. Retrieved April 02, 2008, from http://hubpages.com/hub/esl-speaking-advanced Scrivener, J. (2005). Learning Teaching. Oxford, Macmillan Education. p.422. The distinction between pedagogy and androgogy and the influence of ICT in determining the approach adopted by the educator in the modern education environment, Retrieved April 02, 2008, from https://www.cs.tcd.ie/~langane/portfolio/eoinlangan.pdf East, Rob. (2008). Formative vs Summative Assessment, The Higher Education Academy: UK Centre for Legal Education. Retrieved April 02, 2008, from http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/resources/assessment/formative.html Read More