For the solo task, I looked again at my own notes from the original transcripts sent before the first online...
For the solo task, I looked again at my own notes from the original transcripts sent before the first online meeting, and decided I ought to reconsider my approach – perhaps, like Liudmyla, I have a tendency to reflect on my own teaching in a critical way. Self-criticism can be useful at times, but I am starting to see how it needs to be balanced against an appreciation of our own beliefs about teaching and how these underline what we do in the classroom. I think this may be in line with the types of realizations Heather Thomas describes in her paper.
This week, in order to apply what I am learning, I recorded parts of two of my own Listening and Speaking classes. In the sections I recorded, I deliberately restricted my own use of corrective feedback and let the learners speak freely as much as possible. I was using the think-pair-share technique, and had asked the learners to consider questions in which target vocabulary was ‘embedded’, so the aim was to get the learners to understand and use those target words in context.
The target vocabulary had been introduced in the previous lesson, and many of the learners had since practiced it via a Quizlet I had created and provided to them as a homework task, but on analyzing the transcripts I could see that I had perhaps covered the terms rather than having taught them. I won’t reproduce the transcripts here, but I could see that in many cases the learners were, one might say, ‘talking around the words’ rather than using them in a way that showed real mastery and ability to apply them. The thing is, I didn’t really notice this at the time – their responses were mostly fluent (although there were lots of incidental grammar mistakes).
I definitely need to re-visit these terms in the next class, and probably the one after that, and will need to employ retrieval practice techniques rather than assuming the learners ‘know’ these terms when they hear them in different contexts.
This week, in order to apply what I am learning, I recorded parts of two of my own Listening and Speaking classes. In the sections I recorded, I deliberately restricted my own use of corrective feedback and let the learners speak freely as much as possible. I was using the think-pair-share technique, and had asked the learners to consider questions in which target vocabulary was ‘embedded’, so the aim was to get the learners to understand and use those target words in context.
The target vocabulary had been introduced in the previous lesson, and many of the learners had since practiced it via a Quizlet I had created and provided to them as a homework task, but on analyzing the transcripts I could see that I had perhaps covered the terms rather than having taught them. I won’t reproduce the transcripts here, but I could see that in many cases the learners were, one might say, ‘talking around the words’ rather than using them in a way that showed real mastery and ability to apply them. The thing is, I didn’t really notice this at the time – their responses were mostly fluent (although there were lots of incidental grammar mistakes).
I definitely need to re-visit these terms in the next class, and probably the one after that, and will need to employ retrieval practice techniques rather than assuming the learners ‘know’ these terms when they hear them in different contexts.
Martin, thought teaching vocabulary is for most people one of our central tasks and there are loads of books about how to teach vocabulary I think teaching vocabulary is detrimental to learning.
ReplyDeleteThe students did not use the words you taught or introduced because we do not use words we use language, we communicate meaning.
Michael West wrote the first graded readers. At the end of each page he had a note "You have know read X new words." But the words were in context.
Once a time there were three little bears,
they ate honey and slept a lot. etc.
He did not teach honey--he had a sketch of a honey pot. He did not tech slept but had a sketch of the three bears sleeping.
Sometimes he had questions such as What did the three bears eat? Did the three bears eat honey or apples? Did they sleep a lot or a little? Do you like honey? Do you eat honey eery day? etc.
There was no teaching, only learning and all controlled so that the grammar mistakes your students made--and all students in the world make because we try to have them use words we teach were few and far between.
We the responses being fluent though there were a lot of mistakes, if you look up fluent I think there will be a comment that fluency includes accuracy. I know that in our field there is a big distinction made between fluency and accuracy. I do not buy this.
But as I said do not believe anything I say--explore! Investigate! Question!
See ya soon.
Thanks so much for your reply John. I will take your opinion into account when deciding how to proceed with this class. Your reply reminded me of something that might be important for my learners - I've been asking them to listen to media such as news broadcasts and consider how much they already understand on the first listening, and what they can do to improve their comprehension. Many of them, in the first instance, said they tried to write down the 'key words' - I guess this was something taught by previous teachers or in previous classes. None of the students who did this said it really helped.
ReplyDeleteOne other note - there are situations where we 'have' to teach vocabulary if, for example, it's in the test (and I'm against having to 'teach to the test' but have to work with the parameters set by my employers, as most of us do). In cases like this - and this is a question for everyone - what approaches can a teacher use? Just to clarify - I'm talking about situations where you know the learners will be asked directly to, for example, match terms to their definitions (which proves nothing, but I'm forced to use this test).
Dear Martin,
ReplyDeleteIf you ask your students to listen to media such as news broadcasts, have them try to find broadcasts that have subtitles. Also have them listen to only 1 or 2 minutes over and over again rather than say 5 minutes one time. The news broadcasts have way too many words and structures that they have not mastered so all they can do is pick up a few words and from doing this they learn nothing and usually feel discouraged.
I am pleased to hear that though they tried to write down so called key words this was of no help. I have been urging teachers to forget the idea of key words for many years. In video 11, students miss the words not and rather. The teacher had previously focused on words like internet, military and other so called key words. But the words not and rather were ones that students missed and so got the meaning completely wrong. Have a look at video 11.
Re matching definitions and words, if you have students read passages with the words and manipulate them, they will be able to match definitions and words without your defining them. In passages the words are in context and they get the meaning not only form the words that they have to match but from the other words both structural ones like is, to and, and experiential words like golf, apple, etc.
So you can use the test and still provide your students with a range of ways of mastering vocabulary other than just matching definitions and words which requires only memory, not prediction or focus on meaning