Week+3+-+January+25

__**The Teacher’s Handbook**__ Chapter 2 – Contextualizing Langauge Instruction to Address Goals of the Standards for Foreign Language Learning


 * 1.** On page 47, there are two statements “Unfortunately, many teachers are still influenced by outdated methods and allow their instruciton to be driven by a textbook that is organized around a grammatical syllabus and devoid o stimulating content. “ and “…perspectives about language learning, assessment, and standards have led to a new view of language learning as meaningful, purposeful, and accomplished through contextualized practice.” If you think of these two statements as the beginning at ending statements on a 10 point likert scale with 1 being the statement that begins with unfortunately, where are you on that likert scale? Why do you place yourself there and what do you need to move to the next step? You might want to reference Figure 2.4 on page 58 as you develop your answer.


 * //Andrew Wakeman://** //I would place myself around a 4.5 or 5. At the beginning of my student teaching, before I had done a lot of reading about methods and students and learning, I would have been closer to a 2 or 3. Most of my experiences in LEARNING a foreign language have been around the 1 end of the scale, except for the actual interaction with Germans that I get (got) when traveling abroad. I had never looked at those as educational experiences, but I now realize that that is what they were. My personal learning style, however, needed a significant amount of classroom grammatical instruction, before I even would have felt comfortable speaking to native Germans at all. I have a severe mental block against sounding "stupid," and I didn't want to be making mistakes when speaking. I felt like I needed to have all (or at least most) of the grammatical concepts perfected before I could really// USE //the language. It is clear to me, however, that most students are not like me, and they need real context in order to create meaning from the words and grammatical concepts. I have made an effort to move away from this end of the spectrum, and it is slowly but surely working. My assessments are probably the next thing that I need to work on in order to move closer to the 10-end of the scale. I still have a tendency to fall back on the paper and pencil type tests, without much context at all.//


 * //Brittney://** I would place myself as a 6. I was mostly taught my own language learning skills between the 1-5 scale, but since I have began taking education classes, I have been taught the methods of the 6-10 scale. Therefore, my mindset in actually teaching the language has transitioned from the lower end of the scale to the higher end, and I think that is the way that I will more than likely teach. I cannot say this for sure, because I have not started teaching yet, but that also means that I have not gotten caught up in the ways of the lower end of the scale and therefore will hopefully not have as many habits to break. Since “where the standards are taking us” is the only method that I have been taught to use, I hope that I am able to incorporate it well into my teaching.

I placed myself at 2. Most of my classroom practices match the descriptions in “Where We Are Now” section. The 2 points I score come from “Grammar that serves communication needs” and “Approach to culture that emphasizes a constructivist approach to exploring the connection of cultural products and practices to their philosophical perspectives, enabling learners to develop more relevant culture insights into the target culture and their own.” I do not expect I can jump to 10 right away from my current position. What I have been thinking but have not been able to do is incorporating an authentic text exploration into my lesson. I would like to see myself working on that first in this semester. The other two I will try are creating “purposeful goal-directed talk that is intellectually meaningful and stimulating” and using “tasks that provide opportunities for students to negotiate meaning, engage in language play, and develop interactional competence.”
 * //Hui-Ching(Kayla) Hsu://**


 * Yao Huang: **

If I think of these two statements, I think I am almost around a 5. When I learned foreign languages in China before, most of the textbooks I used were grammatically organized. As a result of it, I felt that learning a foreign language is so boring and complex. I learned Japanese for one year. I took a lot of notes about grammar. I mechanically memorize them. However, I always keep silence when I meet Japanese. Even though I studied very hard on Japanese for one year, I don’t know how to communicate with them in real situation. In China, learning a foreign language is kind of grammatical-oriented. At the beginning of my student teaching, I used the outdated methods to teach students. For example, I will teach them how to say a sentence, and then I will teach them the grammars about the sentence separately. Ask them to take notes about the grammar. Ask them to sort their notebook as New Words, Grammar, and Practice. During my student teaching, I consulted several teachers and my partner about how to teach students grammar. At that moment, I gradually realize that I cannot teach grammar separately. I modified my way to teach grammar, for example, in order to let students subconsciously pick up grammar, I help them to get a meaningful input with pictures, music, role play and funny related activities. I need to give students more opportunities to practice the target language in a context. This is the next step I need to move to. However, sometimes I still unconsciously lead students to memorize a sentence or dialogue to do role play or to play a game. I need to work on all of this to reach a 10 of the Likert Scale.

** Kristen Weintraut: ** I would rate myself lower as well. Between 4 and 5. Going into the classroom for the first time last year I definitely used the textbook as the foundation. That is the way that I learned in High School and it worked for me. I could read, write and speak and I felt confident enough to continue with the language and to try a study abroad. After my classes and further research about methods I have tried to incorporate more real world opportunities for my students. However, many of the students still desire the textbook grammatical lessons to get them started. I have noticed this with the students who meet me outside of class for extra help. My performance assessments have been getting better but they still need some work. For whatever reason, I feel more comfortable giving a test and a small writing essay for the younger students. I also need to create more opportunities for students to take multiple turns in conversations.


 * 2.** What is the difference between the contextualization that is often found in textbooks and the concept of context that comes from the standards?


 * //Andrew Wakeman://** //It seems to me that most contextualization that you get from textbooks is simply taking the intended grammatical lesson and placing it into some everyday experience in order to have a set of vocabulary with which to work. For example, when my mentor teacher wanted to teach reflexive verbs, she designed the lesson around the waking up and getting ready in the morning routine, which in German happens to use quite a few reflexive verbs. There was no REAL context there, just simply placing the grammatical concept into some everyday experience. The goal of the standards from the reading, however, would be to teach grammar only as a means for communication and not as the true focus of the lesson. True context should arise from students analyzing and comparing cultures and actually communicating authentically in the target language, not from placing grammar into come artificial situations.//


 * //Hui-Ching(Kayla) Hsu://**

Contextualization in textbooks often heavily relies on mechanical drill that lacks of **__meaningful interaction__**. For example, students are provided with a context of “dinning at a restaurant” in their text book. They learn vocabularies, grammar points, and sentence patterns first and then practice the dialog in pairs. In contrast, the concept of context that comes from standards emphasizes on real-world context, “such as a situational or cultural one, that students must understand in order to communicate.” The book provides a good example of how a meaningful and real-world context should be in page 60-61(The context of Travel). **//Brittney://** To build off of what Andrew and Hui-Ching have already said, I agree that the difference between contextualization in the textbook and contextualization in the standards is the level of authenticity. As Andrew said, textbooks lack authenticity, while the standards strive to incorporate language that students can actually analyze and apply. In Hui-Ching’s example of the restaurant, a way to make learning about restaurants authentic would be to take the students to a restaurant of that culture (if available in the community) and let them order in the native language. The true challenge is how to make it real when even the restaurant is not available or not feasible given where one is teaching.

** Kristen Weintraut: ** Again I would agree with Andrew and Kayla. With a textbook you get the vocabulary terms and grammatical rules first and then sometimes are afforded opportunities to create meaningful interaction, either through imaginary or real experiences. I really noticed the difference between textbook and context in the 5Cs video. I never actually saw a grammar lesson being done, the students were always interacting or the teacher was always engaging in some way to include the vocab/grammar, without ever making any lists or using a textbook.

Take the Chinese book I am using now as an example, the first part of the book is usually a set of cartoons under a specific topic and situation that integrate the new words and sentences of that lesson. After learning all of the new words and sentences, students are supposed to do role play or make a small drama according to the cartoons of the first part. There was no truly context in the textbook. It just simply put the new words and sentences under a specific topic and situation with pictures. The concept of context that comes from the standards would be the conditions in which something exists or occurs. In other words, students can have the chance to authentically communicate, to think and to experience in the target language in real situation.
 * Yao Huang: **
 * 3.** What is your most recent memory of “covering” a textbook?


 * //Andrew Wakeman://** //My mentor teacher doesn't "cover the textbook" per se, because she skips around the chapters, includes some supplemental materials, and skips other chapters entirely. Mostly she teaches what she feels is important in the order that she finds best. It ultimately results in "covering the textbook" phenomenon, however, because often students will as "why do we need to know this?" and the answer is something to the effect of "because it's important." Ideally, the students would not need to ask "why are we learning this?" because they have seen the necessity of it in communicating in the target language before the topic gets "covered."//


 * //Hui-Ching(Kayla) Hsu://**

**1.** The way my mentor teaches is following the sequences in the text book. Every lesson goes from vocabulary I, dialogue I, grammar rule related to dialogue I, vocabulary II, dialogue II, grammar rule related to dialogue II, and finally to the pattern drills.

**Brittney**: My most recent memory of “covering” a textbook is a psychology class that I took here at IUPUI. We went through every page of the book and did all of the exercises attached to it. Granted the teacher is the one who wrote the book, the class was not much more than memorizing information. Occasionally, we would do some applicable assignments, but the class was mostly dictated from the textbook.

Last year I really stuck to the textbook as my foundation. I strayed at times when I felt the content had not real application. I never copied the textbook tests though. I always wrote them myself as I tried to make a more relevant test.
 * Kristen: **

My most recent memory of “covering” a textbook is the way my last mentor used to teach. He usually plans his lesson according to the order of the textbook, for example, his class usually begins with dialogue, grammar and writing. However, in terms of teaching culture, which is the last section of each lesson according to the textbook, he named each Friday as Fun Culture Day. He taught culture solely on each Friday.
 * Yao Huang:**

__**The Essentials of World Language**__ Chapter 3 – Reinventing the Instructional Environment


 * 4.** How has the teaching of culture changed? The author assumes that it has. Based on your experiences as a language student and/or teacher do you believe that it has changed? Why or why not?


 * //Andrew Wakeman://** //The new standards include culture in each one of them, which highlights the fact that culture has become a central aspect of learning a language. At least according to the standards. Culture still seems to be treated like an afterthought in most learning experiences. In most of the textbooks that I used as a student learning foreign languages, there always seemed to be special sections in each chapter with "cultural info," usually a small, differently colored section of a page telling some cultural difference between the target culture and American culture. I believe this is still the most common way that culture is taught, especially at Arsenal Tech. I don't know how it is at other schools around the Indianapolis area, but I don't believe that culture is seen as necessary to be able to use the language for communication. Even if the teacher is a primary source for information on the culture (like my mentor teacher, who was born and raised in Germany), there always seems to be a separate "culture lesson." What is worse than that, sometimes the culture lessons don't even occur in the classroom, but rather at extra-curricular events such as German club or field trips. To me, that is a clear statement by the teacher and school that the cultural aspects are not important.//

Based on my perception after reading the section about teaching of culture for 3 times, I do not think the author assumes that it has changed (Well, the standard has changed). He clearly stated that “unless teachers are provided with the tool to deliver cultural instruction in the language classroom, the teaching of culture will not change.” This is also what I feel as a language teacher/student. For example, I saw many teachers who schedule one day of the week as a “Culture Day.” On the “Culture Day,” students will either watch a Chinese movie or listen to the teacher introducing a specific Chinese holiday. My mentor teacher also uses this approach to teach culture. When she cannot finish some Chinese lesson on time, she will cancel the Culture day and use it for teaching language. For many teachers, teaching of culture is more like a desert that provides students a break between lessons (In fact, students love that desert). I agree that ideally “teaching language is teaching culture and teaching culture is teaching language.” However, I am not really sure how I reflect that value on my teaching.
 * //Hui-Ching(Kayla) Hsu://**

**Brittney:** I do not believe that the //teaching// of culture has changed. I believe that the //thinking behind teaching// of culture has changed but has yet to be implemented. As Andrew and the text mentioned, it is so unfortunate that culture is often seen as a “sidebar section.” It is one of my goals as a teacher to incorporate culture as naturally as possible—to avoid it being seen as the “other part” of learning a language. It is a relief that educators are finally seeing past this way of thinking, because I think that once the idea that culture and language are directly linked, it will increase the interest of languages. Students will be able to see beyond the classroom much easier.

The teaching of culture was never really a part of the focus prior to the standards. We heard before that if a teacher tried to incorporate something of cultural value it was taking away teaching time for the grammar part of the lessons. Now with the standards they can and should go hand in hand. I try to do this with my students but I am still learning the best ways because it does tend to be something extra on top of what we have planned for the day. We did incorporate this well this year for Heritage Day at CC. The students had to focus on German immigration to Indiana and the various German traditions that Americans use even today.
 * Kristen:**


 * Yao Huang:**

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The teaching of culture is becoming more and more important. It becomes an indispensable when teaching a foreign language and is highly emphasized by researchers. I believe it has changed. When I learned English several years ago, culture seemed not that important as grammar, listening and writing. In order to save more time to focus on grammar, listening, etc. most students like me were encouraged to skip the learning of culture. In addition, the text books I used were grammatically organized. You can see little culture sections in a thick text book. In contrary, the Chinese text book I use to teach now contains culture section for each lesson. In order to make culture become more understandable and meaningful, my mentor always gives students a chance to experience real culture in person. For example, Chinese eat moon cake to celebrate Moon Festival. After the instruction of the origin of moon festival and how to make moon cake, my mentor took her students to school’s cafeteria to make moon cake together. It could not have happened when I began to learn foreign language several years ago. =====


 * 5.** Based on what you have read, what is your definition of thematic teaching? How does it apply to the level you are teaching or hope to teach?


 * //Andrew Wakeman://** //I would say that thematic teaching is the placement of lesson plans on the usual language topics (such as vocabulary, grammar, and culture) into a larger theme or context. Or better yet, the teaching of a larger theme or topic involving your target culture or country (or countries) which will inevitably include aspects of the language and culture that you intend to teach. This then makes the topic of study a more traditional topic like the ones typically studied in the other disciplines, the only difference being that knowledge of a different language and/or culture is necessary to analyze and process the information and create new knowledge. I hope to teach the high school level, and at this level, one can include lots of topics. If the students are not very advanced with the language, you could begin with a simpler topic, one that they have most likely already studied. By doing that, the students' lack of proficiency with the language won't be a barrier to understanding, and their prior knowledge of the topic being studied will help to increase their understanding of the target language. Once the students have a better grasp of the target language, one could then delve into new and more complex topics, which would further the students' understanding of both the topic being studied and the target language and culture.//


 * Hui-Ching(Kayla) Hsu:**

**1.** I am the kind of person who needs to see an example in order to understand a concept, so I was still confused after reading about thematic teaching in the article. The idea I got from the article is that thematic teaching is similar to Project Based Learning (PBL), but the difference is that the project is carried out in the target language. I looked up an example online and it helped me understand how a thematic teaching looks like. Here is the link []. This is an excellent site with numerous examples in Spanish, French, ESL. They could be adapted for German. This project is to introduce a rainforest ecology system to student using beginner-level Chinese. Students will learn the Chinese names for colors, animals, fruits and other things that appear in a rainforest. In addition to the language, they also learn the ecological relationship between all the elements in the rainforest(in Chines as well). This lesson plan package also includes activities and worksheets. I have to admit that I do not know if I can design a broad theme like this in the future. For example, the thematic teaching I have seen (might not be qualified) in a Chinese classroom is more like “Dinning in Restaurant” in which student are taught how to say Chinese name for many dishes and how to order in a restaurant in Chinese. Inspired by the rainforest unit, I am thinking a theme “traveling (at airport)” for my Chinese 202 students. Through the unit hey will expand their vocabularies on how to describe their suitcase that are missing or friends they are looking for. At a same time, they also learn where and how to ask for help if things mentioned above happen in their real life in the future. I might expand the unit by adding shopping or dinning at airport to it.

**Brittney:** I would define thematic teaching as teaching by means of themed units that motivate students to learn the language and link learning to the outside world. After the discussion of culture, I would like to incorporate cultural themes into my classroom. I want my classroom to be more than just the Spanish language. I want it to incorporate information about Spain, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, etc. My hope is that my students will be able to learn the language through means of learning the culture—that they will be seen as equally important and interconnected. What topic will you develop?

//**Kristen: **//  I think Thematic teaching is the emphasis of one overall theme through an array of broad topics. The thematic approach should be able to incorporate the 5 areas of Communication, Culture, Communities, Comparisons and Connections. I have students in four levels and I think that themes can be explored with each group depending on their abilities. So like some of you have already said, the complexity level can be flexible. So in German 1 we can explore the Theme of Food for example. We can discuss different types of food, foods specific to various regions, we can do partner and group activities going to restaurants. We can do research on various menus from restaurants in America and find restaurants online in Germany. The students can present their information in skits or advertisements for different restaurants. At a more advanced level, the students could research the many types of restaurants in a certain city or region and create a restaurant and make ads and commercials to promote their place of business. We could also investigate the rules and regulations in place in Germany for people to start a new business. Would this be of interest to a typical high school student? Depending on the level of the students we could always go back to a theme and explore it in more depth or in another way.


 * Yao Huang: **

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I think thematic teaching is where the combination of several micro themes of curriculum under a bigger theme takes place. Under those themes, it integrates basic sections, for example, grammar, listening, and speaking. These are skills that would be part of any unit, but they are not a theme. =====

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I am teaching level 2. At this level, students have developed their basic knowledge of Chinese, for example, they can pronounce Pinyin by themselves, they recognized lots of Chinese characters which are used regularly in daily life and they have built the sense of Chinese culture. Therefore, based on what they have learned and known, I can organize lessons with a bigger topic (theme) which is interesting to students or makes sense to them and under the bigger topic; students can create their own micro topics to help them to build on their knowledge. You will need to decide a particular topic . =====